Twenty four

For me, turning 24 years old has much more meaning than the much vaunted 25, also known as the quarter century mark. Granted when I do turn 25 next year, it will occur on the very special numerical date of 12/12/12, and it is going to be awesome (not to mention my automobile insurance will take a plunge to the cheap side.) Nonetheless, I turned 24 years of age yesterday, and with the usual lack of fanfare that is my birthdays over with, it is time to write down some random thoughts on the significance (if any) of turning 24.

Well, my parents can no longer claim me as a dependent (goodbye tax deductions, sorry Mother). So while turning the age pf 21 may traditionally signaled the beginning of adulthood and all the boozed up debauchery that goes along with it, in America nothing informs you of your adultness quite like having to file your own taxes. Here is to a life long tenure of paying annual tributes to "the man". Good thing we live amongst the age of great technology where there are programs that will allow me to file my own taxes no matter how complicated things get (right, like I make enough money to even begin to talk about deductions and itemizing). You know what would have been the perfect birthday present? Turbotax. 

Being patently Chinese (it annoys me when people say something is "patently" false), I am infinitely familiar with the Chinese zodiac. In Chinese culture, each new year is represented by an animal from the zodiac, in which there are 12. Thus every 12 years the rotation starts all over again. Birthdays in multiples of 12 are quite significant because the year of the particular zodiac in which you are born will repeat itself. I was born in 1987, the year of the rabbit. During the year when i turn 12, it was the year of the rabbit once again. No surprise, 2011 is the year of the rabbit, when I turned 24. Though sadly you certainly don't receive more Lunar New Year money for being the same birth zodiac animal as the current year (disregard nearly 3000 years of culture and start a new tradition anyone?).

Age of 24 also have educational ambition implications for me. According to the what now seemed highly naive plan, I was suppose to finish graduate school at 24, because that was the plan right? Graduate from high school at 18, four years of undergrad makes 22, and 2 years of graduate school leaves us with 24 (I can only laugh). So much for that, as I am just barely past half a year finished with my undergraduate studies. Whether it was due to personal failure of character (note: lazy) or economic situations (because having enough classes to take was never a problem during my tenure at SFSU..), things just did not work out as plan. 

Not only did I finish undergrad a year late, but to make matters worse I probably won't start my graduate studies for at least another year and a half (not like I am just sitting at home twiddling my thumbs - it is a matter of the application's necessities). So at this point it looks like I won't be done with the original plan at 24 until I am 28! Now on appearance this makes it looks like I am taking up something major like anything related to a hospital or an science lab - disciplines that naturally take a relatively long period to accomplish. But no, all I am going for is a Masters in Business Administration (MBA). So perhaps I am just a bit behind the curve?

Honestly, I don't think so. As I often tell my peers, our generation will live a really long time. The natural positive progression of medical technology, dietary (well, some of us) and hygiene means barring catastrophic acts of god (that would be natural disasters for your atheists) or nuclear annihilation, me and you will be seeing plenty of each other for decades to come. This means it is perfectly okay for me to be behind schedule on my educational goals set many years ago. So what if by the time I get my masters I will be at the twilight of my twenties? My asian genes promise that I will look just the same I do today (maybe even better). 

All the being established, for me being 24 years old  means one of those life transitions (though it kind of started a bit before that.) I am indeed done with undergrad, and have joined the workforce (99% in the house). No longer do I have to slave through a day of books sand numbers and come back home and still have to think about it some more. Something inherently liberating about leaving work and not have to think about it until the next day. Time is the thing that returns a bit to you, allowing me to spend more time with important people (or you know, watching lots of television).

The perspective and focus changes a fair bit. It may be incredibly cliche, but people do start to look at and wonder about what to do with the rest of their life once they have finished their undergraduate work. It is somehow that innate sense of boundary of what is planned for you and what you will plan for yourself. Having typical Chinese parents means education all the way up to undergrad is a given, but anything after that is entirely up to me. 

So that has been the meaning of turning 24 years old. Most importantly, 24 it is just a nice round and even number - much better looking than 25. 

Death, and Steve Jobs

It was a bit anti-climatic. Those of us who are familiar with the situation knew it was only a matter of time before the day would come. Major news publications were already waxing on endlessly about Steve Jobs’ legacy on the day he stepped down from the CEO position in Apple, as if the world was not going to see him for much longer. Indeed, Jobs’ passing last week did not come as a surprise to me. It has been known for a while now that despite the marvels of medicinal technology, Jobs’ battle with pancreatic cancer was going to end soon.

On the day of the announcement of Job’s resignation as CEO, I knew then that it meant bad news for his health (Jobs is a notorious hard worker, spending late nights at the Apple Campus regularly). Jobs has been losing weight and ghoulish looking for the past couple of years now, and pictures of him in the past month looked absolutely terrible. The consensus amongst Apple fans was that this was the look of a guy about to lose his battle with cancer. It was only time. 

Of course, even though the element of surprise was lacking, the news of Jobs’ death still hit with much enormity. Avid fans of the Apple was just as devastated with the news as Beatle fans were upon hearing about the assassination of john Lennon. The news hit me harder than I thought it would, even though I was as big an Apple fan as they come. After all, it is just one man’s passing - and a man I have never met at that. In a weird and cliche sort of way, the death of Steve Jobs has become one of those events you will remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news.

Thanks to the wonder of Internet and social media, news travels faster than even proper news agency can report them. I had just came home from work and was busy doing the great American past time of checking my Facebook when a post from a friend said that Steve Jobs is dead. My auto reflex was to check the major new sites to substantiate the claim (you know, not like I do not trust my friends or anything). To my surprise, nothing of the news was to be found for another 15 minutes. After that, all hell figuratively broke loose. news outlets of all kinds was reporting it, Twitter was over run (there was ~4.5 million tweets trending #thankyousteve in just a few hours), and posts with rest in peace wishes to Jobs started flooding my Facebook timeline. 

For the rest of that day and the day after, I soaked in all the tributes to Jobs, whether it be in pictures, the written word, or video. You have truly done something great when even the competitors of the company you created offers you respect at the time of your death. Clearly what Jobs has done with his short life has managed to touch just about everyone in a positive way, the world over.

ME, AND APPLE

I was relatively late to the party - I’ve only began being a fan of Apple products with the introduction of the iPod in the early 2000’s. It was during what was the early stage of the Apple renaissance, with Steve’s second go around with the company. Of course I have used Apple Mac products before, but that was only in the academic arena, as most educational institutions used prefer the Macintosh system over Windows PC. Back then I was still very much a PC user, as the gaming possibilities on that platform was many miles ahead of what Mac’s were capable of. Not to mention, you can build your own PC. 

For many of my generation, the iPod changed everything. Not only in the way we listen to music, but our perception of Apple - it was no longer that funky computer you only use at school. For many, the iPod was the gateway drug for Apple products. Never before had I use something so technologically advanced (slogan or not, 1,000 songs in your pocket at that time was simply amazing), simple to use, and most importantly, beautiful. Before the current state of Apple, the leader in consumer electronics design in the late 90’s was Sony. Their line of computers, CD players, Televisions, and other products all had an additional design quality that no other competitor can match (there is a reason Chinese people, a culture very conscious about image, have preferred Sony products for the longest time.)

Attention to beautiful design and aesthetics in practically everything is the biggest attribute of Steve Jobs I admire. All the products he put out since his return to Apple in 1997 all looked as beautiful as they are simple and powerful. With him it was paying attention to all the details and a perfectionism attitude. Jobs was so meticulous with the overall presentation of everything that he even had a strong part in how Apple retail stores should look. His belief that just because something is a mere “tool’ or "appliance” does not mean that it should look terrible revolutionized an industry that was once filled with much beige and plastic. It was due to Apple’s design philosophies that other companies in the tech world follow suit, realizing that consumers want things that work but look good doing it as well. 

As a person who always had a quirk for how things appeals to the eyes (I am a photographer, after all), Apple products was the natural fit. The first iPod (3rd generation) snowballed into a second iPod (5th generation), and eventually to my first Macintosh computer (2008 Macbook) when I started my collegiate undergrad career. I chose it because nothing in the PC world came close to the aesthetics of a Macbook laptop. The Macbook became my full time computer, and hence forth never looked back at the PC platform. From an everyday usage point of view, the Mac operating system is much more simple and intuitive. Not to mention, for photography and digital design work Mac it is the de-facto platform of choice.

In additional to the products looking great, Jobs also required them to perform its function in the most elegant and simplistic fashion. Keeping things to its absolute simplest form is something I also come to admire about him. Being once the minimalist hippy (there is a famous picture of him sitting on the wooden floor of his living room with nothing but a lamp), Jobs hated clutter and anything that is unnecessary. He also famously required things to “just work”. It made perfect sense: all consumers ever want from the products they buy is it functioning correctly in the least amount of time and hassle possible. 

STEVE JOBS, AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

It was not until I started the business entrepreneurship part of college that I took to Steve Jobs as role model figure. He and Apple together was so successful that it was something to be studied and emulated. Questions like “what would Jobs/Apple do?” came up frequently in the process applying Steve’s entrepreneurial philosophy into planning my own entrepreneurial exploits. For example, the Apple design language has been so well received and universally acclaimed that everybody and the mother in the design world wants to to copy the “Apple look” into everything they make. You really can’t study entrepreneurship without looking at what Steve has done so brilliantly with two companies (the other being Pixar) 

A big part of any business is selling. While being the tech product genius that he was, Jobs also did one thing extremely well - the ability to sell. The so called “reality distortion field” and the keynote address Jobs is famous for was some of the finest examples on how to drive up demand and make consumers want a product so badly that they will line up by the droves at ungodly hours to get their hands on it. Having a beautiful product that can do the equivalent of a swiss army knife will do a company no good if they do zero marketing. As I have learn from business school, the mantra of “build it and they will come” is patently false. Jobs’ style of selling was very effective for the kind of products Apple was making; the company’s stock prices and record profits quarter after quarter reflect this.  

One way to increase revenue and profits for any company is to introduce new products, and almost no one does it better than Jobs and his team at Apple. In a tech industry where product innovation was the inverse of the speed that computing power is progressing, Apple bucked the trend by coming out with one product revolution after another. The iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Macbook Air took a product segments that already existed and yet so completely changed the paradigm that it practically evolved into a new segment. There were mp3 players before the iPod, smartphones before the iPhone, tablets before the iPad, and ultra portable computers before the Macbook Air, but those product segments were forever changed after the introduction of those products by Apple.  

It was Wayne Gretzky who famously said: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” Steve Jobs took this notion with him at Apple and made products that consumers did not even think they needed until it came out. The innovations that came from this kind of thinking has been astounding, and it is something that entrepreneurs and business should strive to do.

ME, AND STEVE JOBS

It is hard to predict what Apple and the rest of the computer tech industry will be like now that Jobs is gone. There is a bit of fear inside me that wonders if the kind of product innovation and pushing the bar will now be gone along with Jobs. Apple is supposedly in very good hands, and Steve even outline the product strategy for the next four years before he left. As a fan of Apple, I hope for nothing but the best in Apple continuing to its upward trend. It would do Jobs proud.

As for me, aside from the attention to detail, keeping things simple, and the entrepreneurial arts, the thing from Jobs’ legacy I will take with me is summed up in his 2005 Stanford Commencement speech:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. … Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

9/11: never forget. But then what?

I was in middle school when it happened (which gives me a slight comfort in my feelings about my current age), and the memory of that day is still very much fresh in my mind. Being situated in the west coast meant that when the 9/11 attacks happened on the World Trade Center twin towers in New York, us teenagers with school obligations had merely started our dreary day. 

Honestly I thought it was a joke when upon arriving on school grounds there was whispers of an airplane being flown into the World Trade Center in New York (had a the faintest idea of what it even was). Once news sunk in that indeed it was not a joke and a plane did struck one of the towers, we all amongst ourselves chalked it up to an accident, because acts of terrorism was such a foreign concept in our modern society (to us teenagers anyway - we were all peanuts when the Oklahoma City bombings happened). 

Things quickly turned serious when we got locked in our homerooms and was refused to be let to our first period classes. We were told that what was happening in New York was no accident, and was very much premeditated. Students was to stay in homerun until the adults figured out what to do with us next. Hysteria sinked in with those without the stomach to bear the horror that was supposedly unfolding (haven't got televisions in our classrooms). Tears started flying, mongering about the end of the world, World War III, and general disbelieve that how a mundane monday in September can turn so upside down. Remember, we were still kids. 

Slowly but surely the administration allowed kids to be sent home with our parents, for the school district mandated that school session was cancelled for the rest of the day. Unfortunately for me that means taking the bus home (neighborhood school, like a boss) because I had a little brother who was only four and priority with the parental was infinitely higher than mine. Nonetheless, upon arriving at the comforts of home (a sentiment not shared by any New Yorker at that time) I was glued to the TV for the rest of the day, shellshocked, half believing and half not believing (saw both towers come crashing down). 

Nothing gel the American people together like our nation under attack (thanks FDR). The outpouring of support and pride for this country of ours in the months that followed was something never seen since the second World War. Heck even me, then still a citizen of the great communist nation of The People's Republic of China, was cognizant enough of the atmosphere at the time and proudly displayed a poorly made plastic replica of the American flag. 

Of course to best emulate the events of World War II, what do we do when our sovereignty is attacked by a foreign regime (only this time in the Middle East)? We go invade another country! Because the best reaction to thousands of lives lost is eye for an eye. Oh and we have some unfinished business at another country from a decade ago? Perfect alibi to invade that country to finish the job (well sort of, country still in shambles for all accounts)! 

Let's face it, the legacy of the 9/11 attacks for the past 10 years have been the (still ongoing) meddling in the affairs of two countries of Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, the original goal was to find, eradicate, and bring to justice those that were responsible fo the attacks on our soil. The numbers don't lie however, the colateral damage on both sides have been far too great for what little ounce of closure the death of Osama Bin Laden has given us. America spent trillions on the war machine while the situation in the homefront saw a decline in educational prowess, crumbling infrastructure, a financial meltdown of historic proportions, and a legislature so inept that the only thing they can agree on is that our troops are worth supporting (even though democrats and republicans sit on either side of the fence regarding the war.)

It is sad to see the only outcome from the togetherness of the American people brought on by the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks is the general hubris of the United States foreign policy. We are more interested in bandying around our might on the world stage rather than fixing and improving our status at home. For sure the world looks upon America as the bastion of the free democratic world, and the question of whether to get involved into other foreign affairs is a damn if you do, damn if you don't situation.

At what point do we toss aside our ego and (false) sense of superiority and look without a blind eye at the problems our country currently face? At this 10 year anniversary of 9/11 attacks, America is at a crossroads - the decisions we and our legislature make in the next year and half will determine plenty of this nation's future. 

Today and every September 11th since 2001, we do well to remember those who perished, sacrificed, and those that fought and continue to fight for our freedom overseas. Necessary as it is, but it leaves out many others: the countless American muslims (and persons that look Middle Eastern) that are still on the receiving end of the much hate and discrimination, and the innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan that are unfairly and collaterally affected by America's "war on Terror".

The post-pc era

Earlier this year when Apple introduced the second generation iPad, it trumpeted itself as the leaders in the push for this so called "post-PC era". It was the transition of our computing digital life away from the personal computer to portable mobile devices like mobile phones and tablets. No longer will you be tied to the big hunk of PC tower and monitor setup at home to process word documents or surf the web. Everything digital will be assessable everywhere you go.

WHY POST-PC

The post-PC era is clearly the next logical big leap in our computing lives. The majority of of things we use the computer for are content enjoyment and social networking. Surfing the web, reading books, watching videos, listening to music, and viewing photos are examples of the kind of mass media content that consumes the most of our computing time. Social networking of course is the other big part, with websites such as Facebook, and the myriad of instant messaging apps. For the majority of people, the PC in essence is only a place to peruse the Internet, store/view digital media, and network with friends.

Nowadays, people want to do all of that anytime, anywhere. Not because it is an indulgence (that teenage with paid mobile broadband might be), but it is to save people time, and enrich their lives. Think of the first smartphone you have ever owned. Before that you not ever think you need mobile internet or emailing capabilities on phone, but once you have used the smartphone for a period you wonder how the heck did you ever lived without it. Another example: for people saddled with the indemnity of a torturous work commute, how much better would it make if they can have access to their music collection on their mobile devices (as opposed to 1000 CDs).  

HIGHLY MOBILE DEVICES

Certainly, the big hunk of steel that traditionally house the guts of PCs are not at all portable (even all-in-one PCs like the iMac are not at that portable - easier to carry, yes). But you say the majority of people have laptops, are they not mobile? That may be true, but once you have used a tablet device, you are going to find that even the average laptops are quite heavy. Or let's put it his way: you are on the road, and need to check email quickly. What would you rather use - A mobile phone or a laptop? Laptops can be seen as the first wave in the transition of the post-PC era, but with today's available technology, even it is categorized in the same camp as traditional PCs.

The computing future for the majority will lie in mobile phones, tablets, and ultra portable laptops. Mobile phones has had the most advance stage of transition in that smart phones with browsers, email, and thousands of apps are already outselling "dumb phones". It has taken over our digital lives, as evident in all the people walking around staring into their phones, invariably running into objects. Tablets such as the iPad offers the same function of smart phones but with a larger canvas that primarily aids in a better enjoyment of digital content and web (I am certainly not watching a movie on my phone). 

Ultra portable laptops are the most interesting. As proposed by chipmaker Intel earlier this year, they are a new breed of laptops that undercuts the weight of the average laptop by half (2.5 pounds and under). These are not just underpowered net books however, because ultra portable laptops have low wattage mobile versions of full featured, consumer class processors. They don't skimp on screen size either, as it varies between 11"-13". What this class of mobile device aim to do is replicate the lightweight and batter life of tablets, but offer some things tablet could not - TRUE multitasking, and an actual keyboard for better long form word processing. An example of ultra portable laptops out in the market right now is the Apple Macbook Air.

LIVING WITHOUT THE PC

No matter device, the aim of the post-PC era movement is to rid the majority of consumers of their PCs at home. The devices aforementioned have made the abilities of the PC redundant. Having both a PC and mobile devices is simply a waste (electricity!), when the latter can perform the tasks of the former equality well.

There is one thing that mobiles devices lack - massive amounts of storage. Just when we are starting to talk in the realm of terabytes, mobiles devices have knocked us back down to gigabytes (of course, this simply due to space and cost constraints). So if where will consumers store all their digital content? The answer involve networking on the intra and inter levels. The krux of the problem is the lack of storage space correct? The easiest way to solve the problem is to off shore the storage off the device, either by an external hard/flash drive (either plugging it in directly to the device or accessed via wifi by plugging it to a router), or storing it on the internet cloud (where the content can be accessed anywhere). 

Being mobile is great, but what about the home? Indeed, people don't really want to stare at tiny screens the whole day (though a 10 in tablet is surprising comfortable to use). The solution is simple - docking stations. Have a way to "plug in" your mobile device and the use it off an external monitor and wireless connected keyboard and mouse. This will please the people that simply prefer a larger screen (like a traditional PC) and actual keyboard do computing at their home. 

Another solution is connected TVs. If you want to show or enjoy your digital content on a larger canvas, one should be able to simply and wireless beam the signal over from their mobile device to the TV (a la Apple Airplay technology). Television is just about the last major tech appliance to still not be connected to the web, and that is rapidly changing. Soon TVs will have small computers in them to allow them to connect to devices, the web, and run computer apps. 

THE POST-PC ERA

In the post-PC era, traditional PCs will only be sold to people that requires it, namely content creators, digital art professionals, and hardcore PC gamers. Even then, it will only be for the serious ones that really need the horsepower of traditional PCs. Apps for mobile devices are plenty varied and plenty robust that even photographers can edit photos on tablets. Those apps will only get better and more technical when the technology behind mobile devices grow powerful (there is no reason to not assume that mobiles devices will someday be just as powerful as PCs). 

Clearly, the technological foundation is clearly set for the transition to the post-PC era, and it is nice to see tech giants such as Apple, Microsoft (Windows 8 is completely mobile device focused), and Intel be the innovators and pushers of the movement.