iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Zachary Cook

P(aul) Frazee @pfrazee.com · 07/04/2026

The post-quantum cryptography timeline accelerating at the same time that mythos is creating mass CVEs is really threatening to alter my roadmaps

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 14/02/2026

Here's Sus Scrofa. Port of long dormant photo forensics software Ghiro. Useful for detecting forged photos, and cataloging evidence of people doing crimes. Especially useful for identifying people that cover their faces while committing crimes across multiple cities. github.com/zacdirect/su...

github.com

GitHub - zacdirect/sus-scrofa: Automated image forensics tool

Automated image forensics tool. Contribute to zacdirect/sus-scrofa development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 14/02/2026

Related... I decided to see if I could bring the core of a 10-year-old image forensics program into the modern age. Moved from python 2 to 3, updated all styles and reports to modern libraries, added AI/ML detection, and closed all of its open issue feature requests in a few days of casual prompts.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 14/02/2026

Approximately 6 months ago agentic coding moved into the "not dogshit" category. That's enough for the industry to move on. The art of great coding will always have value, but not monetarily... Not anymore... At least not at scale. Thanks, I hate it.

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Reposted by Zachary Cook

Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 14/02/2026

Tell any of the scientists you know who have remained on the site everyone still calls Twitter, even though it's nothing like Twitter.

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Reposted by Zachary Cook

southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Calling the requirement for a judicial warrant before entering a person’s home one of the Democrats’ “new restrictions on federal immigration agents” crosses the line into outright falsehood. It’s in the Bill of Rights! A rule as old as the republic.

WaPo article excerpt including the sentence: “Democrats demanded new accountability measures for field agents, including requirements that agents wear body cameras and don't wear masks, and that agents get judicial warrants before entering people's homes.”

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 25/01/2026

I had heard "The Fate Of Thomas Light" as an end to a years long story where the good guys lost. Reading the notes while unavoidably tearing up... My wife looked up and said "are you tearing up over your MegaMan rock opera right now?!?... Good for you!" Hope is coming back. #protomen #actiii

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 25/01/2026

My long ago ordered physical CD of Act 3 arrived today, and I immediately read the liner notes alongside listening to it. I've been listening to the complete album for awhile now, and based on audio alone I've been mourning Thomas Light. There's not been a good vibe in this story since 2005. 🧵1/2

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 14/01/2026

Thanks for writing this up, eagerly awaiting my physical copy 😎

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Reposted by Zachary Cook

Phoenix Calida @phoenixcalida.latinsky.app · 10/12/2025

How is this not the onion?

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 13/11/2025

GabeNCube? Nah. They got the name right. youtu.be/0sa2R-PM0Uk Anyways... Just sitting here wishing that my controller doesn't drift like whoa...

youtu.be

Daft Punk - Steam Machine (Official Audio)

YouTube video by Daft Punk

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 13/10/2025

I really love that a catfish was chosen for this cover.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 04/10/2025

I feel this in my bones.

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Reposted by Zachary Cook

Jay 🦋 @jay.bsky.team · 02/10/2025

“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.” ― Jane Goodall 💙 RIP to a real one. My childhood hero

Jane Goodall with monarch butterfly scarf

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 28/09/2025

I recently had to connect Azure DevOps to Pulumi Cloud via OIDC and wrote a brief guide for those who need to do the same in the future. www.zac.direct/post/2025/09...

zac.direct

Azure DevOps and Pulumi Cloud

How to connect Azure DevOps Pipelines to Pulumi Cloud using OIDC

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 27/09/2025

Unfortunate follow up question. WTF is a desktop?

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 27/09/2025

2025... The actual year of Linux on the desktop.

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Reposted by Zachary Cook

Philip Bump @pbump.com · 16/09/2025

I do feel like part of the hatred extended toward Bluesky is a function of preferring to think that the alarm about the state of the country that’s common here is misguided or exaggerated. Dismissing the site as liberal doomers allows you to dismiss those concerns, too.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 05/09/2025

2 truths and a lie. --- I once brought prod down with a script that routed all traffic through a network that did not exist. I always turn in my compliance training 1st. My colleagues and I once met at a warehouse in the middle of the night to fix a prototype for a major held that weekend.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 21/08/2025

I find it hard to tell the difference tone-wise once I prompt a few basics. Never use emojis for anything. Please stop using thesis statements. Etc. Maybe I'm odd in that because most people seem to want to give them personality and names. I want them to just be a robot.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 21/08/2025

The other side of this is as a consumer of the models, I'm finding I have absolutely zero loyalty to any of them. While GPT gives me good results I'll use it. When Sonnet does better I stop using GPT. Billions of dollars invested, and the industry is already commodified...

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 21/08/2025

Agreed. What I'm starting to wonder about though is how much it might chip away at all the supporting systems. E.g. new model promotion. Feels like we're at the place in the story where John Henry is fine, but not everybody is John Henry and not everything needs someone as good as John Henry.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 21/08/2025

The problem I've been finding is knowing exactly enough to question it in all the right ways. It's not just skeptical thinking required to keep this stuff in line, but James Randi level debunking skills. What's becoming interesting though, is that those James Randi controls are easily copied...

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 21/08/2025

You can't trust it is right. I've been exploring this model a lot, and it's really good, but wants to over promise. For code, coming up with some basic 'do not bullshit me' unit tests, like writing a mock http client and counting web requests has become something of a secret sauce.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 06/08/2025

I've been using agent mode with Claude for a couple of weeks and I already feel myself getting lazy about actually reviewing it's work. This is despite egregious errors on the occasional prompt. Somebody get Frodo over here I need to talk to him about this.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 06/08/2025

😂 That's how you know it's getting closer to real human behavior. "IDK what the problem is let me allow all and see if it's fixed." It's fixed. Backlogging investigation and moving on.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 30/07/2025

This is pretty cool stuff! Have you looked at github.com/pulumi/pulum... to see how some of your examples compare to official answers for this? Not too many apples-to-apples between them, but things like the vpc module are interesting.

github.com

GitHub - pulumi/pulumi-awsx: AWS infrastructure best practices in component form!

AWS infrastructure best practices in component form! - pulumi/pulumi-awsx

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 17/07/2025

I've not had a lot of time for side projects and blog posts so just keeping things really simple. I love building stuff in the cloud with @pulumi.com. That is all.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 17/07/2025

I joined this company several years after his involvement here, but I've got a story or two I've heard of you want something for a B-side... my DM's are open 😂 lupefiasco.fandom.com/wiki/Higi

lupefiasco.fandom.com

Higi

Higi (pronounced H IH G-iy; stylized in all lowercase) is a free mobile health and wellness app. It was created by Michael Ferro and first launched at the annual conference and music festival, South b...

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 30/05/2025

Pretty sweet to see the source for a publicly funded project that is dedicated to helping you fund the public. You actually can file with this repo's release.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 22/04/2025

I really love simple, but effective innovations like this.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 17/04/2025

The Beekeeper 2: This time it's Christmas or whatever.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 16/04/2025

I'm speaking at #PulumiUP 2025! 🚀Join us for a virtual event packed with real-world platform engineering / #DevOps stories, expert discussions, and technical demos. Excited to share #cloud and #platformengineering stories! Join us for expert sessions, live demos, IaC, and #CloudSecurity lessons.

Zachary Cook bio card for speaking about Pulumi and Platform Engineering at PulumiUP 2025. Tuesday, May 6th, 9AM ET / 4PM PT / 2 PM (UTC +1)

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 25/03/2025

Seems you're doing something right.

Screenshot of Awake Illinois being upset about Kat announcing her campaign.

Awake Illinois is an extremist organization that tells people Democrats are part of a baby eating cabal, and they get away with it because their followers *need* to be lied to.

They are incredibly unserious people that are never-the-less capable of serious damage.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 10/03/2025

I read a poem about this kind of thing in 6th-grade history.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 10/03/2025

I made a brand new site and have found that dealing with SEO sucks. Vote for me if you're local and like what I'm going for. Link to my "don't be a jerk platform" if you're not... but like what I'm going for. www.zac.direct/post/2025/03...

zac.direct

Democracy Candidate

Democracy Candidate is an open source project intended to help platform anybody that isn't a jerk.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 08/02/2025

Had a tough week at work. Not as hard as many others so not really complaining, but I found a silver lining in an open box deal for a PS5 nearby. Still having a tough week... Still not as hard as others. www.pushsquare.com/news/2025/02... #HugOps

pushsquare.com

PSN Down as PS5, PS4 Players Can't Log In or Play Online

PSNope

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 22/01/2025

I really would love to see the protocol succeed. Eager to see how the public-interest foundation efforts go, and wishing them the absolute best.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 21/01/2025

If anybody is looking to write a bio for their race I created a site to try and increase exposure for local races. www.democracycandidate.us It's currently a bit technical to actually make the post. I'm working on that, and open to help.

democracycandidate.us

Democracy Candidate

Simple bios and backgrounds of American pro-democracy candidates.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 11/01/2025

I just did something like this for local candidates to post a bio so I might actually be able to find information about them (and post mine). github.com/democracycan... Not realistic to expect people to figure out markdown and open a pull request. I'm looking out for ways to simplify that.

github.com

GitHub - democracycandidate/democracycandidate: Source for democracycandidate.us

Source for democracycandidate.us. Contribute to democracycandidate/democracycandidate development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 08/01/2025

I've always recommended inner sourcing for DevOps tooling for this reason. If there's too much of a backlog with the maintainers then the source is right there. Open a pull request.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 06/01/2025

26 million people and counting. Still small, but for sure more than DevOps people on here now :D bsky-users.theo.io

bsky-users.theo.io

Bluesky User Counter

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 06/01/2025

I feel like a lot of this sentiment is "good ol days" nostalgia that remembers FTPing content changes straight to prod, and forgets about spending a week moving around portable A/C units and emptying buckets or water because the main A/C died.

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Zachary Cook @zac.direct · 06/01/2025

Nice! I've been exploring a lot of OIDC connections between Pulumi, Azure, and GitHub actions. I updated my personal blog with full source exposure for infra: github.com/zacdirect/co... and blog: github.com/zacdirect/za... If it can be popped I'd love to know how.

github.com

GitHub - zacdirect/zac.direct: Source repo for https://zac.direct

Source repo for https://zac.direct. Contribute to zacdirect/zac.direct development by creating an account on GitHub.

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