Video: Rail Guideway over H-1
A 30-second video I put together on a whim and shared on Facebook last night has been viewed over 8,000 times, and shared by over 140 people. While not exactly viral content, it did...
Category: Government
Hawaii Joins National Civic Hacking Day
Hawaii’s civic hacking movement is finding its second wind, with local community-minded developers, designers, organizers and activists coming together on Saturday to participate in the National Day of Civic Hacking. Leading the charge is...
Dwindling Public Spaces Spark Forum
Public spaces, areas dedicated to the public where people can gather, relax, interact, organize, and protest –are an important part of any community. But in Honolulu, where real estate is in such great demand, public...
Code for Hawaii Ready for Reboot
I have a lot of respect for programmers, software engineers, designers, entrepreneurs, and other immensely talented and creative people. But I love it when they commit those valuable skills — which could also power startups, grow businesses, or...
Car Sharing Bill Goes Before Honolulu City Council
Honolulu consistently ranks among the nation’s worst cities for commuters, so it’s no surprise that there are many plans out there to bring relief. The biggest, most visible effort remains the city’s beleagured rail transit project,...
Data Dashboard Offers Real-Time Energy Stats
One of the beautiful things about the otherwise esoteric open data movement is that it lays the groundwork for data visualizations that are both pretty and informative. “Big data” in its raw form is incomprehensible,...
Pearl Harbor SBX Sea Sentry Under Fire
The Sea-Based X-Band Radar platform, or SBX, has towered over Ford Island in Pearl Harbor for years. It’s no Statue of Liberty, but it’s definitely become a landmark of sorts, perhaps the most visible...
Hawaii Sunshine Law Needs an Update
Hawaii’s “Sunshine Law” turns 40 years old today, and is still a critical tool in keeping state government accessible and transparent. But a lot has changed over those four decades, and a pair of...
Oahu Offshore Wind Farm Proposed
Hawaii is already a hotbed of renewable energy research, so perhaps it’s not unexpected to hear about a proposal to situate as many as one hundred 200-meter tall wind turbines off the coast of...
Online Strides by Hawaii Government Lauded
Two government websites in Hawaii received national recognition this week, and one of them is in the running for even more acclaim. Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government recognized the City &...
Seriously, Stay Away from Sacred Falls
Adventure seekers love to push boundaries and take risks. If they were invincible and immortal, this wouldn’t be a problem. But nobody is invincible and immortal, and too often in Hawaii, crossing the line is not...
Bill Would Limit Police Use of Drones
While the Federal Aviation Administration today took a big step forward in its regulation of unmanned aerial vehicles, Hawaii state lawmakers are still struggling to things out at the local level. A proposed Hawaii...
Snowden Speaks to Honolulu Conference
“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength,” Vincent Van Gogh is said to have said, and on this Valentine’s Day, there was a special gathering for people who...
Bill Would Ban Bosses from Snooping on Social Media
Common sense says that you shouldn’t post anything to Facebook that you wouldn’t want your boss to see. But because common sense isn’t especially common, a bill before the Hawaii state legislature this session hopes...
The Year Ahead in Hawaii Tech
The year 2014 was a good one local geeks, with Hawaii electing a geeky governor (Gov. David Ige has an engineering and tech startup background) and the University of Hawaii naming a geeky president (David Lassner). So...
State to Measure Internet Speeds with ‘Whiteboxes’
There are many ingredients needed to foster a thriving technology industry in Hawaii, but one of the most critical needs continues to be widely accessible, high-speed internet access. The “Measuring Broadband Hawaii” project, announced...
Hawaii TechWorks, HTDC to Partner
On Tuesday, a Big Island innovation lab and coworking space will officially become a part of a statewide family. Although I was born and raised on Oahu, I have a deep affection for Hilo....
New Tools to Explore Campaign Finance Data
In an election year, the more citizens know about candidates and their campaigns the better. And while there’s a lot of information available from the Campaign Spending Commission, it can be a challenge to make sense...
Drones Over Hawaii
This morning’s “Hawaii Geek Beat” segment on Hawaii News Now focused on the increasing popularity and promise of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones. While drones are frequently associated with military operations, the commercial...
City Clears Homeless Camp in Iwilei
I work at Dole Cannery in Iwilei, an industrial neighborhood just outside downtown Honolulu. The area has seen more and more development over the years, with warehouses being replaced by business offices and high-rise...
