8Asians.com | Archive | January, 2010

Jeremy Lin Drives it to the Basket as Harvard Defeats Santa Clara University

By John | Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Monday night, I had the real distinct pleasure of seeing Harvard’s Men’s basketball team player (and Palo Alto native) phenom Jermey Lin play live against Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California. Although Lin didn’t have his best night scoring, he played a critical role in Harvard’s victory:

“Jeremy Lin didn’t want to think about all the fans who had crammed into the sold-out Leavey Center on Monday night. But his Harvard teammates let him know anyway. “They said it looks like Hong Kong,” Lin said after Harvard defeated Santa Clara 74-66 in front of 4,700. A nervous Lin didn’t have his usual superb scoring game, getting only six points. But the senior sensation from Palo Alto High tied a career high with nine assists to help the Crimson (11-3) cruise past the Broncos, who lost their fourth in five games. “When your senior leader scores six points in a road game and they win, that’s why he’s more than just the leading scorer,” Santa Clara coach Kerry Keating said.”

Indeed, in tonight’s game, I saw some pretty cool assists by Jeremy, as well as some blocks by him swatting away basket attempts by Santa Clara. Prior to the game, local newspapers such as The San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News did profiles on Jeremy. At the game, local Chinese news channel KTSF 26 was there, along with Chinese language newspaper World Journal. On the local Fox news affiliate, I saw the sportscaster call Jeremy the “Asian sensation” – which I thought had a nice ring to it. I even saw a Hyphen photographer with official press credentials!

After the jump, you can see some photos from the game (or view all the photos I took).

| Posted in Current Events, Local, Observations, San Francisco Bay Area, Sports | 7 Comments

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Asian Web Domains Among Safest and Riskiest

By Tim | Wednesday, January 6, 2010

It’s no surprise to anyone familiar with web security that China’s domain, .cn would be near the top of the list of riskiest domains to surf when on the web. McAfee recently released their 2009 Mapping the Mal Web report, and China came in 2nd behind Cameroon as the 2nd riskiest domain. Other Asian domains making the top 5 included Samoa and the Philippines. What was surprising was that Japan topped the list of the safest country domains. Other Asian domains considered safe included Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Singapore had the largest drop in safety moving from 67 last year to position 10 this year in the risky domains list. Among the other risky Asian domains were Hong Kong, South Korea, Laos and India.

While this list is interesting, you do need to be careful not to take this list as the end-all and be-all of which web sites to visit. As Mike Gallagher, CTO for McAfee labs said: “This report underscores how quickly cybercriminals change tactics to lure in the most victims and avoid being caught. Last year, Hong Kong was the riskiest domain and this year it is dramatically safer. Cybercriminals target regions where registering sites is cheap and convenient, and pose the least risk of being caught.”

To give you an idea of how risky some domains were in 2009, if you visited a domain ending in .cn (China), you had an 18.6% chance of downloading a virus or other malware versus only a 0.5% for visiting a domain ending in .jp (Japan). Well known websites aren’t safe from malware either. McAfee’s last word on the matter:

Additionally, we continue to see infections of legitimate websites via SQL injection, domain hijacking and cross-site scripting. These often ephemeral infections can still result in massive drive-by exploitations that infect a web server—and the consumers who visit it—without the knowledge of the consumer, webmaster, or registrar.

So be safe when surfing the web and run some anti-malware package, no matter which website you visit.

| Posted in Current Events, Technology | 1 Comment

Shopping With GASP!

SoCal Asians Choose Rabbit Ear Antennas Over Cable TV

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Bucking the national trend of moving away from over-the-air (OTA) broadcasts, nearly 20,000 Asians in Southern California switched back to rabbit ears to get OTA signals for their televisions. The draw is better quality TV (HD quality) along with more diverse programming. I wrote about this phenomenon when the digital transition first occurred and noted that there were more Chinese channels available OTA than there were from the local cable provider here in the SF Bay Area. Right now the move away from cable and satellite has been word of mouth, as more families discover they can get better quality Asian TV for free with TVs that have ATSC tuners or using a digital converter box.

NYC’s New Comptroller, Cheered by Asian-Americans Declaring a New Era

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On New Year’s day, New York City swore in their new comptroller, Taiwanese American John C. Liu, making Liu the first Asian-American elected to hold a city-wide office. John’s parents, visiting from California, were present, as well as his brothers – Robert and Edward – who were named after the Kennedy brothers, much like John’s own namesake, according to the New York Times. Congratulations to John Liu and best of luck to him in these troubling budgetary times!

More Good Music: Tim Be Told

By Ernie | Sunday, January 3, 2010

timbetold More Good Music: Tim Be Told

Every so often, we’ll get e-mails at 8Asians from artists and bands asking us to pimp their music, and every so often I agonize whether or not whether to blog about them, especially if their music sucks. (Note to those who HAVE sent e-mails asking me to pimp your band: I’m not talking about your stuff: Your band is awesome. I’m talking about the other e-mails I get. Really.)

Thankfully, I have no qualms blogging about Tim Be Told. This Charlottesville, Virginia rock band has soul, pop and gospel elements, and while a front man does not a whole band make, the band has a powerhouse in songwriter and lead vocalist Tim Ouyang; think Adam Levine from Maroon 5, but with more Jesus and less creepy videos where he’s making out with white girls.

While the band already has an album out and with it a devoted collegiate following, listening to their new EP From the Inside you can definitely appreciate their depth in musical styles and polished production. Their management company was nice enough to offer their second single Analyze available as a guilt-free MP3 download. It’s a great radio-friendly track, but if you get the chance, take a listen to their track System — available through iTunes — if you want to hear Tim Be Told at their full wah-wah guitar, jam band potential; they should be a fun group to watch when they tour the West Coast this January and February.

| Posted in Entertainment, Music | 2 Comments

Senate Confirms First Vietnamese, Chinese Woman Federal Judges

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On Christmas Eve, the United States Senate confirmed Los Angeles attorney Dolly Gee as a member of the U.S. District Court in California’s Central District, making her the first Chinese American woman to ever hold a seat on the federal bench, and one of four Asian Americans currently on the federal bench.

[UPDATE] Via Tuyet via Twitter: The confirmation comes a month after the Senate unanimously confirmed Judge Jacqueline Nguyen to the U.S. District Court, making her the first Vietnamese-American federal judge.

Is Jeremy Lin finally getting more respect?

By Jeff | Saturday, January 2, 2010

On the face of it, Jeremy Lin seems to be getting more respect and exposure. Time Magazine has an article on him called “Harvard’s Hoop Star is Asian. Why is that a problem?” The article talks about the double novelty of a pro-level player not just from Harvard but Asian-American. It also mentions how “racial profiling” stopped him from being recruited by any Division I colleges despite leading a team to a California State Championship and how Lin commonly encounters racial insults at games.

Is Jeremy Lin finally getting more respect?

I find it interesting how the title changed. When John first forwarded the article, it was called “Harvard’s Hoop Star is Asian. Got a problem with that?” Now the title is changed. Was the original title too confrontational to be associated with the stereotypical view of an Asian-American?

More than “why is that a problem,” the question I want to know is why there is seems to be so little outrage against the constant racism against Lin. The article dances around that question, particularly how weakly it hints at the issues with the lack of Division I recruitment: “don’t doubt that a little racial profiling, intentionally or otherwise, contributed to his under-recruitment.” There seems to be a growing trend to deny or dismiss that any racism against Asian-Americans occurs, from the students in Philadelphia to Toby Keith’s escapade at the Nobel Prize ceremony.

So is Jeremy Lin really getting more respect? Despite garnering much praise (“He’s as good an all-around guard as I’ve seen,” says Tony Shaver, the head coach of William & Mary ), accumulating great stats, and playing well against teams like UConn and Boston College, a blog from ESPN points out that he was NOT nominated for the Bob Cousy award, an award given to the best point guards in college. The reason cited is that Lin wasn’t nominated by Harvard. The blogger adds that he thinks that Lin will be added. So is Jeremy Lin really getting more respect? If he actually does get added to the Cousy nominees, then I think we’ll know for sure.

| Posted in (featured), Discrimination, Sports | 9 Comments

Fremont, California: Asian American Christmas Destination

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Many Asian-Americans are not Christian and don’t believe in Santa Claus. In Fremont, the Bay Area’s fourth largest city and one with a plurality of Asian Americans, there was plenty to do on Christmas. This article talks about how Fremont has become an Asian American Christmas destination as most shops are closed elsewhere. Asian themed shopping centers were filled on Christmas, and Indian movie theatres were open. “Pleasanton is dead today — there’s no activity at all,” said Yash Bannur, who drove to Fremont with his wife to take in a movie at the Naz8 cinemas. Fremont was once my Christmas destination as my family lived there. Now I live in a mostly Asian neighborhood where I also find it convenient that many shops are open on Christmas. Christmas meals are always easier when you can supplement with Asian takeout!