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IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

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Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#71

Post by dingaling »

Asparagirl wrote: post #42

File #10 has an Israeli IRC user checking in moments after a SCUD missile hits: Is there anybody there? I am fine. Just got the damn gas mask off. Sorry A minute later he/she reports that Tel Aviv was hit, source being "my ears". IRC, beating the TV networks since at least 1991...

Ironically much of the damage to Tel Aviv and Haifa was not the direct result of Scud impacts but debris and explosives from Patriot SAMs launched against them.

39 Scuds were fired, 17 were engaged by Patriots and three were confirmed intercepted. I can't find the figure of how many Patriots were actually launched.

The number of Patriots that struck the ground intact after failed launches / failed interceptions remains classified but is greater than four. Most of the rest self-destructed in flight.

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#72

Post by sampo »

pling wrote: post #47

IRC has always been wonderful in times of trouble. I'm really surprised that people have abandoned it over the last decade. I had to hit IRC when Sept 11th went down because I was stuck in a facility with no television reception and even news sites were down due to load. The only things that were still shifting data were slashdot and a couple of IRC networks. We had a channel relaying news from TV and radio worldwide…

> We had a channel relaying news from TV and radio

There was similar activity on IRC right after the 2013 Boston bombings.

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#73

Post by ygra »

jdong wrote: post #22
The_Pherocity wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain please?

IRC protocol spec limits message length to 512 bytes, I know only of a single implementation that lets you go above that and many clients crash or otherwise break if you go above it.

Fun thing is: It's 512 bytes for everything, not just the part you typed. So this includes the command and channel, the trailing CRLF and I think when routing through different servers the server name gets stuck in there somewhere, too. Which means that a client has no idea how long the actual message is that it's going to be able to send.

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#74

Post by Pacabel »

xelfer wrote: post #51
Asparagirl wrote: post #42

File #10 has an Israeli IRC user checking in moments after a SCUD missile hits: Is there anybody there? I am fine. Just got the damn gas mask off. Sorry A minute later he/she reports that Tel Aviv was hit, source being "my ears". IRC, beating the TV networks since at least 1991...

I miss how massive IRC used to be. I've been on the same network since 1996. We're now at around 350 users down from the 6-8k we used to have back then. I've tried other networks and they all seem dead all the time.

A lot of the decline was due to people being driven away, directly or indirectly, by tyrannical ops.

A given channel, or even entire networks, would often start out pretty free. Dissenting discussion and arguments were allowed, if not encouraged. Users could hold and share their own beliefs without fear of repercussion. It was generally a fun experience. The channel or network would see growth.

But as the community became larger and more established, certain users would often end up becoming ops, and they'd start to enforce their own beliefs upon the entire community. People would start getting kicked or banned unnecessarily for very minor "violations", which most often involved just holding a different opinion than an op.

These kicked or banned users wouldn't come back, those users who liked them would have less incentive to return, and eventually there'd be more people getting booted or leaving than there would be new people coming and returning. The channel withers. If this happens with enough channels, the network withers. As networks wither, IRC itself withers.

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#76

Post by madaxe_again »

randallsquared wrote: post #69
madaxe_again wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascinating. I was in Dominica at the time. They threw a national street party for the day to celebrate "the big house falling down". I guess there's something of a grudge to be borne there, from hundreds of years of slavery. Re: the thread, it's saddening quite how many were immediately desperate to go to war - with bin laden, nonetheless. This is generally a bit odd, given that OBL was only really known in the west…

Oddly enough, I was also in Dominica at the time. I don't remember hearing anything about that "national street party", but everyone I came in contact with immediately after 9/11 was incredibly kind and most seemed more emotionally affected than I myself felt.

Dominica or Dominican Republic? I mean Dominica... Wandered into Roseau, there were people literally dancing in the street - asked what the occasion was and that was the response. All the cruise passengers stayed on their ships from what we could tell.

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#78

Post by randallsquared »

madaxe_again wrote: post #76
randallsquared wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, I was also in Dominica at the time. I don't remember hearing anything about that "national street party", but everyone I came in contact with immediately after 9/11 was incredibly kind and most seemed more emotionally affected than I myself felt.

Dominica or Dominican Republic? I mean Dominica... Wandered into Roseau, there were people literally dancing in the street - asked what the occasion was and that was the response. All the cruise passengers stayed on their ships from what we could tell.

I almost asked you the same about DR. :) I was living in Morne Daniel at the time, doing a gold ecurrency startup.

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#80

Post by The_Pherocity »

jdong wrote: post #22
The_Pherocity wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain please?

IRC protocol spec limits message length to 512 bytes, I know only of a single implementation that lets you go above that and many clients crash or otherwise break if you go above it.

Oh, I just assumed that it was multiple submits concatenated to make the log readable for a news article.
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