Videos of the Week, CPP Premiums Increase, and the Creator Economy

Friday morning news drop

• CPP premiums set to rise in January, a bigger jump than planned Changing contribution rates now would require approval from Parliament and 7 provinces (CBC)

• Blame Bad Weather for Your Bigger Bills Wild weather around the world wreaked havoc on markets for raw materials, lifting prices for everything from electricity and heat to houses and breakfast cereal. (Wall Street Journal)

• The most unusual job market in modern American history, explained Quits, big raises and severe labor shortages: 10 charts on the completely surprising 2021 labor market (Washington Post)

• Indexing the creator economy: In aggregating monetization across these 50 platforms, we’ve found that creators will soon pass more than $10 billion in aggregate earnings. While 2020 saw a jump in new creators, it wasn’t a one-time spike. A year later, creators are still coming online at a record clip: the number of creators is up a whopping 48% year-over-year. In total, these platforms have onboarded 668,000 creators. (Stripe)

• The Brain Doesn’t Think the Way You Think It Does Familiar categories of mental functions such as perception, memory and attention reflect our experience of ourselves, but they are misleading about how the brain works. More revealing approaches are emerging. (Quanta Magazine)

• How to Become a Better Listener While listening is a skill universally lauded, it’s rarely, if ever, explicitly taught as such, outside of training for therapists. A 2015 study showed that while 78% of accredited undergraduate business schools list “presenting” as a learning goal, only 11% identified “listening.” Listening is a skill that’s vitally important, sadly undertaught, and physically and mentally taxing. In the aftermath of Covid-19, particularly with the shift to remote work and the red-hot job market, it’s never been more important — or more difficult — for leaders to be good listeners. This article offers nine tips to help leaders become more active listeners, and a breakdown of the subskills involved in listening and how you can improve in them. (Harvard Business Review)

• How Nicole Kidman Learned to Love Playing Lucille Ball There are valuable lessons Nicole Kidman has learned each time she plays a real-life figure: How that person was misapprehended by society at the time. How that era of history is more like the present day than she realized. And, crucially, how to maintain her balance while traipsing barefoot through a vat of grapes. (New York Times)

Videos of the Week

Danny MacAskill - Driveway Like so many others, back in Spring of 2020, due to government restrictions I found myself stuck at home with a lot of time on my hands. When I was younger, Pallets were always the go to obstacles for honing my skills on the Trials Bike, so it was only fitting to get 30 Pallets delivered to the house, turning the driveway into a wee trials park to keep us amused over the summer!

The Best MTB Sends From 2021 There was no shortage of riders going huge in 2021 and we've compiled the best clips that you submitted into 10 minutes of send.

Downhill Runs to Remember in 2021 | UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup 2021 has treated us with infinite amounts of wild downhill MTB racing. At times things got so heated even Rob Warner almost lost his voice, remember? No worries if you don't, here are 7 DH runs to remember from 2021.

Filming in MTB Dirt Jump Heaven La Poma | Behind the Scenes of The Old World Go behind the scenes on The Old World’s dream-like scene – La Poma, Spain. Founded by riders for riders, La Poma Bike Park is made with blood, sweat, tears & tons of experience from all corners of the globe. Join David Godziek, Bienvenido Aguado, Diego Caverzasi & Nico Scholze as they session of the best MTB dirt jump spots in Europe.

URGE | Felix Prangenberg After a year of dropping heavy video parts, winning X Games medals and being crowned “Rider Of The Year”, Felix Prangenberg delivers one hell of an encore performance to end 2021 with a bang.

Chapped Clips - Sunday Bikes: Remember when slappin’ fives was chill and chapped lips was the biggest thing we had to worry about? Back in March we whipped the van out to Las Vegas and flew in the rest of the team for 10 days of amazing spots, good times and dry climates. Everyone's lips were chapped by day two. Enjoy Brett Silva, Broc Raiford, Julian Arteaga, Aaron Ross, Gary Young, Erik Elstran, Jake Seeley, Alec Siemon, Jared Duncan, and Justin Schual in “Chapped Clips.” Video: Zach Krejmas.

Yo - Ryo Aizawa: DC Snow is proud to present Ryo Aizawa in Yo, our third and final video of the year. This high-energy edit goes hard from start to finish. Filmed entirely in Japan, Ryo mows down the most unique street spots with his natural street style riding and razor sharp trick selection.

Who Is The Unbelievable Snowskater? | Dave Engerer Dave Engerer is the perfect example of the 'Detroit Hustles Harder' mentality: the amateur skater nails down clips, then comes back to the same spot when it's snowing and doubles down on the footage as a snowskate pro for Ambition. In this video, Engerer explains how he started snowskating and why juggling his two careers is snow problem for him. (You'll never catch him hibernating.)

MASHER: Ohio Gregson hits Skatopia and one of the world's biggest pits in hot pursuit of Kevin Kowalski, Tom Schaar and Tristan Rennie.

The World Juniors is Cancelled, Texas Abortion Law, Crypto, and Covid Death Rates

Thursday morning news drop

• Why the C.E.O. Behind Match.com and Tinder Took a Stand on the Texas Abortion Law Shar Dubey runs some of the world’s most popular online dating sites. A restrictive new law prompted her to speak out. (NY Times)

• How to Learn About Crypto I didn’t grow up with a passion for the markets. When I first developed an interest in it, I started from level 0. I knew absolutely nothing. So you could imagine how much I retained from the first book I picked up, The Intelligent Investor, written in 1949. All of the concepts were new to me, but the chapter on Mr. Market clicked and inspired me to keep going. (Irrelevant Investor)

• Decentralized Finance (DeFi): A Primer for Professional Investors Today, nearly 3.8 million users have allocated $212 billion to DeFi applications. These services can process loans for hundreds of millions of dollars nearly instantaneously, move money around the world for virtually no fee, trade billions of dollars in crypto assets with no intermediaries, and execute many basic financial functions more quickly, cheaply, and flexibly than the legacy system allows. In this white paper, we put the Decentralized Finance movement into context, contrast it to the incumbent alternative, and explore how much market share the disruptive technology could capture. (Amazon AWS)

• Marketplaces Year in Review 2021 It was the year of broken supply chains, Amazon aggregators, more advertising, Shopify’s almost-marketplace, and one unanswered question – did the pandemic boost e-commerce after all? For now, the world of marketplaces revolves around Amazon – it has doubled in size in two years. (Marketplace Pulse)

• Covid Death Rates Are Rising for Some Groups The virus is now responsible for a higher share of deaths from all causes for younger Americans and white Americans than it was before all adults were eligible for vaccines. (New York Times)

• Ten Economic Questions for 2022 Economic growth, Employment, Unemployment Rate, Participation Rate, Inflation and more (Calculated Risk)

• The architect making friends with flooding: One Chinese landscape designer has pioneered a new approach—working with water instead of trying to bend it to our will. (MIT Technology Review)

• You’re not rich (if you’re constantly doing this) While these clients were traveling to their Hamptons summer homes, attending exclusive Super Bowl parties and skiing on private mountains – they always lamented one required behavior. The need to constantly check their email. They were ridiculously rich. But attention poor. (Rad Reads)

• Everyone loses after Omicron knocks out World Juniors The weather, the competition, the profit margins, a search for normalcy or just folksy Canadiana — the 2022 World Junior Hockey Championship will go down as everything that is wrong with everything these days. Another win for COVID-19 and another loss for those who were just looking to put a little fun in their lives, both player and fan. (Sportsnet)

Climate Change, Taming Big Tech, Rolex Shortage,

Wednesday morning news drop

• A cold war in a hotter world: Canada's intelligence sector confronts climate change Canada needs to 'step up' its intelligence 'game' to prepare for climate change, says former adviser to PM (CBC)

• 2021 was the year the world finally turned on Facebook Can a name change save the company’s tarnished reputation? (Ars Technica)

• The British Baroness Who’s Taming Big Tech: A remarkable series of changes across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok were sparked by Beeban Kidron’s ‘children’s code.’ And she’s not finished. (Bloomberg)

• Electrify Everything in Your Home Guide The best advice on how to electrify everything is a guide to replacing all of your fossil-fueled appliances with modern electric ones. Once you electrify: your home will be more comfortable, your indoor and outdoor air quality will be healthier, your monthly bills will be lower. (Rewiring America)

• Why the Rolex watch shortage is a ‘perfect storm’ The craze for Rolex sports models has completely turned the availability of Rolex watches from authorized Rolex retailers upside down, and prices for these popular sports models have skyrocketed on the secondhand market due to the limited supply not meeting the demand. (Yahoo News)

• Rolex Shortage Explained: A Complete Guide The craze for Rolex sports models has completely turned the availability of Rolex watches from authorized Rolex retailers upside down, and prices for these popular sports models have skyrocketed on the secondhand market due to the limited supply not meeting the demand. (Millenary Watches)

• Sports photos of the year 2021 The biggest international sports events, moments and stars of 2021 through the lens of the camera. (ESPN)

• 96 photos from Victoria’s “Blizzard of ‘96” on its 25th anniversary It’s pretty fitting that all of Victoria got blanketed in snow on the 25th anniversary of the “Blizzard of 1996”, don’t you think On December 21st, 1996, Victorians were greeted to snowflakes dusting the streets – little did we know that the last three days of December would see us blanketed in one of the worst winter storms Vancouver Island would see. (Victoria Buzz)

Royal B.C. Museum Decolonization, Transit Funding, Natural Disasters, and Shopify

Tuesday morning news drop

• Top Canadian museum to be imminently gutted in the name of 'decolonization' With little notice and even less transparency, the Royal B.C. Museum is demolishing some of Canada's most iconic exhibits with no idea of what's going to replace them (National Post)

• Why Canada gets less for more when it comes to building transit The reason is that Canada pays a higher price to build light-rail transit compared to our international counterparts, driven chiefly by the depth of underground tunnels, the grandiosity of the stations and labour costs. But several experts agree it has just as much to do with something else: politics. (Toronto Star)

• Canada wasn't prepared for natural disasters in 2021 — and next year threatens a repeat Ottawa plans to release first national climate adaptation strategy by end of 2022 (CBC)

• Canadians eager to be nurses facing tougher entry requirements, fewer training spots Wave of aspiring nurses a silver lining to dark cloud of a profession stretched to the limit, says RNAO CEO (CBC)

• Wall Street Ends Crazy Year With Existential Angst and Big Bonuses The biggest U.S. banks are making more money than ever, but finance veterans are ‘unsettled and ill at ease.’ (Bloomberg)

• Thinking About Life I got an email two weeks ago that stopped me in my tracks. Times are tough right now, but we have so much to be thankful for. (Irrelevant Investor)

• How McDonald’s Made Enemies of Black Franchisees The company, once celebrated in Black entrepreneurial circles, is settling with Black owners who say they were blocked from the best and most profitable locations. (Businessweek)

• Instant gratification: The neuroscience of impulse buying It’s arguably never been harder to resist impulse buying. Online stores have taken the sales tactics of brick-and-mortar stores to new manipulative heights, barraging browsers with an arsenal of psychological tactics to get you to spend as much money as possible. Odds are you have encountered these tricks aka “dark patterns.” (Big Think)

• How Shopify Outfoxed Amazon to Become the Everywhere Store Tobi Lütke transformed the Canadian upstart into an e-commerce giant by being the anti-Bezos. How long can the formula keep working? (Businessweek)

• The Real Story of Pixar: How a bad hardware company turned itself into a great movie studio By definition, The Movie could incorporate no hand drawing. The tools to build it emerged piecemeal. First came the software that enabled computers to create two-dimensional images and, later, virtual 3D objects. Then we figured out how to move those objects, shade them, and light them before rendering them as frames of a movie. (IEEE Spectrum)

• The Tomb Raiders of the Upper East Side: Inside the Manhattan DA’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit Over the past decade, more than 3,600 antiquities, valued at some $200 million have been impounded. They’ve raided art fairs on Park Avenue, and Christie’s in Rockefeller Center. They arrested a dealer at the five-star Mark Hotel and seized statues on display at the five-star Pierre. Tips from scholars, dealers, and other informants have repeatedly led to the Upper East Side. The enclave of old-money families along Fifth Avenue’s Museum Mile is America’s worst neighborhood for antiquities crime. The problem with “these gentlemen of stature and breeding,” he told one judge, is that they “would never be so gauche” as to check the legal status of ancient art before buying it. (The Atlantic)

• The Race to Secure Water in the Western U.S.: How four cities are trying to survive future droughts, from expanding reservoirs and tapping neighboring watersheds to pushing conservation efforts. How four cities are trying to survive future droughts, from expanding reservoirs and tapping neighboring watersheds to pushing conservation efforts. (Bloomberg)

• Work for yourself? Canada has fewer and fewer people like you — and here's why Self-employment dropped to its lowest level in more than a decade during the pandemic (CBC)

Videos of the Week, Harry Potter and LOTR, and Kai Lenny

Friday morning news drop

• Twenty Years Ago, ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ Changed the Future of Hollywood Released toward the end of 2001, the blockbuster adaptations of two beloved fantasy epics created a blueprint for commodifying fandom that remains the film industry’s primary method of business (Ringer)

• A Wild, Emotional Year Has Changed Investing—Maybe Forever Everyone seemed to become a trader, taking chances on outlandish ideas as excitement and fascination mixed with fear and greed. (Businessweek)

• Why it’s too early to get excited about Web3 Repeat after me: neither venture capital investment nor easy access to risky, highly inflated assets predicts lasting success and impact for a particular company or technology. Remember the dot-com boom and the subsequent bust? Legendary investor Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway recently noted that we’re in an “even crazier era than the dot-com era.” (O’Reilly)

• A Growing Army of Hackers Helps Keep Kim Jong Un in Power North Korea relies on cybercrime to fund its nuclear arms program and prop up the ailing economy. (Businessweek)

• The Wave-Conquering, Metaverse-Crashing Life of Kai Lenny Treated as an outcast in Maui’s cool-kid surf culture, he went on to master nearly every extreme water sport. No wonder the tech elite has a crush on him. (Wired)

• Carrie-Anne Moss on the ‘Matrix’ Movies and Playing an Action Hero in Her 50s The actress synonymous with Trinity faced the weight of expectations when she reunited with Keanu Reeves and Lana Wachowski for the new sequel. (New York Times)

• Make the Most of One-on-One Meetings with Your Manager One-on-one meetings with your manager present valuable career opportunities. How can you make sure you’re getting the most out of that time with your boss? Work with your manager to determine how the agenda for your meetings will be created and reflect on your priorities and professional development goals. During your meetings, use your body language to underscore your words and your actions. Be a good listener, embrace feedback, and default to solving problems. Use your time after your one-on-ones to consider areas where you can focus, adapt, or make improvements moving forward. This approach reinforces your commitment to problem solving for your boss, your team, and your own career, and that’s a powerful attribute to acquire. (Harvard Business Review)

• How to Figure Out What You Want Next in Your Career Whether you’re making a complete career change or want to refocus your current role on what feels most meaningful to you, pivots can feel dizzying. However, drafting a simple scorecard of what you do and don’t want can change the process into one that’s energizing and meaningful rather than daunting. Finding an employer and role that are value-aligned can reveal opportunities that you might not have thought about or even noticed before. The author presents three areas of focus to help you assess your values and several questions to help you assess value alignment with potential employers — or your current one. (Harvard Business Review)

• What the Case Study Method Really Teaches It’s been 100 years since Harvard Business School began using the case study method. Beyond teaching specific subject matter, the case study method excels in instilling meta-skills in students. This article explains the importance of seven such skills: preparation, discernment, bias recognition, judgement, collaboration, curiosity, and self-confidence. (Harvard Business Review)

Videos of the Week

Ambition Snowskate 'Bleached' Episode One 'Bleached' is a new snowskate video series by Alex Blais, dropping in segments. Episode One showcases Quebec's young blood: Raph Detienne, Morgan DT, Ced Vigneault, Dan Routhier, Guillaume Blais & Mathias Fortier.

Tor Cameron - Retrospect: Directors: Liam Morgan & Tor Cameron. DP/Editor: Liam Morgan. Rider: Tor Cameron. AC: Max McCulloch & Merin Pearce. Builders: Tor Cameron, Jimmy Farnese, Andrew Giesbrecht, Max Field, Nick Griffiths. "Retrospect" was shot on the unceded traditional territories of the Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ first peoples.

Chris E-krigg - Full Force Vol. 2: Chris E-krigg is at it again! Last year, Chris Akrigg made us re-think what was possible on an eMTB with his 'Full Force' edit, and now he's back at it, tackling impossible climbs with ease and riding features that only make sense to Chris. Sit back, hit play, and get ready for an onslaught of ebike insanity! Video: Will Evans.

FIEND BMX features Lewis Mills, Garrett Reynolds, Matt Closson, Antonio Chavez, and Johnny Raekes in Salt Lake City, UT.

Jack Olson's "Slingshot" 3rd Lair Part Jack holds it down for his hometown, handling lengthy rails and firing off at the local proving ground.

Pandemic Wealth, Housing Co-ops, and the Craftsman Style

Thursday morning news drop

• The Pandemic Has Made Everyone Richer The net worth of American households has gone from $110 trillion to $137 trillion since the pandemic disrupted our lives in the first quarter of 2020. That’s from new Federal Reserve data through the end of the third quarter 2021, which was released last week: This may surprise you — the bottom 50% have also seen their wealth soar: (A Wealth of Common Sense)

• How to Navigate the New Pandemic Business Cycle The pandemic has shaken up the very foundation of macroeconomic theory—the business cycle. And that could have big consequences for investors. If we are in fact in a new expansion cycle, investors can rest easy knowing that it will likely continue for at least another few years. CIO Sean Bill says, ‘It’s going to get a lot trickier.’ (CIO)

• How the 2020s Economy Could Resemble the 1980s It depends on whether Jerome Powell at the Fed can pull a reverse Paul Volcker. (Upshot)

• Vancouver Needs Way More Co-ops. Here’s How to Get Them The key lies in policies that skew the price of land to favour this affordable housing option. (Tyee)

• Delivery Failed: How an EV startup and its charismatic CEO nearly cornered the market for electric delivery vans — until it all fell apart (The Verge)

• The internet runs on free open-source software. Who pays to fix it? Volunteer-run projects like Log4J keep the internet running. The result is unsustainable burnout, and a national security risk when they go wrong. (MIT Technology Review)

• How omicron broke Covid-19 testing Rapid tests are sold out everywhere, and help might not come until next year. (Vox)

• Why LNG Canada could be B.C.’s last kick at the liquefied natural gas can The Kitimat liquefaction facility at the end of the contested Coastal GasLink pipeline will be ‘severely tested’ by shifting market conditions and evolving climate and Indigenous Rights policies, a new report finds in a potential harbinger for industry (Narwhal)

• he NBA Has Chosen Its Path Against COVID-19 Adam Silver said the league won't pause the season, but will focus on getting players three-shot vaccinated. (Sports Illustrated)

• Gretzky: 'Not even a question' Ovechkin will become NHL's all-time leading goal scorer Records are made to be broken, as they say, even ones that seem insurmountable.

  The question of "Will Alexander Ovechkin break the NHL's all-time goals scored record?" has become slightly altered – we may have to replace "Will" with "When." At least that's what The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, believes. “It’s not even a question that he will pass me, and I think it’s great,” Gretzky told The New York Times last week. “He’s well on his way to 40 or 50 goals this year, maybe more. There is no doubt that, ultimately, he will break the record.” (Sportsnet)

• The NHL’s Stars Aren’t Going to the Olympics. And for Some, This Was Their Last Chance. With COVID surging through the NHL, the league and NHLPA have pulled players out of the Olympics. That means some young stars continue to miss major international opportunities—and others will miss their final chance at playing in the Games. (Ringer)

• The History of the Craftsman Style American Craftsman is an American domestic architectural style, inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, which included interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts, beginning in the last years of the 19th century. Its immediate ancestors in American architecture are the Shingle style, which began the move away from Victorian ornamentation toward simpler forms; and the Prairie style of Frank Lloyd Wright. The American Craftsman style was a 20th century American offshoot of the British Arts and Crafts movement, which began around the 1890s. The American movement also reacted against the eclectic Victorian "over-decorated" aesthetic; however, the arrival of the Arts and Crafts movement in late 19th century America coincided with the decline of the Victorian era. While the American Arts and Crafts movement shared many of the same goals of the British movement, such as social reform, a return to traditional simplicity over gaudy historic styles, the use of local natural materials, and the elevation of handicraft, it was also able to innovate: unlike the British movement, which had never been very good at figuring out how to make handcrafted production scalable, American Arts and Crafts designers were more adept at the business side of design and architecture, and were able to produce wares for a staunchly middle class market. Gustav Stickley, in particular, hit a chord in the American populace with his goal of ennobling modest homes for a rapidly expanding American middle class, embodied in the Craftsman Bungalow style. The period of popularity was roughly 1900 – 1929 (prior to the Great Depression), and mostly prior to 1920. The homes can be spotted throughout BC.

Vancouver Island Omicron, EV Stations, No NHL Players in the Olympics

Wednesday morning news drop

• Vancouver Island is awash with Omicron. What are authorities doing to slow it? Data from other jurisdictions show the Island is in for a rough month to come, but authorities are still denying basic facts about the virus (Capital Daily)

• Everyone should be wearing N95 masks A typical cloth mask might capture half of all respiratory aerosols that come out of our mouth when we talk, sing or just breathe. A tightly woven cloth mask might get you to 60 or 70 percent, and a blue surgical mask can get you to 70 or 80 percent. But there’s no reason any essential worker — and, really, everyone in the country — should go without masks that filter 95 percent. The masks I’m referring to, of course, are N95s (Washington Post)

• Why one senator just blew up Joe Biden's presidential plans Sen. Joe Manchin's decision not to back the Build Back Better bill affects his party, country and the planet (CBC)

• It’s Time to Stop Giving Gifts to Adults You heard me. Keep giving children presents, by all means. (They don’t have jobs! They can’t buy their own stuff! They like almost everything, and often enjoy the box, too! They won’t stress themselves out about reciprocating! ) But I honestly believe that adults who have any level of anxiety or angst about presents should just agree to stop exchanging them altogether. (Slate)

• The Case for Making Bitcoin 5 Percent of Allocators’ Portfolios Institutional investors could invest more in cryptocurrencies if tighter regulations are enacted, according to Ned Davis Research. (Institutional Investor)

• The Real Reason to Index The key benefit is ease of use, not performance. (Morningstar)

• Canada needs to build millions — not thousands — of EV charging stations Industry group says Lack of charging infrastructure could turn people off electric vehicles, group warns (CBC)

• NHL players won't go to Beijing Olympics amid COVID-19 concerns League has shut down early for holiday break because of rising COVID-19 cases (CBC)

• Forget 9 to 5. These experts say the time has come for the results-only work environment

  Pandemic has made world more ready for unique HR approach, experts say, where employees have more autonomy (CBC)

• Going Out to Eat in the Age of the Shrinking Menu Higher food costs and staffing shortages are making for slimmer menus with fewer ingredients (Wall Street Journal)

• Wind power becomes Spain’s leading energy source for 2021 Renewable sources already cover almost half of the country’s consumption needs – so far this year, they have contributed almost 47% of the total compared to less than 30% a decade ago (El Pais)

• Rising From the Antarctic, a Climate Alarm Wilder winds are altering currents. The sea is releasing carbon dioxide. Ice is melting from below. (New York Times)

• How we destroyed The Matrix: Incels and trans activists are both fooled by its myth Raking in almost half a billion dollars, it proved that Hollywood could tap into the new immersive nature of gaming, paved the way for the superhero imperium, and made explicitly philosophical non-franchise blockbusters a going concern. Better still, and despite two widely disliked sequels, it became a cultural touchstone. The Wachowskis talked about “making mythology relevant in a modern context” and they succeeded in spades. The Matrix has become a modern myth and, like any myth, it has been interpreted in radically different ways. (UnHerd)

• December 20th Housing Market Update As 2021 draws to a close, we can reflect on an extraordinary year in the Victoria market through some random statistics of note. It was a year of market frenzy that we haven’t seen since the early 90s. Back then we only have partial data available which shows us we had a similarly high level of sales, though we don’t know if inventory got quite as low as we’re seeing now. (House Hunt Victoria)

Home ownership rates in Canada

Sports Gambling, Market Crash, Interest Rates, and the Apple Park

Tuesday morning news drop

• The Sports Gambling Gold Rush Is Absolutely Off the Charts Legal sports betting in the U.S. — once confined to Nevada — has gone mainstream. Since the Supreme Court in 2018 ended federal bans on the industry’s expansion, dozens of states have legalized it, and a multibillion-dollar betting boom is afoot. More money is now wagered on sports in New Jersey than in Nevada. California, which may become the biggest market of all, will vote on legalization next year. (Bloomberg)

• ‘To the Moon’ Crash Is Coming A longtime venture capitalist sees the religious dedication to Elon Musk, hype, and YOLO investing as almost a dot com-style pyramid scheme in the making. (Vice)

• Finding Some Middle Ground Between Paul Volcker & Jerome Powell The problem is it’s not like taking interest rates from 0% to 0.75% or 1% is all of the sudden going to fix the supply chain issues. The Fed can’t make more semiconductors. They can’t unpack container ships at the LA ports. They can’t create more houses out of thin air. (Wealth of Common Sense)

• The Biggest Deepfake Abuse Site Is Growing in Disturbing Ways A referral program and partner sites have spurred the spread of invasive, AI-generated “nude” images. (Wired)

• A Sunny Place for a Shady Online Business: Malta, home to hundreds of betting sites and dubious oversight, is a target of an international money laundering crackdown. (Businessweek)

• Documents link Huawei to China’s surveillance programs A review of more than 100 Huawei PowerPoint presentations, many marked “confidential,” suggests that the company has had a broader role in tracking China’s populace than it has acknowledged. (Washington Post)

• The U.S. Has A Lot Of Guns Involved In Crimes But Very Little Data On Where They Came From the ways guns were trafficked made it hard to answer basic questions like how many might be stolen each year. Often, he said, police found trafficked guns only after they were used in a crime. Experts who spoke with FiveThirtyEight said there was no clear, national data on how crime guns go from manufacturers and dealers to the black market, how trafficking differed from state to state or even the street price of trafficked firearms in different markets. The most recent federal report on gun trafficking dates from 2000, and it used data from 1996 to 1998. (FiveThirtyEight)

• The Paperwork Coup A much more dangerous insurrection was under way in the inboxes of Trump’s inner circle in the weeks before January 6. (The Atlantic)

• Donald Trump’s Megaphone: Fox News news hosts knew that Trump’s lies were lies—and they amplified them anyhow I didn’t want to be complicit in so many lies. I know that a huge share of the people you saw on TV praising Trump were being dishonest. I know it, because they would say one thing to my face or in my presence and another thing when the cameras and microphones were flipped on. Punditry and politics is a very small world—especially on the right—and if you add-up all the congressmen, senators, columnists, producers, editors, etc. you’ll probably end up with fewer people than the student population of a decent-sized liberal arts college. (The Dispatch)

• A Classic Car Giant With a Lofty Mission: Save Driving The Hagerty brand insures collectible autos — two million of them — and its articles and videos draw crowds. After going public, it has bigger plans. (New York Times)

• Inside Apple Park: first look at the design team shaping the future of tech Led by Evans Hankey and Alan Dye, the Apple Design Team holds enormous sway over our evolving relationship with technology. Opening the doors to their studio at Apple Park in Cupertino for the first time, they offered us a deep dive into the working processes behind their latest creations. (Wallpaper)

Cumberland, Fast Fashion, Gucci, and Indoor Farms

Monday morning news drop

• Canada's village that bought a forest Cumberland on Vancouver Island has evolved from a grubby coal town to a mountain biking mecca, all thanks to passionate locals who claimed control of their landscape.(BBC)

• Why Did the Women’s Tennis Association Risk Everything for Peng Shuai? The WTA decided to do what the NBA, Nike, Microsoft, Starbucks, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and innumerable other global businesses vastly greater in size, power and revenue have not. It has to do with tanks in Shenzhen, mariachi bands in Guadalajara and a legacy passed down by players for 50 years. (Sports Illustrated)

• How Shein beat Amazon at its own game — and reinvented fast fashion By connecting China’s garment factories with Western Gen-Z customers, Shein ushered in a new era of “ultra-fast” shopping. (Rest of World)

• Inside Gucci with creative director Alessandro Michele You don't need to speak much Italian to know the word Gucci. For 100 years, the brand with its double G logo has been synonymous with opulence, understated luxury and over-the-top prices. (60 Minutes)

• The true story behind the IBM Personal Computer: The industry-creating IBM Personal Computer 5150 turned 40 this year. To mark the occasion, we reveal the story of its birth – and destroy one long-running myth in the process (IT Pro)

• Inside Tesla as Elon Musk Pushed an Unflinching Vision for Self-Driving Cars The automaker may have undermined safety in designing its Autopilot driver-assistance system to fit its chief executive’s vision, former employees say. (New York Times)

• Can Indoor Farms Reach Skyscraper Height? A proposed Shenzhen skyscraper would include a 51-story hydroponic farm, as hopes grow that vertical farms can help address food insecurity. (CityLab)

• Five reasons why inflation will persist Unless governments can improve labour productivity, inflation can only be cured by interest rates high enough to slow down the economy (Financial Post)

• The Future of Work Is a 60-Year Career Humans may soon live to be 100, which likely means more years on the job. That could be a good thing, if we take the opportunity to redesign work. (The Atlantic)

• The best and worst places to live (if you only care about money). The conventional wisdom has long been that most workers — no matter their education or skills — should move to big metropolitan areas with lucrative, globally competitive industries, where they can get in on the action and climb the economic ladder. But there is another side to the equation: cost of living. Whether a place offers a good financial deal is like an arm-wrestling match between the income you can earn there and its cost of living. (NPR)

• Fox News’s shaky veneer collapses Text messages the Jan. 6 committee received from Mark Meadows included appeals from several Fox News hosts, including Sean Hannity and Brian Kilmeade, warning Meadows Jan 6 rioters were “destroying everything you have accomplished.” This ended the ability for Fox News to credibly claim that its approach to its coverage is objective. (Washington Post)

• The Great Inheritors: How Three Families Shielded Their Fortunes From Taxes for Generations In the early 1900s some of the wealthiest Americans claimed their fortunes would never last through the generations. A century of tax avoidance later, the dynasties are going strong. (ProPublica)

Videos of the Week, SOTY, Mark Suciu, Inflation or Creation?

Friday morning news drop

• Why Jerome Powell Pivoted on Inflation A surge in wages and benefits got his attention. Other data soon confirmed his concern. (Upshot)

• The history of the metal box that’s wrecking the supply chain: Shipping containers, explained by a historian. Behold the simple shipping container. It’s a large, steel box that can carry tens of thousands of pounds of cargo. It’s also stackable and designed to fit on ocean freight ships, trains, and even trucks. These containers have been an unnoticed cog in the world’s highly complex manufacturing network for decades. But not anymore. (Vox)

• It’s beginning to look a lot more expensive for Christmas The holidays feel more expensive this year because they are. This year’s holiday season will likely feel more normal than last. It’s also going to be more expensive, essentially across the board. In the United States and in many parts of the world, inflation is running higher now than it has in recent decades thanks, in part, to supply-demand mismatches, supply chain kinks, and a generally weird economic moment. (Vox)

• Inflation in the Housing Market And we haven’t even considered the fact that rising inflation makes your fixed monthly payment lower over time. Just look at the debt profile of homeowners in the United States: You could argue the homeowner has never had it better than they’ve had it this past cycle. (A Wealth of Common Sense)

• Six Rules For Avoiding Market Panic Attacks Pity the investor without a panic plan. Delete becoming chum for the hysterical shark-infested financial media. What should you do? How about turning to West Point for some practical solutions? Nate Zinsser runs the performance psychology program at our most prestigious military academy. Cadets face immense stress grinding through the four-year program. Zinsser’s tips are indespinsable. (A Teachable Moment)

• How the Chinese trade deal led to the Great Awokening: Twenty years on, who are the big winners from globalization? (Wrong Side of History)

• The NFL Is a COVID Superspreader Right Now There are currently more than 70 active players on the NFL’s COVID-19 list. (Vice)

Videos of the Week

We gotta give respect to Mark Suciu for crushing SOTY this year. From his Spitfire part to the epic Flora rail montage he deserved it all. One of the most amazing performances in skate history was laid down this year and filled with NBD’s… all praise to Mark Suciu. Dude killed it this year. RIP!

Vans BMX Presents: Acea | BMX | VANS Vans BMX Presents: Acea, a new film from Dennis Enarson capturing a snapshot of his life over the past year, including the birth of his first son for whom the project is named. Coming off the success and momentum of Right Here, Dennis filmed Acea with lifelong friend and acclaimed filmmaker Tony Ennis—an athlete-filmer duo highly anticipated by the BMX community. The result is mind-blowing maneuvers and stunts that only Dennis can pull off, and a part that rivals everything Dennis has done up until now.

CHAD KERLEY - LOCKDOWN

Demolition Parts Presents: Kris Fox Pendulum Between lockdowns and news of melanoma Kris Fox decided to hit the road with the Fast and Loose crew. West coast to east coast and all the deep concrete in the middle fills this part to the brim. Enjoy the deep roast.

Building a WILD Freeride MTB Line | Darren Berrecloth on Vancouver Island Watch freeride MTB legend, Darren Berrecloth, fuse his creative building and unique riding in this stunning new edit shot by Rupert Walker.

For years, mountain bike films have led to mind-blowing one-off stunts for film features tucked out of the way in British Columbia's forests. Most of these iconic structures are now dilapidated and reclaimed by nature. Darren Berrecloth has built his fair share, but for this new backyard edit, he’s created a series of inspired features along the trails he regularly rides and incorporated them into the flow with his signature riding style.

"I've been wanting to do a shred edit on the trails above my house for quite some time," says Darren. "And I was super stoked to get this opportunity to get out there with Rupert [Walker] and create some unique features and go back to my roots; my blend of BMX and mountain bike, and incorporate that into trail bike riding."

Hailing from Parksville, BC, Canada, Darren Berrecloth has been widely regarded as one of the best freeride mountain bikers in the world, ever since he exploded onto the scene with a third at the 2002 Red Bull Rampage. With a wide range of podium finishes and magazine covers under his belt, Berrecloth is showing no sign of slowing down.

A hard-working athlete who puts lots of effort into building unique bike features, Berrecloth’s dedication to the sport is unmatched in the industry. Known for taking lines that other riders don’t even consider, his success, sheer guts and determination have seen him become something of a legendary figure – even more so since breaking his back in 2011 and returning to competitive riding for 2012.

LATE FOR SCHOOL 2 / Gabriel Wibmer

JENKEM - Ground Glass: Mark Suciu Videographer James Thomson spent a couple of days with Mark filming this 16mm edit for our “Ground Glass” series that ditches the one-upmanship and stair counting, and focuses back on just some of the bits that make Mark special. Don’t think of this as yet another part of his “SOTY run,” but rather as a victory lap, and a showing of our appreciation for one of the best skaters of our generation.

Trey Wood's "Madness" Part

Ryan Decenzo's "1990" Part Still stacking on gold-standard hammer spots like Hollywood High and Rincon, Ryan’s skating knows no chill.