Cleaning Online Reputations, Fake Money, and Wall Street Expectations

Wednesday morning news drop

• The Dirty Work of Cleaning Online Reputations For a fee, companies will tackle damaging search results. But is the new economy of digital makeovers making things worse? (Walrus)

• Money has never felt more fake. The market feels like a bubble. Does it matter? The concept of value is a fuzzy one, and valuation is often more art than it is science. Psychology has always played a role in money and investing — and there have always been bubbles, too, where the price of an asset takes off at a rapid pace and disconnects from the fundamental value. (Vox)

• 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)

• Car shortage could change buying behavior forever Car dealers’ annual year-end sell-a-thons have turned into wait-a-thons for many shoppers unable to find the vehicle they want on dealer lots — but that could be about to change as some companies modernize the way they sell their cars. (Axios)

• Here’s (Almost) Everything Wall Street Expects in 2022 As 2022 begins, the overriding message from almost 50 financial institutions across Wall Street and beyond is that conditions still look good, but the rip-roaring rallies powered by the reopening are history. Growth will ease. Returns will moderate. Risks abound—but so do opportunities. (Bloomberg)

• This Was the Year When Finance Jumped the Doge From GameStop to bored apes, weirdness abounded among meme-loving amateur investors. (Wired)

• U.S. defeats Canada in first dispute under new North American trade pact The issue is dairy. U.S. says Canada not fairly implementing changes it promised, and could face tariffs (CBC)

• Fate of 'doomsday glacier' is warning light for climate change, says author Jeff Goodell says what happens to the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica should push climate change action (CBC)

• The Trouble With Airports, and How to Fix Them With all the aggravation associated with flying these days, airport designers are hoping to calm things down with outdoor spaces, wide-open views, less noise and even foliage. (New York Times)

Elizabeth Holmes Guilty, Covid-19, The Beatles and Design Thinking

Tuesday morning news drop

• Elizabeth Holmes is found guilty of four counts of fraud Ms. Holmes, the founder of the blood testing start-up Theranos, was convicted of four of the 11 charges of fraud for lying to investors, patients and others. (NY Times)

• When will COVID-19 end? Here's what happened with other pandemics With cases skyrocketing and many scrambling to book third shots, one question feels more pressing than ever at the start of 2022: When will COVID-19 end? The trajectory of pandemics — a term which refers to an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread over a large region, usually globally — have varied widely depending on the type of disease, the time period, the politics and the quality of health care available. And sometimes, we consider a pandemic to have “ended” long before it ceases to be a problem worldwide. Looking back at some of our previous pandemics or epidemics can give us an insight into how COVID-19 could come to end, both in epidemiological and social terms. (CTV)

• Despite omicron, Covid-19 will become endemic. Here’s how. The variant has changed how we get from “pandemic” to “endemic,” but that doesn’t mean we’re back to square one. (Vox)

• Effects of climate change taking root in the wine industry What are the signs of global warming? Glaciers are melting at an increasingly rapid pace. Persistent droughts are spreading. Well, we have another to tell you about – wine, as in what you probably cracked open for Christmas dinner. France recorded its smallest harvest since 1957 and stands to lose more than $2 billion in sales - a huge blow to the country's second largest export industry. (60 Minutes)

• 10 Lessons from 2021 Gold is not an inflation hedge, Strong earnings can support high valuations, Bull markets can last longer than you think, and other important observations. (Irrelevant Investor)

• Why most gas stations don’t make money from selling gas With gas prices climbing up, you may think station owners are getting greedy. But the economics behind the pump tell a different story. (The Hustle)

• 10 lessons in productivity and brainstorming from The Beatles The first part of Peter Jackson’s epic Beatles documentary Get Back is a masterclass in facilitation and creative management. Paul McCartney tries a stoned, grumpy band through writing, arranging, recording and performing dozens of songs within a short deadline. He’s using the Design Thinking playbook, 20 years before it was written. (Medium)

• The History of Predicting the Future Humans have long tried to determine the shape of what’s to come. But even the most advanced technology can’t solve the fundamental issues with predictions. (Wired)

• Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Lays Out How He and Steve Bannon Planned to Overturn Biden’s Electoral Win. “It started out perfectly. At 1 p.m., Gosar and Cruz did exactly what was expected of them…” (Daily Beast)

• The Depths She’ll Reach: Sunken by grief, Alenka Artnik found herself alone on a bridge, contemplating suicide. Ten years later, she is the world’s greatest female freediver and getting stronger with each record-breaking plunge. How one woman emerged from mental health struggles to push the limits of the human body. (On Just One Breath)

2021 is Over, Child Care, Inflation, Boba Fett, and Champagne

Monday morning news drop

• The $30B child-care challenge: building a new program from the ground up Advocates say that without proper compensation for workers, it will be impossible to build a program (CBC)

• 21 really good things that happened in 2021 Behind the scary headlines, the human race is making a tremendous amount of progress. Scrape those burned edges off the year’s news, a lot of the stuff underneath is actually really good. A positive story that continues quietly, year on year (the explosive growth of electric vehicles, say, or the collapse of the coal industry), can seem invisible. These are breadcrumbs compared to the big, hearty, global trends, ones that could make the 2020s a much more satisfying decade than the one-star reviews suggest. (Mashable)

• Surprise! The Pandemic Has Made People More Science Literate Despite rampant misinformation, Covid-19 has pushed science into the zeitgeist, as people have absorbed new words and how scientific discovery actually works. (Wired)

• Japan Won’t Let Them Have Kids, So They Turn to the Black Market for Sperm Instead Japanese law allows only married couples to have children, leaving LGBTQ couples navigating a clandestine market for sperm donation. (Vice)

• The Looming Threat of a Nuclear Crisis with Iran: The Biden Administration faces a potential confrontation with a longtime rival that is better armed and more hard-line than at any time in its modern history. (New Yorker)

• The Fed’s Doomsday Prophet Has a Dire Warning About Where We’re Headed Thomas Hoenig knew what quantitative easing and record-low interest rates would bring. (Politico)

• A Different Kind of Recovery A look at 2021 and the impact of the pandemic on the economy (KKR)

• First They Fought About Masks. Then Over the Soul of the City. In Enid, Okla., pandemic politics prompted a fundamental question: What does it mean to be an American? Whose version of the country will prevail? (New York Times)

• A Record Number of Journalists Jailed China remained the top jailer of journalists for the third year in a row, with 50 locked up. Myanmar moved up to second place because of a military coup in February and the media crackdown that followed. Egypt, Vietnam and Belarus were the next three. (New York Times)

• Activists Who Are Risking All to End the War on Drugs Travis Lupick previously wrote the story of drug user health advocacy in Vancouver. His second book shines a light on Americans. (Tyee)

• Rick Flick Lost His Son. At Cincinnati, He Found New Purpose: Flick wanted to honor his son’s commitment to the football team. Now an invaluable cog of the program, he will be on hand as the Bearcats prepare to make history in the CFP. A father fulfills his lost son’s biggest dream (Sports Illustrated)

• The Year in Graphics The year 2021 held great promise—for starters, it meant 2020 had finally ended. But dreams of a return to normalcy were quickly dashed by U.S. Capitol riots that threw into question the very survival of American democracy, supply chain issues that snarled global commerce, an uneven rollout of Covid vaccines and new waves of infections, deadly wildfires and extreme market volatility driven by Redditors pushing meme stocks. Here’s how we told some of 2021’s most important stories with charts, maps and visuals. (Bloomberg)

• Champagne bubbles: the science As you uncork that bottle and raise your glass, take time to toast physics and chemistry along with the New Year. (Knowable)

• 18 Sports Highlights From 2021 Worth Watching Again World records, no-look shots, extraordinary goals, trick base running, come-from-behind victories … we may not know what sports will look like in 2022, but 2021 had it all. (New York Times)

• Boba Fett, Intergalactic Man of Mystery How did this fearsome “Star Wars” bounty hunter go from a peripheral player to the star of “The Book of Boba Fett”? He used the support of fans — and a little brute force. (New York Times)

• 14 charts that show what inflation and monetary policy will look like in the next year The Globe and Mail asked dozens of experts about the economy in 2022. Here are the charts they think are important to watch and why (Globe and Mail)

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