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Why IRC is better than Real Life (2000)
- ranger_danger 9mo agoMissing "(2000)" in the title.
- slater 9mo agoAnd also a (dupe): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46559266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46559266
- tsunagatta 9mo agoIsn’t this the opposite of the other one?
- slater 9mo agowhoops, you're right! (on day 9 of dealing with the super-flu, here)
- lacunary 9mo agocan't ride a netsplit to takeover and +m a huge channel IRL
- _neil 9mo agodamn right
- bigfatkitten 9mo agoOr CTCP PING users with cheap modems with +++ATH0
- theshrike79 9mo agoYou could also send a specific string to a channel, which caused mIRC to log it to a file. Then a hyper-sensitive anti-virus would see it and quarantine mirc.exe :D
- bigfatkitten 9mo agoProbably EICAR. AV engines are only supposed to fire on EICAR when the file contains only magic string, but many are/were trigger happy and will alert if it appears anywhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EICAR_test_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EICAR_test_file
- nonamesleft 9mo agoAlso seemed to work over ICMP ping, with "+++ATH0M0DT112", they did not return to the channel. I think it was some buggy Rockwell modem chips that did not require the delay between +++ and switching to command mode, but it has been some decades.
- bigfatkitten 9mo agoIt did indeed, though people used to hide their IP addresses through various means, and so CTCP was usually a sure fire winner. Most cheap modems seemed to ignore the required 1 second (IIRC) delay. Well-heeled users who could afford U.S. Robotics et al were safe, winmodem users were not.
- boca_honey 9mo agoThis made me feel so nostalgic. I haven’t heard the term "netsplit" in probably 25 years. It’s amazing how things that once seemed so important get relegated not just to history, but sometimes to total oblivion. Well, almost. Apparently, it has its own wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netsplit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netsplit
- cykros 9mo agoI still see the occasional netsplit. But with modern nickname and channel services (Nickserv and Chanserv, mostly), and the very small IRC userbase, they certainly aren't as impactful as they once were.
- bsuvc 9mo agoI am sure IRC was good for some people, but I can say for me personally it was a net negative and real life was so, so much better. I wish I never used IRC. I also personally witnessed multiple friends who dropped out of college due to IRC addiction in the early 1990s. I am curious if anyone else has a similar memory of IRC.
- Obscurity4340 9mo ago> irc addiction How quaint
- bsuvc 9mo agoTouched a nerve I guess. Care to elaborate? I also knew people who had MUD addictions. These were very similar to how in later years people became addicted to Second Life or EverQuest and essentially dropped out of society. I don't know if there is a modern-day equivalent, to be honest.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- corndoge 9mo agoPerhaps it was the experience of irc which led you to appreciate real life so much more when you finally did engage in it
- goshx 9mo agoMost of the real life friends that I still have today I met on IRC.
- blondie9x 9mo agoThis made me really nostalgic about mIRC. I miss Dalnet. The colors of IRC. How fast and reliable it was. The rankings of members and trying to build credibility with the community to move up in the channel. Fun times.
- brandon272 9mo agoI had the same feeling and I had the same experience on DALnet.
- ASalazarMX 9mo agoWhat I don't miss is the plain text protocol. These days it would be a gold mine for tracking and surveillance.
- dSebastien 9mo agoGood memories endlessly tweaking configs and scripts. No wonder we're around here now I guess
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- ChrisArchitect 9mo agoRelated: Why Real Life is better than IRC (2000) https://everything2.com/node/e2node/Why%20Real%20Life%20is%20better%20than%20IRC https://everything2.com/node/e2node/Why%20Real%20Life%20is%2... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46559266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46559266)
- pidgeon_lover 9mo agoI don't get IRC - it seems to be antiquated unencrypted live group chats, with no usable clients. Group chats are useless for finding information and for communicating in between 10 ongoing conversations. Web forums make sense and are searchable.
- Guestmodinfo 9mo agoIRC gives quick reply to whatever your queries are. In my extremely limited time on IRC, I have found very helpful and very prompt people.