Each week, members of the WFPL News team spotlight interesting stories we've read and enjoyed, for your weekend reading pleasure:Gabe Bullard:Some facts about Chuck E. Cheese:1. It was started by an Atari employee.2. Chuck was supposed to be a coyote.3. It was almost named Rick Rat's Pizza4. The animatronics were to entertain parents, not kids.5. The concept is a market inevitability. That is, had Chuck E. Cheese not been created, a similar business would have likely sprung up.In this piece, the Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal explains how Chuck E. Cheese is a smart, well-engineered Silicon Valley start up. His case is as convincing as the animatronics are terrifying. Read The Origin of the Best Pizza Chain Ever.Laura Ellis: I'm not reading anything this week. I'm just watching this video over and over and over and over again. Okay, I also read this piece about how cops in Boston are going undercover online to infiltrate the DIY music scene. The problem is their profiles and messages are ridiculously out of touch with the culture they're trying to spy on. I mean, one of them posted asking, "What is the Address for the local music show tonight?" I mean, Sydnor would have never made a bone-headed mistake like that. Read Boston Punk Zombies Are Watching You!Rick Howlett: The controversy over putting Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine has overshadowed Janet Retiman's extensive reporting in the magazine about Tsarnaev and the bombing. Read Jahar's World.Also: Rolling Stone's Matt Taibi, a Boston native, also offers some thoughts on the cover controversy. Read Explaining the Rolling Stone Cover, by a Boston Native.Joseph Lord: Andrew Bujalski's new film Computer Chess has me spending free moments in an old hobby—getting myself destroyed by chess apps in my spare time. Chess may have even wider implications than my self-esteem, obviously. Foreign Policy argues in this piece that the goings on in the top echelon of chess players has mimicked world affairs for centuries. The facts are themselves absorbing (and distressing if you're the sort who hopes for world peace.) Read How Chess Explains the World.
