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Ned Pyle
@nedpyle.com

I worked at one of the big three *tower* real estate companies at the height of the wireless bubble. Companies that just owned the land, tower, power, & flashing lights & leased to all the providers to hang up their gear.

Ned Pyle
@nedpyle.com

There was so much money flowing in 2003 that we built a datacenter that was mainly *for looks*. The walls were glass for easy touring. 40 plasma screens made to look like NORAD so that visiting AT&T executives would see our 10,000 dots on a huge map.

Some Random Dave
@somerandomdave.bsky.social

The f**ked up thing is that the folks I'm moonlighting with have one of these (they aren't plasma screens, but LCDs have improved a lot), and they actually pretend sitting people at desks looking at the wall-o-screens is providing operational monitoring.

Some Random Dave
@somerandomdave.bsky.social

I mean, it _looks_ impressive if you don't understand it, but it doesn't actually provide useful information, and the people at the desks have zero ability to trigger any kind of response. And yet, the customer management has decreed that it will be staffed 24/7.

Ned Pyle
@nedpyle.com

All for show. We didn’t stare at a giant wall of monitors, if the power dropped or a bulb burnt out in a tower, we got SMS alerts. You had a few minutes to tell the FAA before you started pulling $1M/hour fine. The servers were purple to match the L3 switch, the CTO liked purple, thought it popped

Ned Pyle
@nedpyle.com

There was so much cash flying around that when I’d spec out a new set of servers and get estimates they’d make me buy twice as many just to fill the racks the whole way.