Notices by Matt Blaze (mattblaze@federate.social)

The scale of these wind farms is beyond what we're equipped to process in day-to-day human experience. They conquer the landscape in ways we can't fully comprehend even when they're in front of us. In a sense, they're abstract sculptures of themselves, mostly visible in fleeting glances from interstate highways or airplane windows.

Infrastructure is heroic.

This was captured near the Tesla substation (no relation to the car company) near Altamont Pass with a DSLR and a 400mm lens, compressing the turbines in a way that made them resemble a histogram.

There's a *lot* of power being generated in those hills. There was an audible hum in the air and vibrations could be felt in the ground. In some spots, the camera rebooted from induced currents.

Infrastructure like this is easy to ignore, but has an accidental beauty that I think is worth examining.

Wind Turbines, near Tracy, CA, 2010

All the pixels, no wind required, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/4491948497

#photography

Once again, I'm reminded of how much less well I understand election systems than someone who just spent 15 minutes with a search engine.

It's especially rewarding when I spend time carefully answering someone's election systems question and they respond with "well, maybe, but I'd rather hear from a *real* expert."

Anyway, if you want to *become* a real expert on election systems, I know of no better way to start than to sign up to be a poll worker with your local elections office. They need the help and you'll learn a ton!

Also, in addition to the legal timeline, there is a practical reality to contend with here: there is no USPS system that implements the executive order yet, and nothing for states and county election administrators to integrate (and test) their own systems with even if they wanted to.

And there is simply no time for that to happent before ballots have to start going out for the November midterms, which is very soon (based on both statutory deadlines and practicalities).

@heidilifeldman

And there are states (both red and blue) that rely on vote by mail as a primary voting method. Requiring those states to not send out their ballots until the USPS systems are ready is tantamount to telling them they can't hold elections in November, which is a position that even the most rabidly pro-administration court is unlikely to take.

@heidilifeldman

Remember that elections in most states are run by county offices - that's where the ballots are printed, sent from, returned to, and processed and counted. These offices range from moderately sizeable (places like NYC and LA) to utterly tiny, skewed toward the latter.

Just the election office IT side of complying with the executive order and integrating their systems with the USPS is a MASSIVE undertaking, something normally done with a year or more of lead time and funding.

@heidilifeldman

RE: https://mastodon.social/@heidilifeldman/117209346171417433

Great (as usual) thread by @heidilifeldman on the current status of the various cases challenging the administration's executive order on vote-by-mail.

Note that how / whether the exec order will affect mail voting in the midterms effectively rests entirely on procedural issues at this point. The merits haven't been addressed (or even fully briefed) yet, and won't be before November.

It's been widely reported that former Rep. Eric Swalwell, a longtime Trump critic under investigation for sexual assault, had his electronics confiscated at an airport by the FBI last month. It's messy story in which facts are still emerging.

But what caught my eye as a surveillance nerd was this (paywalled) story https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/09/eric-swalwell-air-marshals-fbi/688489/ about his flight in. Apparently a team of Air Marshalls was assigned to watch him in flight and attempt to shoulder surf any passwords he entered en route.

This is interesting for a few reasons.Air Marshalls are specially trained officers who fly in plainclothes on regular rights, mostly to be ready to intervene during a hijacking, etc. They are not normally part of this sort of criminal investigation, except in very special cirucmstances.

I assume shoulder surfing passwords is a fairly specialized skill to do well. Are air marshals routinely trained to do this? If so, it suggests they have rather different role than we've been led to believe.

The other thing is that I'd imagine even with highly trained observers posing as passengers seated near him, the chances this would be successful at capturing something would be fairly low. He'd have to enter the passwords while they're watching, and with a reasonably good view of the keyboard and screen, all the while being undetected. This doesn't seem like a sure thing, but rather more a hail mary you'd only attempt if you REALLY wanted the passwords as part of a very important investigation.

And now, of course, I have another (not) hypothetical for my surveillance course. Do you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in passwords you enter from your airplane seat? What's the legal standard here? What if communications is involved? Etc.

Also, you don't hear the phrase "shoulder surfing" much these days. Its heyday was during the 80's and 90's, referring to people who'd hang around banks of payphones at places like airports and attempt to watch people entering (then valuable) long distance calling card numbers.

As a general rule, observing things with your unaided human senses from places you're legally entitled to be is usually not considered a "search" for the purposes of the fourth amendment. But there are a lot of qualifiers in there, and a lot depends on specific facts and circumstances.

@lispi314 The use of assistive technology doesn't automatically make it a search. But it makes the analysis more complex. For example, the use of hidden microphones almost always requires a warrant. But standard hearing aids don't.

Cathedral of Learning, University of Pittsburgh, 2023

All the pixels, no course registration required, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/52977939495

#photography

Captured with the Rodenstock 50mm Digaron lens and about 13mm of vertical shift to maintain the geometry (but several architectural features - setbacks and tapers in the building design - still make it appear to converge toward the top).

Pittsburgh's 42 story "Cathedral of Learning" houses offices and classrooms for the University of Pittsburgh. Completed in 1937, it took 11 years to construct. It remains the tallest academic building in the US.

The lobby is also gorgeous, and worth a visit.

I really like the concept (and execution here) of a "secular cathedral". It satisfies our urge to build great monuments without the requirement to accept any particular dogma.