Blog to Lead: Blogging Hoodies...

Blog to Lead: Blogging Hoodies...

Love 2 Lead question 7

Question - “Is hate a stronger emotion than love?”

My Answer - I would like to say “No” but…really I have to say “Yes”.

Let’s face it. If love was the stronger emotion there would not be so much war and genocide in the world.

• Genuine love does not cause us to blow peoples brains out, drop bombs on them or fire bomb villages.

• Hate can transcend generations even centuries but love dies with us.

• Humans can hate people they have never seen so much they would kill or be killed for it. Few people have ever been credited with being capable of loving anyone they have never seen enough to die for.

I do, however, believe there are more people in the world motivated by love than there are people motivated by hate, thankfully. I also believe this is the only reason we haven’t completely destroyed ourselves…as yet. But, as the world population continues to rise and the worlds resources continue to deplete, I’m sure it is only a matter of time before hatred strikes one final blow.

Happy Birthday to Us, Happy Birthday to Us!

It's my birthday today so I am determined to have a great day. But, it's not just my birthday. I share it with my husband except he was born a couple of years before me. It's quite neat really as it means we can never forget each others birthday. Added to that, our dogs birthday was yesterday.
All total trivia, I know, but I thought I would share it anyway :-)

Love to Lead Question 6

Question - "Are Computer Games a Waste of Time?"
My Answer - "Yes...most of the time...but they can still be fun."

OK they do have some useful aspects as well but most of us play computer games purely for entertainment and then wonder where all the time went.

“So what are the benefits?”

• They help stimulate the brain and improve reaction times. All computer games work on some sort of response versus reaction to some degree. The computer provides you, the player, with a stimulus to which you, the player, respond. The speed and accuracy of your response is then measured by your relative success in the game. When we start a new game our initial success with it will be limited but as we play we generally improve. Thus showing that our speed and accuracy is improving to the given stimuli.
• Computer games can also help with hand/eye coordination. Controlling a mouse or joy stick accurately takes practice. However, it could be argued that this form of hand/eye coordination is only useful for playing games. Maybe but it probably does help people who need to use a joystick in their work. Many surgeons, for example, these days use a joystick type control during keyhole surgery.
• PC games can help relieve boredom for people who are immobile for whatever reason.
• Some PC games include an educational element mainly for children to help them learn to spell or add up etc.
• Flight Simulator apparently can account for a small amount of your flight training time if you are studying for a private pilots licence in the States. Personally being both a private pilot and past user of Flight Sim I really can’t see the benefit. I always crash in Flight Sim. Some of the instrumentation is quite good as a training aid but there are far better computer based instrument training aids on the market that are not games.

“So, with all this long list of reasons upholding the usefulness of computer games why do I still believe they are a waste of time?”

Because 99% of computer games are played either purely to pass time or because the players are so addicted to playing them they would rather do that than do anything useful. I’ve been there, hooked on playing Doom. I know what it’s like and how quickly it eats up not just your spare time but the time you really should be spending on important stuff.

You could argue that playing a computer game is no more a waste of time than reading a novel. To some extent that is true but the difference is a novel has an end whereas computer games can go on indefinitely particularly if you keep re-playing them to try and improve on a previous score.

Am I a humbug? Probably but I will still admit such games are often fun and can give you quite an adrenalin rush at times.

Google Toolbar Notifier

Up until recently I have totally trusted the Google brand but the bubble is at risk of bursting. The last toolbar update brought with it a spurious little program called GoogleToolbarNotifier.exe. It came with no explanation and the only reason I knew it was there was because it would keep asking to be allowed to accept a connection from the internet. I run Zone Alarm and only allow programs I fully trust or understand to have internet access and hardly any are allowed server rights. As I didn't know what it was for I kept denying it access but it would regularly ask every morning when I turned the PC on and again in the evenings around 7pm ish. Seemed very suspicious so I researched it on the internet and found a few interesting sites that suggest this program works in the background when you run Internet Explorer preventing other search engines setting themselves as your default. Apparently you can opt to turn this feature off but it doesn't fully stop this program working. I think this is a bit of a cheek by Google however, I don't run IE, I use Firefox, a much better program and I have two search engines set up as tabs one is Google and one Windows Live, although Google has always been my preferred search engine. Both work fine but Google toolbar Notifier still seems to want to talk to 'big brother'. I have now blocked it for any internet access in Zone Alarm so end of story but it has dented my faith in Google.
See related links for more info.
http://quarterbacks.org/GoogleToolbarNotifier/GoogleToolbarNotifier.asp
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/07/google-is-your-default-search.html
http://blog.outer-court.com/forum/72159.html
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google_toolbar_tools/3079923.htm
There are many more.

Where's the music gone?

I thought it was time to remove the music from the front page in case some people found it annoying. Don't worry though, it's not gone completely. If you want to listen to it again click on my archive for March 2005.