Bytemarks

Each week I pore through Google alerts to find Hawaii’s science and tech news. These are my finds for January 18th through January 23rd:

• Astronomers find a dark matter galaxy far, far away – A faint “satellite galaxy” 10 billion light years from Earth is the lowest-mass object ever detected at such a distance, says University of California, Davis, physics professor Chris Fassnacht, who aided in the satellite’s discovery.
• Patient Receives Hawaii’s First Telescope Implant for Macular Degeneration by Retina Institute of Hawaii – MarketWatch – A team of surgeons from Hawaii, Dr. Michael Bennett of Retina Institute of Hawaii and Dr. Michael McMann of McMann Institute, has successfully implanted the FDA-approved eye telescope, a first in Hawaii, at one of the leading medical centers in Honolulu.
• 100 Years Of Observing Volcanic Activity At Hawaii Volcanoes National Park | National Parks Traveler – For a century now researchers have been studying volcanic activity from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, a facility that has provided many insights into volcanoes and earthquakes in the Pacific.
• Astronomers release unprecedented data set on celestial objects that brighten and dim – Astronomers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Arizona have released the largest data set ever collected that documents the brightening and dimming of stars and other celestial objects—two hundred million in total.
• NASA Airborne Radar ‘Sees’ Inside Hawaii Volcano | Hawaii Volcano News, Images & Updates, Kilauea Eruption News, Images & Updates | Most Active Volcanoes, Volcano Monitoring | Space.com – This mission has returned to Hawaii for the third time to see how the volcano’s surface is changing, which holds clues about what’s happening inside the world’s most active volcano.
• China, India to jump forward with Hawaii telescope – China and India will pay a share of the construction cost – expected to top $1 billion – for the Thirty Meter Telescope at the summit of Mauna Kea volcano. They will also have a share of the observation time.

We had Gorm Lai, Peter Justeson and Rechung Fujihira on the show today. Rechung was our news guest talking about Jelly Week over at the Box Jelly. Peter and Gorm are co-founders of the Honolulu Chapter of the International Game Developer Association. You can check out the podcast of the show here: http://www.bytemarkscafe.org/2012/01/19/episode-179-gamification-jan-18-2012/

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Each week I pore through Google alerts to find Hawaii’s science and tech news. These are my finds for January 9th through January 12th:

• Coast Guard Helps Univ. of Hawaii Research Vessel – A boat carrying a group of scientists on a University of Hawaii Marine Center research trip was headed back to shore Friday after it began taking on water 60 miles north of Oahu.
• The Tallest Mountains in the Solar System | Surprising Science – Earth just squeaks into this top ten list with this active volcano on the island of Hawaii (remember, mountains are measured from their base to their peak, and Mauna Loa’s base is far beneath the ocean surface).
• Student Teams Take Up NASA Rocket Launch Challenge | NASA & Student Launch Projects Initiative | Rockets & STEM Education | Space.com – More than 500 students from middle schools, high schools and universities across the country will show off their rocketeering skills during a NASA contest in April.
• Hawaii launches web directory of green employers – 05 Jan 2012 – News from BusinessGreen – Industries that want a clearer picture of green employment in Hawaii can tap into a new online resource that lists companies with green jobs on their payroll.
• Dark matter’s ‘cosmic web’ revealed – The Daily Record – The international project involved studying images collected over a period of five years by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHC) on Mauna Kea mountain in Hawaii.
• Final Health IT Innovators Win Funding For Cancer Treatment Apps | Vadvert – UK Paid Press Release Distribution Service – Innovative winners of an HHS public data and cancer challenge have created health IT applications that use public data and existing technology to help patients and health care professionals prevent, detect, diagnose and treat cancer.

On the rooftop of Automart USA (formerly CompUSA) Alan Joaquin plans to convert an area of black roofing paper to edible green vegetables. Not only would this contribute to Hawaii becoming more food independent but it also helps to cool the building by minimizing the heat absorbing black surface.

Joaquin’s company FarmRoof developed specialized plant tubing that contains a nutrient, soil mix that is light weight and contains a watering system. The tubes are uncoiled into lengths customized for the rooftop. It weigh under 5 pounds per square foot and can be installed on any flat roof.

The company plans to focus on growing high nutrient value crops like  kale, beet leaves, arugula and asian greens for sale in local restaurants. But the produce is not limited to restaurants. FarmRoof is a Community Supported Agriculture member and with a subscription individuals like you and me can get four weekly deliveries of 10 oz of their mix of “Supergreens”.

With the rooftop farm on Automart USA started, Joaquin expects their first harvest to be in April. Plans are underway to sign up other buildings in the Honolulu area. Joaquin described the day when airlines flying over Honolulu, rather than seeing black top, would see fields of urban greenery, edible no less.

As 2011 becomes a thing of the past, I often contemplate the memorable moments in the wee hours of new years eve. Here are my memorable moments as I tweeted them before midnight Dec 31, 2011. It was certainly a fun year and one to remember.

1st memorable moment of 2011

2nd memorable moment of 2011

3rd memorable moment of 2011

4th memorable moment of 2011

5th memorable moment of 2011

6th memorable moment of 2011

7th memorable moment of 2011

8th memorable moment of 2011

9th memorable moment of 2011

10th memorable moment of 2011

Each week I pore through Google alerts to find Hawaii’s science and tech news. These are my finds for December 26th through December 28th:

• Solar Companies Get Another Boost from the PUC – State regulators have rejected a proposal by Hawaiian Electric Co. to require solar companies to install expensive remote monitoring systems for small solar photovoltaic systems.
• Navy gets OK to buy two Hawaiian superferries – Congress has given the Navy the green light to spend up to $35 million to acquire two Hawaiian superferries from the U.S. Maritime Administration.
• Honolulu Civil Beat – Civil Beat Business – OluKai To Present TEDxMaui Conference – Olukai has announced it will present its first version of the independently produced TED conference. The spin off, dubbed TEDxMaui, will be a one-day event featuring 18 speakers from the islands of Hawaii and beyond.
• Pilot program to advance Race to the Top initiatives | Hawaii 24/7 – The state Department of Education has announced the creation of a new three-year pilot program to begin in the 2012-13 school year.

Each week I pore through Google alerts to find Hawaii’s science and tech news. These are my finds for December 18th through December 24th:

• Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning does pipeline survey – Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning announced Monday it has completed a pipeline survey that moves its $250 million project forward.
• Earth Has Two Moons, But It’s Not What You Think – Technology – The Atlantic Wire – In a day packed with astronomy news, researchers at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu came out today and declared that earth probably has two moons at any one time.
• Hawaii utility to make gas from vegetable oil – Hawaii’s gas utility has a new plant that will transform vegetable oil, coconut oil, and other fats and oils into gas.
• Closest Type Ia supernova in decades solves a cosmic mystery | e! Science News – On August 24 of this year, searching data as it poured into DOE’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) from an automated telescope on Palomar Mountain in California, Nugent spotted a remarkable object. It was shortly confirmed as a Type Ia supernova in the Pinwheel Galaxy, some 21 million light-years distant.
• Cosmic Log – Moon telescope tested on Earth – After a wild night on top of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea volcano, researchers report that they’ve successfully tested the remote-control system for a prototype telescope that could someday be looking at the cosmos from the surface of the moon.
• Governor Tours Proposed Maui Food Innovation Center | Maui Now – Governor Neil Abercrombie visited the University of Hawai’i Maui College and toured the site of a proposed food innovation center that would be housed in the college’s former cafeteria.

Historically, I usually get my new year calendar out at the beginning of the year. This year I had enough people nudge me by asking when my calendar was going to be ready. So in lieu of Xmas cards, here is my 2012 New Year calendar. I usually hand printed copies out personally since I find the face to face meaningful but in the off chance that I don’t see you in the coming weeks, you are welcome to download a copy and print up as many as you wish.

You might recognize some of the photos. The top photo is a sunrise shot of Diamond Head taken from the Kewalo end of Ala Moana Beach. It’s usually when I finish my morning run that the sun just peaks over the horizon.

The photo on the bottom left is a zen brush painting of a stylized character for dragon. 2012 is the year of the dragon so you can expect 2012 to be a dynamic year. In the middle is our daughter Mochi, sometimes referred to as Princess Mochi. She is half pug, half Tibetan spaniel. She welcomes me with all her heart when I come home. On the right is a ceramic piece my wife  Rochelle did of the Hindu deity Ganesh. He grants success, prosperity and protection against adversity. He also places and removes obstacles to keep us in check.

I hope you enjoy this year’s calendar. For my next blog post I am thinking about the top 10 things that made 2011 memorable. What made it on your list?

Thank you to all for being an integral part of Honolulu’s first CityCamp. It was by all measures a great success, all because of you. I love how the community came together, shared knowledge and brainstormed ideas. It was inspiring to see City employees collaborating with the community in a productive, can-do environment.

As the day concluded, many people asked, what’s next? CityCamp Honolulu was just a catalyst, a spark that we must now nurture and fuel to create lasting change. As Forest Frizzell said, “we will continue to have monthly meetups throughout 2012 as we usher in Code for America.”

Some key dates to keep in mind:

• Fri-Sat, January 20-21, 2012 - CityCampHNL Hack-a-thon
• Saturday, February 25, 2012 – Unconferenz 2012

We will also keep you informed of any meetups that get scheduled through our Facebook page, Twitter and blog.

We wil also continue the conversation and develop our ideas online. Here are a couple resources I encourage you to participate in:

• CityCampHNL Google Group (Forum): This is where email threaded discussions can take place and be archived: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/citycamphnl
• CityCampHNL Wiki: This is where we are archiving the notes from the sessions and ideas as they develop: http://citycamphnl.wikispaces.com/

We got some great coverage of the event thanks to citizen journalist and the media:

• Restoring trust in government (Jason Hibbets, OpenSource.com)
• CityCamp Honolulu Advances Open Government Vision (Ryan Ozawa, HawaiiWeblog)
• Forward Thinking from Honolulu Hale (John Temple, Civil Beat)
• Hawaii joins the “city camp” initiative (KHON)
• Social Wire: CityCamp Honolulu (KITV)
• Tweet stream (Collected tweets from the event)
• Photos from OpenSource.com  (Opensource.com photo album)
• Pictures on Flickr: bytemarks, hawaii, madmarv
• CityCamp Honolulu (Video by Ryan Ozawa)

Thanks again for being a part of CityCamp Honolulu. We’ve made a great first step and I look forward to being a part of this ground breaking journey.

This show at the Academy of Arts is a must see on so many levels. Granted I don’t find myself writing about art very often and even on this occasion I will attempt it at a very superficial level. Chinese landscape art for me is mesmerizing. Nature is depicted in such grandeur and although humans are an integral part of the painting, they play a very small role. Majestic landscapes transport me to a different time and place. I find myself looking deeply into the painting enjoying the finer and finer details. You can view these works up close and afar.

On the tech side I encountered something new for a major exhibit at the Academy, QR codes. This might have been started at previous shows at the Academy but it was a first for me. Usually there are no photographing allowed in the exhibit but an exception is made for the QR codes. I shot 10 different codes and they take you to the following links:

1. http://ow.ly/7rgfk
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wfRhMmgxC0
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AqVT2MLdGM
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE5QqrNI_b8
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xI09v5Rs0Y
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TomAECaxQH0
7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVOJVnjpV7M
8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm5fKQm1S6E
9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBhgDyog18s
10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScAAAqHstkM

There is one introductory video by Stephan Jost, Director of the Academy of Arts and 8 video podcasts. (The video numbering seems to have missed #8 and I was unable to find it on the Academy Youtube page.) If you plan to visit the exhibit, I would suggest watching these first. The only thing about reading a QR code and loading a video is the Internet connection. I wasn’t able to connect to the Academy wifi and viewing a video on 3G is slow.

Nevertheless, I thought it was innovative of the Academy to incorporate QR codes and video podcast into the exhibit. It offered a chance to get more out of the displays, almost like having your own personal docent. The show continues to Jan. 8, 2012 but plan to go a couple of times as you will want to spend some time gazing at these masterpieces.