So Sam (my two year old) got a video in one of his many piles o’ gifts, that includes a couple of cartoon videos of children’s songs. One of the songs is done absolutely wonderfully: Olive A. Wadsworth’s “Over in the Meadow.”

I had never heard the song/rhyme before, although a quick Google search showed me that I was obviously in the minority. It’s old and popular.

I plan to either get a CD with the song on it, or maybe just copy the song from the tape and put it on a CD for portability. (If the music industry has its way, this will soon be illegal, even though I own the video, but that’s another story.)

Anyway, I decided to get the lyrics to the song down so I could sing (or at least read) them to Sam.

And that’s when I bumped into one of the downsides of the Net: Too damn much information. In this case, a simple task of “get the lyrics” was complicated by the fact that there are various versions of the song.

You would think that something from 18-something would be pretty set in stone, but no — I couldn’t find a definitive version.

One song, many versions.

For example, the version in the video starts:

Over in the meadow, in the sand in the sun,
lived an old mother toadie and her little toadie one.
“Wink!” said the mother; “I wink!” said the one…

But several versions I found start with “…lived an old mother turtle” and have her instructing her little turtle to “dig.”

The last verse has even more variations. The one in the video has

Over in the meadow, in a sly little den,
lived a gray mother spider and her little spiders ten.
“Spin!” said the mother; “We spin!” said the ten.
So they spun lacy webs in their sly little den.

But others have “little beavers ten” with the mother giving them the odd instruction to “beave.” Go figure.

And then there are the re-writes. Zoiks. There are politically correct versions that alternate between “old mother _____” and “old daddy _____,” and I’m sure some Christian group will want to change the verse with the “gay mother cricket and her little crickets seven.”

There are a few, like one by Richard Thompson with entirely different lyrics for no good reason that I could think of.

And then there are, um, sequels. “Over in the Garden,” “Somewhere in the Ocean,” and “Way Out in the Desert” are Jennifer Ward’s offerings. (Warning: Poorly designed page. You have to scroll way down to see the books.)

So, as in other cases where Google gives me several different versions, I feel compelled to go through lots of them to build a consensus as to the “real” version. For “Over in the Meadow” I’ve finally settled on what appears to be the original text, but who knows.

And the music… well, that’s gonna be a whole other tale.

Another convert: My wife just switched to Firefox. “Wow,” she said after a few minutes. Yeah, that was my reaction.

I’ll write more as she tells me how it’s going.

If anyone can tell me why the Google ads (over there on the right) aren’t rotating, please do. The same ones have been there for weeks.

My friend Eric’s, I see, change all the time — he had Kerry bumper stickers one day, then rosary beads the next. Me, I get these. [sigh]

I get a kick out of how a small group of mulitmillionaire celebrities is lined up to ask the Supreme Court to rule against Grokster and Morpheus.

For those of you who don’t follow this, Grokster and Morpheus are file-sharing services — they allow Internet users to swap files. A lower court ruled that even though that can mean they’re swapping songs and movies illegally, the services themselves were not to blame.

It’s an affirmation of the Betamax decision, in which the Court ruled that because a VCR has substantial non-infringing applications, it was legal. (You can kill a guy with a hammer, but a hammer also has many other uses.)

But now you have, lessee, the Eagles, the Dixie Chicks, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Nicks, Tom Jones and Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson,” according to the article, asking that the lower-court Grokster ruling be overturned. This would make file-sharing services illegal, and essentially overturn Betamax.

What I think is funny is that the people lining up against Grokster are all rich and successful — you don’t see many representatives of smaller groups there. That’s because file-sharing is a boon to them. It gets their music out there.

So a few of the already-wealthy are lining up to stop this horrible, world-ending technology… and get a little press for themselves in the meantime. How special.

In an article entitled “The Next Plague” in the Chronicle of Higher Education, writer Vincent Kiernan tells us of Kerry McQuade, a public-affairs assistant at Marist College, whose computer was infected with spyware.

Or, at least, what she called spyware.

After she starting having computer problems, the article said,

Marist’s information-technology staff found that her computer was infested with more than 900 pieces of spyware and adware — programs installed without her knowledge, which covertly monitored her Web usage or dispensed pop-up advertisements.

Wow! Nine hundred pieces of spyware! Incredible!

Except that it isn’t true.

Nor is it true later in the article when we’re told that the IT staff later “removed an additional 200 pieces of spyware and adware.”

I’m not saying the reporter was making anything up. Rather, either he (or, more likely, Ms. McQuade) is applying the word “spyware” rather liberally.

I guarantee you that the vast majority of those 900 pieces of spyware were simply cookies. Normal, non-malicious cookies put there by just about every Web site in the world.

See, some ad- and spyware removal software will produce a report that calls every cookie it finds “spyware” so users will think, “Wow, what a great product this is! Look at all the spyware it found!”

Spyware, at least for the moment, has a very clear definition: It’s malicious software put onto a computer without the user’s knowing consent that tracks some aspect of her usage and reports it to someone else.

The classic, scary example is a program that sniffs around a computer seeking financial records, passwords, and the like, then sends those to a thief.

But cookies are, for the most part, not spyware. Most are benign or even helpful — they save you the trouble of logging in to your favorite sites over and over, for example. Others, from companies like DoubleClick that serve ads, make sure you see different ads as you travel from site to site.

And that’s where some cookies do cross the line, or at least seem to. If a company like DoubleClick serves ads on two different sites — say, abcd.com and wxyz.com — and you go to both, the DoubleClick folks know that.

Cookies like DoubleClick’s are “third-party cookies,” meaning that they’re put on your computer by someone other than abcd.com or wxyz.com — in this case, DoubleClick provides the ads you see on both those sites.

If you travel to a lot of sites served by DoubleClick (or a similar company), your surfing habits can be tracked. In fact they are, so that DoubleClick can serve you ads you might be interested in.

Is that spyware? Not really, because it’s just a tracking number on your computer. It doesn’t do anything; it’s not “ware.” Sure, there are privacy issues here, but not spyware ones.

That doesn’t stop people like McQuade from believing that she had 900 pieces of spyware on her computer. After all, the software that removes it probably told her that.

I could be wrong, but my money is on her having one or two kinds of spyware, and 890-something cookies (including “tracking cookies” from services like DoubleClick).

At another point in the article we learn that “the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville estimates that 25 percent of the computers on its residence-hall network are infected.”

Again, I bet that someone is playing fast and loose with the word “infected.”

Of course, writing about someone having “two or three pieces of spyware and a whole lot of cookies” doesn’t sound nearly as good in a story as “900 pieces of spyware,” but sometimes it’s better to aim for accuracy rather that hyperbole.

Did anyone else notice that when they introduced the military ‘group’ (I don’t know what it would be called — honor guard?) during the pregame show of the Falcons-Eagles playoff, the crowd booed?

It wasn’t as if all 70,000 people were hissing, but there was very little cheering and a significant number of people expressing their dissatisfaction with the military.

For months after 9/11 you wouldn’t have seen anything but a standing ovation. How much things have changed since then.

Scott Aaron wrote to me to comment on my entry about gravity. I thought it was interesting enough to quote in (mostly) its entirety, with his permission:

Just read your blog posting on this subject. Don’t confuse the theory with the phenomenon. Gravity is not a fact. That a pencil will fall when picked up and let go is a fact. Gravity is the theory that purports to explain why it falls and the mechanics of the fall. The facts are the observables, i.e. the phenomenon. The theory is what explains the phenomenon.

There are many theories of gravity. There’s Newton’s theory, Einstein’s General Relativity, quantum gravity. When you say gravity is a fact, to which theory or version of gravity are you referring? When you say gravity has been tested, it is the theories that have been tested.

Passing experimental tests does not make a theory “fact”. Newton’s theory of gravity has been extensively tested for centuries. But it’s wrong (isn’t relativistic). General Relativity has been tested, but is wrong (isn’t quantized).

* * *
Andrew here.

I have one problem with this, and there are a few things in particular I like.

My problem is with this: “That a pencil will fall when picked up and let go is a fact. Gravity is the theory that purports to explain why it falls and the mechanics of the fall.”

This strikes me as semantics. We — English speakers — have chosen to use the word “gravity” as the name for the phenomenon of objects being attracted to each other due to their mass. So gravity is not a theory; we live it every day.

Scott wrote, “The facts are the observables, i.e. the phenomenon. The theory is what explains the phenomenon.” And to me, pencils (and people, and meteors, etc.) falling is the observable, and therefore it’s the fact. We have chosen to call that “gravity.”

But why does it work? Was Newton right? Einstein? That’s getting into gravitational theory.

What I like about Scott’s note is the discussion of testing. That’s what science does — comes up with a theory to explain something (gravity), then tests those theories. If they fail the test (or can’t be tested), it must be something else.

Talk about someone who doesn’t deserve honors courses.

My favorite quote: “‘It didn’t completely ruin my summer, but it did give me a lot of undue stress both at home and at work,’ the high school junior said Thursday. ‘I just didn’t have the energy or the time for it.’”

So he’s suing. God bless America.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/21/homework.suit.ap

Paul Clinton’s review of “Assault on Precinct 13″ on CNN is yet another example of the kind of poorly written write-ups I see all too often.

Whether it’s due to laziness or just a lack of smarts, review’s like Clinton’s are a pet peeve of mine. It smacks of high-school journalism.

Let me explain.

What Clinton does, and what too many other reviewers do, is give away the entire plot rather than tell us what’s good or bad about the movie.

Assault on Precinct 13 obviously has a few twists and turns, but if you read Clinton’s review the surprises will be taken away. In fact, he goes through everything, so anyone who sees the flick after reading it knows the whole story.

For example, he writes, “…the civilians and the police inside Precinct 13 suddenly find themselves under siege from unknown outside forces…” And then goes on to tell you exactly what those “unknown outside forces” are.

Why is this man paid to write?

A good movie or book review doesn’t give away major plot points, doesn’t reveal twists, and doesn’t take the enjoyment out of seeing the film.

Heck, Clinton even has the nerve to write, “[Assault on Precinct 13] is a good old-fashioned shoot-’em-up with a few nice twists and some very good acting.” TOO BAD YOU GAVE THE TWISTS AWAY, PAUL!

Tell us if the plot is good — and only a 9th grader has to reveal it to do so. Tell us if the acting is solid, if the camerawork is worthwhile, and so on.

But if your idea of a movie review is to recap the entire plot then add a few comments at the end, maybe you should sit at another desk in the newsroom.

Let me quickly explain something about gravity.

Gravity is real. It happens, and we know it. We have even tested it in excruciating detail to know exactly how strong it is and how it varies.

So gravity is a fact.

But we — that is, scientists — aren’t quite sure how it works. There have been a lot of ideas over the years. The current gravitational theory has to do with how mass (the Earth, your body, etc.) bends space-time.

But this is a theory. Yes, it’s a theory based on observation and calculation, but it’s still a theory.

So you have gravity (which is real and tested and undeniable), and gravitational theory (which is the way we think it happens).

Uneducated people might hear the term “gravitational theory” and think, foolishly, that gravity itself is “just a theory.” But clearly it isn’t, or these people would just float away.

I should have learned my lesson about Symantec’s anti-virus products before, but no. I’ve installed various versions of Norton AntiVirus (NAV) over the years, and I always end up removing it because it wreaks havoc on my computer.

Generally what happens is that things start to slow down and act odd, and I’ll jump through hoops trying to figure out what’s wrong. Then something will click and I’ll remove NAV, usually replacing it with McAfee AntiVirus instead.

And my problems disappear.

Well this time I’ve learned my lesson for good not to use Symantec AntiVirus (SAV; which is what it’s now called).

The new computer I’m using had SAV installed. And I said to myself, “I’m gonna speed this computer up by removing that thing.” So I tried, but it asked me for the uninstall password. Huh?

Forget that. I removed the Symantec folders, then used one of my favorite tools, jv16 Power Tools to clean up after it.

But Symantec didn’t take kindly to being removed. It attacked my system. Every time I right-clicked on a file, the Symantec uninstall routine would inexplicably start, then hang up when it couldn’t find the right disk in the drive.

Grr.

I finally had to restart into Safe Mode, remove lots of files lurking around, and then spend literally half an hour manually going through the Windows registry to remove even more traces.

I’m comfortable messing with the registry. But most people aren’t. I don’t know what they would do if they got stuck with a Symantec product.

Finally, all traces gone. I installed McAfee, ran the update, and rebooted. Immediately on reboot it found a trojan lurking in my system and killed it.

So not only was Symantec AntiVirus slowing my system and a nightmare to remove, it also completely missed a trojan that had infected me.

Never, never, never again. I should have stuck with McAfee from the beginning.

So if your system seems to be running a bit slow, or you have occasional odd problems, think about whether you’re running Norton AntiVirus or Symantec AntiVirus. If so, I bet I know how to fix your computer.

First picture from the surface — apparently a solid surface — of Titan:

These “may well be large ice bolders,” not rocks, according to scientists.

(More at the ESA site — http://www.esa.int.)

Doom 3 is a very bad game. Possibly one of the worst I’ve played in a long time.

I’ve been playing it for several days now, an hour or so at a time, and I’m about halfway through. I wondered if it was going to get any better, but McGregor, who played through, says No. So I’m comfortable saying what I’m about to say.

Playing this game strikes me that the folks at id software spent all their time and effort into making it look good, and then hired Cousin Jimmy to come up with the gameplay. And cousin Jimmy did it all while Mom and Dad were at the parent-teacher conference.

Let me explain why it’s so bad, and give the evidence.

Doom 3 is a first-person shooter; you run around and see things as if you’re looking out of the character’s eyes; you’re weapon sticks out in front as if you’re holding it.

The problem is, there have been other first-person shooters and Doom 3 adds nothing — zilch — to the genre. In fact, earlier games have had more.

Doom 3 looks good, yep. But that’s it. The graphics and sound are excellent. But the gameplay is pathetic: Enter room, monsters attack you, kill them. Repeat.

Period. That’s it. Play it for fifteen minutes and you’ve played it for six hours.

Sure, the id folks added a basic storyline (you’re on Mars, demons have invaded the base through a portal, blah blah blah). But like a porn movie, the “plot” is just tacked on to have something there. It doesn’t add anything. Enter room, kill everything, repeat.

If that was the worst of it, Doom 3 would simply be boring. But it’s not. It’s actively annoying.

First of all, you have to spend the first 15 or 20 minutes not just viewing the backstory, but actively participating — walking where you’re told, standing where you’re told, etc. — all so you can listen to these characters yammer on. It adds nothing to the game, but there’s no way to skip it.

(I got so sick of it I looked up the cheat codes online so I could get myself a weapon, then I shot everyone I encountered, including my superior officers. No one seemed to notice the trail of bodies.)

The designers decided to add an occasional puzzle, if you could call it that. Here’s what they came up with: As you go around the Mars base, you pick up PDAs (personal digital assistants) that have been left lying around. You can then read the “e-mail” and listen to the “voice mail” of others.

Why? Because occasionally there are locked lockers, and you have to pore through these messages to get to something dopey like, “I’ve changed the combination of locker 43 to 4-4-5.”

Sometimes you have to sit through several minutes of inane and useless “voice mail” to get to this stuff; you can’t fast-forward.

If there was one important locker that you needed the combination for, this would be an OK puzzle. But none of the lockers are critical, and the puzzle gets old after the first two. Then it’s just an annoyance — the “a-ha” moment of puzzle solving isn’t there; it’s just a chore.

You have to stop the game just to view a Web page for a locker combination. What a waste.

In a couple of cases you need to go to a Web page to get the combination. And that means shutting the game, going to the page (www.martianbuddy.com) to get the number 0508, and restarting the game. No puzzles or anything — just go to the site and the answer is right there. A waste of time.

So you travel through the game, ostensibly being given instructions via radio (e.g., “Meet up with Bravo Team!!!”), but those instructions are meaningless: You don’t have a choice. The pathway is, for all intents and purposes, two-dimensional. You go forward not to meet Bravo Team, but because you can only go one way.

And that’s perhaps the biggest of Doom 3’s downfalls: You don’t have choices. You have to go this way, you have to push this button, you have to climb here or jump there. (At one point you do get a choice — go one way or the other — but that’s over and done with quickly.)

You have a gun that can blow apart some walls but not others; again, you can only perform the specific actions the designers have decided to allow. In contrast, a game like Half-Life (another first-person shooter) has weapons that do other things, like pull things towards you, or let you climb up a wall.

Half-Life 2 also lets you pick up objects, so you can throw bottles at monsters, or drop 55-gallon drums on them from above. Not a lot, but way more than Doom 3.

Another annoyance of Doom 3’s is the seemingly ever-spawning monsters. Some of them just appear from nowhere, so you can’t clear a room out. It’s a case of demon ex machina — no matter what you do, the designers have decreed that this creature will appear in this place, period.

For example, you have grenades — useful for tossing into a room before you enter… you would think. But in Doom 3, it often doesn’t matter. The rule seems to be, if you don’t see the monster you can’t kill it, even if you throw a grenade two feet from where it’s hiding.

This lack of logic — monsters that spawn where they want to, and others that can’t be killed because, I suppose, the gamemakers didn’t want them killed till they got a shot at you — just adds to the general low quality of the whole experience.

There are other things. The room abound with stuff — computer terminals and the like. But they’re almost always just decorations. You can’t interact with anything except the few items you have to use. For example, let’s say you have to use a computer to extend a walkway. The computer will have a single button: “Extend Walkway.” There’s no challenge, no choice, no nothing. You push the button and that’s it.

Even when I found a way to interact (using the cheat codes to get a weapon during the exposition and killing all my comrades), the game doesn’t care.

If id ever wants to create Doom 4, it needs to hire a puzzle person or a game person. Someone who will add choices to the game, allow you to follow different paths, and most importantly, allow you to deal with things in different ways.

Maybe you have a rope you can use to cross a chasm if you can’t find the “Extend Walkway” button. Maybe you can lay a trap. Maybe you can approach a space different ways — climb the outside or go through the roof.

But if all they can come up with is “Enter room, kill everything, repeat,” maybe they should try their hands at something else.

* * *
Follow-Up: I took a look at some other reviews of the game. They all say pretty much what I did: Great looking, but boring gameplay. But you know what’s amazing? Despite that, these review sites still gave it scores of 8 or 9 out of 10. Incredible. “It’s a boring game, but since it looks good we’ll give it a high score.”