I owe so much to IRC. I learn a huge amount of things
everyday just having discussions on the various channels in freenode. The company firewall is no more an obstacle, thanks to
http://webchat.freenode.net/ . I often have collegues coming with questions whose answer I ignore, and I redirect them to #python, #perl, #bash, #bzr, #git, #algorithms, #html5, #jquery, #go-nuts, ##C++-general, #debian ... I made a few of them fellow addicts! I came to think that the answer to wathever question I can have is just a
/msg alis list *<whatever topic>*
from me.