A nerd nostalgia thread of possible #RetroComputing interest:
From 1993-1994, I was a “technical assistant” in the RF Engineering department of #Comcast#Cellular. Back then, Comcast was a scrappy regional cable #TV operator making its first foray into #mobile telephony, not the multinational #telecommunications and media behemoth we know today. (1/6)
I had previously whipped up an #Excel#VisualBasic for Applications (#VBA) Erlang B function to calculate #cellular tower quality of service (#QoS), so my other big project was modeling #Comcast Cellular’s network call capacity for an overdue upgrade from the (analog!) #1980s-era Advanced #Mobile Phone System (AMPS).
My first corporate #programming lesson: toy code will be expanded regardless of scalability. (4/6)
Before moving to greener (and higher-paying 🤑) pastures, one of my two big "technical assistant" projects for #Comcast#Cellular was upgrading the engineers' Sun #Unix workstations from the #BSD-based #SunOS 4 to #SVR4-based SunOS 5 (#Solaris 2), and from #NIS / #YellowPages to NIS+.
In hindsight, it was a bad idea to make both changes at once, but I was a kid entranced by novelty and not yet very considerate of my users during the inevitable downtimes. (3/6)
Just what is there to hash out? Fire Ronna McDaniel or NBC is done.
“Top executives from NBC News were expected to meet Tuesday to hash out the growing controversy around her recent hire, according to two people familiar with the matter, in a bid to stop a growing insurrection by the NBCUniversal unit’s editorial staff, ” Variety reports.
First, there’s the message sent by hiring McDaniel on a nearly $300,000-a-year contract amid a growing sense inside the Washington bureau that Comcast sees its news division, which has been subject to recent layoffs and other cuts, as a divisive nuisance to be stripped down.
“Across MSNBC they have been cutting contributors,” said one of the network’s hosts. “So everyone’s like, what the fuck? You found 300 for her?”
If NBC wants to get their money's worth from Ronna McDaniel, may I politely suggest that they keep her in the dark, in the basement, chained up, until she spills all about Trump and his corrupt administration.