50 PRINT "HAPPY BIRTHDAY"

I think BASIC's greatest strength may be that it was something that many people -- not just those with a particular background -- could learn. There was no gatekeeper, either literally or figuratively: you didn't have to push punchcards under a bank-teller window nor did you have to learn recursion before learning …

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Kiteboarding: Four Days Since Our Last Tiger Shark Attack

I am holding a bar while floating in a murky bay, slowly drifting towards a shipping channel. If I pull on the bar, 6 things can happen, only 1 of which is good. Not to mention the tiger shark. The tiger shark doesn't care whether I pull the bar or …

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More Reasons To Visit Hawai'i In February

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This photo was taken by Ron Dahlquist yesterday off Maui.

Personally, I got up early to go for a swim in a whale-rich bay this morning and the surf was up and I forgot to shave so my mask kept flooding. It sucked (for sufficiently small values of "sucked").

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February: Best Month to Visit Hawai'i Island

\<a href="http://www.judithbastiaanssen.com/2002Australia/photos/fraser/fraser08.jpg"" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The seas are filled with humpbacks, both breeding and nursing. If you go in the water, you can hear them a little if you're on the surface, but if you can swim down 5' …

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Me Filming A Jellyfish

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This is a photo by Wayne Levin, an incredible photographer who stars in a new video for Hawaiian tourism

While I'm at it, this is one Wayne took of Tina, bluewater freediving near a fish-aggregating buoy:

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HDTV: Made The Jump, Mixed Results

A year ago I said that HDTV didn't make sense for me. But with the arrival of Tivo HD, the dollar weakening and making dramatic price drops less likely, and the Red Sox making the playoffs, I decided to make the jump and bought a Philips 42".

The biggest problem …

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Was It That Ass I Coveted?

In the past 96 hours, I've been exposed to:

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meteors,

an earthquake,

a hurricane,

a tsunami watch,

annoying frogs (which, while not exactly toads, are still amphibians), and

\<a href="http://arted.osu.edu/160/images/50rnr/hollyband.gif"" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">annoying crickets (which, while not …

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Poor Perseids, Battening Down For Flossie

We stayed over \<a href="http://www.plumhall.com/"" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tom & Lana Plum's house last night, hoping to take advantage of their very dark skies to see the Perseids. Slept on the porch on thin mattresses, beautiful milky way / Sagittarius / Scorpio in the evening hours. Saw …

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Coming To The Big Island This Week? The Helicopter Tour Might Be Worth It

\<a href="http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/update/archive/2007/Jul/DSCN1003_L.jpg"" target="_blank" atomicselection="true" rel="noopener noreferrer">Since I blogged the pause and restart of Pu'u O'o, for completeness I will report that the eruption on The Big Island of Hawai'i has not only returned …

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Lava Lake in Pu'u O'o

Lava has reemerged at Pu'u O'o vent, creating a vast, slowly circulating lake of lava, as captured from the USGS cams at dawn on 7/8/07. During the day, it doesn't look like much, but try the \<a href="http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/cam/"" target="_blank" rel="noopener …

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