Jeremy Lin and LINSANITY: From Harvard to the NBA: Is the New York Knicks player the new superstar of the NBA?

For some days, I'm visiting the wonderful city of New York, invited by a group of friends. I'm having a great time and a lot of fun here.

Today, I had the privilege to attend the NBA game between the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers, a game that I'll remember for a long time.

The reason is that I could watch an amazing game not only between two great teams, but between two great players: Kobe Bryant and Jeromy Lin. (Jeromy who? some of you will ask)

Jeromy Lin is a Taiwanese descend NBA player, who graduated in Harvard University and was almost a "nobody" in the NBA until a week ago. Nevertheless, in the last 3 games, Lin has been in the starting line up and has had an absolutely amazing performance (more than 20 points in each game, including 38 points against the Lakers tonight).

Lin became the first player in 30 years to score at least 28 points and hand out at least 8 assists in his first NBA start. The last person to do so was the superstar Isiah Thomas who had 31 and 11 in his pro starting debut.

Tonight, he had a battle against the best player in the world (Kobe Bryant), and Lin won. Absolutely amazing. The following video is Kobe's opinion about Lin before tonight game:

LOL Kobe. I'm sure you DO KNOW WELL who Lin is now!!!!

I'm very glad of having the chance to watching this game in situ.

My opinion and prediction is that Lin will be the next NBA superstar among point guards.

Since the Knicks/Lakers game was just too recent (just finished an hour before writing this post), I've only found some videos of this game (tomorrow, in youtube, for sure you'll find more videos of this game and others about Lin):

Visit Lin's youtube channel and official website.

Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the E-Personality by Standford University psychiatrist Elias Aboujaoude. A New York Times editor's choice

This book is not directly related to the main topics discussed in my blog (materialism, spiritualism, religion, pseudoskepticism, psi research, philosophy, etc.), but I think it's a very important scientific book.

We're in a time in which virtual means of communication, mainly the internet, are very important (perhaps, even essential) for all of us. The existence of technical devices that enable us to talk, write, learn, interact and in general communicate to each other very easily has produced a change in the way that we see and understand personal relationships, specially in children who have grown wholly in this "virtual" context of internet, facebook, twitter, myspace, blackberries, etc. and know of almost no other social reality.

This phenomenon deserves close attention and scholarly study, specially from the point of view of the effects that such social phenomenon produces in the personality, psychology and behaviour of the people who are part of it (i.e. almost every one of us).

And this is what this book is all about. The author, Elias Aboujaoude, is a scientist, researcher and psychiatrist from the Standford University, who has focused his studies and investigations on disoders like obsessive compulsive disorder and behavioral addictions, including the addictions related to Internet use.

Scientists and philosophers interested in the social phenomenon of internet, and curious general readers interested in the social and psychological effects and consequences should read and study this book.

Highly recommended.

Visit Dr.Aboujaoude's website.