The Lotus Effect

Your hosts Pheonix and PhoneBoy talk about health, happiness, higher consciousness, and hi-tech hijinks!

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Streaming LIVE on Saturdays at 5pm Eastern (4 Central)!

Producers of other fine shows:

We are a Value for Value podcast. We put our content out there and ask: what’s it worth to you? Here's how you can send it back:

The Lotus Effect Chat

Join us during the live shows! You can join our chat one of three ways:

We are logged into chat 24/7 and you can use that to message us.

What is IRC?

IRC, a.k.a. Internet Relay Chat, is a text-based chat protocol created in the 1980s that focuses on group communications in channels or rooms. Servers can be a single node or a network of them. Clients range from command line tools, desktop GUI applications, web applications, and mobile applications

Our chat room (a.k.a. the Lotus Lounge) is hosted on the ZeroNode IRC network. The rest of this page will tell you how to use an IRC client to connect to #lotuseffect on ZeroNode.

IRC Clients

Given that IRC existed before most people even knew what the Internet was, practically every platform has multiple IRC clients for it. The above links are to web-based clients that are configured to connect to ZeroNode. If you want to use your own client, here are a few suggestions:

Obviously not a comprehensive list.

Configuring Your IRC Client

The main information you need to configure in your IRC client is the following:

  • Hostname: irc.zeronode.net
  • Port: 6697 (TLS/SSL) or 6667 (without TLS/SSL)
  • Password: empty

Choose a nickname you will be known as, optionally registering it. Nickname registration is required to interact in some channels (e.g. #noagenda)

Hexchat Instructions

As setting up Hexchat is not the most obvious thing, I've provided some specific instructions with screenshots below..

After installing and opening the app, you'll see a screen similar to the following:

You need to configure it to connect to ZeroNode with your desired username. Change the nicknames and username as desired. Click on the Add button, type ZeroNode and press enter. You should now see:

Make sure ZeroNode is selected and click Edit. You should see something like the following:

newserver/6697 should be highlighted. Click on edit, change it to irc.zeronode.net/6697 and press retun. Optionally, select "Connect to this Network Automatically" so you are connected to IRC when the application starts. Also optional: if you're registered your nick with NickServ, enter the password for your nick on the screen. Screen should look similar to the following:

The ZeroNode IRC server has numerous channels. To ensure you are joining our chat room, add our channel. Click on Autojoin channels, click add, type #lotuseffect under channel, press return. Add other channels if desired.

Click close, ensure ZeroNode is selected in the Network List and click Connect:

Click connect and you will be joined to our chat!

IRCCloud Configuration

IRCCloud is a hosted IRC client you can access via the web or mobile apps. It offers both free and paid options. A free account will keep you logged into the chat for two hours when not connected, which should help when used on a mobile device.

The settings for IRCCloud are as follows (NickServ password only needed if you've registered your nick on ZeroNode):

Using IRC

IRC has a number of commands that are entered into the chat window and start with a /. The slash must be the first character. You can see a nice list if you're interested.

For the most part, you will not need these commands. One that is worth noting is for private messages. For example, to send the message "testing" to PhoneBoy33, you'd type:

/msg PhoneBoy33 testing

When you private message someone, a seperate window will open up with that person. You don't need to use /msg in this window.

ZeroNode Channel List

There are multiple channels on the server. Here are the more interesting ones. You can get a complete list of channels by typing /list into your IRC client:

To join a room (for example, the No Agenda Troll Room):

/join #noagenda

Background network connections are limited by iOS and Android. To stay connected, you will need to use an IRC bouncer, which effectively acts as a proxy buffering the messages for you. You can set up ZNC or use something like BNC4Free, which runs a a public bouncer that you can use. Or you can install something like The Lounge on your own server and access a persisten IRC connection from anywhere.

Registering Your Nickname on ZeroNode

While not necessary to interact on most channels, some channels (specifically #noagenda) require registration to do so. This is also necessary to ensure no one else uses your nickname. Your nickname is registered by interacting with NichServ (a bot) through a private query.

Registering your nickname is a one-time process and is done using the following command:

/ns register password youremail

Replace password with your desired password and the email address that will be used to send further instructions. It's also used in case you forgot your password and you need to do a password recovery. It is not used for any other purposes.

Every time you connect to the chat, you need to identify as the owner of the nickname. This is done with the following command after connecting (replace password with your actual password):

/id password

Advanced users can also use their password as the server/SASL password, which is configured in your IRC client.