kirk.is | sidebar of the people
In late 2002, back when social media meant "I have a blog", I grafted a sidebar onto my site for my friend Dylan's smart snarky commentary.

In early 2004 I added our mutual friend Sarah into the mix, and later that year opened it up to a bunch of friends.

It was a nice addition to my site, a miniblog that used the same kind of energy Facebook and Twitter tap into today, people observing the world, sharing their experiences, and often trying to be a little funny.

In 2008 the thing wound down, and I closed it up sometime thereafter. It was a lot of fun while it lasted, though! Here is the archive, one column per month.

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2005.01.17
Mitt Romney's new plan to "save" failing city schools has its good parts, but I really take issue with the idea of creating yet another standardized test, this one in science, as a graduation requirement. Our students need to learn how to think like scientists, not how to memorize the acceleration rate due to gravity. Only an incredibly well-designed test could even begin to assess a student's ability to think scientifically. Certainly the math and verbal MCAS tests have not proven to be so well-designed.
--Max
2005.02.27
[A nice, short sidebar after Lex's lengthy manuscript yesterday.    You need friends who listen to you, Lex!]

Dustbusters have really come a long way.    At the Black & Decker outlet store in Kittery yesterday, we picked up a new DustBuster 9.6V "cyclonic action" model.    In a literal sense, this thing sucks.    Unlike our old Dustbuster Plus, which always sounded like it was struggling to pick up bits of hair (and, indeed, did struggle), the new one sounds like an airplane taking off and captures everything near it.
--Max
2005.03.14
"If the Stepford Wives designed a retail store, it would be Crate and Barrel, I think." --Bill Harris on his blog

Of course, my wife and I are DINKs (dual incomes, no kids) and stereotypically registered at Crate and Barrel for our wedding. But I do think that Bill has a point.    It's a little too perfect, and some of the products really make you go hmmmm.
--Max
2005.11.25
After discovering that there is now a viable alternative to Quicken that can run on Linux, I figured it was time to finally become a full-fledged penguin and use Linux as my primary OS.    So, I repartitioned the hard drive, installed Ubuntu, and started configuring and installing apps.

Unfortunately, I found no viable replacement for the app I use the most in Windows: Outlook.    I had assumed that either Evolution or Kontact would do the job, but I was wrong.    While both are decent (and quite fast) barebones PIMs with Outlook-like interfaces, neither offers the flexibility or power that Outlook does for managing tasks.    (I also found some of the design decisions incredibly frustrating, like the fact that in Evolution, deleting an open message automatically opened the next message, with no option to change the behavior.)

So, while I love the idea of free software and enjoy a number of things about Linux, it looks like I'm sticking with good ol' Windows for a while longer.
--Max
2005.12.21
You know, it really bugs me that, even in a state like Massachusetts, people still think it's a good idea to teach "abstinence education" (i.e., "just say no to sex") to high school students.    It's been shown not to work (duh!), plus it's not education, it's preaching.    Education is telling people relevant facts and a variety of theories/beliefs, and giving them a chance to analyze those theories/beliefs in relation to the facts.
--Max