Participating in a opensource community has lot of advantages, you get to know really cool people. You learn lot of new things… but also strange anecdotes happen.
Some time ago I was talking with Will, and we both remembered one of the most funniest (now) things ever happened in #kopete irc channel. We laughed a lot, until Will told me. “I still have those logs somewhere”. I said “Really! I think it is time to blog them.
April 3, probably 2003 or 2004. I was in Chile by then. It was sleeping time for Europa. In the channel you can see Sean Egan, GAIM’s lead developer, and myself. Until….
The following takes place between 5 am and 6 am… Events ocur in real time.
--> Lazlo ([HOST REMOVED].edu) has joined #kopete <Lazlo> uhh, hi all heh. I have a strange request. is that Sean Egan from New York (sorry kinda new to irc) <SeanEgan> hm? <Lazlo> hello ? <Lazlo> oh heh <SeanEgan> Um, yeah. I'm from New York <Lazlo> uh, hi -- I searched on google and it said a 'Sean Egan' was in this chat room. Do you know where Valley STream is? <SeanEgan> Yeah, that's where I live on Long Island <Lazlo> ehh, what's the zip code heh (sorry for these odd questions I have to protect an identity here, kinda iffy)? <SeanEgan> hehe, um, it's [ZIP CODE REMOVED]. Who are you? <Lazlo> uh, Are you at [ADDRESS REMOVED]? <SeanEgan> ok. Who are you? <Lazlo> can anyone here tell me if this is really Sean Egan? <SeanEgan> they're probably all asleep. This is a very European channel. <SeanEgan> being KDE and all<Lazlo> uhh, hi all heh. I have a strange request. is that Sean Egan from New York (sorry <Lazlo> um, what's KDE? I don't use computers mujch <SeanEgan> It's alright. Why do you know m address? <Lazlo> whatever man -- look, are you really Sean Egan? <SeanEgan> Yeah. <Lazlo> um, I think I may have found your wallet near a truck stop <SeanEgan> really?! <SeanEgan> haha! <SeanEgan> I lost my wallet yesterda <SeanEgan> y <Lazlo> phew! hah, man i wasn't sure if I could find you heh <SeanEgan> well, you do have my address
I never knew what happened with Sean’s wallet. So today I emailed him and asked. This is the happy end of the story:
Ha! I didn’t think anyone remembered that! That guy was nuts. I was able to reason with him, though. It turned out I was able to promise him a feature request in Gaim and that sufficed for him. He sent the wallet back, and I never found any weird fraudulent charges on any of my cards
My guess is that he wasn’t any older than 16.
Just remember, every time a Gaim user sends someone a file by dragging it into a conversation window, it’s because I lost my wallet.
-s.
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hahaha, that really made me laugh. awesome.
wow, that was too funny. at least it had a happy ending
Wow. That’s just…. Wow.
that was priceless.
As others have said, really funny. Made me chuckle this morning.
So he was a GAIM user? That doesn\’t make much sense. Other than that, nice anecdote.
This have make my day
Laughing Out Loud !
Good job Sean
Lazlo thought people are stupid or something. What a moron !!!
That story saved my day
Sounds just like Cartman from South Park. I think he would do something like that
ahha
n1
Big LOL! Really nice story
Haha! That was great…
i dig the story man
add to delicious
Just great, i laughed my ass of with this one
i quess this guy didnt realize that he was talking in open source community channels oh well a this was bright spot in my day
Man I hate that Lazlo. what a nutcase =P
HAH I would of called the police anyways to get that idiot to jail for being an idiot, becouse he was such an idiot, get the drift?
Funny thing how like all the replies are made by finnish people coz\’ this was a link in finnish page
Wow there are really some truly screwed up nutcases in the world. Actually that Lazlo guy does remind me of Cartman just like someone said earlier. Good thing you got your wallet back though. I would have just sended the wallet to you if you would have paid the costs of shipping it there
so I guess there are still some honest people in this world.
Wow, what a story!!!
Wepa, true. The story is on MBnet. http://www.mbnet.fi/net.nyt/juttu.aspx?id=1468
omg dude, I am crying from laughing so damn hard! You totally made a crappy day that much better! Now I can goto class tonight with a smile! Keep rocking bro!
Nice!
la volaita :S demas k tenia k aber sido un pendejo, weno saludos compadre ojala estes bien x alla
Did you really give him the ping???
Hmm.. a user that admittedly didn\’t use computers much, didn\’t know about KDE, was probably 16yo, on a edu net.. asked for a new feature for Gaim, a program that wasn\’t even on windows until 2004-06-02… (unless you want to argue that a linux user admitted that he didn\’t know much about computers lol) sounds about as phony as a 3 dollar bill lol…
And the Kicker is that you get feature requests for gaim by threatening people in the kopete channel
great! I send filed by dragging them to the gaim window all the time. It is great! And I\’ll also have to agree with Jensen. \’tis wierd shit!
Dude, I have NEVER gotten gaim file transfer to work. Laslo got screwed.
@lol
The Windows Gaim changelog lists alphas at least since 2002-09-13. http://gaim.sourceforge.net/win32/ChangeLog.win32
I agree with lol – maybe not that it’s phony, but I don’t understand how such a weirdo who claims to not know much about computers (which appears to be true) would be swayed with an offer to decide the course of gaim development. Did he know what gaim was, or did you have to explain that to him first?
If so, I guess he really was crazy…
Sounds fake to me, since when does Google track IRC? Maybe if he said “Your website says you hang out on this channel” but I’m doubtful.
“uh, hi — I searched on google and it said a ‘Sean Egan’ was in this chat room.”
Sean man, you have way too much patience!…. lol
great, much great
Scorpio in Dirty Harry 4a7d3d609129a9296bf7ac0608c2097
Nice story !!!
That is fantastic. And sad. Some grease to get features in software.
Now I know that there was probably someone to blame everytime I see something I don’t like in a piece of software
What a prick. He should have been reported to police for blackmaling.
I read a somewhat related story last spring when someone in NYC had found a cell phone from a cab and didn’t return it but gave it to his little sister. It was some teenage girl who really gave a load of crap for the guy who requested the phone back.
People like that make my blood boil. I couldn’t even think about keeping something that’s not mine and it wouldn’t be a problem for me to mail something like a wallet back in my own expense. But then again, I’m finnish. People still value honesty here.
Hehe…good stuff.
Aika hassua.
Where does this people come from
It was worth losing the $100 to get my precious file transfering by dragging and dropping into the gaim windows.
great, great story! this made my day. good thing it had a happy ending.
who would have thought, a kid from Long Island going to Binghamton.
LOL!!
This is awesome… Made my day too
PS: Thank you Lazlo for the cool feature.. of course, more thanks to Sean!
[...] LISTEN I HAVE MY RIGHTS!!!! Curios IRC log which took place somewhere in 2003-2004 at freenode. read it here [...]
What a hilarious guy. It seems to me like he was just trolling… he probably didn’t seriously want to take money or buy stuff using the credit cards.
I love the way he says things. “LISTEN! I’m talking a few hundred dude — and some stuff.”