Blogging the Aloha State and Beyond
I admit, I’m not exactly in the key demographic for “Allstar Weekend,” a band of shiny happy California guys that was catapulted to tween-to-teen stardom by The Disney Channel. But I am the father of a teenage girl, and she’s heard of them, and that’s got to count for something....
In recent years, there’s been a resurgence of enthusiasm for do-it-yourself projects, particularly with an engineering or technical bent. Though it may inspire visions of Rube Goldberg contraptions and accidental electrocutions, the vibrant movement is growing fast, celebrated at annual Maker Faire events (organized by the publishers of Make Magazine)...
Square is a startup that hopes to do nothing less than transform the way people pay for goods and services. The company was started by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey (who recently returned to Twitter while continuing to lead Square), someone obviously no stranger to disruptive technologies. A tiny, cheap card...
Thanks to crowdfunding service Kickstarter, and a lot of hard work and community support, two local projects met their fundraising goals last week and took a solid step toward reality. The delightfully simple Juicies project, which I profiled on Earth Day, blew past its $5,000 goal in only three days,...
Update: Namesake is again limiting signups, but you can use this invite link to jump the queue. I obsessively sign up for every site or service that I find. But if I measure my level of enthusiasm for a site based on how much time it takes away from the other sites...
The first ever (and hopefully annual) Eisa Drum Festival took place on Saturday on the Great Lawn of Kapiolani Community College. It was a great event, and lead organizer Shari Tamashiro — along with advisors Norman Kaneshiro and Derek Ichiro Shiroma, and countless other volunteers and performers — deserves a standing...
The sixth annual Hawaii Book & Music Festival takes place this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, May 14 & 15, on the municipal grounds between Honolulu Hale and the Fasi Building. It’s a great event for kids and families, for sure, but also for any voracious reader. I look forward to...
Be still my geeky heart. If I had a bucket list, I would have crossed off a big entry yesterday, as I was a guest on “FourCast,” a show on Leo Laporte’s TWiT network. I was honored to be on the show alongside local developer Brian Dote, talking with hosts...
In Hawaii, we’re surrounded by clean energy projects. We’ve got solar farms, wind farms, biofuel producers, geothermal and wave energy experiments… researchers are branching out, venture capitalists are moving in, and federal funds are flowing. And it seems as if every hot new electric car hits our streets early. While...
Less than a week before Hawaii social worker and social media stalwart Ryan Suenaga lost his life, he posted to Twitter: “One of my life goals is to leave 10 percent of my estate to a scholarship for Buddhists from Hawaii studying social work.” Ryan’s devotion to his job, and...
Lovers of Okinawan drums won’t want to miss the first Eisa Drum Festival next Saturday at Kapiolani Community College. This special, evening event is bringing together several groups that practice and perform a variety of dances and drumming styles unique to Okinawa… plus a touch of Japanese taiko. Participating eisa...
When I’m not blogging, I’m browsing. Here are sites and pages that I bookmarked recently: Lawmakers will decide whether startups can keep present space: The office spaces of 23 technology companies residing at the Manoa Innovation Center hang in the balance as the state Legislature debates whether to extend the...
Last updated 12:32 p.m. HST on May 2, 2011. See end of post. Ryan Suenaga, “Hawai’i’s best known Apple II Geek and social worker.” A Blogger. A Twitter user and Facebook friend to many. He’s shared hundreds of personal stories, from his job as a social worker to his love...
If there’s anything Apple fans like more than Apple products, it’s Apple accessories. And a local company is hoping to harness the global hunger for stylish stuff to manufacture Juicies, a colorful line of cables for iPods, iPhones, and iPads. To make Juicies a reality, creator Laurens Laudowicz and partner Michael...
It took nearly three years longer than planned, but Lowe’s Home Improvement finally opened its newest store in Iwilei. Lowe’s arrival further concentrates competition in the area for home improvement and big box retailers, as it’s situated right next door to a Home Depot, and half a block away from...
Longtime surfer and surf designer Bill Hamilton, father of pro surfer Laird Hamilton, has thrived in the water for half a century. And not surprisingly, he has shared his love of surfing with “Sava,” his yellow Labrador Retriever, for over a decade. Both Bill and Sava are now featured in...
Cory Lum is one of the most talented photojournalists I know. Now, he is on the ground in Sendai, Japan, volunteering in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that’s still making world headlines. You can follow his story, and see his spectacular pictures, at Corylum’s Photo Blog. He...
A video is making the rounds on YouTube, Facebook, message boards and blogs, said to depict five unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, hovering over the Makua military reservation on the island of Oahu. It spread like wildfire through online communities focused on everything from aliens to government conspiracies, then started...
When I’m not blogging, I’m browsing. Here are sites and pages that I bookmarked on April 13th: DeconGel Provides Radiological Decontamination Technology to Japan: CBI Polymers LLC, the Honolulu-based innovator of DeconGel nuclear decontaminant, is making a donation of $250,000 in radiological decontamination products and technical services at the request...
It’s not the world’s largest manapua, but it sure looks like it could be. A group of local media makers documented the construction of a massive, 13,300-calorie manapua in a video titled,“Epic Kaukau Time: Manpua Man Manapua.” (Rated PG-13, per Cynthia Hoskins, so click with care.) The “Epic Kaukau Time”...
What I’m Reading
Hawaii Hui
