Author: Robert Schlaff

They Called Her the “The Ugliest Woman in the World.” Here’s Who She Really Is.

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date April 19, 2025

Early on, the Internet felt like it was going to be a force for good. It was supposed to connect people across the world, break down barriers, bring everyone a little closer together.

That’s not exactly how it turned out.

Spend a few minutes scrolling through Reddit and you’ll find posts where people gang up on some poor anonymous person. Titles like “Is this the ugliest woman in the world?” pop up, with the picture above, and the internet gladly weighs in. Everyone gets their shot. Everyone feels clever. This is the worst version of what social media can be — not connection, but collective cruelty.

Writing

What I Learned About Writing from Ann Lamott’s Bird by Bird

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date April 5, 2025

When I first picked up Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to get out of it. Lamott writes about fiction and memoir, about the kind of writing that draws on personal memory, deep emotional truths, and a close relationship with storytelling. I don’t typically write that way. My writing tends to be more analytical—I like ideas, structure, context. I try to make sense of the world through observation and reasoning rather than plumbing the depths of my childhood.

Still, the book came so highly recommended, and so persistently, that I figured I’d give it a try.

Uncategorized

Stay Human, Stay Foolish

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date April 5, 2025

Here are two quotes from commencement speeches:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” — Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement, 2005
Full Video

“You’re not the cold clay lump with a big belly you leave behind when you die. You’re not your collection of walking personality disorders.” — Anne Lamott
Anne Lamott, UC Berkeley Commencement, 2003
Full Speech

Which one will inspire you to lead a better life?

ChatGPT

Hallucinations: It’s Not Just for ChatBots

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date March 23, 2025

We were in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, getting ready for a tour. Tours start in the Vélez Blanco Patio, a light-filled marble courtyard just past the library. The kind of space that makes you pause—not just because it’s beautiful, but because it feels transported from somewhere else. Which, it turns out, it was.

The room is so unique, I had to ask, “Where did this room come from?”

Life Lessons

Digging Up My Pandemic Time Capsule

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date March 15, 2025

When I was a kid, every sitcom seemed to have a time capsule episode. The kids would gather at school, bury a box filled with artifacts—a mixtape, a letter to the future—planning to dig it up years later.

I realized that I could do the same for 2020, but as a virtual time capsule—not one packed with sourdough starters and rolls of toilet paper, but a collection of the moments and memories that defined that strange year. And today, March 15, 2025—five years after New York City shut down its schools—feels like the right time to open it.

Fun Stuff Technology

Neal.fun and Password Games

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date March 6, 2025

Rules for good passwords seem less like security measures and more like a practical joke. Your password must have at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number, and one special character. It must not contain dictionary words, but it must also be memorable. It must be changed every 90 days, but it must not be similar to your last five passwords. It should be impossible for anyone to guess, except for you, who must recall it effortlessly at a moment’s notice.¹

Human Behavior Life Lessons

The Truth Will Set You Free—But It Might Make the World More Boring

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date March 2, 2025

There’s something about folk stories behind names that makes the world feel richer. Names, after all, aren’t just labels—they’re little windows into the past, into the way people once understood the world. And when the official explanation is dry, people fill in the gaps with something better.

ChatGPT Humor

How I Broke My Ankle, As Told By Familiar TV Characters

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date February 8, 2025

I managed to break my ankle in the most absurd way possible. Technically, I was on my way to go skiing—but saying I was skiing would be a stretch. It’s complicated… I’ll just let some familiar characters explain it.

Fun Stuff Technology

Neal.fun: The Internet’s Creative Playground

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date February 2, 2025

Stimulation Clicker from Neal.fun

“Do you know about Neal.fun?” I asked.

“Yeah,” says Ari, my seventh grader. “We used to play this in the library last year and told the teacher it was an educational game.”

For those who haven’t fallen down the rabbit hole yet, Neal.fun is a website full of interactive experiments—part game, part thought exercise, part total weirdness. It’s an odd mix of Ari and me, of young and old. It was created by Neal Agarwal, a 26-year-old Virginia Tech graduate who has built something that looks a lot like the internet I knew in the late ’90s.

ChatGPT Technology

Are You Struggling with SQL? AI Can Give You Analytics Superpowers

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date January 27, 2025

He was just an ordinary product manager, struggling with messy data and failed queries. Day after day, he was constantly thwarted by the complexities of SQL. Queries were unsolvable puzzles—joins, aggregations, and null values tripping him up at every turn. Then, one fateful afternoon, everything changed. He discovered a secret weapon against his SQL struggles—LLMs. With AI by his side, he could finally conquer those inscrutable queries and turn ideas into insights with confidence.

And he became… Super SQL Man!

This is his story.