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The Independent Variable

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Soccer is truly spectacular, in spite of itself

This is also why youth and amateur soccer, as a game, can be more fun to watch than pro soccer. The comparative lack of skill and relative inability to control the ball create a situation where it’s strategically less rewarding to be passive, and the continual turnovers create opportunities for profitable aggressive actions. You lose the world-class athletes doing world-class athlete things. But the trade-off is it’s just more continuously exciting.

A truly insane take.

Uber caps employee AI spending after blowing through budget in 4 months

Bloomberg reports that the company has instituted a new rule that places a monthly $1,500 cap per employee and per agentic coding tool, including Anthropic’s Claude Code or Cursor.

AI fanatics love to say “this is the worst AI will ever be,” but it’s probably also the cheapest it will ever be as it’s subsidized by VC money until they can get people hooked and loyal to brands; bleeding billions as they do. And still, Uber has to put caps on their employees (caps which feel pretty high to me). Just imagine how expensive things’ll be when they have to start turning a profit.

Listen to Rivers Cuomo Cover Whitney Houston, Outkast, Dolly Parton, and More

Over the weekend, 15 previously unreleased covers appeared on Rivers Cuomo’s YouTube page with little explanation and even less warning

I get that people hate on Weezer because their new music isn’t great (or even good sometimes…), but they are one of the few bands from that era still consistently putting out new music and trying new things (he says realizing it’s been four years since SZNZs). Still, I admire their willingness to try and Rivers Cuomo has always done fun things with his Alone records and these covers on YouTube are delightful and another example of his desire to just make stuff. (He codes too!)

Cure For Paranoia /// 2026 Tiny Desk Contest Winner

I discovered Cure for Paranoia last year (or the year before..?) when they were doing a new rap song every day that got very political. It was superb. Then I learned about all their Tiny Desk submission videos: superb again. And this year, they won. The lyricism, the musicianship, the skill, and the performance. It's all there.