William Vambenepe
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vambenepe.bsky.social
William Vambenepe
@vambenepe.bsky.social
France/California. Water is my happy place (swimming, snorkeling, freediving, scuba...).

Currently building Cloud stuff (data/AI) at AWS. Previously built some at Google Cloud (and then Google Search). Not speaking for my employer
2015: Learn to code!
2025: Poets control the world...

Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models
arxiv.org/pdf/2511.153...
November 21, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Caesium atoms are pretty good, but nothing beats a dog's stomach in keeping time.
November 8, 2025 at 2:15 AM
On the plus side, it looks like I'll have my own lane at the outdoor pool tomorrow evening.

(and the water temperature will be fine, just a chilly walk on the deck)

www.sfgate.com/weather/arti...
'Hazardous' cold may bring temps as low as the mid-20s to Bay Area
At least two more weeks of bone-chilling temperatures are headed for the San Francisco Bay Area.
www.sfgate.com
January 27, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Bluesky has been pretty good in the last few months, but today it's failing the "not being taken over when there is some kind of big American football game" test.
January 27, 2025 at 3:10 AM
This is the "grain of wheat on the first square of a chess board" process, but going the other way. Exponential sequences kick ass in both directions.
Origami Black Hole xkcd.com/3033
January 3, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Scary. Reminds me of Vonnegut's "ice-nine".

Maybe @kurt-vonnegut.bsky.social has some relevant quotes to share from Cat's Cradle?
Over 30 prominent scientists call for a ban on the creation of a "mirror cell"--a microbe made of molecules that are mirror images of their natural forms. It could cause a mind-boggling global disaster. Here's my story [gift link] 🧪https://nyti.ms/3OUCXp6
A ‘Second Tree of Life’ Could Wreak Havoc, Scientists Warn (Gift Article)
Research on so-called mirror cells, which defy fundamental properties of living organisms, should be prohibited as too dangerous, biologists said.
nyti.ms
December 13, 2024 at 4:40 AM
Nice articulation of the SageMaker announcement at re:Invent, from Doug Henschen (@DHenschen on X, I don't see him on Bluesky). I had a great discussion with Doug there.

I'm very biased but +1 to calling it "the climax of CEO Matt Garman’s opening keynote."

www.constellationr.com/blog-news/am...
Amazon Web Services Evolves SageMaker into a Unified Data Platform Centered On AI
Standing on the shoulders of the lakehouse trend, AWS takes data platform and data workload unification a step further than its rivals. AWS Re:Invent saw plenty of data- and database-related announcem...
www.constellationr.com
December 10, 2024 at 7:50 PM
The new Amazon SageMaker was announced this morning (very last announcement in the CEO keynote -- keeping the best for last of course). Super proud of the team for delivering it. A unified platform for data processing, analytics, and AI with a single UI to do it all.

aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/in...
Introducing the next generation of Amazon SageMaker: The center for all your data, analytics, and AI | Amazon Web Services
Unify data engineering, analytics, and generative AI in a streamlined studio with enhanced capabilities of Amazon SageMaker.
aws.amazon.com
December 4, 2024 at 4:02 AM
Yet another article in the "some animal species is much smarter than we thought" or "some animal species demonstrates a surprisingly complex behavior" series...

How many such "surprising discoveries" do we need before we revisit our baseline assumption about animals?

nautil.us/crows-are-ev...
Crows Are Even Smarter Than We Thought
New evidence suggests the corvid family has surprising mental abilities.
nautil.us
December 1, 2024 at 9:43 PM
Two weeks until my first re:Invent presentation (which will also be my first time at re:Invent).
registration.awsevents.com/flow/awseven...
Looking forward to it. Ping me if you're planning to be there.
November 19, 2024 at 2:07 AM
Is this the first ATP Finals without a one-handed backhand player? #tennis

Plenty of them in the 90s (inc. Sampras), then came Federer (and Wawrinka, and Dimitrov), then more recently Tsitsipas provided representation. But this year... :-(

Still plenty of nice shots
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B82t...
All Eight Qualifiers Best Shots This Season! | Nitto ATP Finals 2024
YouTube video by Tennis TV
www.youtube.com
November 11, 2024 at 8:29 AM
Since many Americans who haven't experienced health care in other rich countries seem unable to believe it, I occasionally post this reminder that the US heath care system is uniquely inefficient, expensive and cruel. A much better system is possible; it exists in many places and we could have that.
November 11, 2024 at 7:40 AM
Everyone on X right now whose blue checkmark was just returned: "I didn't pay a cent to Elon! I don't know why the blue check is back, I swear. Also, my dog is a rescue."
April 4, 2024 at 6:16 AM
The closest I ever get to feeling like Guy Pearce in Memento is when I get a "your book is ready to borrow" notification from the library, for a wait list I had forgotten about.

It's like getting a "you should read this" message from past me.
December 14, 2023 at 9:47 AM
The Tennis TV YouTube channel is doing a very good job with highlights, especially now that they're regularly posting court-level videos.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=epZb...
Jannik Sinner vs Daniil Medvedev: Highlights From Court-Level | Nitto ATP Finals 2023
SUBSCRIBE to our channel for the best ATP tennis videos and tennis highlights: https://www.youtube.com/tennistv?sub_confirmation=1Watch official ATP tennis s...
www.youtube.com
November 18, 2023 at 8:37 PM
For anyone near San Francisco, I highly recommend R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) at the Cutting Ball Theater. Great adaptation and excellent acting, in a nice small theater. It runs until November 12.
cuttingball.com/productions/...
Rossum’s Universal Robots - Cutting Ball Theater
OCT 20 – NOV 12  Rossum’s Universal Robots by Karel Capek, translated by Paul Selver, adapted and directed by Chris Steele The Robots have taken over. It’s official, we are living in the future...
cuttingball.com
October 22, 2023 at 9:49 PM
Looks like the Washington Post came up with a Wordle competitor: www.washingtonpost.com/games/keyword/
(no spoiler in the screenshot, it's just the starting point of today's game).

Game seems ok, but I think they should remove the timer. I love that Wordle doesn't have one.
September 21, 2023 at 4:54 PM
Reposted by William Vambenepe
NEW: Chinese #hack of #Microsoft cloud authentication also obtained email of at least one member of Congress. #infosec GIFT LINK https://wapo.st/3QEhjrx
wapo.st
August 15, 2023 at 2:00 AM
Squaring the microblogging circle. I am now @vambenepe on all 4:
- Bluesky (this account)
- Twitter (https://twitter.com/vambenepe since 2008, barely active)
- Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/@vambenepe since 2022, active)
- Threads (https://www.threads.net/@vambenepe, since 2023, inactive)
July 14, 2023 at 10:53 PM