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The Independent Variable

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

The Independent Variable

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💣 Regime Change Is Blowing Up A School Full Of Children

https://defector.com/regime-change-is-blowing-up-a-school-full-of-children Iran
You wouldn’t trust anyone in the Trump administration to water your garden properly, and yet they get to decide who and what gets blown up. Everyone else has to suffer the consequences, this time none more greatly than those girls and their families.

The draft dodging head of the Board of Peace who said no more wars in the Middle East and that only terrible negotiators would bomb Iran, just bombed Iran, turning an already devastating situation in the Middle East with the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, into an even bigger chaotic mess, likely to start more war. Maybe his plan is to start as many wars as possible so he can then “stop” all the wars and win his Nobel prize.

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🎸 Buddy Guy — Tiny Desk Concert

https://youtu.be/m5XxOLdMSS8 music

A living legend and at nearly 90 years old, he’s still got it. I’ve been lucky enough to see him live twice, both times over a decade ago, at Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival, and then at Buddy’s Legends club in Chicago. Seeing him at his small, intimate club was one of my favorite musical experiences ever.

Also, very cool to see him bring out Miles Caton from Sinners for a couple songs.

🤖 OpenAI Reaches A.I. Agreement With Defense Dept. After Anthropic Clash

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/technology/openai-reaches-ai-agreement-with-defense-dept-after-anthropic-clash.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share ai
“Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” Mr. Altman said. “The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”

From one liar to another—so you know it has to be true. They somehow have the same principles as Anthropic, but magically came to an agreement despite those principles being the only thing killing the Anthropic agreement. More likely, OpenAI has been chomping at the bit to get at that military industrial complex complex money so there’s actual some money coming in that they can point at for their investors to oooh and ahhh at and continue to pretend they are somehow worth over $700 million.

⛰️ The Mountain, The Moon Cave and The Sad God by Gorillaz

https://youtu.be/ucRulNQsuYQ?si=Os8i5KtWExFYjfYY music

They knocked this little short film/music video out of the park. I haven’t listened to the whole album yet, but I’m hopeful this might reverse course from their more recent dance albums and return to the greatness that was Plastic Beach, which might be my favorite Gorillaz album.

What we really need is a Gorillaz movie. They’ve built up so much lore with the various locations they’ve set their albums at to the point where I’m dying for someone like Joe Bennett—who did Common Side Effects and Scavengers Reign—to get involved and build on everything Gorillaz has done over the past two decades.

🌁 mist

https://mist.inanimate.tech/ apps

I’ve talked before about my desire for a Google Docs alternative—one where I could share docs with writers, suggest changes, etc.—and I even wrote up some requirements for it in the hopes that someone might magically decide to build it for me.

mist is 95% there. I couldn’t find a note about it being open-source, but I’m dying for someone to run with this and add file organization to it so I don't have to worry about the 99hr expiration.

🪐 Space & Time Magazine

https://authortunities.substack.com/p/space-and-time-magazine fiction

Glad to see that “Space & Time” is sticking around.

It's a storied publication and well worth a trip to the archive. The switch to monthly keeps things fresh, though theme calls are only as interesting as the tenders who field them.

Luckily, Angela Yuriko Smith is a gem of an editor.

I've not been in this pub, but I've submitted a couple of times. No one likes a “close but no cigar” rejection. In fact, those replies are often more infuriating than form letters — think “silver medal paradox,” though the bronze winner part isn't as applicable — but Smith has, at least in my experience, offered encouragement and highlighted poems worth pitching elsewhere.

Anyway, keep an eye out for this newest incarnation of “Space & Time.”

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