Notices by Matt Blaze (mattblaze@federate.social)

Someone just told me (via email) that it's "unbecoming for a professor" to use language like "bullshit".

Now that's some bullshit right there.

AT&T Long Lines "Oak Hill" Tower, San Jose, CA, 2021.

All the pixels, none of the microwave energy, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/51261791084/

#photography

Captured with the Rodenstock 50mm/4.0 HR Digaron-W lens (@ f/4.5) on a Cambo WRS-1600 camera (with about 15mm of vertical shift to preserve the geometry), the Phase One IQ4-150 back (@ ISO 50) in dual exposure mode (which preserves a couple stops of additional dynamic range into the shadows).

The tower's shape is irregular; it tapers slightly.

The wide angle and panoramic orientation give a bit of context, alone on a hill (which is being rapidly encroached by adjacent residential development).

For much of the 20th century, the backbone of the AT&T "Long Lines" long distance telephone network consisted primarily of terrestrial microwave links (rather than copper or fiber cables). Towers with distinctive KS-15676 "horn" antennas could be seen on hilltops and atop switching center buildings across the US; they were simply part of the American landscape.

Most of the relay towers were simple steel structures. This brutalist concrete platform in San Jose was, I believe, of a unique design.

The San Jose Oak Hill Tower is unique in a number of ways. This particular concrete brutalist design appears not to have been used anywhere else; it seems to have been site-specific. It sits atop an underground switching center (that was partly used for a military contract), which explains the relatively hardened design.

Today the underground switch is still there, owned by AT&T, but the tower space is leased to land mobile and cellular providers. The old horn antennas at top are disconnected.

With a few exceptions (mostly towers atop downtown switching offices in populated areas), no one was trying to make any of this utilitarian communications infrastructure *beautiful*. It was form strictly following function, built to be reliable and rugged.

But there was, I think, quite a bit of beauty to find in it. I wonder if we'll look at our current neighborhood cellular towers, now often regarded as a visual blight, the same way decades after they're (inevitably) also gone.

I criticize US policing a fair bit, but I will say, the Minnesota police official who connected the dots after the first shooting and sent officers to proactively check on other elected officials in the area likely saved quite a few lives. They sadly arrived too late to stop the murders of the Hortmans, but arrived in time to ID the fleeing suspect and stop him from moving on to the next targets on his list.

@grimalkina @wendynather I'm reminded of the similarly reductive debate/moral panic, after pocket calculators came out, of whether their use in schools would cause children's math skills to atrophy.

@hyc @grimalkina @wendynather That's not actually what math is.

@hyc @grimalkina @wendynather As someone who does (and teaches) math stuff for a living, I'm grateful for the ability to easily do the calculations that lead you to the interesting stuff.

@evan @MaierAmsden @finner This is what drives me nuts about a lot of these discussions. People confidently assert “The election was stolen! They rigged the voting machines!” But when you dig a liittle, they have no idea about rigged voting machines and are upset (often reasonably) about the electoral college, gerrymandering, PAC money, or whatever.

That’s a legit discussion to have! But I wish people would just start there instead of pretending it’s about hacking.

@evan @MaierAmsden @finner (I’m not complaining about you here, just this pattern, which is maddeningly common).

@MaierAmsden @finner @evan There's more work to do, to be sure, but it's simply incorrect to suggest that nothing has been done to improve elections in recent years. Over the last 15 years we

(1) developed the formal requirement of "software independence" in elections

(2) Invented risk-limited audits, which achieve (1)

(3) have greatly diminished the use of paperless "DRE" (touchscreen) voting terminals, which are now considered obsolete because of (1) and (2).

There's been huge progress.

@MaierAmsden @finner @evan And this progress has been reflected in policies and practices across the board at the county, state, and federal levels. Elections are now considered part of national critical infrastructure, with national threat intelligence and guidance provided by CISA (something Trump cut back on, but, to his credit, he created the agency in the first place). Many states now prohibit paperless DRE and are rolling out RLAS. And cybersecurity practices have improved generally.

@MaierAmsden @finner @evan Is everything where it needs to be? Absolutely not. But by EVERY measure, election security in the US has made REMARKABLE, steady progress, and continues to do so. And this progress has been far more rapid and sustained that I thought possible a decade ago.

@MaierAmsden @finner @evan An essential, and perhaps unavoidable, irony here is that as all this progress has been made - as US elections become more secure - public confidence in the integrity of our elections seems to be at an all-time low.

This is partly because the progress is driven by (and produces) public awareness of the threats and risks elections face. This awareness is generally good - knowledge is power! - but it can lead to this perverse inversion between reality and perception.

@evan Also, they’re ripping people off based on a false hope and evidently meritless claims, promising a remedy that isn't possible. But other than that…

@evan That's historical research, not grounds for a lawsuit.

I've been seeing photos and videos of crowds at the No Kings events around the country today. I'm just overwhelmed with a sense of "wow, that's a lot of people". It lifts my spirits.

Thank you, America.

A couple of things about these claims circulating that the 2024 election was "rigged":

1. The supposed "proof" is essentially the same nonsensical statistical gobbledygook that the MAGA people were claiming about 2020, with the parties reversed.

2. There is no legal mechanism to "recount" an election after the results are certified. None. The ship has sailed.

3. SHOCKINGLY, they need funds to continue their "work"

4. Nope, not linking to it. Not giving them oxygen.