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The Independent Variable

the official linkblog of the interwebs covering culture, politics, sports, and tech since 2012.

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Sacha Baron Cohen to Star in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘The Popinjay Cavalier’ in London’s West End

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2026/9/10/sacha-baron-cohen-to-star-in-quentin-tarantinos-the-popinjay-cavalier-on-londons-west-end theater
Cohen will portray the title character. "The Popinjay Cavalier" is set to premiere in London's West End in spring 2027. It's being described as a "swashbuckling comedy" set in 1830s Europe — a British-style farce filled with slapstick chaos, awkward mishaps and characters constantly being mistaken for someone else.

I’m not sure if there will ever be a play that I want—need to—see. Sounds absolutely fascinating. The one thing I couldn’t figure out was whether or not Tarantino is going to direct too or just write and produce. I do kind of hope this doesn’t become his tenth movie though.

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An Ode to Links

https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/ode-to-links/ web
We’ve built an entire culture around links. We make links. Links make the web. The web makes Us.

It should be no surprise to anyone around these parts what my feelings about links are. My entire goal here is to talk about what’s going on in the world (and have some fun) via links. Links to news, links to wonderful projects, links to places I find my links. It’s called the web for a reason after all. 🕸️

The hidden dangers of Musk’s votesafe.org

https://popular.info/p/the-hidden-dangers-of-musks-votesafeorg https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-8-2026 politics
But Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, is funding an aggressive advertising campaign encouraging people in key states to check their registration status at a different website, votesafe.org. That website is run by America PAC, Musk’s super PAC.

This feels like something that shouldn't be allowed, but then I thought back to when I used Vote Save America and they don't direct me to the state site either, but rather use BallotReady. BallotReady sure does appear to be more reputable, but who knows what they do with the data they receive...

The iPhone Duo shows Apple at its best

https://birchtree.me/blog/the-iphone-duo-shows-apple-at-its-best/ tech
It's an extra flourish that's not necessary by any means, and I can understand why someone would wonder why I think this is any better than what Samsung is doing, but it's the sort of extra flourish that elevates the experience. Now that I've seen it, it makes what I was used to feel old.

I feel like it's been awhile since Apple seemed to care about the details. Albeit, it seems a lot of the decisions they've been making over the past couple years were aimed and tailored for this exact moment—which we had to suffer through to get to this point. I still don't plan on getting a Duo... but maybe next year.

Selected Calendar Times for Someone Self-Employed Who Works from Home

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/selected-calendar-times-for-someone-self-employed-who-works-from-home satire
Meeting w/ Self-Loathing and Narcissism departments/tendencies to brainstorm exciting new potential collabs

Someone must’ve hacked my calendar because this is word for word how I spend every single day. Not sure how people who work from home and don’t have a boss stay productive and/or how they prevent themselves from staring into space for an hour.

Channel 5 Gave Hunter Biden a List of Its Subscribers’ Emails for Some Reason

https://www.404media.co/channel-5-gave-hunter-biden-a-list-of-its-subscribers-emails-for-some-reason/ media
Channel 5, the YouTube channel hosted by Andrew Callaghan, said it gave a list of its email subscribers to Hunter Biden, the former president’s son, who went on to promote his new memecoin, a move that a data privacy expert told 404 Media is likely illegal in some jurisdictions.

Callaghan and Channel 5 have surprisingly done some good reporting and interesting interviews—much to my surprise—and I was starting to respect it, but this is just dumb. And I was also enjoying the spicy takes from Hunter Biden and then to turn around and launch a memecoin? What are we doing people?!

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