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Growing up in Southern California tends to put everything in a particular light. It’s true–the light in SoCal really is different than the light in other parts of the world. Sure, sometimes it’s a bit foggy (or even smoggy), but often there’s a kind o…

Ooops. I forgot about something in my answer yesterday. When you look for the Farallons, you have to think about WHERE you’re standing. In the original Challenge I asked: And where should I stand?That’s an important part of the question. If you’re …

Ah ha! I’m back! Over the past couple of weeks I HAVE done a bit of flying, and you’ll see a few future Challenges come out of that vacation experience. Along the way I found plumes of smoke (that I was able to identify thanks to our earlier discuss…

I’m about to go flying again… … and you know what happens… I tend to look out the window and gaze at the land and sea passing by below. I often end up wondering–What IS that thing I see below me?This week I present a few mysteries–things I’ve…

Remember Philae? You might recall the Challenge we had in April 2014 about Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Philae and Rosetta. Back then we wondered about how hard the comet was, and how difficult it would be to land Philae, the descent-lander on t…

As you might imagine… I’m interested in how much people understand the world around them, and in particular, how much they understand about what they read. How do we learn about how the world works? One important way is by incidental learning, o…

Generally speaking, I’m fairly easy-to-get-along kind of guy… Not much really irritates me. But one thing that DOES irritate me is when people needlessly make something simple into something that’s purposefully obfuscated and hard to understand. Th…

This was an interesting Challenge. Last week I posted a few images of concrete poles standing in a somewhat mysterious forest/jungle on the North Shore of Oahu. Here are those photos again: As I mentioned, these things are scattered all over the plac…

It was a beautiful morning… … and I was running on a jungle path, getting my morning exercise while staying on the North Shore of Oahu. As I run or bicycle, I regularly discover small mysteries on the land. In 2013 I wondered “Why is this tree he…

You’d think these would be simple… … questions. But they’re not quite as easy as you might think. Hawai’i on Google EarthMany simple questions have surprising complicated answers. For instance, “how far is it to the moon?” sounds straightforwa…

Now that I’m in Hawai’i… … I start to wonder about the geography of this island chain, this group of beautiful isles so far away from everything else. Hawai’i on Google EarthNaturally, I start to wonder a few things. The Challenges this week might…

As noted, I’m on vacation… So here’s a quick summary of how I found the answers to last week’s Challenges. 1. Driving to the North Shore we passed through fields of pineapples. Historically, pineapples (and sugar cane) have been the mainstays of H…

As I mentioned last week, I went back up to the place where I took some of those original pics of the plant-free zone around chaparral bushes. This place is Black Mountain (37.319795, -122.163153), a mixed oak woodland, chaparral, and grassland. Overv…

Technically, I’m on vacation… … but that just means I’m in an interesting location with even MORE questions that keep popping up! This week I’m on Oahu, the “main” island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It’s the island where Honolulu (the capital) i…