Tuesday, July 30, 2002
The Power of + and @
So I'm in a chatroom on a private IRC server the other night, and no one's talking, yet the room is filled with people's nicknames. About 1/3 of them had "@" in front of them (ops), and another third had "+" in front of them. I forget the proper term for the "+" sign, but I've taken it to mean something like "regular with priveledges" or someone just shy of an op.
At any rate, I decide to /ping the entire channel to see if anyone's actually alive, or at least under a three minute ping (which would explain why no one's talking: lag). Two people immediately piped up and in a few words told me things like "don't ping me, fucker" and "you should know better than to ping me, fucker."
I've never understood this about IRC. What's the big deal when you get pinged? Oh dear lord! My computer has just received an infinitessimally small packed asking it to respond with another infinitessimally small packet asking it how long it takes to talk between the two! Violator! Blasphemer! Philistine! You Bastard!!
And then I don't understand the attitude of "you should know better than to talk, fucker" that I got after I laughed at their /ping comments. Indeed, I should have known better than to have tried to swing by to tell them what a cool website they had, let alone talked. The nerve. The audacity. How dare I?
I swear to god, should my life ever become so pathetic that my head inflates to the size of a hot air balloon over the fact that I have a "+" in front of my nick in an inconsequential chat room, I'm going to do the world an enormous favor and kill myself.
