EFnet announced that the server (eris.Berkeley.EDU) that caused the original IRC network to split back in 1990 ("The Great Split") has rejoined the network. Because of this EFnet (Eris-Free Network) changed its name to "Eris Network", or ErisNet.
eris.Berkeley.EDU is once again serving IRC clients (on ports 6667, 6668 or 6697, 9999 for SSL), thanks to UC Berkeley OCF.
See the news post about this change on http://www.erisnet.org/erisnet_pressrelease.pdf
[Ed. note: For those who may not be aware, SoylentNews hosts its own IRC (Internet Relay Chat) server. For quick-and-dirty access, use a web client via the IRC link in the "SoylentNews" slashbox on the left-hand side of the main page. For other means of access, see the SoylentNews:IRC page on our Wiki.]
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Monday April 02 2018, @08:15AM (12 children)
Eris! All hail Eris! The Goddess of Discord [wikipedia.org]! The Bitch of Libertarianism! Wherever you see this bitch-goddess invoked, check you wallet and double-check your arms! There is mischief afoot! And organizations that worship this she-devil tend to give out Golden Apples, the sign of Eris, of Discord, Strife, of Disaster Capitalism.
Story is, there was a wedding on Olympus, and all the goddess got together to plan, the most important thing being the guest list. No one would want to invite Eris, the goddess of discord, to a wedding, since there will be plenty of time for that later (it's called "marriage"), so they did not. But as is usually the case, you do not invite someone, and they find out you did not invite them, and they crash, making a scene, and you realize it would have been better to just invite them in the first place. But not so Eris. Instead of crashing, she cruised by where the Wedding Party was being held, and threw a Golden Apple over the hedge (gotta love Mark Twain on this: so much fuss over a few oranges!) engraved with the words, "For the most Beautiful."
Eris, strife, you see? Three goddess descended upon the rarity, Hera, wife of Zeus almighty, Athena, Zeus's daughter and bearer of the Aegis, and of course, lovely Aphrodite, she from the sea-foam and goddess of love. All of them said, "mine!", and then they all appealed to the Bearer of the Thunderbolt to adjudicate between them. Zeus as at least as wise a Jeff Sessions, and so he pled conflict of interest, and bid the goddesses look else where for a judge.
To find the most neutral arbitrator, the goddesses agreed on a mortal, the younger and more naive, and male, the better. Their eyes settled upon the son of Priam, Lord of Troy, tending his flocks on the slopes of Mount Ida, and they appeared before the youth. Each goddess attempts to bribe the teenager, Hera with political power, Athena with wisdom, and Aprhodite, . . . We revert here to the earliest version of "The Judgement of Paris", evidently captured in texting logs from the time:
Evidently, Aphrodite's offer was too much for the young incel to resist, and he awarded the Golden Apple to Aphrodite. Turns out the babe that Aphrodite had promised to young Paris was unfortunately already married, albeit to a much older man, in Mycenaea, in Greece, but Aphrodite would assist Paris in stealing her away from Menalaos. Helen, the face that launched a Thousand ships. And all these alt-right libertarian types wonder why they have such a difficult time with females, when they consort with Eris and her train?
So, where ever you see Eris, or her Egyptian form, Kek, or any mention of "Golden Apples", be advised, you are in perilous company. Depart as soon as you are able.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @08:31AM
Cool story, bro.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @10:08AM
Eris pads her chest!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @11:22AM (1 child)
Just remember not to partake of hot dog buns.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 02 2018, @09:35PM
Except on Fridays!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @02:12PM
The apple should have been awarded to the girl with the biggest tits a la Monty Python. No bribery necessary.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 02 2018, @03:47PM
My youngest son loves Eris. He named his cat for the goddess. I think he might name his daughter the same. Well, if he ever gets around to having a daughter. And, this is the smarter one of my sons, the mathematician. I've often wondered if he might know something important. Like, maybe he introduces random variables into his research, without telling anyone else about them? Or, worse, maybe Eris is really for real, and all the rest of us have worshipped the wrong gods for all these millenia?
Personally, I prefer the Norse version of the mischevious god. I can relate to Loki.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by xhedit on Monday April 02 2018, @06:08PM (1 child)
Aristarchus, what a pile of drivel. Please stop defaming Eris, who has nothing to do with your favorite alt-right boogeymen.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday April 02 2018, @06:47PM
They are not boogeymen, they are idiots! And Eris is not cognate with Loki, if anything Mercury (Hermes) is more the parallel god. And here what I was really hoping for was some inside background on why it was called "Eris Free" in the first place? And why the Great Schism has been rescinded? No longer an anathema?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday April 03 2018, @08:44AM (3 children)
>So, where ever you see Eris, or her Egyptian form, Kek, or any mention of "Golden Apples", be advised, you are in perilous company.
Uh oh, I just typed "kek" on erisnet using a 3399$ apple macbook pro. Am i in some kind of troub(*&^%$*&IUH^&* NO CARRIER
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:02AM (2 children)
Alas, poor Bot! He was a valued member of the Soylentil community. Unfortunate he opened a portal. I regret my part in the whole sordid business. He will be missed.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:10AM (1 child)
I'll be back.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:19AM
Yeah, right! That is what all the robots from the future are always saying. . . . wait a minute!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @08:47AM
I laughed.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @09:59AM (13 children)
People still use irc? Wow, just wow.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday April 02 2018, @10:08AM (4 children)
Those who want non-surveillance social media do.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @11:19AM (2 children)
Do you honestly think they're not recording irc chats as well?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @12:33PM
SN already records it's IRC chats -- see the logs, conveniently arranged in date order.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @07:10PM
They're not recording the chats on my private server.
Maybe. Probably. And covfefe for good measure.
I should probably tighten my tinfoil and assume Linode is, in fact, recording the chats on the server I rent from them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by J_Darnley on Monday April 02 2018, @01:12PM
More like those who want federated, open protocols do. Many open source projects have busy IRC channels. Piracy is still available on some networks through DCC.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Monday April 02 2018, @02:08PM (6 children)
Lol, yea. What a bunch of old fags. I mean, who would want to use a proven free chat protocol with dozens of cross platform clients that's not controlled by a single for-profit company?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 02 2018, @03:54PM (5 children)
Spellcheck needed. I think it's "oldfag" and "newfag", without spaces. With the spaces, you might be talking about any old fag on the street. Without spaces, you're talking about gamers, nerds, techies, etc, who generally are sexless anyway. Maybe we should check with 4chan?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday April 02 2018, @04:11PM
I suppose that makes me the oldfag then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @07:13PM (3 children)
Remember when /b/ used to be good?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 02 2018, @09:36PM (2 children)
/b/ was never good. 4chan was never good. Think about the kind of people who would start a place like that.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 02 2018, @10:24PM (1 child)
It should serve the same purpose as Alcatraz, Sing-Sing, or Congress: a warning for the kids, about the worst of humanity.
Sadly, the parallel works with Congress: someone forgot to properly declaw the 4chan bastards.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 03 2018, @02:41AM
So what does that make 8chan, the internet equivalent of MS-13?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @02:23PM
We have a bunch of sites spread across the southeastern USA, most with 2 or 3 dozen employees, one with 200 employees, and a bunch of smaller sites. We keep our normal computers off the internet, using an encrypted VPN to link up the sites.
IRC is really the main thing. There is also email, video conferencing, VoIP phones, a wiki, and so on... but IRC is really how people keep in touch. At the largest site, IRC is damn useful within the building. The building is too big and convoluted to go find people, and anyway we get input from the other sites if we use IRC.
Hosted software-as-a-service stuff would not be private to our VPN. It would expose us to security trouble. Lots of IRC alternatives are not cross-platform; we aren't a Windows shop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @11:25PM
The Great Split [irc.org] wasn't when Eris was cast out. That resulted in the creation of EFNet and A-Net (now long defunct), but as far as I'm aware, there's not a particular name this event is known as.