Amazing birthday cake, created by Jane Eyre herself, Karen Baum. (Thank you @kaboom1250!)

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What About “The Breakfast Club”?

I made three movies with John Hughes; when they were released, they made enough of a cultural impact to land me on the cover of Time magazine and to get Hughes hailed as a genius. His critical reputation has only grown since he died, in 2009, at the age of fifty-nine. Hughes’s films play constantly on television and are even taught in schools. There is still so much that I love in them, but lately I have felt the need to examine the role that these movies have played in our cultural life: where they came from, and what they might mean now. When my daughter proposed watching “The Breakfast Club” together, I had hesitated, not knowing how she would react: if she would understand the film or if she would even like it. I worried that she would find aspects of it troubling, but I hadn’t anticipated that it would ultimately be most troubling to me. -Molly Ringwald, New Yorker

Happy Sweet Sixteen, Carolyn!

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Pictures from opening night of @pictclassictheatre Jane Eyre. (Show runs through the rest of the month.)

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Brand new chairs for PICT draw applause.

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PICT's production of Jane Eyre has its first preview tonight.

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Dan Rather, who knows a thing or two about fake news, shares tips for news consumers

“If you find yourself agreeing with everything your news outlet says, you’re doing it wrong. If your news doesn’t challenge you, challenge your news.” CBS News veteran Dan Rather, who knows a thing or two about fake news, offers sound advice for news consumers.

2001: Stanley Kubrick’s Exasperating Masterpiece

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Easter collage 2018.

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The Post-Coding Generation?

I knew the command line well, and very occasionally delved to snoop around at the level of machine code. My brother showed me how to hack a game by changing the last machine code the game executed before rejecting an incorrect password, creating a version of the program that only let you proceed if you…

I am shocked — SHOCKED — to find that TV journalism is scripted, shallow eye candy.

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Yes, we will see almost anything branded Sherlock Holmes.

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What’s an environmental issue? — Gus Speth

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How Zuckerberg’s Facebook is like Gutenberg’s printing press

Historian Niall Ferguson notes that Silicon Valley is not that interested in history, which is one reason why technological gurus keep making the same mistakes. Technology that decentralizes power brings its own problems. According to Ferguson: “The idea that witches live amongst us and should be burned went as viral as anything that Martin Luther…

In education, Apple must augment the reality of the cheap notebook

In 2012, Apple tried to position iPads as replacing textbooks. Last year, Microsoft tried to position laptops as replacing Chromebooks. Now, Apple needs to hook educators on the power of future-looking tech such as coding and augmented reality.

My Cow Game Extracted Your Facebook Data

The Cambridge Analytica scandal is drawing attention to malicious data thieves and brokers. But every Facebook app—even the dumb, innocent ones—collected users’ personal data without even trying.

Bye Facebook, hello Instagram: Users make beeline for Facebook-owned social network

Instagram dialed in early to the power of building community through visual communication. From the start, Instagram was a mobile app that revolved around snapshots, not snippets of text. This visualization of social media was propelled by young people who, bombarded by text messages, status updates and blog posts, gravitated to a simpler, faster and more expressive medium…

Covfefe chaos: What Trump’s typos say about his administration

Misspelled tweets and typos in press releases are becoming the norm under President Trump, but critics say it points to a pervasive carelessness in the White House.

Text Wrangler Discontinued (Free Mac Text Editor)

I still miss Notepad++, a Windows tool on which I coded many an Inform 6 puzzle. When Seton Hill started handing out iPads and MacBooks, I switched to MacOS. I really don’t miss Windows at all, but I did miss my Notepad++ text editor. TextWrangler was a decent substitute, though over the years I have…

The Irreversible Damage of Mark Zuckerberg’s Silence

Wired, obviously having worked on a thinkpiece about Zuckerberg’s silence, manages to repurpose it in light of this afternoon’s statement. The Irreversible Damage of Mark Zuckerberg’s SilenceWhat has happened in the last five days has been the biggest crisis of Facebook’s existence. But Zuckerberg’s five-day silent treatment may prove more damning for Facebook than any…