So here’s my drama.

Some quick backstory : I’ve been heavily into Skyrim lately. In order to use additional animations in the game (read : sexytimes fun stuff), in addition to installing the mod, you have to run a program called FNIS to make the animations work. ^[1]

Not a problem. Doesn’t take long unless you have a (heh) fuckton of animations.

But lately it had been halting partway through, claiming it couldn’t work on some of the files because they were in use by other processes.

And when that happens, some of the creatures in the game lose their animations and become completely immobile. Stiff as boards, and not in the fun way.

It’s actually pretty creepy. And no fun, obviously, because they can’t fight back.

So clearly I needed to fix this. Problem was, no program I was running was using the files in question. So I had use Task Manager to dig through all the processes running in the background of my Windows 10.

While doing so, I noticed there was a lot of shady looking shit there. So I started ending those processes then trying FNIS again.

While doing so I noticed that if you right clicked a process, you could go to the directory from which the process originated.

There was a particularly annoying one called IAService.exe which was a part of this apparent anti-virus program that I never asked for or installed but somehow ended up on my computer.

Turns out it was malware disguising itself as an anti-virus program.

That’s why I couldn’t kill the process and couldn’t delete the directory it came from.

That’s never a good sign.

Then I noticed that right under the “show directory” option it said “search online”. So I did, and that’s how I learned about the nefarious nature of the program. The site that told me about it said to download and use an anti-malware program called Spyhunter 5 to get rid of it.

So I did. Downloaded it, ran it. It immediately found a bunch of evil shit already running. Then it started running a full file scan, and it too started finding lots of nastiness.

And the file scan took a really, really long time. Almost 12 hours, in fact.

But once it finally completed, I had a list of almost 30,000 infected files and other issues that needed fixing. And the free version of Spyhunter would totally fix all of them for me for no extra charge.

48 hours later.

Got to hand it to them, that’s brilliant in an evil way. Who is going to want to wait 48 hours to fix all those issues?

So I caved in more or less instantly and paid $60 (ouch) for the full version. It scrubbed my machine and now it is officially “clean”.

So that’s the drama of the last 16 hours of my life.

Oh, and FNIS runs just fine now.

More after the break.

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Oh right, before I forget : the point of all that stuff about self-care yesterday was that I can make myself feel loved and cared for by looking after myself better.

That changes everything.

Just wanted to be sure I wrote that down.

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Just try again

This is a hard lesson for us intellectual types to learn because it’s mindless.

That is, in fact, why it works.

The idea is this : when faced with a troublesome difficult task, one that will most likely take many tries to get right, the most important thing is to start trying again the moment failure registers, before you have a chance to think about it.

If you do this, you will maintain momentum because it’s much easier to keep doing something than it is to start doing something.

It also keeps the conscious mind from registering each attempt as a separate event. Instead, the whole event is one continuous event, and that makes a huge difference in our minds because one of the ways we mark how much effort something is taking is by counting each event.

I have been applying this idea in my own life (in other words, in video games) and preliminary reports are very encouraging. Because the event is continuous. it is far easier to feel a sense of triumph when the task is finally conquered.

And it will be conquered. Very few challenges can hold up against this kind of assault. And every time you win this way, it will reinforce the lesson that persistence pays.

Yes, there will still be times when giving up is the smart move. But it should never, ever be the default. The default should be to keep on trying until your succeed, and giving up should only ever be done with great reluctance and after careful consideration.

It should also noted that this is not an endorsement of beating your head against the wall. Inherent in this technique is that you are trying different ways to solve the problem. Some problem will fall if you just keep trying the same thing till you “get it”, but most will not.

These are the thing jocks know but are far too inarticulate to convey.

Getting mad at the problem can help if accompanied by trying over and over. Anger can help fuel your persistence.

Plus, it turns the problem into a fight. Now it’s not just a matter of giving up to go do something easier and more rewarding.

Now, giving up means the task wins. The task wants you to give up. The task knows you don’t have what it takes to complete it and is just waiting for you to give up so it can rub it in your face, and laugh.

And if you do give up, that will just prove the task was right about you.

And you don’t want that, do you?

It might seem a tad psycho, but it works.

And your journey to being a winner starts when you stop worrying about whether thoughts are truly truly true, and start thinking in terms of what gets you closer to your goals versus what is only holding you back.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

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