I've just come across a site called exelib, and on the surface it appears to be quite useful. It tells you what some of the programs Windows runs behind the scenes on your computer actually do. However, there is a page there which mentions a program called isass.exe. It says this is a keylogger program installed by a virus/trojan, and that may well be the case. It then says "hey look, we have a program that will get rid of this program for you - click here to find out more."
What's dangerous about this is that there's actually a perfectly harmless program that's part of the Windows installation, called lsass.exe (that's an L at the beginning there). A lot of people would open up task manager, see lsass running, and think it's Isass (with a capital i). They think they're infected, and then go and download a "protection tool" that could well cause more harm than it claims to fix.
As ever, keep your wits about you, and research a problem before downloading anything that claims to fix problems on your PC.
For more accurate information about lsass, look at the Wikipedia Entry
Some people spend their whole lives not knowing what they want. Some people know exactly what they want and can't find it.
I don't know which is worse....
The famous UK Hurricane, October 15 1987. I was a student at the time, working my year out in Croydon, Surrey. I was living in a bedsit, and remember being woken up in the middle of the night by the high winds. As is often my wont, I worried a little about what it might be like if the roof got blown off the building, or a tree came through the window. Then I decided if something like that happened then there's not a lot I'd be able to do about it, so no point sitting up all night worrying.
I remember I overslept, because the storm had cut the power and my clock radio alarm didn't go off. I woke in a panic, and rushed to get to work. I travelled to work on the bus at the time, and when I got to the main street, I found trees on the road, shop signs sprawled all over the place, roof tiles on the road and so on. Of course the buses wouldn't be running, so I found a phone box and called in to the office (remember, no mobile phones in those days!)
I was told that there wasn't a lot going on, but to come in anyway if I could. Work was only a few miles from where I was living (maybe three, three and a half), so I walked in. I got there about 11am, only to discover that although they had power, the current was fluctuating and they didn't want to risk switching the servers on. So my colleagues and I had a relaxing day at the office and spent a couple of hours in the pub at lunchtime. Actually this wasn't unusual as we worked flexitime we took short lunch breaks during the week and had a two-hour blowout on a Friday!
I can't remember too much about the following few days, presumably it took a little while to clear away all the debris and for everything to get back to normal, I think by the following Monday I was able to get to work as normal on the bus...
And now that I've written all that, it doesn't sound all that impressive! We had some high winds, some trees got blown down, I walked to work and spent two hours in the pub... h'mmmm.....
I've decided that, contrary to previous thoughts, I'd start getting back on the blogosphere again. I went straight back to Michele's site and left a comment on her weekend comment game. Then waited for a comment to appear on my blog, only to discover that for people to be able to leave comments they had to create an account on my blog. This is a new feature of MT4, and not one I'm totally happy with. So I've enabled anonymous commenting, and I'll see if I start getting any spam from it.
So, comment away!
It's not often I make a "serious" post on this blog, probably because I tend to spend most of my time just trying to stay afloat rather than form opinions on things, but this is something that's been bothering me for a while. So I thought I'd write about it. Here we go:
What's the point of religion? Do people who pray every day really believe that their lives are made better by the act of prayer? Or do they just believe that if they don't pray then their lives will be made much worse?
I know that people take comfort in the words of the bible. Is that because they can't think of a solution to their problems on their own? They have to turn to a "how to do it" manual?
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that there is a God. Only one God, and he is omnipresent, and omnipotent. He knows everything that we are thinking, everything that has ever happened and everything that will happen. So, by extension, he knows if you're inherently a good person, or inherently an evil person. He knows that good people can occasionally do bad things, and feel sorry about those things, and he knows that bad people can occasionally do good things (although I have no idea if they feel good about those things or not. But God knows. If he exists). Anyway, feeling good about yourself or feeling sorry for yourself does not change your inherent nature. So, given that God knows all this, and given that we are going to go to heaven or hell based on whether we are inherently good or evil, will praying make the slightest bit of difference?
Let's also say, for the sake of argument, that Bob Geldof does not believe in God. Does that mean that he is going to hell because he is a non-believer? But Bob is an inherently good person, he saw that something was wrong with the world and set about changing it, improving the lives of millions of people. So should he go to heaven because he is an inherently good person? (Actually I wrote this a while ago and chose Bob as an example here because he's pretty well-known as being a "good person". I had no idea if he believes in God or not - according to this interview, he doesn't).
I'm not sure if I believe in God, or heaven, or hell. I do know that it is better to be a good person than an evil person, that treating fellow human beings with respect and kindness will have its paybacks. What goes around, comes around. But just because I don't go to a specified building at a specified time of the week, and read specific words from a specific book, does that make me a bad person? You can teach children right from wrong without touching the bible (or any religious writings). They learn what they need to know from fairy tales, fables, ghost stories and all the other stuff that kids lap up. My son knew that lying was bad after he watched Pinocchio, we didn't have to quote the bible to him to teach him that.
The human brain is a remarkable thing. Given enough time, it will usually sort out its own problems. When we sleep, when we dream (or daydream), this is our brain making sense of the outside world. If you have a problem rattling about in your head, a moral issue or whatever, how do you go about solving it? Do you write out a list of pros and cons, an action plan? Do you go to church or wherever and ask God for guidance? Or do you sleep on it? I would wager that whichever option you chose, you'd come up with a solution to the problem within a few hours. Now, did you logically work out a solution? Did God answer your prayers? Or did your brain make sense of the problem while you were sleeping?
I have a feeling that people feel comfortable with prayer because it acts as a way of distracting the mind from the normal day-to-day problems, and gives it some space to sort things out on its own. Meditation does the same thing, I would imagine yoga does too. The brain also has time to think about the day's problems while you're at the gym. So if prayer is simply a means to distract the brain, why not go for a walk instead?
My parents are Jewish and although no-one in my family is observant I was sent to a Jewish school. I learned how to read hebrew and how to say the prayers. But I don't remember being taught all that much about what the prayers actually mean. So when I go to synagogue (about once every 10 years if current stats are anything to go by) I can still just about read the hebrew words and tell where the rabbi is up to, but the rest of it is like watching a foreign film with a blindfold on. And I get the impression that 98% of people that go to synagogue when I go (Jewish new year and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement) are only going so that other people can see that they went. I don't think anyone really goes to atone for their sins, because the most obvious sin is that they haven't set foot inside a synagogue for the last 12 months.
There are many different religions in the world, each believing different things. Some religions are more tolerant than others of people that either don't believe, or believe something different. Over the course of history, how many people have died as a result of religious fighting? If people are praying to God and calling for an end to war, do you think he's listening?
Ok, having reimported all the entries from my old blog into this one, and had a bit of fun re-reading them, I've realised that since the structure of the blog has changed, all the links that refer to previous entries are now broken. Is it worth going back through everything and fixing them all? Will I even be able to find the post the link id referring to?
Questions, questions. Anyone out there got any answers?
Today I updated the blogging software from MT3.2 to MT4.01 - I'm still not 100% sure if I like it or not, but it has a few new cool features so I thought I'd go for it. The upgrade, as you can see, went smoothly enough! I also decided to import all the old entries from my previous blog (which I called Brain Download Complete) into this one as well, as it was a shame to lose everything that I'd written in the past. It also means there's a huge gap between October 2005 and July 2007. I didn't lose any entries between these dates - I wasn't blogging then!
Why did I restart? Well, I missed it, quite frankly. I don't know if I'll get into the same level of reading other people's blogs, building up a readership, getting comments and so on. Blogging is a very personal thing (so why put it all on the internet for any old man and his dog to find? Who knows...)
Anyway, it's all back up there, it's all complete, and I'm happy it's all in one place again. Would be a shame to lose all that writing from the past, even if most of it is complete waffle...
I received an email the other day, it was one of those "forward this on to everyone you know and something good will happen to you" sort of things. I don't beleive in any of that crap, but the contents of the email itself did give me pause for thought. So I'm going to reproduce it here:
ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.
THREE. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.
FOUR. When you say, 'I love you,' mean it.
FIVE. When you say, 'I'm sorry,' look the person in the eye.
SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.
SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight.
EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone's dream. People who don't have dreams don't have much.
NINE. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.
TEN. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.
ELEVEN. Don't judge people by their relatives.
TWELVE. Talk slowly but think quickly.
THIRTEEN. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, 'Why do you want to know?'
FOURTEEN. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
FIFTEEN. Say 'God bless you' when you hear someone sneeze.
SIXTEEN. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
SEVENTEEN. Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.
EIGHTEEN. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
NINETEEN. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.
TWENTY-ONE. Spend some time alone.
There were a few things in there that hit home to me immediately, and I'm sure some of these words will resonate with other people out there as well.
Earlier this year, before I decided to start blogging again, my son, my niece and myself sat in the hallway one afternoon and came up with some awful alliterations. Bear in mind when reading these that my son was 7 and my niece 11 at the time:
Sam's spicy sausages sizzle in the saucepan for Sunday supper.
Daddy's drunk dog drums on dead ducks.
Ollie the olympic octopus overflips in October
Zebra's zips zig-zag on Zoe's zither
Mummy's mad monkey minds me on Monday midnight eating many mostly mini minerals
Crocodile Carl can't catch cream cars.
Charlie Chimp chugs chocolate and chews cheesy chips on Tuesday in Cheshire
Happy Homer's "hello" hat
When Water walks he waves wildly at William and Wilberforce
See Simon sitting on the soldier's shoulders so he can see the sky
Tom's tabletop tap-dancing tortoise.
Well, we had fun with them, anyway!
Time to reassess and reconfirm my immediate goals and plans. I've got so many different things running round my head at the moment, I need to take some time out and work out what's important and what's not.
Home
I've been thinking for a while about remortgaging my house, freeing up some of the equity in it, and using the extra cash to make some home improvements. And my house certainly does need quite a lot of improving. I could do with a new kitchen, new boiler, new fireplace and carpet in the lounge, new back door, fix the leaks on the front door and the front window, make sure the place is properly insulated, and decorate it from top to bottom. That's all going to take time and money, and I need to calculate a) if I can afford it and b) if the improvements will increase the value of the house sufficiently to make it worthwhile.
Work
I've been working for the same company for the last nine years now. The job is ok, and I don't have any problems doing it, but the salary isn't brilliant, and the work environment could be better. The place is on an industrial estate, in what looks like a converted warehouse, and there are no windows so I can't see what's happening outside. I get no sunlight, no daylight even, and that's really starting to bug me. Also, the place I work is 20 miles from where I live, and the time and cost of commuting is also starting to get me down.
I've got a couple of weeks off at the moment, and I'm going to do some research into home improvements, remortgaging, finding a new job, skills etc. Might be a lot to ask for in two weeks though. I'm also planning on getting to the gym a bit more often (yeah right)
