FORSTER, GLANDER AND SAUER: Tic tech toe

Dear Nancies,

I’m sick of hearing people’s phones go off in the middle of my lectures. The other day, a girl even took a call while I was trying to teach. Do I need to start showing a ‘please turn off all cell phones’ commercial before my classes?

-Silence is Golden

Dear Professor Golden,

Wake up and smell the ringtones, you shriveled old coot; it’s the 21st century. Just ask your tempting, youthful TA (which originally stood for ‘telephone answerer’) ‘- texting and getting calls in class is as acceptable as in-class praying or having a pizza delivered during a lengthy office hours visit. This paradigm shift in education, like most, can be attributed to Regis Philbin. The ‘phone a friend’ lifeline on ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ taught millennials across the nation that it’s okay to call for help during a multiple-choice exam.

We sense that your frustration comes not from being interrupted, but from being excluded. Maybe just once you’d like to be the one with a sweet ‘tone (from the Latin sweet ringtone) emanating from your pockets during one of your undoubtedly monotonous Powerpoints. If this is the case, remind yourself that nothing can come from a lifestyle of heavy cell phone usage other than the three BT’s: bad typing, blistered thumbs and brain tumors.

Penultimately, students don’t pay $50,000 a year to sit in a room and not talk on the phone for up to an hour and a half. That’s what prisons are for.

Ultimately,

The Nancies

Dear Nancies,

My computer science professor brought a robot in to class today. Even though it was small and could only perform simple motor tasks, there was something unsettling about it. How could we humans compete with these technological teachers’ pets?

Weird, Wired and Worried

Dear Wired,

Science has not given us one substantial reason to believe that robots will not one day replace humans. Logic and reason must also agree that the extent of robot dominance over humans is much less refutable than the presence of global warming or the female orgasm. Somehow, over the past decade, computers’ abilities have impressed us enough to distract us from their inevitable conquest. They survived the millennium without incorrectly calculating the date, illuminating the nuclear meltdown charts worldwide and forcing the human race to take refuge in archaic underground temples untouched by the hand of technology. This fact forced us to scrap our robot-apocalypse prophecy and accept those steel figures as Intel-core friends. Since then, we get movies beautifying human-robot relationships like ‘A.I. Artificial Intelligence,’ ‘I Robot’ and ‘A Beautiful Mind.’ Kids are growing up without the fuzzy warmth of a teddy bear and instead learning how cozy the jagged edges to their WALL-E dolls can be. Whether we argue if we are a PC or a Mac, we admit to existing as computers.

We can only anticipate how close robotics will get to our lives; surgery for prosthetic prostates or implanted microchips as not only a convenient survey technique but also a fashion statement. Who knows, C-3PO could take the place of our signature effeminate friend, and R2D2 could replace our token disabled. They’re even developing an App that provides heartfelt and pertinent relationship advice. You shouldn’t be worrying about technology’s inevitable takeover. Instead, worry about how long your professor is planning to keep that toy in your class; the last thing you want is some robot know-it-all setting the curve.

Anabolically,

The Nancies

Dear Nancies,

I just played my friend’s Wii last night and I have to say, the pictures that move on the screen have way more pixels. But is that really what it’s about? I still like N64 games.

Pixel-jaded

Dear Pixel-jaded,

There’s something about Pong and a good go-around of Mario Kart that really gets our gamer fuel pumping. Modern games are a bit too involved with finger aerobics, leaving gamers with hand cramps. There are even times when seeing a fictional character sweat is as unwelcome as Larry King’s makeup in HD. But digital nostalgia is a rocky road; you run the risk of sacrificing realism for a basic 8-bit setup, placing you a bit behind the technological curve.

It doesn’t take a Bradbury to postulate that in our not so-distant future ‘Wii Performance Sessions’ will be evaluating our med students’ scalpel technique and honing our fry cooks’ tri-patty flip. Nun-chuck and Wii-mote will see to it that the guy on the airport runway with the mini lightsabers won’t be learning the tricks of the trade from his apprenticeship master, and no composer out of Tanglewood’s fabled halls will stand before a symphonic orchestra without first working out the kinks with a Wii wand warm-up. What it comes down to is realistic applicability ‘- a Wii is a good investment. Just stay away from those board game adaptations. The graphics are freaky-accurate.

Tryingly,

The Nancies