Lin doing what Lin does.

Something amazing has happened in New York City over the past few days; and it has nothing to do with the Super Bowl Champion New York Giants. Basketball fans have been going insane over Jeremy Lin, the new starting point guard and momentary savior of the New York Knicks. Underdogs rise and surprises happen – that’s the beauty of sports. But the story of Jeremy Lin is absolutely incredible. I am impressed beyond measure by Lin, and the reasons go far beyond his accomplishments on the court. Here’s what Jeremy Lin has taught me, and I hope you’ll be inspired too.

The American Dream is obtainable for Asian-Americans

Let’s start off with the most controversial. The reason why Jeremy Lin has sat under the radar until now is largely due to race. The truth is many Asian-Americans feel oppressed by American society. Despite being born and raised in America like everyone else, we have the hardest requirements to enter elite colleges, are passed over for promotions on the corporate ladder and are disrespected to the point where the protagonists in our own stories get played by Caucasians. There almost seems like there is an unspoken agreement where Asians are allowed to enter American society and contribute by working relentlessly hard to enter the middle class, but we’re not allowed to enter any role of social recognition and significance. But Jeremy Lin is one of many working tirelessly to change this perception, and he’s doing it in an arena untouched by Asian-Americans thus far: professional sports.

The 25 point games by Knicks players.

The Student-Athlete does not have to compromise

Far less than 1% of NCAA basketball players make it to the NBA, and obviously, far few than 1% of college-bound applicants make it to Harvard. But Jeremy Lin has done both. Not only is he a starter in the NBA, but he also graduated from Harvard with a 3.1 GPA in Economics. Jeremy Lin is the definition of exceptional, and a role model to student-athletes everywhere. Good for him, and great for others who need inspiration in balancing their passions.

There is a way to represent Christ properly

For those unaware, Jeremy Lin is a proud Christian. But unlike Tim Tebow, who mixed his faith with his on-field behavior; Jeremy Lin only refers to God in post-game interviews and when it’s mentioned by fans. While the Jeremy Lin and Tim Tebow comparisons will undoubtedly continue, due to the similarities in the credit they give to God, they are worlds apart in their behavioral expression. While Tebow will parade his faith, Lin is much more subtle – a method much more effective in the world we live in today.

Persistence and hard work pays off

I’ve made a table that shows Lin’s accomplishments, what you would expect to happen, and what actually did happen.

Regardless of the obstacles and difficulties that Lin faced, he continued to persist and play his game until the right opportunity presented itself – something we can all learn from.

Poor Golden State Warriors...

The jury is still out on whether Lin can maintain his current level of play. While it would be great if he did, what he has done thus far has been amazing in its own right. Here are the highlights from his past two games. Round 2 against John Wall is tomorrow. Let’s hope for further Lincredible play from this Linsane player. I’m all-Lin on the Linsanity bandwagon, are you?

It is common knowledge that one the fundamental physical necessities for our modern lifestyle is effective infrastructure. While some (electricity and sewage) are more notable than others (telephone lines and railways), the truth is that they are all important. While most of us have an understanding of how these publicly funded infrastructures operate, relatively few of us have the knowledge of how (arguably) the most crucial of our infrastructures operates: the internet.

This is especially depressing since most people can easily tell you how roads work. Cars drive on them, they park alongside it and there are rules which govern the behavior and habits of vehicles on the roads. And although most people don’t know how to fix or modify their cars (which is perfectly acceptable for mechanics and manufactures), people at least know how their car would function within the realm of our transportation network. The internet is very much like the roads in our physical reality, and just like how different machines function on the roads (mopeds, cars, trucks, etc.), we have various devices which all connect to our virtual roads (computers, laptops, phones, tablets, etc.).  Knowing this, it’s time to breakdown recent moves by our technology ignorant politicians so we can better prepare ourselves against the inevitable second waves of bills and proposals funded by lobbyists and special interests.

SOPA and PIPA

The Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, while protested against by internet firms such as Google and Wikipedia, is still on the table – and does much more to stifle innovation and freedom than it does to stop or protect Piracy in anyway. The documents fail on a number of levels, but we’ll highlight a one just to prove a point.

First, did you know that when you type http://google.com into your address bar, you are not actually going to http://google.com? When you try to go to http://google.com, you are actually sending a message to your Domain Name Service (DNS) provider who then routes you to http://74.125.224.72/. Try it, type http://74.125.224.72/ and see where it takes you. It takes you to Google right? So if SOPA were to pass, even though http://thepiratebay.org wouldn’t work since their domain would be blocked, typing http:// 194.71.107.15/ would still be okay, since our lawmakers don’t understand how the internet works. So while some people may not understand and give up, most file sharers could get around SOPA with one change in their bookmarks. But on the other hand, people and businesses could more easily get their domains blocked, which would cripple the visibility and exposure of their product.

This is like refusing to let a business owner put up signs for their illegal business and removing them from directories instead of actually shutting down perpetrators. While it may be a little harder for casual criminals to locate them, most people would still be able to drive to the illegal organization and conduct illegal transactions without issue. You may ask, well, why doesn’t the US just shut down illegal websites? Well, sometimes the business and servers lie in countries were the US has no jurisdiction and cooperation, so all the US can do is block Domain Level access – meaningless.

H.B. 2288

HB 2288 is a State of Hawaii legislative bill designed to track and log the activities of all internet users in the State. This is so ridiculous that I do not know even where to begin. This is similar to having a GPS chip inserted into every person at birth, and then having the chip log your physical location to the government in real-time. Talk about major, major constitutional violations. The worst part is that one could easily bypass this monitoring by using tools such as VPN and Proxy’s. So, essentially, the criminals would still be able to conduct their illegal activities, while everyone else gets the comfort of knowing that another person/organization is watching their every movement online.

Once explained, it’s easy to see how this bill is atrocious and preposterous. But the truth is that this piece of art was born out of ignorance, and not wisdom; which is perhaps even more disturbing. Knowing that our elected politicians are willing to push forward legislation that they don’t even understand is both frightening and depressing. But in addition to highlighting and berating their incompetency, it’s also important to verify that we are not guilty of the same offense.  We need to continuously educate ourselves in the areas of life that matter to us – at the very minimum. A lot of us are willing to spend some time learning about financial vehicles for investing, or our health conditions, but few of us really understand how the internet operates and the true beauty of it; which is a shame because soon these liberties and opportunities will be stripped away – unless we equip ourselves with the knowledge to defend against it.

Thanks for making it this far! I’ll leave with a couple good videos to get you started on understanding the internet:

The theme for laptops in 2012: Ultrabooks

2012 is here and before we get too far into the year, I wanted to make some predictions/trends within the technology industry to look out for over the next twelve months.

• True 4G finally arrives. The next time you buy a smartphone, make sure that the phone connects to an LTE network, as the LTE technology standard is designed to be true 4G. Verizon is the only carrier currently offering this, with AT&T to follow soon and Sprint following up at the end of the year. T-Mobile has no plans to adopt LTE, which is one reason they sought to merge with AT&T.
• DVDs begin its decline. Although there was much criticism when Netflix tried to spin-off and eventually sell its DVD business, the truth is that Netflix simply moved slightly before the market was ready; but we really are witnessing the of the physical media era. Not even Blu-Ray can save the studios, as major companies such as Microsoft, Apple or PC manufactures are not adopting the closed standard like they did with the DVD.
• The next iPhone will NOT be called the iPhone 5. The iPhone 4S represents the fifth iteration of the iPhone, so it would make no sense for the sixth version of the iPhone to be called the iPhone 5. If I had to bet, I would say that the next iPhone announced in September will be called the iPhone 4G or simply the iPhone. The problem with iPhone 4G is that this is a US-centric approach since other countries have not adopted LTE yet, but since Apple is a US company, I don’t see this being too much of a problem.
• Laptops are finally mobile. Powerful computing and netbooks/tablets had a child together in 2011, and the baby will finally grow up in 2012. Termed Ultrabooks, these are light, thin, fast, beautiful computers heavily influenced by the MacBook Air. Ultrabooks are extremely fast due to the mainstream use of SSDs, are thin since most lack DVD drives and have all-day battery life due to low power consumption and larger batteries. If you plan a buying a laptop in 2012, you would be wise to pick up one of the plethora amounts of Ultrabooks.
• Facebook peaks. Facebook will finally IPO this year, and this will likely be the biggest Technology related event of the year. The media may turn this into the largest Web IPO in history – even bigger than Google in 2004. Unfortunately, I believe that the future growth of Facebook is bleak, as it already has nearly a billion users and has already saturated the United States. One would think that Facebook could do well in emerging markets, but China has already blocked Facebook and India is thinking about doing the same. What does this mean? The potential for Facebook isn’t great, and most people have not responded when Web companies have made moves to monetize. When the early adaptors to Facebook begin to move away (possibly in 2012), we may begin to see the gradual decline of this seemingly ubiquitous service.

Battery life on my HP Folio 13.

These are my observations and thoughts for the Technology industry in 2012. Let’s see how many come true. See you back at this post in January 2013!