IRC in 2024!?

totally_not_banned

@1q1 said:

@totally_not_banned said: Hmm, how would that work when the server has no clue about it or do you mean for the voice data transfer part? If it's the second i'd personally rather try to keep any kind of web tech very far away from IRC.

just like we send images thru web links, we send voice channel thru webRTC links. IRC server provider can easily provide this

Hmm, what exactly is a WebRTC link? Sorry, i don't think i follow or do you simply mean to send a link to some external WebRTC based voice chat service?

1q1

@totally_not_banned said: external WebRTC based voice chat service

yes. users have the ability to choose which providers they want to use or just self host

totally_not_banned

@1q1 said:

@totally_not_banned said: external WebRTC based voice chat service

yes. users have the ability to choose which providers they want to use or just self host

Ah, i see. That's obviously an option. Not a very attractive one from my perspective (even if it were just for the web browser involvement) but it's certainly an option.

rcy026

@totally_not_banned said:

@rcy026 said:

@totally_not_banned said:

@rcy026 said:

@totally_not_banned said:
Well yeah and so did about 90+% of it's other user base, which is also a continuing trend but i get it you'll still be posting your "Right tool for the job!" mantra into the digital wasteland of an empty server feeling content because if it's fine for the 80's it's obviously fine for all eternity. Maybe there'll even be some other lonely grey beard left to wholeheartedly agree closing with "Damn kids!" and how you showed them by resisting all their stupid changes. I mean not that it matters to me...

You seem to think that my standpoint somehow comes from some kind of love for irc and its users? Let me assure you, it doesn't. Irc for the last 15 years have been a terrible environment. I left the public servers 10 years ago and will most likely never return.
My arguments does not come from some kind of fanatic love of irc and its community, it is simply the complete and natural logic of choosing the right tool. Choosing a textbased chat and complaining that it does not support voice is just mind-boggling to me, I can not for the life of me comprehend how that idea somehow manifested itself inside someone's head.

Well, for one i'm obviously not choosing it. It's rather that i'd like to choose it but doing so would require me to vastly split up my communication habits as being a child of it's times it only supports a portion of which is possible these days and exactly this positioning makes it a though sell. I'm actually quite flexible in this regard and if even i don't want to run it as an additional tool because of the superior text chat it'll be a non-starter for the vast majority of people, which drives my chances of convincing them to switch to IRC - thereby eliminating some of the need for being present on multiple protocols - right into the ground. This is also very much represented by the steadily declining popularity.

Believe it or not, but I can see your point here. People of today want everything, immediately, free and with little to no effort.

Yeah, those damn kids

Using irc for textchat and something else for something else does in fact scare off a large part of todays users. But I do not necessarily see that as a bad thing. People that cant even be bothered to use a tool suitable for what they want to do but instead expect every tool to adapt to their needs rarely contribute much other then elitism and entitlement.

It "scares" them because it's needlessly inefficient. Also i don't really see why a tirade is needed here. For a start i expect absolutely nothing, i'm simply stating that having more features would be cool and given an appropriate amount of free time i could also just implement this myself - no big deal. I simply have way to many projects that do nothing in regards to paying my bills already. Besides having such features wouldn't affect you the slightest (beyond maybe being able use IRC more often as more people have it), so how is this much of a big deal anyways?

Big deal? You are talking about changing a protocol that is 40 years old and used worldwide, incorporated in probably thousands of clients, and you say it's not a big deal?
Tell me, how would you solve incorporating voice into the clients of all the users that run irc in a screen and connect to it via ssh? I'll admit that I am not a good programmer, but just the thought of accomplishing something like that baffles me, I can not see how it can be done. But for you, it's not a big deal?

Also i obviously have to select a suitable tool since otherwise i wouldn't be able to do what i need/want to. Suitable is a very broad definition though. Strictly speaking a telephone is a suitable tool for voice communication but does this make it a good tool? In a lot of situations probably not and the same goes for practically all the other options too, so i choose Discord because its suitable but it still pretty much sucks. It's just that its the least suck available. You make it sound like there was some (at least somewhat) good solution available, when there really isn't.

Again, use the right tool for the job. If you cant find a suitable tool, invent one. But a suggestion before you do, start with the tool that is closest to what you need, not something that completely lacks the features you want. Turning irc into a voice chat does not seem like a good solution.

So yes, you are completely right that irc being textbased only probably eliminates a lot of users that do not want a textbased only chat. Is that a bad thing? Not sure I agree there.

Would you agree that it's a good thing then? I mean improving on IRC could be an opportunity to create a great tool, which could be very useful to a lot of people. Isn't that desirable?

Not if it makes irc something that it is not intended to be. Irc is a text chat.
If you want a voice chat, I would suggest you start with a voice chat and turn that into whatever it is you need. Or fork irc to something else, it's an open protocol. But do not change irc just because it doesn't suit you.

The reason you can't follow how that could lead to wanting to improve it is (likely - i can't look inside your head) because you don't get beyond works for me. It's great that it works for you but it doesn't for a lot of other people and nothing is lost by admitting that it could be better. I'm not implying that you would necessarily have a lot of warm feelings for the remaining community but rather that the line of thinking you display ("Everything is perfect as it is and if you don't like it you can get the fuck out.") is sadly rather common there.

It's not perfect, far from it. But irc is a textbased chat, adding voice would not make it a better textbased chat. I may be a purists and molded in the old unix "do one thing but do it good" way of thinking, but I refuse to accept the "modern" way of thinking that just randomly adding as many features as possible makes something better.

Come on, adding another form of communication to a communication tool isn't really all that random. When reading your posts (and i know i'm somewhat repeating myself here) i get the impression that making IRC text-only was some kind of deliberate choice, when it certainly wasn't. I have obviously no idea what the authors would have done if at the time of IRC's creation sending voice in real time would have been something that was at least on the horizon but in any case there definitely couldn't have been an active decision against it.

You really can not fathom the fact that some people are completely satisfied with text only, can you?
I do not see text only as a draw back of irc, I see it as a feature. People that want text only chat uses irc, people that do not, use something else.
I use just about every form of communication there is. If I want voice communication, I use Discord, Jitsi, Meet or Teams. If I want text, I use irc. I can not even imagine how I would one day wake up and think "I need voice chat, lets use irc". I can for the life of me not see the logic in that.
I can understand wanting to improve something, but trying to improve irc by giving it voice is completely missing the point of irc. Lacking voice is one of it's advantages, why remove that?

I don't know how close to the actual protocol/code side of things you are but i can assure you it wouldn't really need a whole lot to make voice chats possible. The biggest question to answer would likely just be how to transfer the voice data (i.e. is TCP good enough latency wise/can the data somehow be transferred without needing a ton of encoding the work with the cleartext nature of IRC or is an optional UDP channel desirable/needed). Beyond that it's really just a minimal number of modes/commands and some code on the server.

Seeing that people have been trying to get filetransfers working for decades and it is still a complete mess, you must be a hell of a programmer if you can get voice working without much effort.

That's kind of relieving. Your general attitude doesn't exactly make for a very pleasant discussion.

Says the man that uses terms like "grey beard", "elitist hiding space" and similar and constantly tries to make fun of anyone still on irc.

Certainly not everyone as i've also made pretty clear stating that there obviously isn't any kind of consensus on the topic. As for the usually somewhat condescending if-you-don't-like-it-get-the-fuck-out crowd, well... it's basically about fighting fire with fire. Besides, gray beard being some kind of derogatory term is certainly news to me and as far as the remainder is concerned it's really just a sad truth for a certain part of the population.

Like i've said initially people like you somewhat cure my sadness in relation to IRC falling out of favor.

That's your opinion and you have the right to have it. Speaking of general attitude, yours really shine.

Me, I'm just glad that the internet still is big enough for irc, Discord, Teamspeak, Mumble or whatever you prefer can coexist. If you do not like something, don't try to change it to your liking, just chose something else. Some people probably like it the way it is, just because you do not should not take away their option.

Well, if that's something you care about, you certainly aren't doing a good job to preserve it. As is IRC is on it's way out. Obviously not the protocol itself - being an abstract concept it'll stay around forever - but it's users are literally dying off. Sure, nothing drastic is going to happen tomorrow and you personally will likely have the option to stick to it until the end of your days but it's overall future is predictable and it's a future where IRC ceases to exist.

That's not the point. The point is that if irc wants to be a text only chat, it should be allowed to be that. If it means that it dies a slow death, so be it, I'm not expecting it to be in use more then 10 more years, at best.

Well, see above. Besides i don't think an abstract concept is conscious enough to formulate desires

Letting it die just because would be kind of sad. I mean sure, it's pretty late for some kind of evolution anyways (if IRC had used the momentum it had during it's prime Discord might not even have been invented) but still, why let a good concept go to waste? Purism alone doesn't seem that reasonable to me but then that's obviously totally subjective.

Besides, if everything came down to a static choice between existing technologies none of the options you listed would exist at all. There is nothing lost in recognizing that while IRC might be perfect for oneself it might still be a little dated leading to room for improvement on a general level and making it more viable works towards preserving choice ideally without affecting the usage of people who aren't interested in such modernization.

I'm all for choice, that's why I think irc should remain just the way it is. If you want voice chat you can use Teams, Skype, Discord, Mattermost, Matrix, Slack, Teamspeak, Mumble or surely thousands of others. Irc has been basically the same for 30 years, why should we transform it into yet another clone of the thousands of alternatives that already exist in that niche? Text based, multiuser chat that you can run in a terminal does not leave many options, and I would hate to see the last good one ruined by added voice capability that very few wants.

... and compared to IRC they all suck. Besides modernization doesn't necessarily mean cloning Discord. I somewhat understand how modernization is a scary word though (it usually means turning to shit these days after all...) and i probably should have avoided it. Anyways if this was to be done in a clever way it wouldn't really affect anyone's usage. Old clients would still be able to connect new servers and function like they always did (besides using new features obviously) and updated clients would still be able to connect classic servers. Moderation and thoughtful implementation is key here. Turning IRC into Discord would be the biggest waste of time and the most counterproductive thing ever.

Just the phrase "classic servers" gives me chills. Irc has battled enough with splits, forks and different versions, adding even more differences would certainly not be a good idea.

By the way, it's certainly not impossible to do voice on the console - likely even over SSH. This might actually really be something very little people want though (kind of in contrast to the millions of people that left IRC, which likely at least in parts might have stayed if IRC would have been more versatile).

If you can get voice working in irssi/bitchx/weechat or whatever and make it work in a screen running in a shell over ssh, then I have seriously underestimated you and all the other programmers in the world. Please go for it. By your reasoning it would be a irc/Discord/Teamspeak/Slack killer so the possibilities are endless. Personally I do not think a lot of people would want irc with voice, but please, prove me wrong.

It is clear that we have very different mindsets.
I will never understand how a person can connect to something, especially something that has been essentially the same for 40 years, and think "this does not suit me, lets change it" instead of thinking "this does not suit me, lets find something else". That kind of entitlement end egocentrism just does not compute with me, I can not grasp how a person can reason like that. And I'm not saying that to try to offend you, we clearly just think differently. I'm not saying I'm right and you are wrong, I'm just saying we are different.

david

I'm not an active IRC user, but it seems to me, NOT having voice or video chat could be just as much a feature as having it, depending on a person's perspective.

If voice chat is available, some may be pressured into doing that, even though they really would rather not.

totally_not_banned

@rcy026 said:

@totally_not_banned said:

@rcy026 said:

@totally_not_banned said:

@rcy026 said:

@totally_not_banned said:
Well yeah and so did about 90+% of it's other user base, which is also a continuing trend but i get it you'll still be posting your "Right tool for the job!" mantra into the digital wasteland of an empty server feeling content because if it's fine for the 80's it's obviously fine for all eternity. Maybe there'll even be some other lonely grey beard left to wholeheartedly agree closing with "Damn kids!" and how you showed them by resisting all their stupid changes. I mean not that it matters to me...

You seem to think that my standpoint somehow comes from some kind of love for irc and its users? Let me assure you, it doesn't. Irc for the last 15 years have been a terrible environment. I left the public servers 10 years ago and will most likely never return.
My arguments does not come from some kind of fanatic love of irc and its community, it is simply the complete and natural logic of choosing the right tool. Choosing a textbased chat and complaining that it does not support voice is just mind-boggling to me, I can not for the life of me comprehend how that idea somehow manifested itself inside someone's head.

Well, for one i'm obviously not choosing it. It's rather that i'd like to choose it but doing so would require me to vastly split up my communication habits as being a child of it's times it only supports a portion of which is possible these days and exactly this positioning makes it a though sell. I'm actually quite flexible in this regard and if even i don't want to run it as an additional tool because of the superior text chat it'll be a non-starter for the vast majority of people, which drives my chances of convincing them to switch to IRC - thereby eliminating some of the need for being present on multiple protocols - right into the ground. This is also very much represented by the steadily declining popularity.

Believe it or not, but I can see your point here. People of today want everything, immediately, free and with little to no effort.

Yeah, those damn kids

Using irc for textchat and something else for something else does in fact scare off a large part of todays users. But I do not necessarily see that as a bad thing. People that cant even be bothered to use a tool suitable for what they want to do but instead expect every tool to adapt to their needs rarely contribute much other then elitism and entitlement.

It "scares" them because it's needlessly inefficient. Also i don't really see why a tirade is needed here. For a start i expect absolutely nothing, i'm simply stating that having more features would be cool and given an appropriate amount of free time i could also just implement this myself - no big deal. I simply have way to many projects that do nothing in regards to paying my bills already. Besides having such features wouldn't affect you the slightest (beyond maybe being able use IRC more often as more people have it), so how is this much of a big deal anyways?

Big deal? You are talking about changing a protocol that is 40 years old and used worldwide, incorporated in probably thousands of clients, and you say it's not a big deal?

Yeah, no big deal. I've pretty much explained it. It's all just about a couple extra modes, a low single digit number of commands and some code on the server that while maybe not totally trivial is rather easy to come by. Obviously the devil is always in the details but that's just the way development goes.

Tell me, how would you solve incorporating voice into the clients of all the users that run irc in a screen and connect to it via ssh? I'll admit that I am not a good programmer, but just the thought of accomplishing something like that baffles me, I can not see how it can be done. But for you, it's not a big deal?

I've never claimed to implement it in all clients. What i've said is that's is possible to implement and that clients without an implementation wouldn't be impacted (beyond obviously having no implementation for this). Besides that it's just really, really stupid. It's just about tunneling an audio device over a port forwarded by SSH. Depending on the underlying sound system (Pulseaudio and i think SndIO already have some network forward capabilities - even if i'm not 100% sure how granular those are - while ALSA for example to my best knowledge hasn't) it might need a little bit of code running locally to turn that back into a sound device but that's seriously not all that exciting. TCP admittedly isn't ideal for this but considering the metrics of modern connections i'm pretty sure it'll usually do.

Also i obviously have to select a suitable tool since otherwise i wouldn't be able to do what i need/want to. Suitable is a very broad definition though. Strictly speaking a telephone is a suitable tool for voice communication but does this make it a good tool? In a lot of situations probably not and the same goes for practically all the other options too, so i choose Discord because its suitable but it still pretty much sucks. It's just that its the least suck available. You make it sound like there was some (at least somewhat) good solution available, when there really isn't.

Again, use the right tool for the job. If you cant find a suitable tool, invent one. But a suggestion before you do, start with the tool that is closest to what you need, not something that completely lacks the features you want. Turning irc into a voice chat does not seem like a good solution.

Well, good is obviously a relative term but i'd certainly call it a solid foundation. You may find it implausible but IRC is the closest to my wants and highly likely also the easiest to adjust.

So yes, you are completely right that irc being textbased only probably eliminates a lot of users that do not want a textbased only chat. Is that a bad thing? Not sure I agree there.

Would you agree that it's a good thing then? I mean improving on IRC could be an opportunity to create a great tool, which could be very useful to a lot of people. Isn't that desirable?

Not if it makes irc something that it is not intended to be. Irc is a text chat.
If you want a voice chat, I would suggest you start with a voice chat and turn that into whatever it is you need. Or fork irc to something else, it's an open protocol. But do not change irc just because it doesn't suit you.

Well, i should probably stop going into this but anyways: Who decides this intention? Like i've said earlier there certainly wasn't a deliberate choice involved in this and even if there had been, would the inventor get some kind of dictatorial decision making power over the fate of a certain technology? I have my doubts.

In regards to forking, well, that would happen pretty much automatically. I don't have the power to single handedly change the IRC (i think it's even codified in RFC?) specs, so whatever i do would be a fork (or rather soft-fork as it wouldn't break compatibility) by definition.

The reason you can't follow how that could lead to wanting to improve it is (likely - i can't look inside your head) because you don't get beyond works for me. It's great that it works for you but it doesn't for a lot of other people and nothing is lost by admitting that it could be better. I'm not implying that you would necessarily have a lot of warm feelings for the remaining community but rather that the line of thinking you display ("Everything is perfect as it is and if you don't like it you can get the fuck out.") is sadly rather common there.

It's not perfect, far from it. But irc is a textbased chat, adding voice would not make it a better textbased chat. I may be a purists and molded in the old unix "do one thing but do it good" way of thinking, but I refuse to accept the "modern" way of thinking that just randomly adding as many features as possible makes something better.

Come on, adding another form of communication to a communication tool isn't really all that random. When reading your posts (and i know i'm somewhat repeating myself here) i get the impression that making IRC text-only was some kind of deliberate choice, when it certainly wasn't. I have obviously no idea what the authors would have done if at the time of IRC's creation sending voice in real time would have been something that was at least on the horizon but in any case there definitely couldn't have been an active decision against it.

You really can not fathom the fact that some people are completely satisfied with text only, can you?

I can, why wouldn't i? Actually i can fathom this as much as the fact that some people will hold an opposite opinion, so what gives?

I do not see text only as a draw back of irc, I see it as a feature. People that want text only chat uses irc, people that do not, use something else.

That is obviously true and the thing that makes it the most obvious is that people that want more than mere text chat have no other choice than to use something else. Would you seriously expect someone to use something that doesn't do what the person wants?

I use just about every form of communication there is. If I want voice communication, I use Discord, Jitsi, Meet or Teams. If I want text, I use irc. I can not even imagine how I would one day wake up and think "I need voice chat, lets use irc". I can for the life of me not see the logic in that.

Again that's obvious and noone would do that as IRC simply can't do voice. It's rather that i grudgingly use Discord while thinking "Man, wouldn't it be great if IRC also did voice and i wouldn't have to touch this invasive heap of bloat?" while simultaneously thinken "Damn, i miss IRC but switching between tools is an inefficient waste and i practically can't get anyone on there anyways.".

I can understand wanting to improve something, but trying to improve irc by giving it voice is completely missing the point of irc. Lacking voice is one of it's advantages, why remove that?

It's quite simple: Because i don't share your point of view on that.

I don't know how close to the actual protocol/code side of things you are but i can assure you it wouldn't really need a whole lot to make voice chats possible. The biggest question to answer would likely just be how to transfer the voice data (i.e. is TCP good enough latency wise/can the data somehow be transferred without needing a ton of encoding the work with the cleartext nature of IRC or is an optional UDP channel desirable/needed). Beyond that it's really just a minimal number of modes/commands and some code on the server.

Seeing that people have been trying to get filetransfers working for decades and it is still a complete mess, you must be a hell of a programmer if you can get voice working without much effort.

Well, i'd personally call myself average. While i have not followed the history of file transfer (IIRC double NAT pretty much kills it but that's really just a byproduct of the design) but my intitial guess would be that the reason people were struggling with this is that they were forced to stay within the specs, which by basically coming from a pre-NAT era aren't exactly favorable. I'm pretty sure that when given a bit more freedom any halfway capable developer wouldn't have much of a problem with this one way or another.

That's kind of relieving. Your general attitude doesn't exactly make for a very pleasant discussion.

Says the man that uses terms like "grey beard", "elitist hiding space" and similar and constantly tries to make fun of anyone still on irc.

Certainly not everyone as i've also made pretty clear stating that there obviously isn't any kind of consensus on the topic. As for the usually somewhat condescending if-you-don't-like-it-get-the-fuck-out crowd, well... it's basically about fighting fire with fire. Besides, gray beard being some kind of derogatory term is certainly news to me and as far as the remainder is concerned it's really just a sad truth for a certain part of the population.

Like i've said initially people like you somewhat cure my sadness in relation to IRC falling out of favor.

That's your opinion and you have the right to have it. Speaking of general attitude, yours really shine.

Me, I'm just glad that the internet still is big enough for irc, Discord, Teamspeak, Mumble or whatever you prefer can coexist. If you do not like something, don't try to change it to your liking, just chose something else. Some people probably like it the way it is, just because you do not should not take away their option.

Well, if that's something you care about, you certainly aren't doing a good job to preserve it. As is IRC is on it's way out. Obviously not the protocol itself - being an abstract concept it'll stay around forever - but it's users are literally dying off. Sure, nothing drastic is going to happen tomorrow and you personally will likely have the option to stick to it until the end of your days but it's overall future is predictable and it's a future where IRC ceases to exist.

That's not the point. The point is that if irc wants to be a text only chat, it should be allowed to be that. If it means that it dies a slow death, so be it, I'm not expecting it to be in use more then 10 more years, at best.

Well, see above. Besides i don't think an abstract concept is conscious enough to formulate desires

Letting it die just because would be kind of sad. I mean sure, it's pretty late for some kind of evolution anyways (if IRC had used the momentum it had during it's prime Discord might not even have been invented) but still, why let a good concept go to waste? Purism alone doesn't seem that reasonable to me but then that's obviously totally subjective.

Besides, if everything came down to a static choice between existing technologies none of the options you listed would exist at all. There is nothing lost in recognizing that while IRC might be perfect for oneself it might still be a little dated leading to room for improvement on a general level and making it more viable works towards preserving choice ideally without affecting the usage of people who aren't interested in such modernization.

I'm all for choice, that's why I think irc should remain just the way it is. If you want voice chat you can use Teams, Skype, Discord, Mattermost, Matrix, Slack, Teamspeak, Mumble or surely thousands of others. Irc has been basically the same for 30 years, why should we transform it into yet another clone of the thousands of alternatives that already exist in that niche? Text based, multiuser chat that you can run in a terminal does not leave many options, and I would hate to see the last good one ruined by added voice capability that very few wants.

... and compared to IRC they all suck. Besides modernization doesn't necessarily mean cloning Discord. I somewhat understand how modernization is a scary word though (it usually means turning to shit these days after all...) and i probably should have avoided it. Anyways if this was to be done in a clever way it wouldn't really affect anyone's usage. Old clients would still be able to connect new servers and function like they always did (besides using new features obviously) and updated clients would still be able to connect classic servers. Moderation and thoughtful implementation is key here. Turning IRC into Discord would be the biggest waste of time and the most counterproductive thing ever.

Just the phrase "classic servers" gives me chills. Irc has battled enough with splits, forks and different versions, adding even more differences would certainly not be a good idea.

Jeez, now that's really a bit hypersensitive

By the way, it's certainly not impossible to do voice on the console - likely even over SSH. This might actually really be something very little people want though (kind of in contrast to the millions of people that left IRC, which likely at least in parts might have stayed if IRC would have been more versatile).

If you can get voice working in irssi/bitchx/weechat or whatever and make it work in a screen running in a shell over ssh, then I have seriously underestimated you and all the other programmers in the world. Please go for it. By your reasoning it would be a irc/Discord/Teamspeak/Slack killer so the possibilities are endless. Personally I do not think a lot of people would want irc with voice, but please, prove me wrong.

Well, maybe some day. Like i've said earlier i have more than enough of such no-money projects already. That's also why i can so easily state that it's not that much of a big deal. Stuff like this is what i do on a regular basis. If you expect me to jump up to prove something to you i'll have to disappoint you. Neither do i have the time nor do i feel the need to prove something. I've certainly taken notice of your disbelief and if that's what you want to do, so be it. Personally i know what i know and i'm pretty much indifferent if some guy on the internet believes that or not.

It is clear that we have very different mindsets.
I will never understand how a person can connect to something, especially something that has been essentially the same for 40 years, and think "this does not suit me, lets change it" instead of thinking "this does not suit me, lets find something else". That kind of entitlement end egocentrism just does not compute with me, I can not grasp how a person can reason like that. And I'm not saying that to try to offend you, we clearly just think differently. I'm not saying I'm right and you are wrong, I'm just saying we are different.

It's really pretty easy. You see something and think "Wow, this is almost perfect. It would just need a little something but that shouldn't be too hard." but maybe that's some kind of mindset that comes with decades of hacking stuff, i seriously don't know.

JosephF

@totally_not_banned Why to you choose to not have a smartphone? (You use a flip phone?)

totally_not_banned

@JosephF said:
@totally_not_banned Why to you choose to not have a smartphone? (You use a flip phone?)

Well, that's kind of multilayered. There's social (i think people staring into these little boxes all the time is the bane of this millenium and i don't want to become reliant on it, even i'll openly admit that having google maps with you all the time sure is useful at times), security (i 100% distrust those blackboxes - open source OS or not the way they are those things stay blackboxes to me) and usability reasons (there is no system that i could put on them i feel comfortable with, not even among those so called alternative systems - i'd love to build my own some day and flash it onto devices that are practically e-waste as they only have 512MB of RAM or whatever is seen as unrealistically little to run a phone these days but time...).

I'm actually using a ~20 year old Nokia. A 1600? I think that's the brick but don't quote me on it.

Edit: In case anyone wonders, the speaking clock very much sucks. It's one of the absolutely worst features to accidentally activate as you'll never use it intentionally and therefore will always have to figure out how to get the damned robot voice to stop

rcy026

@totally_not_banned said:
Well, that's kind of multilayered. There's social (i think people staring into these little boxes all the time is the bane of this millenium and i don't want to become reliant on it, even i'll openly admit that having google maps with you all the time sure is useful at times), security (i 100% distrust those blackboxes - open source OS or not the way they are those things stay blackboxes to me) and usability reasons (there is no system that i could put on them i feel comfortable with, not even among those so called alternative systems - i'd love to build my own some day and flash it onto devices that are practically e-waste as they only have 512MB of RAM or whatever is seen as unrealistically little to run a phone these days but time...).

Well, I'll be damned, something that we actually totally agree on.
I might not be as radical as you and simply refuse smartphones, but I share your distaste for them. Or rather, the way people use them.
I do have a smartphone, but it is mainly used for texting and calling. I use it to pay for stuff, use apps for parking and things like google maps, but that's about it. Practical, actually useful stuff. I have accounts on most social media, but they are very rarely used if ever.
I never look at my phone when socializing with other people, and I will simply leave mid conversation if the person I'm trying to talk to starts looking at his or hers phone.

I'm actually using a ~20 year old Nokia. A 1600? I think that's the brick but don't quote me on it.

I have a Sony Ericsson from somewhere around 2010 I think. Whenever I need a break or go on vacation or something like that I move my sim to that and leave the smartphone at home. I can still call and text, but nothing else. Sadly, most operators will shut down the 3G networks here very very soon, so I'm afraid it's days are numbered. I will probably try to get another old brick that supports 4G that I can use when I don't feel like having my smartphone with me. My smartphone is like 8 or 9 years old and I see no reason to upgrade, it can do far more then I will ever use it for.

I'm also known for leaving the phone at home completely. My friends and colleagues can go completely apeshit and say things like "I tried calling you all day yesterday, why didn't you pick up?" as to I would answer "Because I left my phone at home". This is something a lot of people just cant accept, it really bothers them that I can chose to go out without my phone.

totally_not_banned

@rcy026 said:
Well, I'll be damned, something that we actually totally agree on.

Well, to be honest i guess there is a lot (maybe even the majority?) of stuff we would agree on. It's just that i like voice chat, while you don't like it that much and i prefer keeping my communication in one place, while you prefer separation. Beyond that... i don't think there necessarily is that much difference in general. It basically starts right off the bat with being quite opinionated in regards to how things should be ideally organized (most people would probably just be like "Meh, ... whatever?")

Not_Oles

Guys, what do you think about this? It runs on NodeJS! Thanks! Tom

https://github.com/realrasengan/dwebchat

IRC (formerly dwebchat)

This is POC for Internet Relay Chat. This is the IRC that was meant to be built, but IPv4 destroyed the ability for everyone to be a peer online.

How it Works

Everyone is a server, and everyone is a client.

Private messages send directly from person to person (client <-> server).

Channels are relays hosted by users - if you own the name 'joseon' then you own the channel namespace 'joseon' and 'joseon/'

Protocol is RFC1459

1q1

@Not_Oles said: IPv4 destroyed the ability

so true. only if NAT had not been widely used, the development of technology would have followed a different path.

kevinds

@rcy026 said: I will probably try to get another old brick that supports 4G that I can use when I don't feel like having my smartphone with me

New LTE clam-shell phones definitely exist, not sure about the bar/brick style.

JosephF

@1q1 said:

@Not_Oles said: IPv4 destroyed the ability

so true. only if NAT had not been widely used, the development of technology would have followed a different path.

The only way to have avoided NAT was if when they designed IPv4 (in the early 1980s) they would have included a much larger numbering system.

kevinds

@JosephF said: The only way to have avoided NAT was if when they designed IPv4 (in the early 1980s) they would have included a much larger numbering system.

Well they did exactly that the 1990s.. And NAT didn't really 'catch on' until the 00's.. Now we have multiple layers of NAT..

Not_Oles

@Not_Oles said:
Guys, what do you think about this? It runs on NodeJS! Thanks! Tom

https://github.com/realrasengan/dwebchat

IRC (formerly dwebchat)

This is POC for Internet Relay Chat. This is the IRC that was meant to be built, but IPv4 destroyed the ability for everyone to be a peer online.

How it Works

Everyone is a server, and everyone is a client.

Private messages send directly from person to person (client <-> server).

Channels are relays hosted by users - if you own the name 'joseon' then you own the channel namespace 'joseon' and 'joseon/'

Protocol is RFC1459

The rasengen guy seems to be Andrew Lee.

DP

@Not_Oles said: The rasengen guy seems to be Andrew Lee.

That’s correct.

Not_Oles

@Not_Oles said: Wow! I installed ngircd on a Debian VM with a simple apt-get. I took a quick look at the default configuration file, and, since ngircd already was running, I connected to it with ircII. It all seemed too easy!

Looking at UnrealIRCd and Ergo.

rcy026

@JosephF said:

@1q1 said:

@Not_Oles said: IPv4 destroyed the ability

so true. only if NAT had not been widely used, the development of technology would have followed a different path.

The only way to have avoided NAT was if when they designed IPv4 (in the early 1980s) they would have included a much larger numbering system.

The only way, really?
People realized the limitations of IPv4 a long time ago so ipv6 was invented. It has been a standard for over 25 years now.

kevinds

@rcy026 said: People realized the limitations of IPv4 a long time ago so ipv6 was invented. It has been a standard for over 25 years now.

Coming up on 30.. 1996 And it was made by a committee, not one person thinking "this should work" or "it is working, don't touch it"

totally_not_banned

@kevinds said:

@JosephF said: The only way to have avoided NAT was if when they designed IPv4 (in the early 1980s) they would have included a much larger numbering system.

Well they did exactly that the 1990s.. And NAT didn't really 'catch on' until the 00's.. Now we have multiple layers of NAT..

Exactly. The first layer was really mostly a convenience thing (pre '00 something like a home router device was practically unheard of) and indirectly a solution to the tendency of people to connect insecure boxes to the internet. NAT as a solution to address scarcity came way later.

david

My first dsl line, around 1999 or 2000 was 208kbps SDSL and it was hooked up directly to my computer, no router. There was nothing else to use the internet with, anyway (just my computer).

kevinds

@david said: My first dsl line, around 1999 or 2000 was 208kbps SDSL and it was hooked up directly to my computer, no router. There was nothing else to use the internet with, anyway (just my computer).

1997 we had a dial-up modem connected to a NAT gateway for our home.. Awesome 14.4k or 19.2k connection shared between multiple computers..

Not_Oles

Trying isssi. . . .

dahartigan

Wait until you discover blogging

Not_Oles

@Not_Oles said:
Trying isssi. . . .

isssi doesn't seem to work. Luckily, irssi works well enough to connect to Libera.chat

Not_Oles

I decided to try compiling ircII from source code. I got the current code with wget https://ircii.warped.com/ircii-current.tar.bz2. After unzipping and untarring, the default compile requires only a configure and a make.

For LETizens who haven't seen compiling yet, maybe you might be interested in seeing the source code file directory before and after compiling. Here's before:

[Not_Oles@polonium ircii]$ ls
aclocal.m4  ChangeLog  configure.in  doc   include  ircbug.in    mkinstalldirs  README  source
bsdinstall  configure  contrib       help  INSTALL  Makefile.in  NEWS           script  todo
[Not_Oles@polonium ircii]$ ls source
aes.c          edit.c              icb.c       keys.c        notice.c   server.c      translat.c
alias.c        empty_metakeys.inc  if.c        lastlog.c     notify.c   signals.c     vars.c
cast.c         exec.c              ignore.c    list.c        numbers.c  sl.c          whois.c
cipher-test.c  flood.c             input.c     log.c         output.c   sl_irc.c      window.c
crypt.c        funny.c             ircaux.c    mail.c        parse.c    ssl.c         wserv.c
ctcp.c         help.c              irc.c       menu.c        queue.c    status.c      wterm.c
dcc.c          history.c           ircflush.c  mksignals.pl  reg.c      strcasestr.c
debug.c        hold.c              ircio.c     names.c       scandir.c  strsep.c
digraph.inc    hook.c              ircsig.c    newio.c       screen.c   term.c
[Not_Oles@polonium ircii]$

And, here's after:

[Not_Oles@polonium ircii]$ ls
aclocal.m4     ctcp.o   history.o  ircbug      log.o          numbers.o  sl_irc.o      whois.o
alias.o        dcc.o    hold.o     ircbug.in   mail.o         output.o   sl.o          window.o
bsdinstall     debug.o  hook.o     ircflush    Makefile       parse.o    source        wserv
ChangeLog      defs.h   icb.o      ircflush.o  Makefile.in    queue.o    ssl.o         wserv.o
config.h       doc      if.o       ircio       menu.o         README     status.o      wterm.o
config.log     edit.o   ignore.o   ircio.o     mkinstalldirs  reg.o      strcasestr.o
config.status  exec.o   include    irc.o       names.o        scandir.o  strsep.o
configure      flood.o  input.o    ircsig.o    newio.o        screen.o   term.o
configure.in   funny.o  INSTALL    keys.o      NEWS           script     todo
contrib        help     irc        lastlog.o   notice.o       server.o   translat.o
crypt.o        help.o   ircaux.o   list.o      notify.o       signals.o  vars.o
[Not_Oles@polonium ircii]$ 

The file called irc is the result. The files which end in .o are "object" files, which get linked together to make the final irc result.

[Not_Oles@polonium ircii]$ file irc
irc: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, BuildID[sha1]=9da3386f434227331960468a4e64c9125f26759b, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, with debug_info, not stripped
[Not_Oles@polonium ircii]$ 

The irc file and a few more files are installed with make install.

Probably I am going to compile irssi too.

rcy026

@Not_Oles said:
For LETizens who haven't seen compiling yet...

Damn, that comment made me feel old.
I've never realized that there is probably a ton of people here that have never gone trough 80 hours of "make buildworld" every time a new version of BSD was released (or 50 hours if you were rich enough to run /usr/obj in ram).

Not_Oles

@rcy026 said: there is probably a ton of people here that have never gone trough 80 hours of "make buildworld"

That's right! Additionally, I have been thinking a lot lately about how the newer folks have a universe which developed after my time as a young person. For example, Discord. I never touched Discord until the wonderful guys on the FreeVPS.org staff wanted to use it. Now, thanks to those wonderful staff guys, I have been on Discord enough to see the large community there. It's similar with, for another example, Nodeseek. Those guys have a way different background and contextual experience than me. So, here at LET, on Discord, and on Nodeseek and similar, I can meet people. And, when I am lucky, I can learn a little bit about their new perspectives and contexts. The Internet is just wonderful these days!

totally_not_banned

@Not_Oles said:

@rcy026 said: there is probably a ton of people here that have never gone trough 80 hours of "make buildworld"

That's right! Additionally, I have been thinking a lot lately about how the newer folks have a universe which developed after my time as a young person. For example, Discord. I never touched Discord until the wonderful guys on the FreeVPS.org staff wanted to use it. Now, thanks to those wonderful staff guys, I have been on Discord enough to see the large community there. It's similar with, for another example, Nodeseek. Those guys have a way different background and contextual experience than me. So, here at LET, on Discord, and on Nodeseek and similar, I can meet people. And, when I am lucky, I can learn a little bit about their new perspectives and contexts. The Internet is just wonderful these days!

Being born into the world of technology is kind of a double edged sword in my opinion and i'm not talking about the social aspect as in not having had the experience of how everything also worked perfectly well without it. On one hand it'll make a lot of things come more natural but on the other hand there'll be a ton more abstraction with practically everything. When we got into IT it wasn't very powerful and didn't do a whole lot but it was not half as complex, which made understanding the basic concepts and inner workings rather easy and with each new stage we were able to improve on what we already knew, making it a gradual process.

The kids these days don't have it that easy. They are dropped into a super advanced environment and basically have to take in everything at once. It's not like this is necessarily a bad thing. For the most part they just skip a lot of stuff, which in retrospect isn't really all that useful anyways but it also makes it hard for them to get at the actual root of things. Kind of like they probably know 3 different web frameworks while it's pretty far fetched for them imagining how shuffling around numbers between strangely named "variables" in assembler is actually somehow useful.

TL;DR: I think you are doing something right there as in my opinion the optimal situation would be to combine both angles but that is simply happening way to seldom these days.