Hawaii classic or dud

yeah we stayed near Pahoa when we were there, so when I heard about that and I checked some videos of the lava flowing - it's kinda funny what a slow-motion disaster that was, like no one could stop it but it moved at a snail's pace.

definitely angry hippies in Puna, I felt like we were perpetually on the verge of becoming very unwelcome visitors to someone's clandestine weed farm

the best, weirdest kind of natural disaster: ultra-slow-motion, daily headline updates (5 yards closer!), simultaneously of almost no danger to human life and totally impossible to stop from destroying an entire town -- xp

in hilo the derogatory term for hippie (besides "hippie") is "punatic"

hahaha that's classic

yeah there was something very *Hawaiian* about the lava flow. People just standing around looking at this stuff crawling forward, "huh well nothing we can do about it. shit, there goes the corner store"

if can can if no can no can

xp hehe 'punatic'. man, it's a pretty hardscrabble life, subsisting on the organic farm. i stayed on one in puna for a couple nights. to make a long story short, i wouldn't recommend it and i can understand where the anger and disillusionment comes from.

bumbye you going learn you bettah get one edumacation and one job.

from what I've seen the big island (and most of the other islands I've been to tbh) don't seem v conducive to farming in general

quite rich soil in places, like the hamakua coast, but yeah there's not a lot of soil compared to a continent, and most of this island is the dry stuff full of lava particles that i think needs a lot of coaxing to grow much except ohia and jurassic park ferns (this is the soil they grow the coffee in, and the mac nuts -- not exactly subsistence crops). another reason the pre-contact population is impressive. when i was seven another serious problem with the soil was the zero possibility of dinosaurs.

classic

Dud: Idiot travel writers coming to confirm their biases, disregard the history of the place, and paint the people who live here with broad-brush stereotypes. You might not expect the NYT to publish something that reductive and ignorant, but there it is: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/magazine/hawaii-travels-escape.html

headed to aunt's place on the big island at the end of June!

The lava flows have been going crazy lately. Should still be a great time to go see it by boat or on foot when you're here :)

I'm idly curious to see the destruction wrought by the lava in Pahoa since the last time we were there. dunno if we'll get around to where the lava's actually hitting the ocean in the south (assuming that's still going on)

I didn't get a chance to take one when I visited last year, but I've heard good things about the guided lava tours around the Pahoa area, in case you'd like to seek them out.

Most tourist destinations attract tourists because they are naturally attractive places, which is classic. But tourists generate their own atmosphere and where they congregate in the greatest numbers suffers degradation in proportion. This is like a law of the universe.

I'll keep it in mind, at the moment we just bought our plane tickets and are trying to figure out where to stay next. We'll be there for 8 days, I think, with half of that spent at my aunt's in Kohala, but I think the other four days we'll probably stay somewhere near Hilo, idk have to look around

xp

As for places around Hilo, I would try to stay in the Volcanoes National Park area b/c that is forever my favorite natural place in the islands. Note sure if that's too distant from Hilo for you tho, it depends on your itinerary.

xp Agree that tourism inevitably is exploitative.

You might not expect the NYT to publish something that reductive and ignorant

isn't that basically what they do about everything, including their local coverage? IIRC we have a few threads on it

maybe just need a rolling "NYT is dumb #6590728340 in a series" thread

I'd like to visit hawaii one day though.

You're probably right. I've only read their more journalistic news stuff, not so much the lifestyle stuff. Anyway you should come visit some time.

shakey - highly recommend a day trip to Waipio Valley:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waipio_Valley

http://www.hawaiimagazine.com/content/rare-look-waipio-valley-hawaii-island

one of the weirdest and most beautiful places i've ever been to.

there are feral horses walking around!

Arriving on big island today huzzah

a-looooooooooooooo-ha!

Super nice weather on Oahu today! So I went on the Hanauma Bay Ridge Hike and snapped this photo.

http://i.imgur.com/ltKDi4Jl.jpg

Hope you'll be getting similar weather on the Big Isle :)

why do people bring their fucking drones to the beach, on vacation WHY

happened twice, immediately cast about for a rock to throw both times

Ppl bring them to make themselves feel like they haven't wasted hundreds of dollars iirc. Yeah that shit is pretty annoying.

I feel like drones should be fair game for ppl with things to throw / slingshots

on the plus side I swam with some sea turtles and saw an (apparently rare?) hawaiian monk seal, so that was cool

Oh! All those creatures are magical. And yes the Monk Seal is fairly rare, population currently is about 1,500, I just heard on the news.

Classic: Monk seals birthing and raising pups on the busiest beaches in Waikiki.

http://www.hawaiimagazine.com/content/rocky-endangered-hawaiian-monk-seal-gives-birth-kaimana-beach-waikiki

Waikiki FAP this week? Or not nbd always next time

Waikiki... FAP?

Kaka'ako FAP > Waikiki FAP imho

any other ilxors got INCOMING BALLISTIC MISSILE THIS IS NOT A DRILL on wireless emergency alert this morning? better than coffee.

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/9522437235256770

i think i'm coming around on her

oh that's not how it works? okay well tulsi says there is actually no inbound nuke. good arguments on both sides imo

okay official never-mind notice. this has been cool cuz i definitely needed an experience that made our moment feel both more real and less

wait...so what actually happened?

how much time passed between the 'you're going to die' and 'oops, false alarm' messages?

wtf

40 minutes.

waht

The moment the EAS alert interrupted Hawaiian TV is terrifying pic.twitter.com/pVwpCBeRgD

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 13, 2018

emergency management officially tweeted it was a false alarm 13 mins after the orig alert; that's when i calmed down, to be freaked out a while later by the second one (which still began EMERGENCY ALERT: EXTREME lol)

the 'THIS IS NOT A DRILL' part seemed a little theatrical, would they actually include that if it WASNT A DRILL

Saw Gabbard’s tweet shortly after some initial ones reporting the alert, so mostly I’ve been just looking at responses. Unsurprising that there’s no consensus as to what was the cause even from officials. I’d give money to know if Trump was even alerted at all.

From here in SF it was an interesting psychological moment — I only saw a couple of tweets from one source RT’d into my feed, from a Buzzfeed reporter based there, and I basically assumed if it was a glitch or hack. Checked both the CNN and Honolulu Star-Advertiser pages and feeds: nothing. A few minutes later another RT with an alert was in my feed, but then Gabbard’s tweet was posted. So in the end at most I thought “Huh” rather than assuming it was all going down.

wat if alert on gorila chanmel

Would make sense.

a friend tells me her co-worker had already fled work to "check on [his] ex-girlfriend" when the second message came

high point for me was when my dad entered the room holding up a little radio, just like group captain mandrake. it was playing won't get fooled again