* “How to Beat Writer’s Block.” In The New Yorker, not the usual Internet drivel.

* “Pharma companies are fighting legal marijuana because painkiller prescriptions drop when weed is legalized.” Talk about unintended consequences.

* “Why 30 is the decade friends disappear — and what to do about it.”

* “The Fight for the ‘Right to Repair:’ Manufacturers have made it increasingly difficult for individuals or independent repair people to fix electronics. A growing movement is fighting back.” The increasing difficulty of repairing Apple products is notable and annoying; for example, only recently did aftermarket hard drives show up for many 2012 – 2015 MacBook Pros.

* Megan McArdle: “Sexual Harassment Is Invisible to Half the Population;” not the dumb stuff you’re used to reading on this topic.

* “So Many Research Scientists, So Few Openings as Professors.”

* “The Complicated Legacy of Helen Gurley Brown,” who founded Cosmo and wrote many other interesting things.

* A promising book about chocolate, though too expensive for me right now.

* Concern trolling, competition, and ‘Facebook Made Me Do It.'”

* “Data Mining Reveals the Six Basic Emotional Arcs of Storytelling,” and their conclusions are likely to be of near-zero help to actual storytellers.

* “End Needless Interactions with Police Officers During Traffic Stops,” another of these “should be obvious” things. And: “My husband is a cop. I’m tired of trying to convince my fellow liberals he’s not a monster.”

* “The Surprising Health Benefits of an Electric Bike.”

* “Sonnen’s new battery for solar self-consumption could succeed in US.”

* From Grant Writing Confidential, a post about an aspect of government few people understand: “It’s possible to get re-programmed funds, if you’re tight with your federal agency program officer.”

* “Thoughts on possible and perceived income inequality.”

* Transit Tax-Increment Financing (TIF) in Chicago.

* “How Expensive Cities Hurt Workers,” which regular readers no doubt know.

* “Is American Culture Asking Too Much of Marriage? The relationship therapist Esther Perel thinks so—and argues that it’s time to rethink matrimony and, with it, infidelity.” Points rarely made, and Perel’s book Mating in Captivity is one of the most interesting and unexpected I’ve ever read. It was published in 2007 and feels equally shocking today.

* “A fieldtrip to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a work-in-progress that will test fusion’s feasibility.” Progress has been made since 2014’s article, “A Star in a Bottle: An audacious plan to create a new energy source could save the planet from catastrophe. But time is running out.” Both are excellent.

* Kids are more boring than they used to be: They’re drinking less, using fewer drugs, and having less sex. What’s the point of being young?

* Synthetic spider silk could be the biggest technological advance in clothing since nylon.” Cool if true.

* “Building My $1,200 Hackintosh,” which is pretty attractive compared to Apple’s anemic lineup of desktop Macs.

* “Let’s make peer review scientific,” something that ought to have happened ages ago.

* “Italian banking is the next shoe to drop,” a story that has gotten weirdly little play.

* “What’s the point of the PhD thesis? Doctoral courses are slowly being modernized. Now the thesis and viva need to catch up.”

* Speaking of the PhD thesis, “Universities May Be Contributing to High Attrition Rates Among Graduate Students.” See also my posts “Why do so many people continue to pursue doctorates?” and “What you should know BEFORE you start grad school.”

* New York City’s subway agency loses six billion dollars a year—and nobody cares.

* “How Paper Shaped Civilization.”

* “Beware critics with theories,” a point made too infrequently among nattering academics. I remember staring into the medium distance in grad school seminars, listening to professors pontificate about how nothing is outside language, and wanting to throw water bottles at them to demonstrate that yes, in fact, some things are outside language.

* “How the 2016 Chevy Volt added 18 miles of EV range” and got better all around. The Volt is a consistently underrated car. On Hacker News someone asked, “Why don’t more folks respect this car?” That’s an excellent question, and I find most answers unconvincing. My guess is more psychological or sociological: GM has none of the sex appeal / marketing that Tesla or even BMW has. For that reason the Volt is easily overlooked or disrespected; in addition, it’s an important car but doesn’t have the pizzazz of an all-electric car. Still, it’s available today, relatively cheaply, and that should count for a lot. People don’t realize what an incredible engineering achievement it is.

* We’re 10 to 30 times richer than we were 200 years ago (points rarely made). Saliently to this blog, we also have many more good books to read, with more being written every year!

* Adam Gopnik on “The Dangerous Acceptance of Donald Trump,” which is similar to my essay “People can believe in madness for surprisingly long periods of time.”

* Unsurprisingly, even “environmentalists” will sell their land or mineral rights to oil companies. The phrase “revealed preferences” comes to mind.

* “Behind the Making of Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience,” more interesting than it sounds. See my thoughts here.

* Pay Attention To Libertarian Gary Johnson; He’s Pulling 10 Percent vs. Trump And Clinton.

* “The Perils of Writing a Mildly Provocative Email at Yale,” which is another chapter in campus madness.

* Skeptical of the content, but I read it as funny: “Gay Until Labor Day: Stretching Female Sexuality in the Hamptons.”

* “Is everything wrestling?” Especially in politics?