The musings of an aspiring carver of space

Those missed years on IRC

Had another fairly productive day. Helped a colleague troubleshooting another Splunk licensing issue. Made good headway on my Terraform code for my lab set-up.

I spent a bit of time setting up an IRC client on my Linux box. I want to use irssi, but I'm just not there yet; don't have the time to commit to that learning curve. I settled on Hexchat because, as Clay Shirky says, there's power in the default (on Mint, in this case). And I immediately felt regret.

Not in the act, but in my failing to keep up with IRC over the many, many years since I was first exposed to it. I think I could use that stability right about now. I mean, I guess there are parallels IRL: moving across an ocean; flux has been my only constant for many of the last ten years. Well, I feel like things are settling down now. I have a family, a new job, a focus for my learning. Let's see what these possible connections bring over the next few years.

I was just reminded about alt.music.tool, back in the mid 90s. What a fun break from my uni assignments. In the bowels on the Engineering building — 'cause CS didn't have their own one back then — sat in front of a dimly-lit, monochrome dumb terminal, poring over each line of every track on the newly-released Ænima, theories abounding. Why did Usenet die, while IRC, dare I say, thrives?

End of Day 18


jlj #100DaysToOffload

I'm writing this as part of the 100 Days To Offload project; join us at: https://100daystooffload.com/