Attack of the Return of the Kindle Plunging

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A while back, I mentioned how I had ordered a $99 Kindle Touch, and said that I’d report back after I’d had it for a while. Here are my mostly positive thoughts.

Size: I like this thing a lot. It’s smaller than my iPad, which needs to either be in a bag or under my arm the whole time I have it out of the house. Because if I’ve taken my iPad for reading purposes to a restaurant, there’s just no way in hell I’m going to leave it unattended if I need to go get another plate from the salad bar. Yes, I have a particular jacket that has a pocket big enough for the iPad, but you know, I don’t wear that jacket all the time. The Kindle is smaller enough than the iPad that I can stick it in regular-size pockets in other coats, and into the thigh cargo pockets of the shorts I like to wear in hot weather.

Readability: Turns out I like e-ink displays like the Kindle’s. The type looks good, though because of the variability of the ebooks I’ve put on the device (some books converted from Calibre, rather than gotten from the Kindle store), sometimes I have problems getting exactly the type size and format I’d like. I think I actually prefer reading books on my iPad a bit more from the readability and font standpoint. It’s better to use the Kindle outdoors, versus the iPad. The Kindle’s matte screen is great. And the naysayers who moaned that the screen would get all mucked up with fingerprints turned out to be wrong. I notice fingerprints on the glossy iPad screen way more than on the Kindle. On either device, a quick wipe is all it takes anyway. At the beginning, I had a bit of trouble with the Kindle because I’d tap the screen and it would advance two pages, and I’d have to go back one. I just needed to learn a bit different, and lighter, tap behavior.

Responsiveness: The iPad is faster, no doubt about it. The Kindle takes a second to change pages when I tap it. But I got used to that pretty quickly. It hasn’t turned out to be a big deal except when I want to do anything other than read on the Kindle, like browse the Kindle Store, or change settings, or the like. Then I get impatient with the slow screen redraws. But that’s generally offset by the next category. I’ll typically buy books on the Kindle Store on the Amazon Web site (rather than on the device), and send them to the Kindle or other devices running a Kindle app. I understand that the Kindle Touch Software Update Version 5.0.3 helps with speed issues, but it just came out yesterday, and I haven’t updated yet. Update: OK, so I installed the software update, and yes, it improves the Kindle’s responsiveness quite a bit. For example, the Kindle Store is now usable, rather than feeling painfully slow. I expect this update alone will end up selling more books for Amazon.

Battery life: No contest here; the Kindle is good for at least a month between recharges. The iPad is good for about a day. I’ve put the Kindle down for a week or so, and the battery indicator has barely moved.

Other stuff: The Kindle Owners Lending Library for Amazon Prime members is a gateway drug like you can’t believe. I used it to borrow (for free) the first two books of The Hunger Games in November and December. I said I had the $99 version of the Kindle Touch, which is the version that displays ads. They don’t intrude on the reading experience, and I’ve taken advantage of two of the ads, including one that offered a good deal (50% off) on a Marware case for the device (I decided I wanted this case because I wanted to protect the screen, and it has a hand strap that improves one-handed reading).

So there you have it. Though I already had two other handy devices I could use to read ebooks (my iPhone 4 and iPad 1), the Kindle Touch has proven its worth to me. I’m happy I got it.

iCloud: Visual QuickStart Guide is now available!

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iCloud: Visual QuickStart Guide CoverI’m happy and proud to announce that my latest book, iCloud: Visual QuickStart Guide, from Peachpit Press, is now widely available. It’s one of the newer breeds of Visual QuickStart Guides, with all-color screenshots.

It covers virtually all of the aspects of iCloud, from setting up the service on Mac OS X, iOS devices, and Windows, to using iCloud to synchronize email, contacts, calendars, and reminders. It also covers using iCloud with iTunes (and iTunes Match), iPhoto, the iWork programs, and using iCloud’s people and device location features. For a book that took me only a bit more than a month to write, I’m pretty happy with it, and I think it will be useful for your favorite iCloud newbie. Please join me in spreading the word that the book is out.

You can find it in the following places:

Nuclear Weapons Storage

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If you’ve ever wondered about where nuclear weapons are stored, here is an infographic that shows where they are (nothing too specific; no interest to spies here). There’s general info about the number of weapons storage sites per country, and a breakdown of US storage locations.

Like most folks, I think that any nuclear weapons are too many; it’s all but unthinkable that they will ever be used in war again. And I find the graph of the declining numbers of stockpiled weapons heartening. It’s one of the good things that the first President Bush did with the START treaty, and that work was continued by President Obama (with the New START treaty).

Full disclosure: this was pitched to us as a paid ad placement. But I thought that it was interesting enough in itself that I agreed to put it up.

Via: Mozy

Taking the Kindle Plunge

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I’ve written here about the Kindle twice before. When it was first released in late 2007, I predicted that it was going to be a hit, and many really smart friends (and my wife) told me I was dead wrong and that it was going to be a flop.

Then, when the Kindle 2 was released in early 2009, I wrote about it again, and said that the only reason I didn’t buy one was that I had gotten used to reading books using Stanza on my iPhone. Now, of course, I have an iPad, and I read ebooks on that. But the iPad has some significant disadvantages as an ebook reader. It’s heavy in the hand; you have to prop it on something or put it on a table. It’s too big to fit in a jacket pocket (except for my ScottEVest jacket), and the iPad, having email, tends to interrupt my reading experience. And the Kindle has that just-about-forever battery life.

I’d been thinking that I was going to try a Kindle when it hit the magic $99 price point. So after today’s Amazon announcements, I sprang for the $99 Kindle Touch (the one with the ads, because I’m pretty good at ignoring ads, the ads don’t interfere with the reading experience, and I didn’t mind saving $40). I’ll report back when the thing arrives in November. We’ll see if I like it or not. But my track record so far has been pretty good.

Our Worldcon Schedule

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Between August 17 and August 21, we’ll be attending Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention, in Reno. What started out as a pleasure trip has turned into business for both of us.

I’m speaking on three panels. Dori is representing her employer, Stack Exchange, which special emphasis on two Stack sites: Science Fiction and Fantasy and Writers. Stack Exchange is also sponsoring the Green Room for program participants. You’ll be able to find Dori roaming the halls with Stack Exchange swag, including shirts, stickers, and pens.

Both Dori and I will be making occasional posts on Stack Exchange’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Community Blog during Worldcon.

My panels are as follows (all at the Reno Convention Center):

Thursday, Aug. 18, 1 PM, Room C01:

Making It as a Full-Time Writer

In the 1940s and 1950s, writing SF paid a few cents a word and an apartment in New York was $100/month. SF — sometimes — pays a little more now, but … How does a part-time writer become a full time one? Can he or she do so? What are some of the differences for non-fiction writers?
Panelists: Carol Berg, Tom Negrino, Christina York, Bud Sparhawk, Dean Wesley Smith

Thursday, Aug. 18, 6 PM, Room A09:

Online Networking Before Social Networks

Before MySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook, there were CompuServe, AOL, GEnie and USENET. Yes, people were married, divorced, friended and unfriended (remember kill files?) online before 2005.
Panelists: Walter H. Hunt, Tom Negrino, Brad Templeton, Lynn Gold

Friday, Aug. 19, 11 AM, Room A03

Social Media for Writers

Writers know the Internet, but not all writers take advantage of its full potential. With the evolution of Social Media, potential readers are only a click away. But what exactly is Social Media? At this panel, you will pick up the vocabulary and background of exactly what Social Media is, what it can do, and what it cannot do.
Panelists: Tee Morris, Tom Negrino, Rose Fox, Cory Doctorow, Brenda Cooper

Hope to see you there!

If it ain’t one thing, it’s two things

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We’ve been busy getting two book projects out the door (JavaScript: Visual QuickStart Guide, 8th Edition and Dreamweaver CS5.5: Visual QuickStart Guide). The latter is an ebook supplement to the printed Dreamweaver CS5 Visual QuickStart Guide. Between that work and some family issues, I’m afraid that we just haven’t had the bandwidth to get back to working on updating things around here. It’s gonna happen!

I’ve temporarily turned off commenter registration

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The past day or so, we’ve just been slammed with obviously bogus user registrations. More than 400. I had previously installed the Stop Spammers plugin, which had done a great job, but something’s changed. Then yesterday I added the Register Plus Redux plugin, which segregates the bogus, but hasn’t seemed to stem the flow, even though I have it set to verify email addresses. So I think I’ll just turn off user registrations off altogether for a while, and try to do some research as to what’s going on. In the meantime, you can always email us a comment that we’ll post, and I’m happy to create new user registrations (for real people) by hand. For obvious reasons, I’ve also disabled comments on this post.

Hope to turn things back on soon.

Help me pick a new paperless office organizer

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I’ve been a big fan of the journey (you never quite get there) towards the paperless office for years, since I first bought a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner. It’s a terrific device; you drop one or more sheets into its hopper, press the button on the front, and it scans both sides of each piece of paper and turns them into a PDF. I use it with Acrobat Pro, and take advantage of a nice AppleScript that Joe Kissell created for his book Take Control of Your Paperless Office (it’s a good book; you should buy it). The script uses a Folder Action to automatically fire off Acrobat’s Optical Character Recognition, so the scan gets turned into copyable, searchable, indexable text. After the paper goes through the scanner and becomes a PDF, I shred it. I try to only keep the paper that you must have around (important legal documents, for example) and those live in a fireproof lockbox.

Organizing the files

When you have so many documents, you want some way of organizing them. When I bought the ScanSnap, I also bought Yep, from Ironic Software. It’s designed to manage, organize, and retrieve PDFs, and you don’t have to copy PDFs into a central database. You can use it to add tags to your documents and search them. It was just what I wanted. I’ve added a couple of thousand documents to Yep and tagged them (bills, contracts, statements, etc.). Then Ironic came out with Yep 2. I considered upgrading, but the new version didn’t seem to have enough compelling features (the company didn’t help matters by failing to put up a clear page explaining the differences for their existing customers). And now, many other Yep users are complaining that Yep 2 seems to be moribund, with no updates for more than a year. Yep 1 isn’t working correctly anymore; the tagging is messed up and I can’t fix it. So I’m in the market for a new organization tool. I’m resigned to retagging everything, though it will take a long time. A program with the concept of tag groups would be helpful (so I could apply multiple tags at once).

The tools I’ve been thinking of are:

I’m already using Evernote for general notes and snippets, so I’m strongly considering upgrading to Evernote Premium ($45/year) and using that; I’d just dump all of the already scanned PDFs into it. But I have some concerns. First, the info I’ve been scanning isn’t exactly secret, but it is sensitive (bills, personal data). The idea of putting that into the cloud makes me uneasy. Second, Evernote doesn’t appear to have great options for getting information out once it goes in. I’d have to retag all of those documents, which would be a drag. And I use the Evernote iOS apps, and were one of those devices lost or stolen, I’d hate to have all that personal data exposed with it.

I know the least about Paperless. It’s reasonably priced ($50). It appears to have pretty much the same feature set as Yep, plus modern and expected additions like Smart Collections. I’d have to retag my documents, but don’t know how easy that would be. Anyone have experience with this program? Update: Paperless clearly isn’t going to meet my needs, so it’s off the list. Tried it, hated it, deleted it.

Some people swear by Devonthink ($80). It seems fairly complicated to learn and use. The company touts their AI that does automatic classification and grouping. But is that smart enough so that I wouldn’t have to retag every file manually?

As you can see, I’m most interested in reducing the labor in retagging files. And now that I need to migrate to a new program, I want to be able to maintain my time investment if I have to do it again in the future (sadly, no software is forever).

I’m sure that people I know have solved this problem for themselves. Can you help me solve it? I’m open to the programs above, or others. The restriction is that it has to be a Mac, program, of course. I’ve previously used Yojimbo, but migrated to Evernote.

Our 10th Wedding Anniversary

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Ten years ago today, I was standing on the lawn at Madrona Manor here in Healdsburg, surrounded by our family and friends. I was about to marry the woman of my dreams. She was smart, funny, pretty, geeky, brilliant, thoughtful, and kind. I was crazy in love with her.

Tom & Dori's Wedding on the lawn at Madrona Manor

Best of all, she had said “yes” when I asked her to marry me. We had already been together for years when we got married. We’d gotten a cat. We’d moved to Healdsburg from Los Angeles. We had bought a house, and we were raising a son.

Tom & Dori's wedding; leaning over Dori's car

She’s still all of those wonderful things that made me want to spend my life with her. Ten years on, I love her more than ever. It’s been a decade with ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies, joy and sadness.

It’s been a marriage.

A toast on the day of our wedding.

Happy Anniversary, Dori. Thank you for the past 10 years. I love you.

Tom & Dori's wedding; group picture with guests.

Their love was forbidden — but would not be denied!!

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We live in a farming community. Sure, the main crop around here is wine grapes. But there’s still a fair amount of livestock. Just a few blocks away from home, we’ve got a pasture with a couple of sheep (we’re waiting to see if we get more incredibly cute lambs this year).

A bit farther away is something a bit weirder. There’s a pen with a burro and an ostrich. Now, we’ve had ostriches here in town for quite a while; one place in the city limits has (or had; haven’t looked in a while) three or four of them. But this is different. In this pen, the burro and ostrich appear to be in love. Or at least really good friends. They are always within a few yards of one another. See for yourself:

A local burro and ostrich

I’ve mentioned this to a few friends, and keep getting the response “Pics or it didn’t happen.” Here you go, folks.

Tenth Annual Oscar blogging

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Multiple Oscar winners:

  • Inception: 4
  • The King’s Speech: 4
  • The Social Network: 3
  • Alice in Wonderland: 2
  • The Fighter: 2
  • Toy Story 3: 2

For those who are unfamiliar with me doing this, you can find previous year’s Oscarblogging at:

Updates will be (mostly) placed at the end, so scroll down.

By popular request: as with previous years, I’ve got a live chat group going. If you’ve got AIM (or .Mac, or anything similar) join us at: backupbrainchat. Instructions:

For Mac OS X:

  • Logon to any iChat account (AIM, Me.com, or .Mac)
  • Select File > Go to Chat Room
  • In the Go to Chat Room dialog, fill in backupbrainchat for the room name and click Go

For Windows:

  • If you don’t already have it, go to AOL.com and download AIM, and do what’s necessary to get a screenname (AIM is free and you don’t need to have an AOL account to use it)
  • Launch AIM
  • Choose People > Send Chat Invitation…
  • Invite doriasmith to join you in the room backupbrainchat—you’ll be transferred into the room instantaneously.

And we’re off…

Anne Hathway and James Franco start off with some cute bits of them inserted into the best pictures nominees.

I’m still trying to decide if I love or hate Anne’s dress. The opening witty banter is fairly blah; it’s mostly focused on how dumb James can be, Anne’s mom, and James’s grandmother.

A quick look at Gone with the Wind, which mostly shows off how cool the staging is. Tom Hanks comes out to introduce the first two awards.

The first award, for Art Direction, goes to Alice in Wonderland, production design: Robert Stromberg; set decoration: Karen O’Hara.

I’ve seen four of the five Cinematography nominees, and none of them struck me as having particularly impressive photography. The Oscar goes to Wally Pfister for Inception.

Kirk Douglas is introduced as a living legend, and what’s rare in Hollywood: he actually is. He’s giving the award for Best Supporting Actress (Christoph Waltz—last year’s best supporting actor—is busy filming on site elsewhere). After some stretching out to panic the nominees, the award goes to Melissa Leo for The Fighter. First time I’ve seen someone get bleeped at the awards!

Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake come out to give the best animated feature and short awards. Yes, “there’s an app for that” has entered the vernacular. The winners of best animated short are Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann for The Lost Thing.

For animated feature, well, has a non-Pixar film ever won against a Pixar film? Of course, it goes to Toy Story 3.

Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem come on stage to give the writing awards. I’m rooting for Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network—and he wins! I’ve always thought of Sorkin as an amazing writer, and while this isn’t the best thing he’s ever written, it’s good to see him get recognition.

The best original screenplay Oscar goes to David Seidler for The King’s Speech Nice bit there about the film giving stutterers a voice—an including himself.

Anne comes out wearing a tuxedo and sings about how she was supposed to do a duet with Hugh Jackman, but he backed out. James then comes out wearing a dress, and no, he does not look as good in his outfit as Anne does in hers.

Russell Brand and Helen Mirren come out to give the best foreign language film award, which goes to In a Better World from Denmark.

Reese Witherspoon comes out to give the best supporting actor award, as MoíNique (last year’s best supporting actress) refused to participate. Reese looked like hell at previous Oscars, so it’s nice to see her looking classy this year. The winner is Christian Bale for The Fighter.

The president of the Academy and the president of ABC/Disney come out to announce that it will stay on ABC. Does anyone care?

Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman (Anne: “the Wolver to my Rine”) come out to give the original score award. Quickie medley of Star Wars, ET, and West Side Story (an odd combination). The award goes to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for The Social Network. Once again, I have to say that “Academy Award-winner Trent Reznor” is always going to sound bizarre to me.

Scarlett Johanssen and Matthew MacConaghey come out to give the sounds awards. The sound mixing Oscar goes to Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick for Inception, and the sound editing award to Richard King for Inception. For those keeping track, that puts Inception in the lead with 3 (note: the count of multiple award winners is at the top of this post).

Marissa Tomei comes out in a lovely dress to (very briefly) talk about the Sci Tech awards.

Cate Blanchett comes out wearing something that looks like it was designed by a third grader. Is it a dress, or a pantsuit? Either way, it’s just weird. The best makeup Oscar goes to Rick Baker and Dave Elsey for The Wolfman. As with Pixar earlier, has anyone ever won against Rick Baker? Next up is the costume design award, which goes to Colleen Atwood for Alice in Wonderland. I’m surprised; I thought it would go to The King’s Speech or True Grit.

Cute little man on the street video montage of people asked about their favorite best song award winners. Obama’s right: As Time Goes By has to be up there. Kevin Spacey come out to introduce the first best song nominee, Randy Newman. Wait, are they doing them one smack after the other? That’s weird—it’s not really working for me. Ah, okay, it’s just the first two right now.

Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal come out to give the best short Oscars. The best short documentary award goes to Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon for Strangers No More, and the best short live action film award goes to Luke Matheny for God of Love. You gotta love a guy who thanks his mom for doing craft services on his film.

A tribute to auto-tune? Kill me now. Anne’s fourth(?) dress (with the swaying fringe) looks great, and Anne and James introduce Oprah, who gives the best documentary Oscar. The award goes to Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs for Inside Job—sorry people, no Banksy. Tom says that that sound you hear is a million people adding Inside Job to their Netflix queue.

Billy Crystal comes out to make me—and, I suspect, a lot of other people—wish that he was still hosting. His tribute to Bob Hope was sweet.

Robert Downey Jr. and Jude law give the best visual awards. Downey could have looked better. Honestly, a tux without a bow tie just ain’t a tux, and would it have hurt to have shaved? The visual effects Oscar goes to Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb for Inception, its fourth. Tom says that winning all the tech awards is Inception’s consolation prize, and he expects it get shut out of the top awards. The best editing Oscar goes to Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter for The Social Network.

Tom says to mention that the bit about Downey’s 2000 bust in a hotel with cocaine and a hooker dressed as Wonder Woman? All true.

Anne’s fifth outfit—a red beaded gown—is amazing. Jennifer Hundson, also looking good, announces the last two best song performances. The best original song winner is Randy Newman for We Belong Together from Toy Story 3. Tom and I both thought he’d won a dozen times already, but no: he’s been nominated 20 times, but this was only his second win.

The “in memoriam” montage is lovely, and having Halle Berry do a particular tribute to Lena Horne was touching. I could have done without Celine Dion, though. When “inoffensive” is the best thing you can say about someone…

All that’s left now is the big four.

Anne, in amazing outfit #5, introduces Hilary Swank, who introduces Katherine Bigelow (last year’s best director winner). Together, they give the best director Oscar, and the winner is Tom Hooper for The King’s Speech.

Annette Bening comes out to introuduce the Governor’s awards, including Coppola winning the Thalberg. As Bening played a lesbian in The Kids Are All Right this year, it was apparently necessary that as soon as she came onstage, the show had to cut to her husband, Warren Beatty.

Jeff Bridges announces the nominees for best actress, and yes, I know that his whole bit is scripted, but his appreciation of each of them seems completely heart-felt. The Oscar, as I expected, goes to Natalie Portman for Black Swan. Tom and I both noticed that, despite having done three films with him, she didn’t thank George Lucas (and I can completely understand why).

Sandra Bullock comes out to give the best actor award. Her dress is so amazing that it looks good even with a butt-bow. The Oscar goes to Colin Firth for The King’s Speech. Hell, I pasted that in before she even opened the envelope, but you know what? He really deserved it.

Anne Hathaway (in her first dud dress of the night) and James Franco seem over-the-top happy to introduce Steven Spielberg, who gives the Oscar for best picture. I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to this idea of having ten best picture nominees. Tom disagrees with my opinion of Anne’s dress, although he likes the idea of her removing it immediately.

Drumroll… and the Oscar goes to The King’s Speech. Tom says he’s shocked, but I’m not—as I said, I thought it really was that good.

And we end with an over-the-top (both cutesy and cheesy) gaggle of fifth graders who traveled 3000 miles to sing Over the Rainbow. Being joined at the very end by all the winners, though, is a nice bit.

Tom and I are now disagreeing about whether the big winner of the night is Harvey Weinstein and his ability to run an Oscar campaign (Tom) or the Academy’s long-time love for British costume dramas (me). Either way, it works out to The King’s Speech winning four well-deserved Oscars.

Our Macworld Expo Schedule

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We’re making the trek to San Francisco this week for Macworld Expo; it’ll be my 26th SF Expo (yep, I’ve been to them all).

We’ll be at the show from Wednesday through Friday. Specific events:

On Thursday, I’ll be leading a BOF (Birds Of a Feather) discussion:

Building Your Home Media Center
January 27, 2011, 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
A flurry of hardware and software solutions have hit the market to get video and audio media into your living room and onto your iOS devices. Apple TV, Plex, Boxee, and many others are competing for your attention and dollars. In this discussion, we’ll share the best ways to put together a home media center that works for you.

On Friday, Dori will be presenting one of the User Conference sessions:

Mobilizing Your Web Site
January 28, 2011, 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM
As a web designer, you used to be able to assume that everyone had at least a certain size display. But now many of your site’s visitors arrive via iPhones and iPads, and to support them you’ll have to re-do or duplicate your entire site – or do you?

No, you don’t have to create an entirely new site for mobile devices, or rework everything for the lowest common denominator, or even remove all your image rollovers.

In this session, you’ll learn what you need to know: not just to make your sites work well and look good, but also how to enhance sites to take advantage of the functionality that Apple built into Safari for the iPhone and iPad.

We’ll see you at the show!

Letter to Senator Jon Tester

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I got a campaign pitch from Montana Senator Jon Tester today. No surprise, as I’d contributed money to his 2006 election, and had expected to support him in the future. But a few days ago, he voted against the DREAM Act. If you’re not familiar with that, here’s a paraphrased description from Wikipedia:

The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (the DREAM Act) is a piece of proposed federal legislation in the United States…This bill would provide certain illegal and deportable alien students who graduate from US high schools, who are of good moral character, arrived in the U.S. illegally as minors, and have been in the country continuously and illegally for at least five years prior to the bill’s enactment, the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency if they complete two years in the military or two years at a four year institution of higher learning.

All the Republicans in the Senate voted against the DREAM Act. No surprise there; the GOP is the party that not only shelters racists, but institutionalizes their beliefs. Five Dems, including Tester, voted against the Act, effectively killing it. Here was my letter to him.

Dear Senator Tester,

You voted against the DREAM Act. You were one of only five Democrats to do so. By doing so, you ensured that tens of thousands of innocent young people’s lives will be ruined, and the US will be deprived of that human capital. That’s stupid and wasteful. I didn’t think you were either.

Excuses don’t cut it. And false excuses like “it’s amnesty!” are even worse. Of course it was amnesty, of a sort. But it was one in which the recipients, illegal immigrants here by no fault of their own, were earning a path to citizenship. You know, that’s exactly what we want in America. And you chose to kill these kids’ American Dream. That’s shameful.

On this one you were either a Democrat or you aligned yourself with the racists that are in charge of the Republican Party.

We know which side you’re on now. You chose to stand with the racists.

I am ashamed that I ever supported you financially and publicly. I will not do so again.

Sometimes, deciding to no longer support a politician you believed in is difficult. For example, it was painful to leave John Edwards behind, as I genuinely thought he had the best policy prescriptions in 2008, especially on my most important issue, healthcare reform.

But this breakup? This was an easy call.

When critics don’t think

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Before seeing Tron: Legacy today, I checked out the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, as usual. I saw that most critics hated it, but that audience reviews were strong. I kind of expected that; Tron isn’t going to be a movie that makes your average film critic sing its praises. I took special note of the set of critics that I think are tools: O’Hehir of Salon, Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, Stevens of Slate. They’re valuable to me as negative indicators. I find that if it’s a movie that I’m interested in seeing, and they hate it, I’ll often have a good time. As expected, they all trashed the film.

I usually ignore Claudia Puig of USA Today, because, well, she’s not often of any interest. But this one should be in the annals of critics foolishly Not Getting It: “For a far more thought-provoking tale about the virtual realm, try The Social Network.”

One, the movies are in completely different genres; it’s fundamentally wrong to compare them in that fashion. Two, The Social Network isn’t about the virtual realm at all. None of it is set in “Facebook world,” the way the virtual world exists in Tron. Three, this is the sort of incisive comment made by someone who thinks, “Well, they’re both sort of about computers.” And then stops thinking.

I understand being under deadlines. But that’s embarrassingly shallow writing.