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Brandon Downey

@bdowney

Infosec professional, photographer, math enthusiast, occasional augmented reality warlord. Peculiar but refined tastes in triangles, cinema, and cocktails. Some skill with Azad. Signal: bdowney.23 Opinions are my own and not those of my employer

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Latest posts by Brandon Downey @bdowney

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They blew up an elementary school Tom
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

07.03.2026 18:28 ๐Ÿ‘ 3572 ๐Ÿ” 612 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 117 ๐Ÿ“Œ 34

Singing hydrogen too cheap to meter.

07.03.2026 11:42 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Jasmine Crockett never hired a campaign manager.

07.03.2026 01:12 ๐Ÿ‘ 207 ๐Ÿ” 23 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 16 ๐Ÿ“Œ 50

So we have yet another incident where a US citizen was shot and killed by ICE, and the official ICE account differs from bodycam footage.

This is the story that took nearly a year to break and now we have the bodycam footage.

07.03.2026 02:59 ๐Ÿ‘ 183 ๐Ÿ” 90 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
06.03.2026 21:32 ๐Ÿ‘ 52 ๐Ÿ” 10 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Reading posts is a human right.

Poasting though...

07.03.2026 01:25 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Let me give you my perspective as someone who's been in infosec for a quarter century. [1]

"Saying an AI can't code is like saying a 3d printer can't extrude a ghost gun".

[1] Also event planner for my wedding as a bonus.

06.03.2026 19:01 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

This disclaimer needs to go on every Bluesky post. :P

06.03.2026 18:51 ๐Ÿ‘ 4 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I never played X-com 2 since I figured X-com 1 was perfect and could it get better?

06.03.2026 06:22 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Historian here history first time as tragedy the second time as farce.

05.03.2026 14:11 ๐Ÿ‘ 6025 ๐Ÿ” 2129 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 114 ๐Ÿ“Œ 123

Turns out lawlessness is not a winning strategy. See you at Nuremberg 2.0

05.03.2026 19:12 ๐Ÿ‘ 13250 ๐Ÿ” 2561 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 517 ๐Ÿ“Œ 343
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Never forget that this what The Washington Post said when Noem was nominated.

06.03.2026 02:45 ๐Ÿ‘ 12826 ๐Ÿ” 2855 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 745 ๐Ÿ“Œ 182

If you're at the airport and Kristi Noem is doing the ominous little message from the TSA screens, you no longer have to do anything she says. Leave your laptop in the case, whatever.

05.03.2026 19:22 ๐Ÿ‘ 29605 ๐Ÿ” 4015 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 367 ๐Ÿ“Œ 161
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YOU ASKED FOR THIS!

Downfall. Kristi Noem Edition:

06.03.2026 03:22 ๐Ÿ‘ 1676 ๐Ÿ” 563 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 70 ๐Ÿ“Œ 118

Every time a Democrat has supported this or the moral panic around social media it's been a win for Republicans and a loss for individual liberty.

Wise up!

06.03.2026 02:47 ๐Ÿ‘ 10 ๐Ÿ” 4 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

A little bit of thought later, you really missed an alignment chart, where 'compiler' is 'any function with deterministic outputs in response to inputs' is some wild interpretation.

As opposed to I guess, compilation.

06.03.2026 02:27 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I'm glad you understand that you need to be defensive about this.

The next step is reporting the news in plain English and centering the horrors of a war the US & Israel began.

Also would it kil you to hire an ombudsperson with teeth again?

06.03.2026 01:37 ๐Ÿ‘ 25 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Trust me, I've been working on enterprise use of Claude Code and it is terrifying with lots of 'do not look into laser with remaining eye' type risks. :| :| :|

06.03.2026 01:28 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I mean, that seems like something that's fixable though right?

I don't know about LLMs, but I will get the same average every time with image generators with the same seed.

06.03.2026 00:51 ๐Ÿ‘ 4 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Isn't a prompt + a seed (modulo any floating point fuckery) enough to get deterministic results from the LLM?

06.03.2026 00:49 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I read this as evidence low gas prices would accelerate global warming it's so low, lol@.

05.03.2026 23:23 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

To be 100% when he says "introspect" he probably adds mentally "in your chateau" so it's not that much of a scolding. ;)

05.03.2026 22:35 ๐Ÿ‘ 7 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I think Oklohoma has a near instant replacement rule (Unfortunately), and it must be a member of the same party.

05.03.2026 19:22 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

What's the read speed on the glass cube?

05.03.2026 18:57 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Turned out better *so far*.

I mean, somehow she floated around the edges of my social graph doing weirdly bigoted surveys, unmaking the very idea of a Sankey chart, and lately has been a kind of ... Tulpa? for a pro-billionaire's march.

05.03.2026 09:05 ๐Ÿ‘ 3 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

i have seen the fateful lightning

05.03.2026 03:57 ๐Ÿ‘ 5 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Are they just putting together two projects from companies that took anti-war stances to shame them?

Sorry the idea you need AI to do something that a spreadsheet can handle is the weirdest part of this to me.

05.03.2026 08:14 ๐Ÿ‘ 4 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

So many chances to at least go out like McCain did, and she can't even manage that!

05.03.2026 07:22 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

To be fair, a lot of 10 minute videos that should be 1 minute video but they are that long because it gets you monetization.

That said, it's Grok, so....

05.03.2026 07:07 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Oh god more lore.

05.03.2026 05:29 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0