Unicorn: a privately-held startup company with a valuation of over $1 billion. Wildly successful startups were originally called unicorns due to their near-mythical status–everybody talked about them but nobody had ever seen one. However, there are now over 1000 unicorns with TikTok, SpaceX, Canva, and Stripe at the top of the list. 

Kanpai: Japanese for “Cheers!” (乾杯)

MeCan: A fictional competitor to Google and Apple, named for the Japanese mikan (みかん) tangerine.

JavaScript: A simple programming language used mostly used for web applications. Absolutely not to be confused with Java, a real object-oriented programming language.

SüprDüpr: A fictional startup headquartered in San Jose.

Japantown: A neighborhood near downtown San Jose that remains the center of the Japanese community. Also known as Nihonmachi. 

Yamazaki: A brand of high-quality whisky made by Suntory.

Mu (無): A brand of high-quality sake made in Himeji, Japan. The name translates to “nothing.” 

chibi (禿び): a Japanese insult meaning small person; a pipsqueak.

VPN: A virtual private network. A way to communicate securely over the internet by encrypting the communications between the two end nodes.

The Dandy Lion: Juzo Itami’s 1985 movie masterpiece, Tampopo, is about an eponymous ramen shop. The movie created a minor boom in ramen across the U.S., with seemingly every ramen restaurant in the country named Tampopo. The word “tampopo” (たんぽぽ) means “dandelion” in Japanese. 

Dassai (獺祭): A popular high-quality brand of sake. If you’ve never had good sake, start with Dassai 39. It’s easy to find in most Japanese and Asian markets, or any online sake shop.

Arigatō (有り難う): “Thank you” in Japanese. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

Legends of Emperors: A fictional online multi-player video game.

Kaa-chan (母ちゃん): “Mommy” in Japanese. The diminutive -chan ending makes this a childish “mommy” rather than “mother.”

Octa-core CPU: A CPU with 8 cores, providing 8x the computing power. 

BiteCoin: a fictional popular cryptocurrency invented by Satoshi Nakamoto.

MMORPG: a category of online video games. The initials stand for “massively multiplayer online role-playing game”

Tor: The browser required to access the dark web. Tor stands for The Onion Router since it creates layer on top of layer of secure tunnels.

Râmnicu Vâlcea: A town in Romania famous for hackers.

Daemon: A background process running on Unix/Linux computers.

“All your base are belong to us!“: An internet meme based on a bad translation from Japanese in the opening scene of the video game Zero Wing.

McQueen-green: The olive green color of the 1968 Mustang GT Steve McQueen drives in the classic movie, Bullitt. 

Winchester Mystery House: A tourist trap in San Jose, a weird and mysterious mansion near the Westfield Mall, formerly the residence of Sarah Winchester of the Winchester firearms family, said to be haunted by all the victims of Winchester’s rifles.

Tou-san (父さん): “Dad” in Japanese. By dropping the usual honorific “O” at the beginning (O-tou-san), it’s similar to a child saying Dad or Daddy. 

Spaghetti: A pejorative for unstructured and poorly written software. 

Insta: Short for Instagram

Satoshi Nakamoto: In real life, Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym for the unknown person or persons who invented blockchain and Bitcoin. Satoshi’s account owns around a million Bitcoins, currently worth around $16 billion. In the novel, Satoshi is a real person, albeit a recluse, and heads the operations of the cryptocurrency BiteCoin.

Tatsu-kun: Tatsu (meaning dragon) is Ted’s Japanese name. -kun is a suffix, similar to -san, used when addressing boys, especially by elders.

slacked: Verbified version of Slack, the messaging software used for internal discussion by most startups. 

manjū (饅頭): a traditional Japanese confection usually filled with sweet bean paste. Manjū can be eaten alone as a snack, but also accompany matcha in a tea ceremony to balance the bitterness of the tea with sweetness.

Shuei-do: A wonderful manju confectionary shop in Japantown.

baka (馬鹿): “Stupid” in Japanese. This article describes the two most popular insults in Japanese — baka and aho.

Corinthian Grand Ballroom: A San Jose landmark, built in 1911 as a Masonic Lodge.

St. Jimmy’s Park: Ted’s name for St. James’s Park, a small park at the center of downtown San Jose. 

Soylent: a meal replacement powder popular among busy engineers. It’s named after the food made from human flesh in the dystopian science-fiction movie Soylent Green. 

Nijiya: a Japanese supermarket located in Japantown. Their bento lunch boxes are great.

Johnnie: Ted’s name for the Johnnie Walker whisky his father usually drank.

Guadalupe: a river that runs through San Jose.

arita-yaki (有田焼): A style of Japanese ceramic commonly used for tea bowls.

binchōtan (備長炭): a type of high quality smokeless charcoal made from oak and used to heat the water for tea ceremony.

chashaku (茶杓): bamboo scoop to measure out matcha tea.

One Piece: One of the most popular manga (Japanese comics) of all time written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda about a boy who wants to become a pirate.

Norwegian Wood. A popular novel by Haruki Murakami referencing the Beatles’ song of the same name that was mistranslated into Japanese. The novel is a coming of age story centered on suicide and mental illness, and sparked a generation of moody teens, especially girls, who read the novel obsessively. 

frolicky White Stripes tune: Ted hums “Fell in Love With a Girl.” Badly. 

developers: A reference to the plot of Chinatown where developers buy up cheap farmland before a new water pipeline will make it far more valuable.  

Bird: an electric scooter useful for zipping around town. This is also used as a verb: to bird, birding, birded for riding an electric scooter.

C/C++: a low-level programming language (actually two variants: C and C++) used by serious programmers.

Unicorn Valley: Ted’s nickname for Silicon Valley.

NDA: A non-disclosure agreement used to keep discussions and documents confidential.

Gianni’s: a fictional pizzeria famous for ramen-top pizza. 

Sharks: The San Jose Sharks hockey team. 

DND: Do not disturb

backdoor: a secret way to access a program without going through authentication.

Upwork: a website to find contractors to work on projects including simple programming.

Commissioner Gordon: the chief of police in Gotham City in the Batman comics.

gaman (我慢): Japanese for persevere or endure. The ability to persevere without complaint is instilled in Japanese children. 

Riemannian geometry: a branch of geometry that deals with curved surfaces.

Order of the Coif: Honor society for law school graduates.

Republic of Berkeley: a pejorative for University of California, Berkeley, and the surrounding town known for its ultra-liberal politics.

Anderson University: a private college in Anderson, Indiana affiliated with the evangelical Church of God.

“You know what happens to nosy fellows?”: A warning given to Jake in Chinatown to stop looking at the corruption in the police dept.

Mayeda: Japanese writing has been rendered into English characters a few different ways. Pre-war, the family name 前田 was written as Mayeda. Now it would be written as Maeda.

bakayarō (馬鹿野郎): a strong insult in Japanese calling someone an idiot.

gaijin (外人): a foreigner or non-Japanese person.

haole: a pejorative for a non-Hawaiian person.

SJSU: San Jose State University, a public university in San Jose.

SIM: the subscriber identity module of a cell phone that identifies the phone to the network.

traceroute: a computer diagnostic utility to trace the path across the network from the computer to another site.

wèi (喂): Hello in Chinese.

CID: Criminal Investigation Division of the police.

MeWork: a fictional co-working space similar to WeWork.

Loop transit tubes: Elon Musk’s idea called Hyperloop to build a high-speed transportation system via tubes bored through the ground.

Hoover Tower: a landmark tower on the campus of Stanford University.

Schrödinger’s Cat: a thought experiment created by physicist Erwin Schrödinger illustrating that according to quantum physics, a cat inside a box is both alive and dead until someone opens the box to observe its state at which time it becomes either alive or dead according to random probability.

SüprPorter: the name of SüprDüpr’s teleporters.

DM: direct message or text. Sorry if that was obvious.

algo: algorithm

Saint Steven: Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder, CEO, and all-around god of computing.

zen zen (全然): Japanese for “not at all”. 

senpai (先輩): an older person due respect, a mentor. The senpai-kōhai relationship is very important in Japanese culture.

chashitsu (茶室): a teahouse

Ghirardelli’s: a popular local chocolatier in San Francisco. 

higashi (干菓子): a kind of Japanese confectionary made of pressed powered sugar.

Mitsuwa: another Japanese supermarket chain that competes with Nijiya. The Mitsuwa in Cupertino is huge, and has perhaps the best selection of sake in town.

daiginjō (大吟醸): the top class of sake made from rice that’s been milled to less than 50% of its original weight. If you want good sake, look for “daiginjo” or “junmai daiginjo” on the label. 

Mizubasho (水芭蕉): A brand of high-quality sake brewed in Gunma Japan.

hisashiburi (久しぶり): A common Japanese expression used to greet people you haven’t seen for a while. It translates roughly to “Long time no see.”

shōji (障子): The sliding wooden-frame paper doors used in a tea house.

Tat-chan: An informal, shortened form of Ted’s Japanese name–Tatsu.

ocha (お茶): Japanese for tea.

hakama (袴): Men’s kimono worn during formal occasions such as a tea ceremony.

obi (帯): A kimono sash or belt. Obi are often elaborate and as expensive as the kimono itself.

koicha (濃茶): Thick green tea. A full tea ceremony drinks tea two ways: koicha (thick tea) and usucha (thin tea.) Koicha has the consistency of a smoothie made from powered tea while usucha is more like what most people think of as matcha green tea. 

Sen-no-Rikyū (千利休):  A Buddhist monk and advisor to the Shogun during the 1500’s who developed and popularized the tea ceremony.

Hanae: Ted’s mother’s given name, written as 花絵. The first character means flower, the second painting.

sensei (先生): a teacher or instructor, with the connotation of someone who is older and wiser.

kokoro (心): A Japanese word that means heart or spirit. 

Ubasute-yama (姨捨山): A Japanese folk tale about villages where in times of famine, the people (usually women) who were too old to work in the fields were taken to the mountains to die, leaving the meagre resources for the younger generation to survive.

Katie-chan: -chan is an informal address, implying some level of friendship or intimacy between Satoshi and Katie.

Hakkaisan (八海山): a premium brand of sake brewed in the foothills of sacred Mt. Hakkai in Niigata.

Baa-zō (婆象): It’s a name Ted makes up, but Baa means grandmother and Zō means elephant, so Baa-zō means Granny Elephant. 

See the notes from Chapter 14

mochi (餅): a Japanese confection made from sweet rice, usually filled with bean paste. It is NOT ICE CREAM!!!

King’s Highway: El Camino Real, the old  route from Mexico through the Spanish missions, up to Sonoma north of San Francisco. It’s the modern State Route 82 that Ted would take from San Jose to Stanford University.

Stara Zagora: A city in Bulgaria known for its hackers.

SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. The protocol used for communications between email client and server. Header information on the email, including the IP addresses of the client and server computers, can be useful for tracing where an email came from.

whois: a computer utility that looks up IP addresses to provide the computer name.

blue bullseye: A proper sake tasting cup, called an ochoko (お猪口) is white ceramic with two blue rings on the inside bottom. The white color allows the taster to see any yellow discoloration. The blue color makes it easy to see any residual particulate matter. This bullseye pattern in Japanese is called a janome (蛇の目) meaning snake’s eye instead of bull’s eye. 

DeepThought: named after the computer in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy created by pan-dimensional beings to come up with the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything.

smart contract: a contract created in computer code and executed on a blockchain.

DApp: a decentralized application — an application than runs on a blockchain.

irasshaimase (いらっしゃいませ): Japanese for “welcome”, frequently shouted at guests entering a restaurant.

oi! (おい!): Japanese for “Hey!”

Kikusui (菊水): A brand of high-quality sake from the Niigata region. Their popular Junmai Ginjō comes in a distinctive pebbled glass bottle with a blue and yellow label.

Muramasa (村正): A legendary swordsmith from the early 1500’s favored by the early Shoguns. Muramasa swords supposedly have demonic power or are cursed.

Betsuin: A Buddhist temple in the center of San Jose’s Japantown.

monaka (最中): a Japanese sweet with a filling between two thin wafers. 

San Jose Asahi: The Japanese-league baseball team in San Jose from 1913 to 1961 when Japanese players were not allowed in the Major Leagues.

Heart Mountain Internment Camp: From 1942-1946, 125,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans were removed from their homes on the West Coast of the US and interred at 10 camps in the interior of the country. 14,000 people, including much of the Japanese community of San Jose and surrounding areas were sent to the Heart Mountain camp in Wyoming. Many of the men joined the US Army’s 442 Infantry Regiment that fought in Germany and became the most decorated in U.S. military history.

42: Jackie Robinson’s jersey number, and also the meaning of life, the universe, and everything in The Hitchhiker’s Guide. 

debeso (出べそ): a Japanese insult used by kids which means sticking out bellybutton.

CERN: The European Organization for Nuclear Research, the largest particle physics lab in the world, located near Geneva. The Higgs boson was discovered there.

Leland Stanford Junior University: the official name of Stanford University, named in memory of Leland Stanford Jr. who died at age 15. His father, Stanford University founder Leland Stanford, was a governor of California who made his money as president of the Central Pacific Railroad that built the western half of the transcontinental railroad.

Charles River: a river in Boston. MIT is located on its shore.

Very Berry Ann Building: the Stanford physics department is in the Varian Building. 

Blueshift: Doppler blueshift is the opposite of the more famous redshift. Objects moving away create an decrease in frequency shifting the color towards the red end of the spectrum. Redshift is common in astronomy due to the expansion of the universe. An object moving towards the observer would create the opposite effect of shifting the frequency towards the blue end of the spectrum. 

Spin Hall Effect: Shuichi Murakami is a noted physicist. Ted confuses him with Haruki Murakami, the famous novelist who wrote Norwegian Wood and the short story, “The Elephant Vanishes.”

nĭ hăo (你好): Chinese for “hello.”

De Anza College: a community college in Cupertino.

Jacks Hall: Building 460 Margaret Jacks Hall is the English department building on the Stanford campus.

Lodi: A farming town in the Central Valley to the east of Silicon Valley.

S.L.A.C.: A particle accelerator and physics research center on Sand Hill Road adjacent to the Stanford campus. It was originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center but is now the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and part of the US Dept. of Energy.

Spaceship: the nickname of Apple’s futuristic headquarters building in Cupertino.

Pixar: Steve Jobs, the late CEO and founder of Apple, helped fund Pixar and was on their board of directors.  

Mt. Arashiyama (嵐山): Arashiyama is a mountain on the western edge of Kyoto, as well as the name of the neighborhood at its base. Ted’s mother is from this area and returns to the mountain to kill herself by jumping off the mountain into the Ōi River which flows past. Technically, it should be referred to as Mt. Arashi or Arashiyama since Yama means mountain.

Togetsukyō Bridge (渡月橋): a famous bridge across the Ōi River connecting Arashiyama to the town.

cat herding: managing engineers is often likened to corralling cats. 

raven: Ted believes that the crow is the spirit of his mother 

butsudan (仏壇): a small shrine in the home to venerate family members who’ve died. Pictures of deceased family members are placed on top. Offerings of food and incense are placed in front.

Pretty Rhythm: a popular manga and anime series for young girls

kakigōri (かき氷): Japanese shaved ice flavored with syrup and condensed milk

Half Moon Bay: a coastal city in San Mateo County, 25 miles south of San Francisco

Password Pirate: a fictional site on the dark web selling stolen passwords

Pillar Point: the tip of land that juts out into the Pacific creating the north end of Half Moon Bay

Trinity Cathedral: Trinity Episcopal Cathedral on the south side of St. James Park.

return(void): the final line of most computer routines returning the flow to the higher level routine that called it.

Calaveras Creek: a small creek in the mountains east of Silicon Valley.

Great Dome: an iconic domed building on the MIT campus modeled after the Pantheon and considered by the MIT community to be the center of the universe.

Sweeny Todd: a fictional character from Victorian England. He was a barber who killed his customers with a razor and gave them to Mrs. Lovett, who baked the bodies into meat pies and sold them to customers at her shop. 

Sweeny Ridge: a hiking area of ridges in the hills south of San Francisco northwest of San Andreas Lake. 

5150: police code for a mentally disturbed person

King of Pain: a song by the band, The Police

See the manga pages for a blowup of the images.

According to Islamic folklore, onions grew out of Satan’s footprints when he was cast out of the Garden of Eden.

GPU: Graphics processing unit. A special chip designed to render graphics quickly for video games, but also useful for parallel processing.

Morgan Hill: the town south of San Jose that’s considered the southern border of Silicon Valley

Suntory Hibiki: A brand of Japanese whiskey sold in a 24-sided crystal bottle.

gigaflops: a measure of computing power equal to one billion floating-point operations per second.

petaflops: a measure of computing power equal to one million gigaflops.

1.21 gigahashes per second: a reference to 1.21 gigawatts of power required for the Delorean time machine in Back to the Future.

Nevermore: The famous line from the poem, The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe: “Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore.'”

Secretary of Defense: The board of directors of Theranos included two former secretaries of state, a former secretary of defense, two former senators, a retired admiral, a retired marine corps general, the former CEO of Wells Fargo Bank, and the former director of the CDC. This helped insulate the company from investigation from regulators.

Douglas Adams: the immortal author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. 

aishiteru (愛してる): Japanese for “I love you,” though the expression is rarely used in practice.

Hello.World: Writing “Hello, World” to the screen is usually the first exercise in learning how to program. Hello.World is the name of a simple computer program.

Make my day: “Go ahead, make my day” is a meme from the Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry movie Sudden Impact.

42: The answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything.