Why would you rotfl, and what is an IRC ?

As I talk with the less geeky (or, geeky for a less time) people, sometimes they my jargonisms like ROTFL, OTOH, FWIW, etc. are met with the questioned looks. "And what's that ?" - "Well, that's an abbreviation from IRC" - "So, what is the IRC?"

In short: IRC is like SL but you can not build/script/sell stuff and you have to have to cyber (the abbreviation from cybersex, or SL-specific - SLex) with more imagination - since there is no convenient Xcite or sexgen to beef up the imagination in case it lags a bit.

Longer: IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, the protocol is described in RFC1459, if you are looking for an even more details.
I would say IRC can easily be called a "proto-metaverse" (remember: it was readily available back in 1990s).

You did have the "channels" (chatrooms), in which there were different social statuses (operator, or "op" for short - who could change the various properties of the channel, and also could control the behaviour of the participants to some extent. Ok, call them the SIM owners, there is no difference. :)

And then there was the same unique "social glue" that we are chanting about these days.
There were stories of love and hate, peace and war, friendship and betrayal.

It was a unique tool to mix the different cultures together. And at the time when just not so long ago a letter from Russia to the USA would take a month to be delivered, realtime communication with someone across the globe did look like a magic.

It is interesting to observe the parallels.

Oh, you do expect me to write what the "ROTFL" is ? You seriously think I would do that ? I was just looking for an excuse to bring up some nostalgic reminiscences. :) If you really wanna look up those acronyms, there are sites that do that much better, for example netlingo - I won't try outdo them. Besides being just plain silly, it's a lot of work... And as you all know, I am a terribly lazy neko.