Sunday can be sort of a relaxing day around here...at least until the grandkids arrive. (And I really enjoy when they come.) After returning from morning church, and having lunch, it's pretty quiet until about 4pm when they arrive.

You may have noticed (for those paying attention) a reference to Zork I. This is an old game, predating personal computers (before 1980 for you young whippersnappers out there). It was one of the first text-based games that you could play on mainframe computers. It is much like all the Doom-type games, but it takes much more thinking. Doom games are just wandering around dark rooms shooting at anything that moves. Zork is text-based, and you have to think and pay attention to where you are. I haven't played it for years, but recall spending many late (and really early) hours deep into the night trying to finish the game.

A Google on "Zork" came up with lots of links, some old and not maintained, but here's a description of the game:

The Zork Trilogy is set in the ruins of an ancient empire lying far underground. You, a dauntless treasure-hunter, are venturing into this dangerous land in search of wealth and adventure. Many strange tales have been told of the fabulous treasure, exotic creatures, and diabolical puzzles in the Great Underground Empire. (link here)

There is an on-line Zork I game (here) . If you have some time, and want to get away from mindless blasting, give it a shot. The commands you type in are action-based, like "look in mailbox", "read brochure", "get spoon", "go east". Here's a sample (the commands I typed in are after the ">" character.

Welcome to Zork. This version created 11-MAR-91 (PHP mod 25-OCT-2001)
There are 29 users playing Zork.
You are in an open field west of a big white house with a boarded
front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

> look

You are in an open field west of a big white house with a boarded
front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

> open mailbox

Opening the mailbox reveals:
A leaflet.

> read leaflet

Taken.
Welcome to Zork!

Dungeon is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. In it
you will explore some of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortal
man. Hardened adventurers have run screaming from the terrors contained
within.

In Dungeon, the intrepid explorer delves into the forgotten secrets
of a lost labyrinth deep in the bowels of the earth, searching for
vast treasures long hidden from prying eyes, treasures guarded by
fearsome monsters and diabolical traps!

No DECsystem should be without one!

Dungeon was created at the Programming Technology Division of the MIT
Laboratory for Computer Science by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce
Daniels, and Dave Lebling. It was inspired by the Adventure game of
Crowther and Woods, and the Dungeons and Dragons game of Gygax
and Arneson. The original version was written in MDL (alias MUDDLE).
The current version was translated from MDL into FORTRAN IV by
a somewhat paranoid DEC engineer who prefers to remain anonymous,
and was later translated to C.

On-line information may be obtained with the commands HELP and INFO.

> read leaflet

Welcome to Zork!

Dungeon is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. In it
you will explore some of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortal
man. Hardened adventurers have run screaming from the terrors contained
within.

In Dungeon, the intrepid explorer delves into the forgotten secrets
of a lost labyrinth deep in the bowels of the earth, searching for
vast treasures long hidden from prying eyes, treasures guarded by
fearsome monsters and diabolical traps!

No DECsystem should be without one!

Dungeon was created at the Programming Technology Division of the MIT
Laboratory for Computer Science by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce
Daniels, and Dave Lebling. It was inspired by the Adventure game of
Crowther and Woods, and the Dungeons and Dragons game of Gygax
and Arneson. The original version was written in MDL (alias MUDDLE).
The current version was translated from MDL into FORTRAN IV by
a somewhat paranoid DEC engineer who prefers to remain anonymous,
and was later translated to C.

On-line information may be obtained with the commands HELP and INFO.

> info

Welcome to Zork!

You are near a large dungeon, which is reputed to contain vast
quantities of treasure. Naturally, you wish to acquire some of it.
In order to do so, you must of course remove it from the dungeon. To
receive full credit for it, you must deposit it safely in the trophy
case in the living room of the house.

In addition to valuables, the dungeon contains various objects
which may or may not be useful in your attempt to get rich. You may
need sources of light, since dungeons are often dark, and weapons,
since dungeons often have unfriendly things wandering about. Reading
material is scattered around the dungeon as well; some of it
is rumored to be useful.

To determine how successful you have been, a score is kept.
When you find a valuable object and pick it up, you receive a
certain number of points, which depends on the difficulty of finding
the object. You receive extra points for transporting the treasure
safely to the living room and placing it in the trophy case. In
addition, some particularly interesting rooms have a value associated
with visiting them. The only penalty is for getting yourself killed,
which you may do only twice.

Of special note is a thief (always carrying a large bag) who
likes to wander around in the dungeon (he has never been seen by the
light of day). He likes to take things. Since he steals for pleasure
rather than profit and is somewhat sadistic, he only takes things which
you have seen. Although he prefers valuables, sometimes in his haste
he may take something which is worthless. From time to time, he examines
his take and discards objects which he doesn't like. He may occas-
ionally stop in a room you are visiting, but more often he just wanders
through and rips you off (he is a skilled pickpocket).

>

Are you interested yet? Try it out, I think you'll get hooked.

So, the quote that is on future day's pages is one that you will see if you get into a room/place where nothing is going on. That doesn't mean that it's a dead end, though. Sometimes, things happen if you 'wait'. And there is quite a bit of humor in the game, some of it quite sly.

I never did manage to finish the game. There were actually three versions released, all of them by Infocom. I don't think the company is still in business, though. But you might find the on-line game interesting. Let me know what you think.

I'm spending part of the day goofing on the computer with these pages. It was suggested by a reader that I try some META tags to get into some search engines, so there will be more visitors. Although, that may not be needed. This site's mailing address got it's first "Nigerian Mail Scam" message today. Does that mean that I have arrived?

An earlier than usual post today, due to the holiday. Which was spent in various chores around the house. Replaced the upper radiator hose on one of the cars. I know that you usually want to replace upper and lower, but it's chilly outside (for around here), and the lower hose is a bit harder to reach. Knocking your knuckles when your hands are cold is not pleasant.

And, when I say 'chilly', I realize that's a relative term (and keep my relatives out of this). The past 7-10 days around here have been with our normal January fog bank settled in for a long-term relationship with the weather gods. High temperatures are around 45F, lows around 40F. That's balmy compared to other Daynoters: Tom Syroid (in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) reports about 0F, John Dominick (in Minnesota somewhere) must be around 10-20F, Bob Thompson (in North Carolina, I think) also under freezing, Brian Bilbrey (near Washington DC) is also around freezing, and Dan Seto (in Hawaii) hasn't mentioned it, but I suspect 70F.

We usually get a couple of weeks of foggy weather around here. But overall, the temps are pleasant enough. And if I just head up the hill a bit (towards the Sierra Nevada mountains), the sun will be shining, and the temps will be in the 50-60F (shirtsleeve weather). And I don't have to shovel any snow at all.

Did a bit of house-hunting today at some of the new housing developments in the area. Housing prices here are about $300-350K for 2000-2500 sqft. Nice features in most, most have full CAT-5 and video wiring in all rooms, and there is cable modem or DSL service there. Out here in the sticks we're still doing dial-up, so that is an advantage.

A house in that range will let us put a nice down payment (when we sell this place), and maybe do a 15-year loan. That will mesh nicely with the retirement plan of about 10-12 years. Although I don't feel old enough to be thinking about retirement (but you are probably never to young to plan for it). As I have said before, "I may have to grow old, but I don't have to grow up!".

An interesting day at work. We started setting up the anti-spam mail server. Took a quick Read Through the Fine Manual (RTMF), and got familiar with the features and capabilities. We've decided on a slow approach to implementation. First, we set up the server in a passive mode, looking for spam and other possibly non-appropriate mail, logging 'catches', but letting the mail be delivered like the anti-spam server wasn't there. We'll let that go for a week, which will give us some good statistics on what we can catch.

The next step will be to tweak the rules a bit, based on what we found on incoming and outgoing mail. The caught messages will still be delivered, but we will add some text to the message subject line to indicate possible spam. We'll ask the users to report any messages that should not have been spam, and will use those responses to tweak the rules a bit more. After some time of doing that (I'm thinking two weeks), we will quarantine all caught messages for a short period (5 days?). We'll tell the users that they should see a reduction in incoming spam, and that we can release any caught messages if they think they are needed. (That will be discouraged, though, since we don't want to create a bunch of administrative overhead managing caught spam.)

It's possible that our passive monitoring statistics will help us tweak the rules a bit so we can reduce the number of false positives. And, of course, our plan is subject to change as we get to working with the program.

On the home front, we decided to stop by Chevy's (Mexican Restaurant, chain-type) to grab some fresh tortillas and chips and salsa. Then a quick trip to the grocery store for some boneless chicken breasts and some Spanish-flavor Rice-a-Roni. At home, I cut the chicken into small strips, and pan-cooked them. Also cooked up some hamburger meat, and fixed the rice (which got some diced canned tomatoes for extra flavor). Prepared the shredded cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, etc.

About 15 minutes later, the chicken was ready (cut into small pieces), the hamburger was flavored with a bit of dried taco seasoning, and the tortillas were zapped to get them warm. Then everyone created their own soft tacos. I only had five (I must be getting old). There were some leftovers, so we created some extras for lunches tomorrow. Quite tasty.

We sometimes use giant tortillas and make "giant burritos" (wraps) with the same mixture. Two of those are sufficient for me. Actually, I take two tortillas, arrange them into one really giant burrito .. but I can still eat two of them (and sometimes regret it later on). Dinner was about three hours ago, and I'm still full.

Should be interesting tomorrow to see how many spam messages were processed overnight. I only get about 50 a day. But I am inclined to try signing up for more for testing.

Short post tonight; it's late.

The anti-spam server works great. The monitor screen shows that we are processing about 1600 messages an hour. Stats at about 3pm showed that during the previous 19 hour, there were over 8000 messages marked as spam, about 14% of the total. We're letting those pass through for now, until sometime Monday. That will give us some good averages; a couple of work days and a couple of weekend days. The next step is to mark all spam, so users can help us find false positives. More about that as we go.

Taking tomorrow off to do some cleanup work around the house to make it look a bit better for potential buyers. Going to remove the above-ground pool, the dead spa, and hang a couple of window blinds, and perhaps start on the 'burn pile'. Sounds like a whole lot of work. Best get some sleep.

Even more muscles were excercised today. Got rid of some old decking and stairs. Did the "Lone Ranger" trip again. Cleaned out some berry bush vines. Tonight, the muscles are complaining a bit.

The big news, for us security techies, is the "Slammer/Sapphire" worm that hit early this morning. As usual, it was an attack against a vulnerability that had been know about for about six months.

The more interesting (chilling?) thing about this one is it's affect on private systems. Did your ATM work today? Bank of America's didn't. One report said:

Bank of America spokeswoman Lisa Gagnon said that many, if not a majority of the No. 3 U.S. bank’s ATMs were back online and that their automated banking network would recover by late Saturday. “We have been impacted, and for a while customers could not use ATMs and customer services could not access customer information,” Gagnon said.

Now, consider the effects of that "minor" inconvenience. How many of you use your ATM card for all of your transactions? How long could you last without access to an ATM machine, or not be able to use your ATM or credit card to pay for your groceries or gas?

When I started writing the "Digital Choke" story (back in 1999), that was one of the theme of the story. Back then there were several attacks on the 'net, some of them against large companies, some lost a lot of business because their computer systems were compromised by something as simple as a Denial of Service attack. How much more dependant is a company (and the economy) on the 'net? Is your company protected? (Do you have a readily available stash of cash?)

Our company wasn't affected by Slammer/Sapphire. We have a pretty good firewall system that protected us from this one. But we did have to spend a bit of time making sure. How about you?