Blogging the Aloha State and Beyond
Hawaii lawmakers are considering a bill that would allocate half a million dollars to host makerspaces in public libraries. As longstanding hubs of knowledge for communities, it makes sense for libraries to expand their offerings — from books to internet access, and now tools for tinkering and creating. Last month, Sen. Glenn Wakai...
I confess, I’m hopelessly unqualified to fully appreciate rap and hip hop music. But it turns out there’s a way to start with rap and hip hop music, add in some databases and algorithms, and with some serious talent in design and data visualization, generate a whole new level of art. Two...
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 to set some boundaries. The House committee on labor and public employment yesterday considered a bill...
I’m not too swift when it comes to coding. But a meetup next week has nonetheless piqued my interest. Two years ago, my New Year’s resolutions included “get my ham radio license” and “learn to code.” Last year, I said I wanted to “get my real estate license” and “learn...
The summer of 1995. Bill Clinton was president. A First Class stamp cost $0.32. The first Boeing 777 entered service for United Airlines, and Joe Montana announced that he was retiring from football. I was 20 years old, very much in love with my girlfriend (now wife), and living in...
I’m one of those sports ball neophytes who’s more interested in Super Bowl commercials than the game itself. And obviously, the NFL would rather people talk about deflated footballs than some of its messier problems. But this year’s big game ads did tackle some heavier topics, from the chilling “NO...
A Maui-based photographer is now focusing his talents — sharpened over years of globe-spanning travels — on his island home. When he’s not taking pictures, Daniel Sullivan and his wife CaraMiya Davies-Reid run the Indigo gallery shop in Paia, which they opened after moving to Maui in 2005. But he has been...
The fourth Oahu Fringe Festival , a celebration of live performing arts, is set for February 12-15, 2015, and this year, the festival will expand from Chinatown into Kakaako. I’ve followed the evolution of the festival since the first one came together in 2011. Modeled after the Edinburgh Festival, which goes back more than...
I’ve enjoyed tracking the evolution of the coworking movement in Hawaii over the years, from the first time Honolulu popped up on the Coworking Wiki in 2008 (I even set up a blog at Lumihana.com, meaning “work room,” now long gone) to a pivotal meeting of the minds at Unconferenz...
Tomorrow in San Francisco, several Hawaii startups (from the Blue Startups and XLR8UH accelerator programs) will take the stage at 500 Startups to pitch their companies in the heart of Silicon Valley. Among them is FlyWire, touting “line of sight” high-definition cameras that are affordable, portable, flexible, and extensible. FlyWire was founded...
If bloggers are a rare breed, science writers are an endangered species. And that’s a shame, since understanding science is critical to making smart decisions on some of the biggest issues of our age: climate change, water scarcity, GMOs, healthcare (measles, anyone?)… the list goes on. Science is on the...
One of the more interesting research centers at the University of Hawaii, to me, is the Hawaii Computer-Human Interaction Lab. “We are an interdisciplinary team of researchers interested in understanding how people use information systems and dedicated to informing design based on human performance data,” reads the HICHI (pronounced like “mai tai”)...
Four years ago, local musician Jon Yamasato was struck by how much his young daughter was into watching music videos on YouTube, and he wondered what it would take to bring similar exposure to Hawaii musicians. “I noticed that a lot of local artists didn’t have good video of themselves,...
Local teachers looking for new ideas and hands-on help when it comes to using technology in the classroom can attend a free half-day of professional development for Hawaii educators next weekend. Kamehameha Schools is hosting KS EdTech Mashup 2015 on Saturday, designed to support pre-kindergarten through 12th grade teachers “with their exploration...
Hawaii may no longer hold the top spot in Yelp’s foodie rankings, but eight island restaurants made the Top 100 Places to Eat list for 2015, four of them marking their second year on the roster. Last year, Da Poke Shack in Kailua-Kona ranked first in Yelp’s Top 100 list, an honor...
A pair of local sustainability experts is inviting other like-minded people to come together for the Sustainability Unconference. My favorite kind of conference is an unconference, which is still a conference, but one that tries to shed all the baggage that typically comes with them:pre-defined themes and sessions, sponsor-centric panels, and...
An award-winning researcher who recently joined the University of Hawaii has created a mobile app that can predict eruptions and notifies users so they can be prepared for them. But the eruptions in question are made of water, not lava, as the app was built for Yellowstone National Park in...
President Obama wants to keep the country safe from cyber attacks. But will he chip away at privacy to do it? The annual “State of the Union” address by the President of the United States isn’t exactly blockbuster entertainment. It’s a ceremonial exercise in constitutional rhetoric that ostensibly gives Americans an idea of...
Next week, Honolulu will host “Storytelling for the Next Generation,” which will explore how the power of video games can be harnessed to share and celebrate cultures. The event, taking place Monday at Kakaako Agora, will feature “Never Alone,” an atmospheric puzzle game based on a traditional Alaska native tale. It may...
More than two years ago, local designer Valentino Valdez — my friend and partner in Kukui High School — participated in an online challenge with the Comic Jam Hawaii artist group. Participants were pushed to draw something every day, and on July 2, 2012, he posted an adorable drawing of Superman done in...
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