* “The Shape of Things to Come: How an industrial designer became Apple’s greatest product,” my favorite piece of this batch, about Jonathan Ive—who has improbably done more to shape the modern world than all but a handful of other people.

* Nurse throws down in the comments section of “Why you should become a nurse or physicians assistant instead of a doctor: the underrated perils of medical school.”

* “The Great Software Revolution,” which is similar to “Software is Eating the World” but with different emphasis.

* “Meet the [Washington] Sex Workers Who Lawmakers Don’t Believe Exist,” from The Stranger and SFW.

* “Why Authors Walk Away From Good, Big 5 Publishers.”

* “The Days and Nights of an NBA Groupie: Meet the ladies who will do anything to bed a pro baller.” There is a novel here, something like Jay McInerney’s Story of My Life; I don’t think I’m the right person to write it. The mental contortions sometimes evident here are also amusing.

* An unintentionally hilarious comment from David Brin, from the post about his post on characters in fiction; the comment is guilty of the very thing he accuses me of doing!

* “The Miracle of Minneapolis: No other place mixes affordability, opportunity, and wealth so well. What’s its secret?” Land-use controls are an underrated driver of many ills in the contemporary U.S.; if you meet someone who complains about income inequality but doesn’t want to remove urban height limits and parking limits, they’re either not serious or don’t know much about the issue.

* Lesbian takes testosterone, feels shocked when her whole worldview changes.

* Employers want better technical writers but aren’t getting them.