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The Independent Variable

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Instagram and Facebook are about to be filled with affiliate content

theverge.com

The new shopping features come a few weeks after a dustup in which influencers caught Instagram adding shopping links to their content without their permission. The “Shop the look” feature added links to cheap lookalike products and not the actual items, an influencer who discovered the feature said. Meta said at the time it was a limited test and that the company was “exploring various changes” to the feature.

I don’t really care about the actual meat of this. It’s already flooded with ads and affiliates and people just trying to make a buck. I think

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Pentagon’s ‘Attempt to Cripple’ Anthropic Is Troublesome, Judge Says

wired.com

Hamilton acknowledged that Hegseth has no legal authority to bar military contractors from using Anthropic for work unrelated to the Department of Defense. When asked by Lin why Hegseth would have posted that, Hamilton said, “I don’t know.”

It’s 100% punitive. You don’t go from using the product and negotiating a new contract to expand capabilities to declaring they are a supply chain risk and can’t be used by any government contractor. It’s ridiculous.

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Netflix’s One Piece Showrunner Adapting Monstress Into Adult Animated Series - Reactor

reactormag.com

Amazon MGM Studios is adapting the comic book Monstress into an animated series, with Steven Maeda (One Piece, Lost, The X-Files) helming the project.

Monstress is one of those books I've had on my bookshelf for years that I haven't gotten around to actually sitting down to read. I need to rectify that soon. It's one of the longest running comics going on outside of the Big Two and for good reason, I imagine.

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Donald Trump’s latest climbdown suggests he wants to end the war

economist.com

On Monday Mr Trump did the rounds of American business television channels, repeating his claims of “great conversations” with Iran. Iran has firmly denied the existence of such talks in public and rejected offers from America in private, according to a Gulf official. The war’s unexpectedly long duration, as well as Mr Trump’s latest climbdown, undermine the idea that Iran’s regime is fragile and that regime change is possible. Instead, it is looking more likely that the ill-judged campaign will either drag on or end messily, with an Iran that is battered but defiant, and
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Sora is dead

birchtree.me

What is the Venn diagram of people who thought Clubhouse and Sora were the next big thing, and is it a perfect circle?

I think a big "feature" of the start-up age we've been in since "apps" on our phones became a thing, is people building something because they can, not because they see a practical use for it. Then rich people give them lots of money to help shove it down peoples throats. Obviously, there has been some good to come from it, but overall, we still have this move fast and break things attitude in society

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