Normally this sort of thing comes and goes and really doesn’t cause much nuisance, but when they broke the 50,000 page load mark in less than 24 hours I started to get annoyed.

My initial reaction was to complain to the ISP and simply block them with a .htaccess file. I thought about it and realized that this isn’t a very good solution simply because that method still delivers to them my “Go away” page.

So I asked an admin buddy of mine what he thought I should do beyond the .htaccess or iptables. Specifically if there was anything fun we could do back. Something subtle that isn’t a direct hack back, but rather just something to get the message across.

He came up with this;

route add -host {incoming.annoying.bots.ip} gw 127.0.0.1

Evidently this will route the bot directly back to itself ~ localhost. Which just amuses the hell out of me. What’s more is, it will likely take about 5 minutes per hit for the TCP/IP layer to time out. So it will really slow their bot down, which I’m pretty sure the rest of the internet appreciates.

I have been using linux quite a lot at work, and really like where Ubuntu is going. Pretty much everything about it leads me to think that Microsoft should be worried. (Apple has nothing to fear, simply because they are a hardware company..)

Anyway, after having XP tell me for the umpteenth time that I had “unused icons on my desktop”.. (Yes I know.. I PUT THEM THERE..) I decided to install Ubuntu on my game machine and try to get WoW working. I figured I’d be in a long and protracted fight, an impossible up hill battle with a colossal fight at the end! I couldn’t have been more wrong — but I get ahead of myself.

Getting Ubuntu installed on my game machine was cake. I installed a new hard drive, partitioned it to have a /, a /home and a swap.. Installed Envy to get the nvidia drivers running.. and fiddled with the xorg.conf file for hours on end trying to get my dual monitors to work correctly. That was the only part that was hard to be honest, I screwed it up a couple times.. heh. That and I had to correct some oddity with the alsamixer being muted.. not sure what that was about.

So with that, my game machine is now dual bootable into XP and Ubuntu. Synergy works nicely on both installs which gets me to my email goofing off box (also ubuntu) and all the peripherals work nicely.. (er.. I haven’t gotten the G15 keyboard stuff working in Ubuntu yet.. but haven’t tried either)

So next, I installed WINE. I really didn’t know what to expect here, but was pleasantly surprised.. It’s very simple, clean and works nicely.

Next I dragged the World of Warcraft install off my XP C: partition into the .wine directory.. and typed “wine Wow.exe” via command line..

And holy shit if World of Warcraft didn’t launch first try!! I was shocked and stunned beyond describing.. I mean I didn’t expect it to work at all.. little alone the first damn try.

Now the truth is, it didn’t work fully the first try. It got to the loading in screen, got to 100% and locked up. But a couple of config file changes later (I had to enter 3 lines into the WTF config file) it worked and I played on it for several hours.

What amuses me the most about this is that the game actually played in Linux at roughly the same frame rates as my windows XP box or HIGHER frame rates depending on what I was doing.

I have no idea how they do it, but the WINE folks are awesome..Awesome I tell ya. Wine you’re the bomb!

I don’t know how it would handle a much more intense game.. Lets face it, World of Warcraft doesn’t exactly push the envelope here.. So if I tried the same trick with say, Crysis… I doubt it would work. But still I’m damn impressed.

Why can’t people discussing intelligent software solutions from different paradigms agree to disagree on this point.. and move the hell on?!

It drives me insane that you always have these hard core zealots that spout about how their OS is the best and that Microsoft sucks. You should use Linux cause it is better than Microsoft.. No no.. You should use a Mac because a “Wintel” machine sucks.. No the Amiga was the best! (I miss my Amiga).. etc etc.

I hate it.. Everyone hates Microsoft..

Do a search for “windows sucks” on Google and see what you get.. Good luck sifting through it all.. Everyone of them hard core Microsoft fans.. All of them are completely unbiased I’m sure..

Firstly.. ALL OSes are crap. None of them have got it right. They all have problems. It bothers me though that any time I have any kind of problem with my computer, which may or may not be completely unrelated to the OS, some sycophant from another flavor of “craptacular” will chime in and tell me that the problem is due to the OS I’m using, and that specifically Microsoft sucks.. if I just switched to {enter other shitty os name here} all my woe’s would be solved.

Ya know what there sport, if that were true don’t ya think it would have happened already? I’m pretty sure I don’t need you to tell me which way the wind blows. If your OS was so much better, I bet I would have noticed by now..

I use Linux, everyday.. No thanks – it doesn’t fit the bill, I don’t like it.. and I find it largely a pain in the ass..

I’ve seen and used a Mac.. No thanks – it doesn’t do what I need. Again, good for some things, but doesn’t do everything I want.. Etc..

No no.. that’s not enough.. They must convert me!

Even now some asshat is reading this just waiting for the end so they can dive off into their pre-scripted rant about how if I just tried their OS it would be better.. OR, even more infuriating, about how I just don’t understand and I must be some drooling sub-par computer half-wit who barely knows how to flip the I/O button to make the flashy lights go..

Clearly since I like Microsoft or in my case because I tolerate it, I must be one of those sad pathetic people who don’t know better. Pity me – For I am lame.

Here’s the 411 people..

I don’t “like” Microsoft or Windows. I use it. I use it because it’s all I got. At best, I tolerate it. And when something stupid goes wrong for no reason what so ever, I have same psychopathic desire to kill small animals just like everyone else.. It’s what I got.. So I use it.

Linux has stupid, crappy and jacked-up issues with it, just like the Mac.. just like Windows.. Get over yourself.

But to keep it simple for you people, I can sum it all up to ONE reason. I have ONE reason why I use Microsoft over any other OS – One reason that NO OTHER OS can beat; GAMES.

That’s it. I believe I have won that argument. You lose.

The games that I play, I can only play on a windows machine.

Dos, Linux, BSD, AIX, Mac, IRIX, Solaris, FreeBSD, BeoS, CP/M, CLI, LCARS. Whatever operating system you choose.. they don’t have the games..

None of them do.

Stop telling me that my OS sucks.. Thanks.. I got it.. Shut the fuck up..

My OS may suck, but I got the games baby..

And until your OS, whatever it may be, has those same games.. It’s with windows I’ll stay. Suck or not.