BOTW 2015.10.07
Elo Ratings Not Just for Chess
Nate Silver, the US celebrity-statistician (no, really), uses Elo ratings to predict sports outcomes. His site fivethirtyeight.com has the Blue Jays as the clear 2015 World Series favourite, with a 19% chance of winning.
Only 19%? That doesn't sound great, but by comparison, it rates the Yankees at 5% an St.Louis and KC as 13% each.
To read more, including their other uses of the Elo system, visit their site:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/best-2015-mlb-teams-blue-jays-elo/
Elo and Computer Games
If your tastes run to online games, you might want to check out how Elo rating is used in Counter Strike: Global Offensive, the first-person shooter from Valve.
You can read about that here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=312582297
Chess in Seven Movies
While at 538 you might want to check out their article "The Subtext Buried In Seven Great Movie Chess Scenes", which uses both Stockfish and GM Robert Hess to evaluate the positions and moves in chess scenes from seven movies, ranging from Blazing Saddles to X-Men and (the best, chesswise) Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. There are YouTube clips and chess diagrams aplenty.
CAUTION: DO NOT HAVE AN ANEURISM: Canadian chess and Bond fans of a certain age will immediately note the error in their claim that Kronsteen's opponent in From Russia with Love is unnamed. Of course, it was MacAdams from Canada.
With this health warning, you can find their analysis here:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-subtext-buried-in-seven-great-movie-chess-scenes/
Isle of Man International
Finally, if your chess interest extends only as far as chess games and you're suffering withdrawl symptoms after the 128-player Baku World Cup ended (Finals survivor: Sergey Karjakin), then you can find live games from the Isle of Man International (Oct 3 - 11, 2015). It has 17 players over 2600, with 2742 Michael Adams as top seed.
Check out Nigel Short's 22-move win as Black over GM Alon Greenfeld (2534) from round 5, it's hilarious.
http://www.iominternationalchess.com/live-games.html