Refresh … Refresh … Broken

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Technology has once again one-upped me.

In a former life, I wrote technical documents—white papers—for electrical engineers for five years and instruction manuals that were used in home construction around the nation. You’re welcome. Expertise takes different forms, and mine is in forming sentences. The engineers supplied all the science-y numbers that make buildings happen.

All I know is that I have spent the last eight hours mourning the imminent death of my cell phone, which is going to come when I jump up and down on it. For those of you taking notes, all none of you, I only just recently acquired this smartphone, which has given us all some beautiful photos for this website and my Instagram page. Perhaps it will again, if I do not jump up and down on it.
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Today in History: March 31

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA)—now called the Motion Picture Association of America—agreed to abide by “A Code to Govern the Making of Motion and Talking Pictures” on this date in 1930. Until it was replaced in 1968, this code, better known as the “Hays Code,” after Will Hays, the President of the MPPDA, guided what could not be depicted on popularly distributed films.

Among the 11 “Don’ts” and 25 “Be Carefuls,” the Code forbade profanity, depictions of sex, “ridicule of the clergy,” any depiction of romance between people of two different races, drug use, detailed depictions of crimes like safe-cracking—because some might view these scenes as how-to instructions, and “excessive or lustful kissing, particularly when one character or the other is a (villain).”

Also, “Scenes of actual childbirth, in fact or in silhouette, are never to be presented.”

Without prior approval, films were not released. The current ratings system replaced the Code.
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We Are His Voice: An Update About Hossein Ronaghi

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Since his return to prison in January, Iranian blogger Hossein Ronaghi’s health has deteriorated to the point that he has been taken to outside clinics on at least two occasions, including today, according to reports on Twitter, but he has not been admitted to a hospital because prosecutors (not doctors) have determined that his condition is not serious.
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