Matt Blaze

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Contacting Matt Blaze

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@mattblaze@federate.social

Matt Blaze's Information

Matt Blaze's Bio

Scientist, safecracker, etc. McDevitt Professor of Computer Science and Law at Georgetown. Formerly UPenn, Bell Labs. So-called expert on election security and stuff. twitter.com/mattblaze on the Twitter. Slow photographer. Radio nerd. Blogs occasionally at mattblaze.org/blog . I probably won't see your DM; use something else. He/Him. Uses this wrong.

Matt Blaze's Posts

Matt Blaze has 159 posts.


Matt Blaze

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Captured with the Phase One Achromatic back and the Rodenstock 32mm/4.0 HR-Digaron lens, with the back shifted down 8.5mm to maintain the building's geometry. I brought out contrast in the sky with a polarizer, but otherwise used no color contrast filtration. The camera was positioned across the avenue about 10 meters up from the plaza level (at the bottom of the "canyon" of the skyline reflected in the bottom center of the building).


Love them or hate them, mid-century rectangular glass curtain buildings like this are easy to dismiss as being "boring", but I think that misses something.

Reflections of the surroundings become part of the facade, which changes at different angles and throughout the day. I visited several times and made dozens of photos, all quite different, before I settled on this one, and there are infinitely many photos others could make, all unique. (Similar to the new World Trade Center in this regard).

by Matt Blaze ;


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Matt Blaze

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United Nations Secretariat Building, NYC, 2021.

All the pixels, none of the motorcades or protests, at flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/51


Captured with the Phase One Achromatic back and the Rodenstock 32mm/4.0 HR-Digaron lens, with the back shifted down 8.5mm to maintain the building's geometry. I brought out contrast in the sky with a polarizer, but otherwise used no color contrast filtration. The camera was positioned across the avenue about 10 meters up from the plaza level (at the bottom of the "canyon" of the skyline reflected in the bottom center of the building).

by Matt Blaze ;

@mattblaze I love the reflections.

by Michael Richardson ;

Tags: #photography


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I have mixed feelings about Le Corbusier's architecture (to say nothing of his urban planning philosophy - he clearly influenced Robert Moses), but I think the UN Secretariat building was one of his successes.

An aside: If you look at the full resolution version (downloadable on flickr), you can see the HF amateur radio antenna on the roof. Nerds are everywhere, even/especially at the UN. There's also a family taking a group picture on the street in front.


@mattblaze Speaking of, Robert Moses secured the land for the U.N. building. It was a dicey thing. In an alternate universe close to ours, the U.N. building is in Boston

by Misuse Case ;

@mattblaze I watched a movie couple nights ago - Mister 880 - with a scene at the interim UN building in Flushing Meadows. The movie only showed a few interior scenes so I looked up the exterior. Totally generic Euro-bureau-palace, like the League of Nations but smaller. So that's what the current building was reacting to.

by Jef Poskanzer :batman: ;


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Matt Blaze

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The UN Secretariat building was designed by an international team of architects (most notably Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer) and completed in 1950. It was the first important "International Style" modernist skyscraper in New York - exemplified here here by a simple, unadorned rectangle with reflective glass curtain walls on either side.

Glass box office buildings became almost cliche in mid-century NYC, but the UN remains unusual in being set apart in the skyline, uncrowded by neighbors.


I have mixed feelings about Le Corbusier's architecture (to say nothing of his urban planning philosophy - he clearly influenced Robert Moses), but I think the UN Secretariat building was one of his successes.

An aside: If you look at the full resolution version (downloadable on flickr), you can see the HF amateur radio antenna on the roof. Nerds are everywhere, even/especially at the UN. There's also a family taking a group picture on the street in front.

by Matt Blaze ;

@mattblaze Took me three tries not to read "Oscar Meyer" (as in weiner). [Yes, I'm that immature]. But then I started to wonder if "hotdog architecture" is a thing.

by Michael Richardson ;


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Matt Blaze

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Love them or hate them, mid-century rectangular glass curtain buildings like this are easy to dismiss as being "boring", but I think that misses something.

Reflections of the surroundings become part of the facade, which changes at different angles and throughout the day. I visited several times and made dozens of photos, all quite different, before I settled on this one, and there are infinitely many photos others could make, all unique. (Similar to the new World Trade Center in this regard).


The UN Secretariat building was designed by an international team of architects (most notably Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer) and completed in 1950. It was the first important "International Style" modernist skyscraper in New York - exemplified here here by a simple, unadorned rectangle with reflective glass curtain walls on either side.

Glass box office buildings became almost cliche in mid-century NYC, but the UN remains unusual in being set apart in the skyline, uncrowded by neighbors.

by Matt Blaze ;

@mattblaze My concern with those are the bird deaths.

by Carolyn ;

@mattblaze

> Reflections of the surroundings

Reflections are what make Cloudgate (AKA The Bean) in Chicago so mesmerizing. It's interesting in pictures but on an entirely different level in person. I hope if you get to Chicago you get a chance to view it (if you haven't already.)

by HankB ;

@mattblaze as an architect and a photographer, one thing photography seems to be challenged by is to fully show the spaces that architecture creates for people. photography unfortunately flattens everything in one single rectangle, and all the wonderful spatial dimensions and relations tend to get lost. that is why architectural photography is so difficult, and why architects have to make a myriad of drawings and models to explain their creations

by Victor Zambrano ;


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Matt Blaze

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Captured with the Phase One Achromatic back and the Rodenstock 32mm/4.0 HR-Digaron lens, with the back shifted down 8.5mm to maintain the building's geometry. I brought out contrast in the sky with a polarizer, but otherwise used no color contrast filtration. The camera was positioned across the avenue about 10 meters up from the plaza level (at the bottom of the "canyon" of the skyline reflected in the bottom center of the building).


Love them or hate them, mid-century rectangular glass curtain buildings like this are easy to dismiss as being "boring", but I think that misses something.

Reflections of the surroundings become part of the facade, which changes at different angles and throughout the day. I visited several times and made dozens of photos, all quite different, before I settled on this one, and there are infinitely many photos others could make, all unique. (Similar to the new World Trade Center in this regard).

by Matt Blaze ;


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Replies: 1

Boosts: 1

Matt Blaze

United Nations Secretariat Building, NYC, 2021.

All the pixels, none of the motorcades or protests, at flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/51


Captured with the Phase One Achromatic back and the Rodenstock 32mm/4.0 HR-Digaron lens, with the back shifted down 8.5mm to maintain the building's geometry. I brought out contrast in the sky with a polarizer, but otherwise used no color contrast filtration. The camera was positioned across the avenue about 10 meters up from the plaza level (at the bottom of the "canyon" of the skyline reflected in the bottom center of the building).

by Matt Blaze ;

@mattblaze I love the reflections.

by Michael Richardson ;

Tags: #photography


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Matt Blaze

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@EricFielding @varmazis @munin thanks for the information. I will try to tell more plausible jokes here in the future.


Mentions: @EricFielding@mastodon.social @munin@infosec.exchange


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Matt Blaze

Matt Blaze Boosted

Captured with a DSLR and a 24mm shifting lens, shifted vertically to preserve geometry.

The tiny ghost town of Harvard, one of a series of often extravagantly named, largely abandoned communities along the Union Pacific Railroad and former Route 66 in the Mojave, was perhaps a victim of an Interstate highway system that passed it by.

I think the couch is still there, if you need one.



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Matt Blaze

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Stone House (with Couch), Harvard, CA, 2010.

All the pixels, as-is and final sale, at flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/46


Tags: #photography


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Matt Blaze

@chris most impractical impulse purchase ever.



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Matt Blaze

Anyway, it’s mine now, Donald.



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Matt Blaze

Damnit. I just accidentally clicked on the “buy it now” button for Greenland and it already charged my credit card. I don’t think there’s even space in the mailroom for this.


@mattblaze waiting for the mayor of Kallstadt to announce they need the USA for communal security and they'll send the Gemeindediener if necessary...

by benny ;

@mattblaze Bad news - it is ‘buyer collect’

by OnlyMe ;

@mattblaze The listing I saw was for FAS delivery only. Easy enough to miss during checkout.

by Joborg ;

@mattblaze Ask for the Fuller projection and it might just fit.

by Alistair K ;

@mattblaze ahh. Perhaps they’ll issue you Greenland as an NFT.
(are these still a thing?).

by Nikolai Hampton 💾 ;


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Matt Blaze

@a000d4f7a91939d0e71df1646d7a48 thanks!



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Matt Blaze

@platymew Would prefer a product I can buy (and tell people to buy), but this is helpful - thanks!



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Matt Blaze

Captured with a DSLR and a 24mm shifting lens, shifted vertically to preserve geometry.

The tiny ghost town of Harvard, one of a series of often extravagantly named, largely abandoned communities along the Union Pacific Railroad and former Route 66 in the Mojave, was perhaps a victim of an Interstate highway system that passed it by.

I think the couch is still there, if you need one.



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Matt Blaze

Stone House (with Couch), Harvard, CA, 2010.

All the pixels, as-is and final sale, at flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/46


Tags: #photography


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Matt Blaze

Anyone know of a USB-C power supply with multiple ports (and that can negotiate the usual range of voltages) that does NOT briefly drop power to every port every time something is connected to any port?

(This seems to be an annoyingly common behavior among all the major brands I've tried.)

Actual experience >> speculation.

Thanks!



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Matt Blaze

@ai6yr and it's just JANUARY



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Matt Blaze

@ai6yr What a nightmare.



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