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Screenwriting 101: Justin Marks

“There's not a single battle a writer can win on a conference call, a notes meeting, anything. We win the battle on the page.”--Justin MarksFor 100s more articles in the Screenwriting 101 series, go here.The Protagonist’s Journey: An Introduction to Character-Driven Screenwriting and Storytellingis a #1 Best Seller in Film and Television. Endorsed by over thirty professional screenwriters, novelists, and academics, you may purchase it here.

Emmys 2026 winners and losers: Widow's Bay rules; Matthew Rhys picks up historic wins

Television took center stage on Monday night at the 2026 Primetime Emmys. Widow's Bay, The Pitt, and DTF St. Louis walked home with the night's biggest awards, while Beef disappointed.

A Chinese state-owned firm was found shipping 46 tons of drone-making material to Russia

China shipped 46 tons of drone material to a sanctioned Russian firmThe shipment was hidden on paper under a civilian customs codeAlabuga-Volokno sends 89% of its output straight to Russian defense firmsInternal shipping records reviewed by the US and UK governments revealed that a Chinese state-owned enterprise transferred 46 tons of carbon-fiber precursor material to a sanctioned Russian drone manufacturer earlier in 2026.The documents describe two large containers

Windows 11 is running hidden tasks that drain your laptop battery—here's how to stop them

Your laptop had a full charge at the start of the day, but by noon, you're reaching for the outlet to refill the battery. The battery percentage kept dropping even though you didn’t stream anything or run a demanding task. That’s because Windows 11 isn’t sitting idle while you work. In the background, a quiet parade of apps, services, and sync routines run constantl

You don't need a dedicated GPS—an old Android phone makes a better offline navigator

Knowing where you actually are can sometimes be a problem when you're traveling. But that drawer phone gathering dust can outperform a purpose-built GPS unit, for the price of an app and a little setup time.

This $15 ESP32 made Apple Music and Spotify discovery way better

With so much music on streaming services, and more and more being added daily, it's not always easy to find music I really love among the millions of tracks. I use a cheap ESP32 board to make the process much easier.

7 pioneering Linux applications that never needed replacing

Linux has changed dramatically since the early days of the kernel. Desktops have gone from X11 environments with primitive window managers to polished graphical shells. Containers, cloud computing, virtualization, and immutable operating systems have transformed how people deploy Linux. Even the hardware running Linux today would have seemed extraordinary to many of

Dual-screen smartphones are dead, so I dug mine up to learn we made a mistake

The unstoppable rise of foldables has slowed the homogenization of smartphones with new form factors and designs, but early in the foldable era, dual-screen smartphones (two separate displays connected by a hinge) seemed like an alternative to traditional slabs.

Linux works better on gaming handhelds than laptops—and that’s embarrassing

<p>Linux on desktop systems is in a great place right now. Whatever desktop system you have, you can probably slap a Linux distro of your choice on it right now, and have few if any issues.</p><img src='https://static0.howtogeekimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/wm/2026/09/a-steam-deck-with-a-low-profile-keyboard-in-front-of-it-1.png' />

Milwaukee&#039;s real cost isn&#039;t the drill — it&#039;s everything that comes after

It's no secret that Milwaukee makes some of the best power tools, but buying into Team Red isn't as straightforward as it appears. The initial sticker price is only part of the story, and everything that comes after will inevitably cost a lot more.

I tested 20 ways to improve my Wi-Fi network—these 6 made the biggest difference

Are you sick of having Wi-Fi problems? Yeah, so was I. And the internet is full of hacks that supposedly help so much, but most of the time, you'll be changing some settings and then scratching your head, trying to determine what exactly is now so much better.

3 captivating Netflix movies to watch this week (September 14 - 20)

Everyone is always so focused on new, new, new. But Netflix's back catalog of movies has legs, too. A week after I pointed you toward Straight Outta Compton and Alien, both are still holding strong on the U.S. charts. This week, Angelina Jolie joins them with her thriller Those Who Want Me Dead, which I get into below.

At $80, this HP Envy 6165 all-in-one printer deal is one of the cheapest ways to upgrade a home office right now

The HP Envy 6165 is one of the cheapest inkjets around right now - and it does everything most home and home office users will need, making it one of the least expensive ways to add print, scan, and copy capability to a desk setup.• Best for: Families, students, and remote workers who need a capable inkjet for printing, scanning, and copying. • The deal: The HP Envy 6165 all-in-one printer is now $80 (was $160) at Best Buy.• Why we like it: It's one of the cheapest in

CISA warns hackers are exploiting max severity GitLab flaw — urges all businesses to patch immediately

CISA added GitLab CVE‑2026‑85706, a critical path traversal flaw, to its KEV catalogExploitation already observed; attackers can read sensitive files via commits API without authenticationGitLab patched in CE/EE 19.3.2, 19.2.6, and 19.1; agencies given three days to updateThe US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added a new GitLab vulnerability to its KEV catalog, warning users that it is being actively exploited in the wild.GitLab has now up

Would you buy a Beats game controller? Apple is apparently working on its own iPhone controller, and the Beats team could be leading on how it looks and feels

Apple is reportedly working on Beats-branded game controllers for iPhonesMark Gurman says Apple has been working on them for almost a yearGurman suggests the Beats team is leading on both 'product engineering and conception'Apple seemingly continues to show its devotion to gaming with something that's in the pipeline for iOS gamers.As reported by PC Mag, macOS 26.7 code references two unreleased iPhone game controllers, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman suggests Apple has b

6 old gadgets worth keeping because the open-source community found better uses for them

It's always frustrating when you can no longer use a perfectly functional gadget because the company behind it shuts down the service or stops developing the software. Thankfully, the open-source community has found plenty of ways to keep using old devices that would otherwise become e-waste.

Linux is free, but I pay for Linux PCs: Here&#039;s why

One of the perks of Linux is that both the operating system and the vast majority of apps are free. Yet if you try to buy a PC that comes with Linux, you might end up spending more than buying one with Windows. Why spend that extra money when you can install Linux on an existing computer for free?

Ask HN: Career paths to consider if I am better at supporting than creating?

I have a BS&#x2F;MS in computer science and somewhere around 9 years of experience, where the first half was spent working as a backend developer and the second half I&#x27;ve been working in product owner roles. I switched from development to product because I simply realized that I wasn&#x27;t very good at implementation and system design work to be honest. I wanted to work with tech from a more overarching level, and let the experts who were much more skilled than me handle the implementation

I keep these 5 HBO Max shows on my phone because the episodes are only 25 minutes long

Time is a valuable thing. As much as I would love to watch and finish a show in one sitting, it's unattainable to do every weekend. If you're like me, you're always on the go. Thanks to streaming, you can take your favorite shows on the road and watch them on a phone.

I stopped doing clean Windows installs—Microsoft made them almost pointless

<p>For most of my Windows-using life, there was an annual ritual we all got to know very well. When your computer started getting slow and creaky, you'd back up all your files to a separate medium, format your system disk, and reinstall Windows.</p><img src='https://static0.howtogeekimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/shutterstock_2690520969.jpg' />