I am a huge fan of Bill Gates. He is great! However, I have to counterargue with Bill on AI. In 2023, he predicted that 2023 would be the year of AI, and AI would be widely used in our lives. He was correct; the corporations and governments started to adopt AI and incorporate AI…

Unfortunately, I have never been invited to the Tupperware party. I saw it in a movie or a TV drama. I wish I were. I was very interested in the 1950s-60s culture in the United States when I studied in Upstate New York 1988-92. Tupperware ladies, 1950s American diners, camping caravans, “Elvis has left the…

Tim Gill started Quark, Inc. in his apartment in 1981 with a $2,000 loan from his parents. Tim developed Word Juggler and Catalyst. His attorney introduced Farhad “Fred” Ebrahimi as a business partner. In 1986, Fred bought the half share of the company with $100,000 and became the CEO. The duo of the softspoken openly-gay…

The Magnificent Three of Tableau were Christian Chabot, Pat Hanrahan, and Chris Stolte. The frontman was Christian. He was the Tableau evangelist Pat and Chris seemed to be in the backseat all the time. From a technical viewpoint, Tableau Desktop was developed in the 2000s, about a decade later than QlikView Desktop. Thus, Tableau’s GUI…

Qlik, or QlikTech back then, became the powerhouse in the Business Intelligence (BI) space in the early 2010s. Their flagship product was QlikView. The company was headquartered in Lund, Sweden. In 2000, Lars Björk became CFO. In 2007, Lars become CEO and the golden age of the company began. In 2005, Anthony Deighton, former Siebel…

In a parallel universe, I would be a bus driver. Today was my first day at the driving school in Komagane, Nagano. I had two sets of 50-minute driving sessions with an instructor. Driving a bus was an art form. You have to drive the vehicle in a very, very smooth way, like a good…

A dream job (夢見た仕事) and a calling (天職) are different. A school bus driver was my dream job when I was a 5-year-old kindergarten pupil. I dreamed of becoming an Olympic gold medalist in Swimming when I was 10 years old, like Mark Spitz. A cellist was my dream job when I started to learn…

Until Monday, July 14, my dream job would be a commuter bus driver. I had my job interview on that day with a potential employer, a commuter bus operator near my neighborhood. I planned to work for that company for 10 years, then retire. You know that a job interview is 2 way communication. The…

Does Nova mean “not run” in Spanish? No, “nova” does not mean “not run” in Spanish.  The word “nova” in Spanish, like in English, refers to a “new star” or a “nova”. The phrase “no va” (two words, with a space) means “doesn’t go” or “not working”. The Chevy Nova story, which claims the car didn’t sell…

“Test one, two, three” was a phrase from the “Tango: Maureen” in the musical “Rent” 1999. I loved the musical. Great songs. Great characters. Great story. I also learned that 1 year was 525,600 minutes. They made it a movie in 2005. On Friday, July 25, 2025, I had an intriguing conversation with 2 lovely…