Month: February 2024

The Pink Datacenter – 1.1 – How this all started

Chapter 1: First steps, baby steps

1. How this all started

In the vast lecture hall housing 400 computer science engineering enthusiasts, there I stood—an 18-year-old embarking on a journey into the world of code and circuits. Alongside me (or better, in the other side of the hall) was the only other intrepid woman venturing into this uncharted territory. The crowd, a delightful mix of funny and brilliant minds, surrounded us like eager explorers ready to forge friendships.

As the intricate dance of university life unfolded, I found myself drawn to a specific group. They extended an invitation to join their digital haven, “The Golem’s Tavern,” nestled within the expansive realm of Fidonet. Eager to unravel the mysteries of this BBS kingdom, I sought guidance from the sysop, spending more than an afternoon immersed in the arcane rituals required to access this digital oasis.

My initiation into the digital realm began with the acquisition of a Linux computer, or better a repurposing of my DOS PC. Opting for a dual-boot setup with LILO, I aimed to maintain an air of innocence, ensuring my parents remained blissfully unaware of my rebellion against the omnipresent DOS. The Linux installation, delivered via 8 not-so-floppy 2.5″ disks, demanded the ritualistic act of compilation to breathe life into the operating system.

Next on the agenda were the modem drivers for my state-of-the-art Zyxel modem, a 1200 baud marvel of modern technology. GoldED, the preferred tool for editing messages, and Frontdoor, the gateway to the BBS, completed the ensemble. I proudly claimed the title of point 2:331:311.29 of Fidonet—a digital address that felt like a secret key to an alternate reality. To my kids today I say: these messages were asynchronous, but you could still connect every five minutes and make it near-real-time. Playing VGAplanets you just had to upload and download in the proximity of the server run.

The BBS became my sanctuary, a space where the introverted corners of my mind could unravel freely. In the pixelated expanse of the digital tavern, I connected with individuals who would become my friends for life. Our conversations spanned the spectrum from code snippets to late-night musings, and I reveled in the camaraderie fostered by our shared digital realm. My aka was Sherazade, loosely inspired by the heroin of One thousand and one nights.

Then came the pivotal moment—an announcement of a meetup. In the absence of the modern “meetup” designation, our rendezvous was a straightforward plan for pizza. Little did we know it would evolve into a water-drenched spectacle, echoing that first unconventional gathering of S2.E8 of the great “Halt and Catch Fire.” TV Show. I have to admit that when I saw the episode many years later, my eyes were watery and my heart skipped a beat just remembering the feeling.

The day arrived, a collision of digital avatars stepping into the corporeal world. The awkwardness of the initial encounter mirrored the scenes from the TV show, with an added touch of extraordinary weirdness. These were people I intimately knew from the depths of our online conversations, and yet, the physical connection was a revelation.

Dialogues and silences danced through the air like packets in cyberspace, each sentence a testament to our shared digital history. Some connections sparked into real-life friendships, while others fizzled out in the unpredictability of face-to-face chemistry. But every moment was tinged with amazement, an affirmation of the extraordinary journey from bits and bytes to handshakes and shared pizzas.

As the jars of water rained down in the restaurant (we were subsequently banned from it), laughter echoed the sentiment that this was a meeting of kindred spirits—geeks, nerds, and digital denizens turned friends, bound by the tapestry of our shared online escapades, testament the pure fact of being able to be there, having faced the hardship of a 1992 Linux computer. The meetup concluded not just with wet clothes but with the assurance that the friendships forged in the digital tavern were resilient enough to withstand the transition to the tangible world.

In the end, “The Golem’s Tavern” wasn’t just a BBS; it was a digital sanctum that transcended the confines of code and connected us in ways that defied the limitations of the screen. It was a celebration of the quirks, the bytes, and the friendships that bloomed in the virtual realm, leaving an indelible mark on the landscape of our university years in the early days of the 90′ decade.

It’s 1992 – you are 18 and start university – you chose to major in computer science engineering. In a 400 people course there are 2 women, including yourself. The rest of the crowd is made of funny and intelligent nerds who pamper you and all want to get to know you. You are always approached by new classmates who want to know you as it’s only you, the redhead, and Simona the blonde, these weird creatures in a land of boys. At some point you get hooked on a specific group and they invite you to join their BBS. It is under Fidonet and is called “The Golem’s tavern”. You ask for some help to the sysop and spend an afternoon with him explaining all the steps to get there: first, you need a Linux computer, better if it’s double booted with Lilo, so your parents don’t know that you got rid of the DOS. The Linux install comes in 8 floppy disks (which are already the 2.5″ so technically they are not floppy, but still annoying) that you must COMPILE for the OS to work. then it’s the turn of the modem drivers to connect to the phone line. you have a 1200 baud – or bps – Zyxel modem that is one of the latest models. you use GoldED to edit messages and Frontdoor to connect to the BBS. You are point 2:331:311.29 of Fidonet and a world suddenly opens up to you where you find yourself free to express yourself without the constraints of your introvert mind. You are able to really connect to some people in the group in a weird and deep way, and they become your friends for life. At some point when they organize a meetup (it was not called meetup at the times, we just went for pizza that ended up with us throwing buckets of water to each other at the restaurant) it is basically like the scene in “Halt and Catch Fire” when the BBS people finally meet in person: weird and extraordinary, that feeling you are among your bunch. You know these people intimately and deeply from your online conversations and yet there is no physical connection until you meet them. In some cases, this sparks to life, in other it just doesn’t click, but in the end, it is amazing all the way. Write in nerdy, techie, funny tone, with lots of details on the software and gear, and using dialogues for the meetup.

my own book club (2023)

If you are familiar with this blog, you might know I started reading books (I won’t say exclusively, but a good 90% of them) in digital format back in 2016, with great results in terms of speed, satisfaction, user experience, availability of titles.

because I am an engineer at heart, I wanted to understand better what was the impact of digital on my book reading. here’s the result for last year, 2023, with number of books and pages read per month. I’ll be also posting stats for years 2016-2024 so we can reasonably start making some connections between the books I read and what was happening in my life and in the world.

here’s my book list for 2023, I read 27 books, a total of 12748 pages (highest number ever), with an average of 1062,3 pages/month.

  • Stranger in a Strange Land  Heinlein, Robert A. 610
  • To Be A Cat Haig, Matt 306
  • Mendeleyev’s Dream: The Quest for the Elements Strathern, Paul 320
  • The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma  Kolk, Bessel van der 417
  • Reamde Neal Stephenson 1055
  • The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.: A Novel Neal Stephenson 769
  • Termination Shock Neal Stephenson 710
  • Anathem Neal Stephenson 1083
  • Il vento conosce il mio nome Isabel Allende 304
  • The Memory Box  Kathryn Hughes 430
  • Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner) Hernan Diaz 415
  • Either/Or Elif Batuman 358
  • Lessons Ian McEwan 484
  • The Testaments  Margaret Atwood  401
  • A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth: Stories  Daniel Mason  241
  • The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver 570
  • Foregone  Russell Banks  322
  • The Idiot Elif Batuman 419
  • Demon Copperhead Barbara Kingsolver 644
  • Still Life  Sarah Winman 449
  • The Keeper of Stories  Sally Page 386
  • Violeta Isabel Allende 341
  • A Gentleman in Moscow  Amor Towles 378
  • Lessons in Chemistry Bonnie Garmus 392
  • Capolinea Malaussène Daniel Pennac 371
  • Genuine Fraud E. Lockhart 290
  • Family of Liar E. Lockhart 283

The Pink Datacenter – Introduction

Foreword

I wrote this book in November 2023, out of the NaNoWriMo challenge, where you have to write 50.000 words in a month, or 1.600 words every day for the whole November. I have always wanted to share my work experience within the technology realm, mostly due to being a white fly and never really fitting the stereotype of computer geek, but also because I have genuinely loved all my jobs, the experiences I have made and the people I met. I was lucky, I know, but also maybe smart enough to run from difficult moments and humble enough to always ask for help and find people (mostly men) willing to help me navigate this tough world.

Because of my technology obsession, I wanted to use ChatGPT, to increase speed and improve my English (being non native it’s not always easy to find the right words), and in the end I decided to also include the prompts (for those who are not familiar with AI, prompts are the questions posed to it, in order to shape the response in the way you want it) to make this experiment a shared one. I have reviewed both, the prompts and the responses, to match my train of thought and make it more readable, but in any case, you already know you wouldn’t get the same answers twice. 😊

Also, I have changed some of the character names to respect a bit of privacy but most of the facts are true and maybe sometimes just embellished to make them funnier to read.

Enjoy the ride, and the tech thrill of yet another technology breakthrough!

Write with a sarcastic, friendly, witty and feminist tone, no dialogues, an intro to this book. It’s about the experience of a technical female professional spanning the 90 and 2000s and up to this day, and it’s filled with anecdotes and funny situations but also a spark scoring of the D&I experience through the lens of today’s standards.

Introduction

Welcome, dear reader, to a journey through the annals of technology, where bits and bytes intertwine with the sassy keystrokes of a young woman navigating the digital wilderness. In this compendium of wit, sarcasm, and unapologetic feminism, we embark on an odyssey spanning the ’90s, the tumultuous 2000s, and up to the present day. Brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride filled with anecdotes, technical escapades, and a no-holds-barred exploration of diversity and inclusion through the acerbic lens of today’s standards.

Our journey kicks off in the ’90s, an era when the internet was a nascent realm, and women in tech were as rare as a glitch-free operating system. Our intrepid heroine, armed with a 1200-baud modem and a penchant for defying stereotypes, dives headfirst into the world of bulletin board systems (BBS). Picture a tech-savvy sorceress, weaving connections with fellow wizards in a niche realm where code was the language of friendship.

Fast forward to the late ’90s, an epoch where the telecommunications dance floor beckoned. Our protagonist, now a 21-year-old gal with good computer skills, pirouettes through a sea of bewildered onlookers who can rarely fathom a woman leading the IT conversation. Oh, the symphony of sarcastic remarks and raised eyebrows, as our leading lady dismantles PBXs adjuncts with wit and satisfaction.

As the new millennium dawns, our fearless tech maven transitions to a role in customer support for a telco company. The yawns and gasps from skilled and unskilled users become a comedic backdrop to her days, with IVR systems playing the supporting role. A cacophony of problems and patches and the occasional user-from-hell provide the punchlines in this uproarious comedy of errors.

Our tale then shifts to a new frontier in telecommunications – the Centers of Excellence (CoE) for Tier III engineers. Our protagonist ascends to the upper echelons of tech stardom, flying business class, reveling in 5-star hotels, and facing the dichotomy of boredom and burnout. The glory days of solving mission-critical issues by the lake or swapping tapes in a vault become the anecdotes that pepper this chapter.

A tempting offer from a rival company lures our protagonist away from Nortel Networks. A product manager’s role beckons, promising no nightly duty calls and a hefty paycheck. The transition is seamless, and the initial months are a whirlwind of navigating a larger subsidiary. The narrative pivots to a new role in 2001, as our tech virtuoso enters the realm of Nortel Networks and the complexities of its switch. Analog and digital telephony make space for VoIP to take center stage, with our heroine decoding the intricacies of serial or IP connections to specialized adjuncts. The tech landscape evolves, and so does our leading lady’s prowess. However, the abrupt turn of events post-9/11 throws our heroine into a whirlpool of rumors, layoffs, and a sudden end to the newfound role.

A Cisco partner (and its technology), Dimension Data, becomes the next chapter in our protagonist’s journey, a realm of IP telephony breakthroughs and the birth of the Cisco IPCC. The early 2000s usher in a new era of technology, and our leading lady is at the forefront, navigating the complexities with humor and a flair for the dramatic. The narrative unfolds as a startup venture, complete with acquisitions, travels, and the exhilaration of managing a team. The camaraderie with old pals from the BBS days adds a touch of nostalgia to this chapter.

As the recession of 2008 hits, our protagonist has already entered the world of Aspect, an American giant in the contact center business, but unknown,and a startup in the southern European market. The initial years are a whirlwind of learning, travel, and collaboration, only to face the harsh realities of downsizing an already small startup. The sudden departure of a mentor leaves a void, and the struggle to find meaning in corporate decisions becomes a prevalent theme.

The final act of the 2010s unfolds, with our heroine juggling the demands of a burgeoning family and a demanding job. The unexpected loss of a parent adds a somber note, and the protagonist finds solace in work as a distraction from personal grief.

A reflection on the Discrimination and Inclusion (D&I) score becomes the prelude to the MaaS (Mother as a Service) manifesto. All jobs are dissected with a feminist lens, sparking a call to rewrite societal narratives and usher in an era of equality. As you flip through the pages of this tech-driven epic, prepare to be regaled with tales of coding escapades, telecommunication triumphs, and the tumultuous journey of a woman thriving in a male-dominated landscape. Join our protagonist as she navigates the digital realm with a blend of humor, sarcasm, and unyielding feminism, leaving an indelible mark on the binary tapestry of the tech wonderland.

To be continued…

The Pink Datacenter – my book

📚 Introducing my New Book: “The Pink Datacenter”, written this last November for the NaNoWriMo initiative with the help of my friend the AI chatbot.

🚀 Over the years, I’ve accumulated a treasure trove of stories, anecdotes, and insights from the world of technology, and I can’t wait to share them with you. From the early days of the internet to the cutting-edge innovations of today, my book chronicles the adventures, challenges, and triumphs of navigating the ever-evolving landscape of tech with the wide-open eyes of a girl who loves technology.

📖 Starting this month, I’ll be publishing excerpts from the book right here on my blog, one paragraph at a time. Each snippet will offer a glimpse into the fascinating world of tech, with humorous anecdotes, witty observations, and valuable lessons learned along the way. Whether you’re a seasoned tech enthusiast or simply curious about the inner workings of the industry, or in search of a #girlintech role model, I guarantee there will be something for everyone in “The Pink Datacenter.”

✨ Stay tuned for my first installment this week, and get ready to embark on a journey through the highs and lows of the tech world like never before. With “The Pink Datacenter,” I invite you to join me as I explore the past, present, and future of technology, one paragraph at a time.