ArmageddonMUD (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} armageddonmud) wrote,@ 2002-01-30 10:54:00 |
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Baby Spiders (Saikun)
OK... so Sanvean has been wanting me to post this story for a long time, and I'm getting around to it now.
For those of you who don't know what I do, I administrate the server that Armageddon runs on, named Ginka. Back several years ago, before I was officially in this role, the machine was acting all strange. There were fears that we had been hacked, as had happened several times in the past. The problem, however, turned out to be almost as serious. In an attempt to safeguard the system utilities after the last time we had gotten hacked, somebody decided to keep the various important sys utils on a write-protected floppy, so that someone trying to hack the game wouldn't be able to replace them with their own evil versions. It kind of sounded like a good idea, in theory, but there were many problems with it. Not the least of which was that the floppy had began to disintegrate after years of constant use in the drive. The machine was becoming uncontrollable. Certain utilities wouldn't even work anymore because those sectors of the floppy had been eaten away. The decision was made to mail me Ginka so I could rebuild it.
Now at the time, Ginka lived in the basement of Dr. Dave, User #1 from ISCA. Dave ran an ISP and through some ancient agreement, had been hosting Ginka for free in his basement for years. When Ginka finally arrived, its outside was in pretty sorry shape. The fans were clogged with dust, and I could tell the machine wasn't well cared for. When I opened it up, however, I was in for a creepy surprise. Much of the interior of the case was full of dust, obviously, but also of webbing. In this webbing, and the dust, and everywhere else, were thousands of baby spiders, all dead. It was one of the most horrible things I've ever seen, while working on computers anyway. To this day, I don't know if the spiders had died inside Ginka, or if they had been living in there, and died in transit from Iowa to Connecticut. I didn't think about it very long, and vaccuumed the little suckers up.
Once Ginka was physically cleaned, I backed the data up, and rebuilt the machine from scratch (with the previous components, plus a few little things I added). When everything was working, I sent it back to Iowa, where it was eventually put back on the net.
As something of an epilogue, that Ginka was replaced a couple years ago with a brand new machine that we bought, and which I now host here in Connecticut. We were never able to get in touch with Dr. Dave to recover our old machine (the inside of which contains the signatures of many of the Arm's original imms), and as far as I know, it's still running down in his basement, with nothing on it. The current Ginka does have the signatures of all the imms who attended the AIM at which I built the machine, as well as a nifty logo drawn inside by Gleden.
OK... so Sanvean has been wanting me to post this story for a long time, and I'm getting around to it now.
For those of you who don't know what I do, I administrate the server that Armageddon runs on, named Ginka. Back several years ago, before I was officially in this role, the machine was acting all strange. There were fears that we had been hacked, as had happened several times in the past. The problem, however, turned out to be almost as serious. In an attempt to safeguard the system utilities after the last time we had gotten hacked, somebody decided to keep the various important sys utils on a write-protected floppy, so that someone trying to hack the game wouldn't be able to replace them with their own evil versions. It kind of sounded like a good idea, in theory, but there were many problems with it. Not the least of which was that the floppy had began to disintegrate after years of constant use in the drive. The machine was becoming uncontrollable. Certain utilities wouldn't even work anymore because those sectors of the floppy had been eaten away. The decision was made to mail me Ginka so I could rebuild it.
Now at the time, Ginka lived in the basement of Dr. Dave, User #1 from ISCA. Dave ran an ISP and through some ancient agreement, had been hosting Ginka for free in his basement for years. When Ginka finally arrived, its outside was in pretty sorry shape. The fans were clogged with dust, and I could tell the machine wasn't well cared for. When I opened it up, however, I was in for a creepy surprise. Much of the interior of the case was full of dust, obviously, but also of webbing. In this webbing, and the dust, and everywhere else, were thousands of baby spiders, all dead. It was one of the most horrible things I've ever seen, while working on computers anyway. To this day, I don't know if the spiders had died inside Ginka, or if they had been living in there, and died in transit from Iowa to Connecticut. I didn't think about it very long, and vaccuumed the little suckers up.
Once Ginka was physically cleaned, I backed the data up, and rebuilt the machine from scratch (with the previous components, plus a few little things I added). When everything was working, I sent it back to Iowa, where it was eventually put back on the net.
As something of an epilogue, that Ginka was replaced a couple years ago with a brand new machine that we bought, and which I now host here in Connecticut. We were never able to get in touch with Dr. Dave to recover our old machine (the inside of which contains the signatures of many of the Arm's original imms), and as far as I know, it's still running down in his basement, with nothing on it. The current Ginka does have the signatures of all the imms who attended the AIM at which I built the machine, as well as a nifty logo drawn inside by Gleden.
