Notices by Matt Blaze (mattblaze@federate.social)

So Trump (president) has settled with Trump (citizen) for a $ 1.7 billion slush fund he can dole out to his friends and supporters plus a permanent get out of jail (and audits) free card from the IRS.

One of those two must be a very good negotiator. The other one, not so much,.

@DaveMWilburn Because this is all perfectly legal and normal, they had to include paragraphs G and H, which explain how all this is perfectly legal and normal, just in case the reader didn't see how perfectly legal and normal all this is.

@DaveMWilburn One thing I'm curious about is how large a kickback recipients of the fund payments will have to send back to Trump. 40% seems fair, but I'm not sure what the going rate is these days.

Peter’s NYT obituary: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/obituaries/peter-g-neumann-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.jVA.pDm5.QUlwAMJBQtDV

You may have heard that Peter Neumann passed away yesterday at the age of 93.

I cannot do his memory and legacy justice here, but I will say that his work (and friendship and support) influenced almost everything I've worked on. He was one of the first computer scientists to confront (well before it was popular to do so) the fact that computers and software are unreliable in both theory and practice.

KGEI Transmitter Building, Redwood City, CA, 2024.

All the pixels, with worldwide coverage, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/54131707918

#photography

"CARTWHEEL" Tower, Fort Reno, Washington, DC, 2020.

All the pixels, with absolutely no secret government bunker underneath, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/49576247768

#photography

Captured with the Rodenstock 23mm/5.6 HR Digaron-S lens (@ f/6,3), Phase One IQ4-150 back (@ ISO 50), Phase One XT camera (1/25 sec exposure).

This unassuming cylindrical tower, at first glance perhaps a grain silo or water tower, was part of a secret "continuity of government" microwave communications network. Built in the early 1960's, a network of similar towers located around the capital region linked the White House with critical sites such as Camp David, Raven Rock, and Mount Weather.

The upper white section of the tower is actually a plexiglass radome, concealing various microwave and UHF radio antennas.

CARTWHEEL and its cousins were decommissioned around 1990. Most of the towers, mainly atop mountains in remote areas, were demolished or left to rot. However, CARTWHEEL and CORKSCREW (on a mountain near the Appalachian trail in central Maryland) have been maintained in good condition, now repurposed by the FAA.

Despite CARTWHEEL being located in the middle of a residential neighborhood in a busy city and staffed by military personnel, officials went to great lengths to conceal the true purpose of these towers. They hid in plain sight, appearing to be silos or water towers (they even used civilian water trucks to send crews to some of the towers).

It was only after the cold war ended that the details of the network were declassified.

Obsolete secret infrastructure like CARTWHEEL tower, only revealed decades later, intrigues me not just for its scale and design, but also for the obvious question it gives rise to. If this stuff effectively managed to stay unnoticed for decades, what newer secrets are hiding under our noses today?

@skinnylatte But not quite at the "German tourist" level of Mexican food ignorance. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/16/judge-dismisses-lawsuit-new-york-taqueria-sauce

My entire platform for president is to make it a felony to put a USB-C connector on a device that can only charge from a USB-A power supply.

I have no idea how Hantavirus will play out, but I am going to remember the most important lesson I learned from the COVID lockdowns and run out and get a haircut tomorrow. Then I'll pick up toilet paper.

No, not “maybe later”. Never.

I do not want notifications from your app, and I am completely confident that I never, ever, will in the future.

Also, it’s not about me, it’s about you, app. You’re creepy and controlling.

@Alice After many years of as the premier dinosaur HMO, DinoCare had to re-pivot to the automotive market after the extinction destroyed their customer base.

@ai6yr Is this for emergency alerting? That seems like a very specific requirement that doesn't correlate especially well with reliability. Why not satellite or terrestrial wireless? And is fiber service even available everywhere there are camps?

@ai6yr Once again, it would be great if there were simple consumer/lite-commercial-grade multi-receiver EAS boxes available. But there are only specialized boxes aimed at broadcast stations. (That's how the cellphone companies are getting their alerts (in many cases)).

@ai6yr Yeah, except NOAA doesn't have great coverage and doesn't generally pick up alerts they didn't originate. What you really want is a 3 or 4 receiver package, monitoring NOAA and the local primaries.

You might be wondering why I'm setting at home instead of the Met Gala. I'm boycotting the Gala in protest of Jeff Bezos's sponsorship.

Also because I wasn't invited. Plus at fancypants events like that I end up sitting in the corner by myself looking at my watch every few minutes.