Sorry if these questions have come up before, but google searching hasn't 
pulled up anything for me.

1) How do you compare types? i.e.

w = nil
x = "foo" if w != nil # still assigns foo to x


2) What is the official irc network and channel for ruby? (#ruby-lang on 
what network?)

3) I need to take an ip and convert it to base10. Are there base 
conversion methods in Ruby? (I've found some addons and exstensions, but I 
need something that's already built in if possible)

TIA
--ghost--