A Spooky Net Neutrality Story, Solving Murders With Photoshop and More #Mustreads

Happy Friday!

Re/code is here with some content to tide you over until 5 pm:

1. A new blast in the content guys versus pipe guys war: A compelling piece from net neutrality advocate Susan Crawford, who says she has proof that Verizon, Comcast* and other broadband providers are “intentionally squeezing data coming from some incoming networks — in particular, networks associated with Netflix.”
2. If you’re any good at Photoshop and have time to kill before 10 am PT this morning, Adobe is sponsoring a Halloween contest where you use Photoshop to peel back the layers of a picture of a dead guy to figure out who murdered him. Read more at the photography news site Fstoppers.
3. You probably heard that Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly confirmed that he was gay in an essay for Bloomberg Businessweek yesterday. In a widely shared article, the Verge’s Casey Newton explained why this is more than an “Okay, cool, let’s move on” moment, and as the Guardian’s Alex Hern astutely observed on Twitter: “We knew Cook was gay; what we didn’t know is how he felt about it.”
4. 2014 is the Year of the Podcast. Whether it was “This American Life’s” big story on the Federal Reserve, or the hit true-crime series “Serial,” it’s clear that the form is now very much in vogue. Why is that? asks Kevin Roose in New York magazine. A few possibilities: Podcasts don’t cost a crazy amount, mobile streaming technology has gotten a lot better and, perhaps most importantly, the podcasting ad money is pretty significant.
5. Next Tuesday is Election Day! While the most important elections for you will be whatever’s happening on your local level, the New York Times has a handy and easy-to-use interactive tool that lets you see what some of the likely outcomes are on the federal level. And unlike 2012, it seems as though none of the statistics whizzes are in agreement about what’s going to happen this time around.

If you see any stories you’d like to send our way (or have any questions/comments about stories we’ve recommended), feel free to shoot an email to noah@recode.net.

* Comcast owns NBCUniversal, which is a minority investor in Revere Digital, Re/code’s parent company.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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