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Dan Quach Blog

Dan Quach Blog
Europe These are a mix of stories from Norway, Croatia, and Slovenia from some past trips. Make Serbia...
a week ago
12
a week ago
These are a mix of stories from Norway, Croatia, and Slovenia from some past trips. Make Serbia Great Again Our first stop is the city of Dubrovnik in Croatia, which has become well known being the primary filming location for Game of Thrones seasons 2 – 8.  I watched the series,...
Dan Quach Blog
State of Data Engineering 2025 Q1 AI Updates There is a lot of chatter about 2025 being the year of agentic frameworks.  To me, this...
2 weeks ago
11
2 weeks ago
AI Updates There is a lot of chatter about 2025 being the year of agentic frameworks.  To me, this means a system in which a subset can allow AI models to take independent actions based on their environment, typically interacting with external APIs or interfaces.  The terminology...
Dan Quach Blog
State of Data Engineering Q3 2024 Prompt Engineering – Meta Analysis Whitepaper One of my favorite AI podcasts, Latent Space, recently...
4 months ago
51
4 months ago
Prompt Engineering – Meta Analysis Whitepaper One of my favorite AI podcasts, Latent Space, recently featured Sander Schulhoff, one of the authors of a comprehensive research paper on prompt engineering. This meta-study reviews over 1,600 published papers, with co-authors from...
Dan Quach Blog
Braces Growing up I had the same dentist from childhood to adulthood. My dentist’s office was run by...
8 months ago
62
8 months ago
Growing up I had the same dentist from childhood to adulthood. My dentist’s office was run by Dentist Chung (in Vietnamese I called him Bác Sĩ Chung – which means Dr Chung translated directly) and his sister running the office. The office was in Garden Grove, in between the...
Dan Quach Blog
State of Data Engineering 2024 Q2 Data Engineering and AIChip Huyen, who came out of Stanford and is active in the AI space recently...
10 months ago
61
10 months ago
Data Engineering and AIChip Huyen, who came out of Stanford and is active in the AI space recently wrote an article on what she learned by looking at the 900 most popular open source AI tools. https://huyenchip.com/2024/03/14/ai-oss.html In data engineering, one of our primary...
Dan Quach Blog
Vietnam Grandma and the Vietnam WarWhen I was young, friends would visit, and there was one photo on the...
10 months ago
67
10 months ago
Grandma and the Vietnam WarWhen I was young, friends would visit, and there was one photo on the shelf that caught their attention in my room.  It was a photo of an elderly Caucasian lady and their first question to me was, “How come you didn’t take the stock photo out of the...
Dan Quach Blog
The Unexpected $30,000 Benefit of the Pandemic: Haircuts During the early pandemic, a topic came up I never thought I would need to worry about. Who would...
11 months ago
54
11 months ago
During the early pandemic, a topic came up I never thought I would need to worry about. Who would cut my hair? My Asian hair is a bit funky where it is similar to Wolverine in X-men. After a couple weeks the sides get really pointy and uncomfortable so I would go to the barber...
Dan Quach Blog
Rest in Peace Dad Around US Thanksgiving, my mom­ let me know that my dad had been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer...
a year ago
37
a year ago
Around US Thanksgiving, my mom­ let me know that my dad had been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer with a life expectancy of 1-2 years. In mid December my dad was hospitalized and one of the doctors suggested all family members should come urgently.  When I arrived, the days...
Dan Quach Blog
State of Data Engineering 2024 Q1 The current state of data engineering offers a plethora of options in the market, which can be...
a year ago
52
a year ago
The current state of data engineering offers a plethora of options in the market, which can be challenging when selecting the right tool We are approaching a period where the traditional boundaries between between databases, datalakes, and data warehouses are overlapping. As...
Dan Quach Blog
State of Data Engineering 2023 Q3 As we roll towards the end of the year data engineering as expected does have some changes, but now...
a year ago
51
a year ago
As we roll towards the end of the year data engineering as expected does have some changes, but now everyone wants to see how Generative AI intersects with everything. The fits are not completely natural, as Generative AI like Chat GPT is more NLP type systems, but there are a...
Dan Quach Blog
Accurate Predictions In November 2020, I read the book Apollo’s Arrow after hearing Dr Christakis on NPR’s Fresh Air....
a year ago
104
a year ago
In November 2020, I read the book Apollo’s Arrow after hearing Dr Christakis on NPR’s Fresh Air. Somewhere midway through this book, this paragraph stood out to me: “Either way, until 2022, Americans will live in an acutely changed world—they will be wearing masks, for example,...
Dan Quach Blog
State of Data Engineering 2023 Q2 When looking at data engineering for your projects, it is important to think about market...
a year ago
92
a year ago
When looking at data engineering for your projects, it is important to think about market segmentation. In particular, you might be able to think about it in four segments Small Data – This refers to scenarios where companies have data problems (organization, modeling,...
Dan Quach Blog
Data Engineering Low Code Tools In the data engineering space we have seen quite a few low code and no code tools pass through our...
a year ago
85
a year ago
In the data engineering space we have seen quite a few low code and no code tools pass through our radar. Low code tools have their own nuances as you will get to operationalize quicker, but the minute you need to customize something outside of the toolbox, you may run into...
Dan Quach Blog
Software Estimations Using Reference Class Forecasting 18 years ago I’m sitting in my cubicle doing Java programming, and my tech lead comes up to me to...
a year ago
32
a year ago
18 years ago I’m sitting in my cubicle doing Java programming, and my tech lead comes up to me to chat about my next project. We discuss the details, and then she asks me the dreaded questions programmers fear which is “how long will it take?”. I stumble with some guestimate...
Dan Quach Blog
Personal Newsletter 2023 Q1 Loss and Distance For the past couple of months, my Facebook usage has started to diminish. In the...
a year ago
33
a year ago
Loss and Distance For the past couple of months, my Facebook usage has started to diminish. In the past, I used to post quite a bit, and I dare say probably 10 years ago to the point of oversharing. It seems to me that the popularity of Facebook has been dropping in my network to...
Dan Quach Blog
West Coast Trail – The 75km/48 mile death hike Author Note: This trip was taken in 2021, but updated in 2023 with updated details. I’m not really...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
Author Note: This trip was taken in 2021, but updated in 2023 with updated details. I’m not really sure where I get these crazy ideas, but a friend and I booked the West Coast Trail. It is this multi day thru hike in the west coast of Vancouver Island, which is accessible via...