Category: Technology

Neal.fun: The Internet’s Creative Playground

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date February 2, 2025

“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.

Humor Technology

The Curious Case of Spam, Crypto, and Reinventing the Wheel

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date January 12, 2025

A startup friend of mine started chatting with me about his “new” idea. “I know there are many bad ideas in cypto, but I’ve been thinking,” he said, lowering his voice like he was about to reveal a state secret. “What if every email required you to buy a little crypto? Like, just a tiny amount. It would totally solve the spam problem.”

Technology

The Slow Death of the National Drugstore Chain

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date August 24, 2024

My grandfather Barney Liebman owned a drug store in Brooklyn. He went to pharmacy school and opened his own shop. He was always at the store, to make sure that everything was going well and also to make sure that all of the customers had a great experience when they ordered their malted milkshakes.

Technology

The One Man Who Does NOT Want His Company to Be a Tech Company

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date August 9, 2024

In every industry, companies want to be tech companies. Citibank loves quoting John Reed, CEO from the 1990s who said, “Citibank is not a bank with technology. It’s a technology company with a banking license.” Even McDonald’s and Chipotle are now saying they’re technology companies. Technology companies are cool. Technology drives efficiency, innovation, and customer engagement. But there’s one person who doesn’t want his company to be a technology company: Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks. It’s because he knows what it means for technology to take over a company.

Product Management Technology

The Making of the First iPhone: The General Magic Movie

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date August 3, 2024

I tried to build the iPhone twice. Everybody knows about the second time. The time we succeeded. Few people know about the first.
Tony Fadell (Creator of the iPhone)

Many people assume that the precursor to the iPhone was the Apple Newton, but there’s a much more direct predecessor: the General Magic Pocket Crystal. I recently watched a fascinating documentary about it called The General Magic Movie.

Design Technology

When More is Less: David Pogue on the Pitfalls of Feature Creep

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date July 5, 2024

I really love David Pogue. He is a brilliant Renaissance man who talks about technology but from a very cultivated point of view. I don’t just say that because he went to Yale. I always enjoy the way he makes technology accessible and engaging, offering insights that resonate with both tech enthusiasts and everyday users.

Technology

How My Friend Built the Best Video Game in the World

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date February 3, 2024

In 2018, What Remains of Edith Finch won the BAFTA for Best Game. Here’s my thoughts on how the creator of the game, my friend Ian Dallas, built such an awesome game. The game is now available on many platforms including iOS.

Screenshot from the game

Why are the best and brightest so boring these days? That’s the question that William Deresiewicz asks in his book Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite. He writes about the sad state of the Ivy League student, specifically at Yale, where he taught. He decries the students’ inability to take risks, instead putting all their attention into getting into climbing onto the corporate ladder of management consulting or investment banking.

ChatGPT Technology

Mind over Machine: Rediscovering Memory Skills in a Digital World

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date January 30, 2024

These days, I feel swamped by the internet. Sure, it’s great to have all this information at my fingertips, but I think we lose something in the process. Our brains aren’t meant to hold endless information. They get lazy when we can just Google everything. Why bother remembering? Yet, even though we don’t really need to remember anything anymore, I find real joy in doing it.

There’s something refreshing about living without tools. We think of tools as being central to everything we do. And I don’t mean just iPhone and computers. What about books? How could we acquire knowledge without books? In the ancient world, our ancestors were able to create long and complex thoughts well before writing. They used memory tricks called mnemonic techniques. But these techniques are not just tools from the past; they can be useful today. Using this still is not that hard but it is they’re keys to unlocking a more mindful and empowered way of living in the present. I want to explore the art of memorization with you, transforming it from a lost skill to an everyday superpower.

Technology

My Portable VR Arcade

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date January 26, 2024

I got a Quest 3 from my Bubby for Hanukkah. This is a bit odd because Bubby died in 2019. But before she died, in 2017, I told her about how much I wanted a Virtual Reality headset. At the time the Quest was only a prototype, called Santa Cruz. The top of the line device from Meta (then Oculus) was the Oculus Go, which was mainly for viewing media and couldn’t really interact. I told her I didn’t really want it because it wasn’t going to do a whole lot. She said, “I’ll get it for you. And don’t worry, I’ll get you a newer version when the good stuff comes out.”