Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

What are we reading? October 14, 2021

Each week, BIV staff will share with you some of the interesting stories we have found from around the web.
newsboy-reading-creditselimaksangettyimages
Photo: selimaksan/Getty Images

Each week, BIV staff will share with you some of the interesting stories we have found from around the web.

Kirk LaPointe, publisher and editor-in-chief:

Baseball playoffs are on, and if you’re finding the games are dragging on, there might be some hope down the road. The Atlantic League is a petri dish for all sorts of experiments in rules that are intended to accelerate the game and make it more thrilling. – Bloomberg BusinessWeek

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-11/mlb-rule-changes-atlantic-league-tests-tweaks-meant-to-save-baseball

A Peter Jackson-directed documentary, six hours in length and in three parts,arrives next month and revisits the latter stage of The Beatles. Editor-in-chief David Remnick writes lovingly about the Fab Four, although more from a Paul than a John perspective. – The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/18/paul-mccartney-doesnt-really-want-to-stop-the-show

Jeremy Hainsworth, reporter:

The Peer and the Gangster: A Very British Cover-up by Daniel Smith. 

Author Daniel Smith digs behind the headline to look at the relationship between flamboyant politician Lord Boothby and  gangster Ronnie Kray. The scandal disappeared almost as soon as it arrived.

Using interviews, MI5 intelligence records, government papers, extensive interviews and  contemporary reports and secondary sources, Smith pieces together how politicians, police, intelligence officials, lawyers and the media crushed the story.

Glen Korstrom, reporter: 

This blog has an interesting take as it explores the phenomenon on artificial-intelligence, and audio tours at tourist attractions, and whether they are a help or hindrance to local tourism economies. – Couchfish

https://couchfish.substack.com/p/couchfish-a-leaky-robot

No one knows exactly how Google’s search algorithm works, as this blog post openly admits. Google executives have, however, dropped hints that are worth reflecting on when posting content. – Semrush Blog

https://www.semrush.com/blog/google-search-algorithm/

With Vancouver’s film industry booming, some homeowners could be tempted to allow their homes to be used in shoots. This piece sets out the pros and cons. – WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/articles/using-your-house-for-a-movie-or-tv-set-can-be-lucrative-but-also-disruptive-11633547149?st=0lcsfer9ez5f257&reflink=article_copyURL_share

Mark Falkenberg, deputy managing editor:

Like ginkgo trees, dragonflies and horseshoe crabs, crocodiles are often referred to as “living fossils” because of their basic appearance has changed little over hundreds of millions of years. New research, however, suggests that the outsized reptiles have never stopped undergoing genetic modification but are in a kind of evolutionary closed loop dictated by their environment: “Modern croc species look so similar not because of conserving ancient traits, but because crocodiles are evolving the same skull shapes over and over again through time.” – Smithsonian

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/modern-crocodiles-are-evolving-rapid-rate-180978432/

A scam ad using his name and image to perpetrate a cannabis gummies fraud prompted this call by David Suzuki for better media literacy and regulation of online information: “We must see our information systems – news media, social media, etc. – as the foundations of democracy they are, and we must insist on keeping them, and the people who use them, healthy." – rabble.ca

https://rabble.ca/technology/cbd-gummy-scam-illustrates-need-for-media-literacy/

Timothy Renshaw, managing editor:

Look no further than your rooftop for a huge untapped potential source for generating clean, renewable electricity everywhere in the world, according to this Nature Communications study of rooftop solar panels. – Nature Communications

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25720-2

Meanwhile, scientists on the cold, hard realities beat are getting closer to reaching absolute zero [−273.15 C; -459.67 F] in lab experiments, and even though that might not mean much to Canadians bracing for another long, cold, dark winter, it is far from nothing when it comes to particle physics and manipulating the characteristics of helium, nitrogen and other gases for use in technology and industry. – Popular Mechanics

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a37852132/coldest-temperature-recorded-in-lab/