After consulting with the other Tropophilia contributors, I’ve decided that the Tropophy needs a little revision.
The Tropophy is not destined to become another watered-down web award. Nay friends, verily I say unto you: the Tropophy is destined for greatness. And so, in order to give the Tropophy a little more dignity and to avoid late night scrambles every Thursday (ahem) for a winner, I’m going to be doling out the Tropophy on a less frequent basis. Maybe once every two weeks, maybe once a month… who knows? When an individual or group merits the Tropophy, so it shall be bestowed upon them. If you think we’ve missed a good recipient and you want to nominate them, get in touch.
Fear not, however, for I bring glad tidings to appease your disappointment.
- We will soon be featuring a couple of guest posts from some of Tropophilia’s most loyal readers. Check back next week for some new voices on some interesting issues.
- We will soon be debuting another regular “feature” on Tropophilia that will inspire you to reflect on change in your own experiences, and then will invite you to respond. I’m really pumped about it, and Joel should be rolling it out within a few days.
- Give me about 5 minutes, and I’ll have a new satellite challenge up.
Happy Friday, folks.
Before I introduce this week’s winner, let me make two disclosures.
- At least two of the writers here at Tropophilia are huge space junkies. Taylor and I both went to Space Camp, were (and, come Christmas, will be born-again) Trekkies, and still get jazzed over anything that manages to exit the Earth’s atmosphere for destinations both known and unknown, explored and unexplored. Space is indeed the final frontier and - being both Americans and bros, and thus by nature in love with chasing frontiers - we can’t help but be obsessed with it.
- I watched The Astronaut Farmer courtesy of Netflix last night, and while the movie was a little too cheesy and warm-and-fuzzy for me, I still had my heart in my throat and a little water in my eyes when this everyday dude finally gets his homemade rocket off the ground, into orbit, and then back down to Earth.
And so, with those disclosures made, it is my pleasure to announce that the recipient of this week’s Tropophy is Virgin Galactic. Yesterday, Virgin Chairman Richard Branson unveiled the design of SpaceShipTwo, the improved iteration of the SpaceShipOne model designed by Burt Rutan which won the Ansari X Prize in 2004. By the end of 2010, this vessel will be taking civilians on trips into space. Fo’ real, yo.
Continue reading ‘Tropophy Winner of the Week: Virgin Galactic’
OK, so selecting all the presidential candidates might be somewhat of a cop-out. We didn’t want to choose just one candidate, because we don’t want this blog to become too political. While one candidate may have been the first candidate to call for change in their campaign, it seems almost all of the contestants left in the race have somehow adopted or integrated that theme into their campaigns.
This CNN video reminds us of the obvious: “change” is not a very original campaign slogan. Especially after a two-term presidency, candidates will always offer a change from the previous eight years.
As mentioned, we’re going to refrain from endorsing a certain candidate or party and thus call all the presidential candidates to the stage to receive the TROPOphy. We congratulate them on advocating for change in our government, change in our country, and change in our world. But we’ve got more to say.
Continue reading ‘TROPOphy Winner(s) of the Week: the Presidential Candidates’
Tropophilia has had a great first week, and to celebrate, we’re going to roll out an exciting new feature. Every Friday, the four of us will throw our minds together to choose the biggest change-maker of the week to be profiled on the blog. Be it an individual or a company, a blogger or a website, a politician or a product, a thinker or a doer… whatever or whoever has enacted or inspired the most change will be that week’s recipient of the presitigious Tropophilia TROPOphy.
But wait, there’s more! We need your help! While we certainly try to read and keep up with news across all different areas and industries, we’re certainly biased by our areas of expertise and preference. And, let’s face it, we’re four dudes with day jobs that we’d prefer not to get fired from… we don’t always have time to read every single thing in our readers or in the paper. So help us out by giving your favorite change agent a shout-out. Send your nominations for each week’s TROPOphy to tropophilia <(at)> gmail <(dot)> com. If we take your suggestion, you know we’ll give you mad props, because we your boys and we got your back.
Because we’ve only concocted this crazy plan in the past few hours, we haven’t had a chance to discuss this week’s winner. Stay tuned over the weekend for the first ever recipient of the Tropophilia TROPOphy!
[Update by Taylor: no, we don't know the people in that picture. But we think we'd get along. Also, if anyone has a less cheesy/awkward name for this weekly feature, spill it in the comments.]
Image used under a Creative Commons license from Flicker user ftzdomino.
