I just annoyed someone serving stuff and nearly got banned.

Heh. I learned my lesson and he helped me figure out how to set my config so I don't "spam" his or anyone else's servers.

Socially, IRC is very different. Getting to know users is a different process there, indeed.

I see why I was never attracted to IRC nor chat rooms. An IM'ing is awful to me, although useful at times.

hmm... sharkfish, IRC is a different world. It is not meant for people over the age of 20. web forums are the place to be if you are 30+ and want to interact with similarly aged people who behave like 11 year olds.

"It is not meant for people over the age of 20"

That is kind of funny, I hang on freenode and efnet. I met more authors, maintainers of projects than any other place. Pretty much most developers of most major opensource projects on our freenode.

And you might find a Sun, IBM, Oracle engineer on efnet as well.

Where do you hang Sharkfish?

I am normally a regular on #java (freenode)

I was speaking with the axis maintainer the other day.

http://ws.apache.org/axis/

the rife developer about 10 minutes ago:

http://ws.apache.org/axis/

The python Web Programming author is always in #python if you have a question, talked to him recently:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735710902/002-5624378-0229638?v=glance&n=283155

You actually talk to people? Wow. I might try that once.

I have only recently discovered IRC and I am downloading every free book I can find relevant to my interests.

Awful person, I am.

I may peek in on your channels.

Is that Python Web Programming dude the one from Chicago? I have his book. I want him to help me put his Sliver framewor together!

IIP (Invisible IRC Project) was like that too. The authors of Mute and IIP and a few other people who were interested in anonymous or encrypted online communication hung out there. I had fun running through some "what if" design scenarios with them, like "what if the RIAA flooded the P2P with nodes and they were every node you were connected to. The second hand plausible deniability no longer works then."

The fact that the biggest chat room had only 20 people and there was no file sharing made it much cooler than Effnet or Dalnet.

Oh, Not Berlin, different guy (I clicked on the Amazon link, duh).

"Python Web Programming dude"

Try holden or webgeek or something like that on #python or #python.web

Well.

efnet is the shit.

If it happens, it happens there!

if your going to use fileservers in IRC you may as well use torrents and save yourself the time and hassle :/

I'm on #C++ and a couple others on Efnet. Not too much technical talk, but it's good people (read: not the "see my pics.exe!!!" crap you get on Undernet).

"if your going to use fileservers in IRC you may as well use torrents and save yourself the time and hassle :/"

I'm not downloading music or movies. Books are not big on bittorrent, although there are a few.

There are several books I've found on IRC that were not on bittorrent.

So there. Believe me, I wouldn't deal with the whole chat thing if I didn't have to.

I wonder when the RIAA is going to catch on to UseNet and IRC.

Probably never. IRC and Usenet are the dirty little secrets of the internet, and you unlike BitTorrent, you can't track who's using them. Usenet more than IRC, they could set up dummy file servers in IRC to see who accesses them.

They know these things exist but... well, you're in IRC, how many people are in the #free movies or #free music channels?