So what are your #baseball playoff wishes and predictions?

Personally I'm hoping for a Rays/Braves series, with the Rays winning.

"He recalled asking Ford why he raised wages when every other manufacturer was trying to reduce wages to the lowest acceptable figure. Ford believed he was buying higher quality work from all his employees. 'If the floor sweeper’s heart is in his job he can save us five dollars a day by picking up small tools instead of sweeping them out.'" https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2014/01/ford-doubles-minimum-wage/

"In the 1930s, as today, the shift to newsletters arose amidst a crisis of confidence in the newspaper industry and was enabled by the spread of new technology." https://www.wired.com/story/peak-newsletter-that-was-80-years-ago/

"Paul, it's Bob Wilson. You've won the Nobel Prize" – Economist Robert Wilson, waking up his neighbor and fellow Nobel Prize winner Paul Milgrom in the middle of the night to share the good news. Best wake-up call ever. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/13/knock-knock-whos-there-the-nobel-prize-for-economics

Behold the flower box indicators: unusual metrics for determining a team’s health

(by me!)
https://applied.economist.com/articles/unexpected-ways-to-gauge-the-health

5 reasons NOT to grow your QA department
Honest: There are times when hiring another QA professional isn’t the answer.
https://www.functionize.com/blog/5-reasons-not-to-grow-your-qa-department/

"Oddly enough, standing in a Dodger Stadium parking lot with Sean Penn barely ranks on the list of weird shit occurring in my life at this moment." https://www.gq.com/story/sean-penn-war-against-covid

"Nichols Electronics may not be a large corporatized monopoly. But since it controls the music box market, it also has a near-unilateral sway over which songs reverberate through neighborhoods across the country." https://thehustle.co/the-company-that-has-a-monopoly-on-ice-cream-truck-music/

Fifty years after Mary Richards launched her blue knit cap in the air, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” remains the archetype of single-girl freedom—and an inspiration to generations of women onscreen and off. https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a34300687/mary-tyler-moore-50th-anniversary/

Ordering a Philly cheesesteak is one of the riskiest moves a high-profile politician can make https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/10/12/why-the-philly-cheesesteak-can-swing-a-presidential-election

For every two deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the U.S., a third American dies as a result of the pandemic, according to new data. The study shows that deaths between March 1 and Aug. 1 increased 20% compared to previous years -- maybe not surprising in a pandemic. But deaths attributed to COVID-19 only accounted for 67% of those deaths. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201012115953.htm

Tesla teased his “teleforce” weapon for decades, saying it could shoot down airplanes from 250 miles away. The press landed on a different name for the invention: death ray. Despite claims to the contrary, Tesla never provided much proof that the death ray worked. But no one could quite dismiss the idea, either. After all, this was Tesla.
https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/the-undying-appeal-of-nikola-teslas-death-ray

Click on any forest, hear the sounds its makes. https://timberfestival.org.uk/soundsoftheforest-soundmap/

Via @JonathanCohn on Twitter:

Republicans celebrating Columbus Day by creating a super-spreader event is pretty meta.

Before the Easy-Bake Oven came along, toy stoves were beautiful, burned real fuel, and caused real damage. Also these photos are cool. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/easy-bake-oven

"A clean cut-off between the work-self and life-self, and finding a way to transition between the two states of being, isn’t just beneficial to the worker but beneficial to the employers as well." https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200929-how-feierabend-helps-germans-disconnect-from-the-workday

It's been 24 years since Internet companies were declared off-the-hook for the behavior of their users. That may change, and soon, writes John Battelle. https://pgsignal.com/2020/10/05/how-2021-can-be-the-year-we-fix-the-broken-media-ecosystem/

"The chastity cage has a Bluetooth lock that could easily be hacked by almost anyone, leaving the wearer stuck in the device. There is no physical unlock. An angle grinder or other suitable heavy tool would be required to cut the wearer free." https://threatpost.com/male-chastity-device-massive-security-flaws/159896