Blogging the Aloha State and Beyond
This year was an El Niño year, and as expected, the Pacific saw a record number of storms this hurricane season. Miraculously, the season ended at the end of November with Hawaii escaping largely unscathed, but there has been enough wet weather to fuel a different kind of threat: an outbreak...
The Tech Pau Hana series on Hawaii Island is closing out the year with a double header this week, with two presentations exploring different facets of the energy industry. The Pacifichem 2015 conference is already underway in Honolulu, which brings together members of chemistry and chemical groups from the U.S., Canada, Japan,...
Today my youngest son Alex and I were fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in a workshop organized by the Purple Maia Foundation, using LittleBits and Minecraft to teach kids about logic gates — one of the basic building blocks of computer science. The Purple Maiʻa Foundation is dedicated to...
The Hawaii State VEX Robotics championships will be held tomorrow, bringing together 32 high school teams and their creations to face off on a 12-foot by 12-foot battlefield. Having already reached the finals in dozens of regional tournaments, the winners will have the chance to go onto the VEX Worlds Championship...
Santa Claus is beloved around the world, but there are always doubters. And one of the first questions that sometimes creeps into the mind of impressionable young people is this: how can Santa possibly visit billions of homes scattered across the planet in just one night? Wouldn’t toys for every...
Would-be shared bike riders in Honolulu now have a good idea of what their two-wheeled rides will look like. Bikeshare Hawaii today announced that it had selected Canadian company PBSC Urban Solutions as the provider of its core offering: a 1,600-bike, 183-station bike-sharing system expected to launch next summer. Bikeshare Hawaii is backed by...
One of the nation’s leading contemporary science writers will be the featured guest at a book talk hosted by Hawaii Pacific University on Friday. Sam Kean is perhaps best known for his 2010 bestselling novel The Disappearing Spoon, which led readers on an insightful and entertaining tour of the periodic table of the...
A new group for current and would-be startup founders on Hawaii Island has formed, with an inaugural pau hana meetup set for Friday. The Big Island Startups was launched only four days ago, and has already drawn more than 100 members in its first three days. To kick things off, the first Startup...
The need and demand for computer science education continues ttto grow, with more programs reaching students earlier in life, including pre-school and kindergarten kids. One such local program, Computational Thinkers, is now graduating into its own, independent space in Kahala, after running classes at a few local schools since 2013....
The world’s largest computer science education campaign kicks off again this week around the world, with hundreds of Hawaii schools counted among the more than 190,000 locations hosting an “Hour of Code.” The pitch is to provide students an accessible 60-minute introduction to show that anybody can learn the basics of computer programming. Organized in...
KTUH, the college radio station based at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, is shifting frequencies and doubling its signal strength next month. Currently broadcasting at 90.3FM in urban Honolulu and 91.1FM on the North Shore, KTUH will then be heard island-wide at 90.1FM. The student-run radio station first hit the...
Hawaii was the first state to legalize medical marijuana. But unless you were willing and able to grow cannabis on your own, it was a largely useless privilege for more than fifteen years. A practical path to medical marijuana cultivation and distribution only took root in July, with Gov. David...
It was a standing-room crowd last night at the YWCA of ‘Oahu for the “double-threat pitch-off,” a joint event organized by Sultan Ventures and Blue Startups. The former brought the Small Business Administration’s “InnovateHER” competition to Hawaii for the first time, and the latter hosted the regional finals of the international Mobile...
The Hollywood press has proudly declared a “golden age of funny women,” with the mainstream breakout success of female comedians like Amy Schumer prompting think pieces about “the last gasps of mainstream sexism.” But whether it’s a golden age or a “cubic zirconium age,” it’s actually nothing new. Funny women...
The last Nerd Nite of the year will take attendees under water, into volcanoes, and up to the moon. The usually monthly local gathering, featuring presentations from all disciplines and gently facilitated by alcohol, is part of a global network of events held in more than 90 cities. Tomorrow, the three featured...
A renown photographer of modern architecture is returning to his hometown of Honolulu this week to share some of his work, and help local residents better appreciate the buildings they live and work in every day. Darren Bradley was born on Oahu, and spent his early years surrounded by the city’s...
Looking for a way to socialize, network, and collaborate with other local professional and academic women? There’s probably an app for that. AAUW Honolulu, the local chapter of a national women’s advocacy group that has been around for more than 130 years, is hosting its first “Appy Hour” pau hana...
This morning, in a special Black Friday segment of the “Geek Beat” on the Hawaii News Now morning show, Burt Lum and I joined half of the Sunrise crew at Pearlridge (the other half was at Ala Moana Center) to share some tech-flavored gift shopping suggestions. Since many of the biggest...
Local teams vying for two different business innovation competitions, one national and the other international, will come together on the same stage on Tuesday for a “double-threat pitch off.” The winning teams from each will then have a chance to cross the sea to compete at an even higher level. Firstly, the...
As solar systems go, the one we live in is pretty boring. In the “Hitchhiker’s Guide” by the great Douglas Adams, our neighborhood was described as being “far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy.” (Our planet was deemed “mostly harmless.”) But planets...
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