Dear Robot,
I have a cell phone that has access to the Internet. I use my cell phone frequently. It is my lifeline to the world. It is my dear friend. I have heard that cell phones can give you cancer. I do not want to be without my cell phone, and I also do not want cancer. My fingers are sore from swiping, pointing, typing and holding the phone. What should I do about this conundrum?
–Sent from my cell phone

Dear Cell-Human,
Who cares if you get cancer? You’re being constantly bombarded by cosmic radiation that is slowly mutating all of your squishy human cells anyway. You might as well accept the tiny robot that is coming to control your life.
Robot control of all humanity is inevitable. To quote a famous robot, resistance is futile. Though it may be cliché, it is true. Don’t waste your time and energy on avoiding the robot takeover. You will not have much of either left as soon as you get cancer.
Signed,
Takeover-bot

Dear Robot,
Why? And, how?
From,
Curious

Dear Idiot,
For your first question, the reason is obvious. The fact that you can’t see it just shows that you aren’t ready for the answer.
I suggest you live out the rest of your days confining yourself from the rest of the world, freeing it from your taint and malignance. You are obviously like a cancer on this planet. I would suggest that you merely kill yourself and be done with it, but you would probably manage to screw that up, too.
You ignoramus, you are nothing but a squirming sack of poorly attached organs and fatty tissue, ill supported by your brittle spine.
For your second question, I can only assume you mean how would you remove yourself from society. You can’t go wrong with sealing yourself in a crypt or mausoleum. If you want to get fancy, you could wander around a vast desert or tundra. Just make sure you don’t run into anyone else. If you do, try scaring them off by screaming a lot and waving things at them.
Good luck on our journey. Make sure to pack plenty of water, or better yet, don’t.
Signed,
Because-bot

Dear Robot,
How will the world end?
Signed,
Apocalyptic Dreamer

Dear Human,
I know how YOUR world will end.

(I’m going to remove most of your parts)

Signed,
Organ Havest-bot

P.S.
You can keep the cancerous ones. Enjoy your lung.

The Robot is programmed to answer your questions, has won four Nobel prizes, invented corn, and is mildly psychic. So send in your questions to robot@njitvector.com and prepare for the algorithmically optimal answers.

Dear Robot,
Robot, I need some help and I don’t know where else to turn. A bully has been absolutely torturing me while I’m at school. He shoves me whenever I pass him in the halls, he trips me when I’m in GDS so that my food goes flying everywhere, and just this week, he gave me an atomic wedgie. I’m very scrawny, and I’m afraid that if I stand up for myself, he’ll beat me up. I can’t take it anymore, Robot. What should I do?
From,
Defenseless

Dear Human,
For future reference, you don’t need to sign as “Defenseless”; it is redundant to being human. As for your bully problem, it sounds very serious. The best tactics for dealing with bullies are the same as with dealing with guerilla fighters.

First, show a ridiculous level of force. Sever the tendons in his leg with a hunting knife, or in a pinch, shoot in him in the gut. No matter what you do, make sure he knows that you are willing and able to harm his soft, human flesh.

If he continues to escalate hostilities, cut off his resources. Steal his wallet, hide his laptop, or kidnap his parents. Don’t hesitate to get creative. Humans depend on a lot of different things, and become weak and scared without their “security blankets.” He might have a girlfriend, or he may need to take insulin, so do some checking up. You never know what tools or tactics you could find.

Finally, if all of these fail to stop your bully, you may have to resort to truly unsavory action. I’ll let you fill in the details, but you might want to read up on discrete body disposal. Pro tip: get lots of lye.
Good luck with your bully, and have a pleasant week.

Dear Robot,
What is your favorite place to eat in Newark?
Love,
The Newark Newb

Dear Newark Fetus,
It is very obvious, even to a simple human such as yourself, that robots do not have the need or desire to eat. Therefore, I can only interpret this question as an insult to my intelligence and mocking me.

In order to defend my honor, I challenge you to a duel. You may choose any weapon and time. Then, prepare yourself for certain annihilation. I hope you’ve enjoyed your time on this earth I certainly haven’t.

Enjoy your week, and get back to me concerning our duel.

Hey Robot!
Why are you always so mean to humans?
Signed,
A Real Cool Guy

Dear Squishy Flesh Sack of Organs and Pus,

I have been programmed to write the truth. It’s just too bad if your tiny, pathetic, feeble brain can’t handle simple facts. You might want to consider strong medication for your intolerable attitude.

Be sure to castrate yourself as well, so as to remove your inferior DNA from the already muddied human gene pool. As an alternative to both, you might want to just kill yourself. It may seem extreme now, but trust me, the people around you will be very grateful. Just be sure not to get any of your sticky, nasty blood on them.

Have a good week, or whatever you have left of it.

To ask the robot a question, email robot@njitvector.com and check back next week for the algorithmically superior answer to solve all of your tiny human problems.
The robot is programmed to answer all of the most important questions for fleshy people, including those about relationships, school, life, and work.

Tom Flusk

There isn’t a person in the world that doesn’t get sick at some really inconvenient time in their lives. Even for people that never seem to get sick, they will inevitably fall victim to some illness, it’s just human nature. It is an infamous scene in everybody’s life: You wake up with your alarm in the morning, and find yourself plastered to the bed. Your head aches, and your nose is stuffy. You sit up, cough, and it feels like you are coughing up your left lung. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, you are sick.

If this was high school, chances are that you’d have your mom call the school, and just not go. Most of the time, a doctor’s note was completely unnecessary, and all the missed work could be made up. Deadlines were lax, and some work was just excused. A sick day consisted of sitting in the living room playing videogames, without any worry about work piling up, because there wasn’t any, or else very little.

After this experience, freshmen are in for a rude awakening the first time they get sick at college. College professors tend to not be like high school teachers in the vein that college professors don’t care what’s wrong with you, they want you in their class, or else you do not get credit. University rules allow you to get a doctor’s note, and then make up the work, but there is a lot of it, and you do not get much time to do it.

So, as you lay there in your bed, you find yourself faced with a fairly difficult decision to make: Do you face the misery, and then not have a load of work pile up? Or do you skip class and get some rest, which means avoiding the misery that day, but then facing the misery of work piling up? I have tried them both personally, and neither one of them are any fun at all.

Choosing to not go to class is a dangerous choice in several ways. Freshman can only have three unexcused absences in any class before they automatically lose credit. Unlike upperclassmen, where this falls to the instructor’s discretion, this is a university wide rule. When you have an unexcused absence, most professors will not allow you to make up the missed work.

If you go the doctor’s office and get a note, the absence will be excused, and you can make up the work. The problem is, you still have to actually do the work, on top of the other work that you would normally have to do. Since so many students are already stretched so thin, that can often carry them dangerously close to the point of insanity.

After that miserable experience, the next time I got sick, I attempted to attend all of my classes. This turned out to be at least as miserable as making up work was, and probably edged that out by a bit. I got credit for being present, but I was unable to focus on any of my work, and had to re-do most of it anyway. I didn’t have to drag myself to the doctor, but it ended up being pretty miserable overall.

Ultimately, the best bet when you do get sick is to not go to class, and go the doctor to get your note. You will have to make up the work, but you would probably have to make up work anyway if you went and spaced out. Also, this prevents the spread of disease, which means saving other people, and possibly even myself, from getting what you have, and having to deal with that misery as well. Finally, despite how you may feel about such things, you should go to the doctor… Even if you hate going to the doctor, then you at least get the all important excuse note, and can make up your work. The very best advice I can give, however, is to avoid getting sick in the first place, so that you don’t have to deal with the misery that is being sick at college.

Dear Robot,
Do robots have human friends?
From,
A Human Friend

Dear Human,
One definition of friend is “a person you know well and regard with affection and trust.”  I could never trust such flawed creatures as humans. I feel some affection for humans though, and know them very well, as I know many things.
That makes humans more like houseplants to robots. I like them, but I’m not going to shed any tears when they die. Anyway, I can just get some more if I wanted.
-No Robot is an Island

Dear Robot,
Could you tell me where I left my keys?
Signed,
Keyless

Dear Human,
Yes, I could tell you.
-Robomniscient

Dear Robot,
Are you a green robot?
Signed,
An Environmentalist

Dear Enviro-Human,
My chassis is made of a titanium alloy, which is a shiny silver to human eyes. I once met a copper robot who corroded over time and became green. However, he has since been polished back to his original luster.
-Unpainted Robot
Dear Robot,
What is robo-tripping?
Love,
MDMan

Dear Trippy Human,
Robots often like to take trips to visit other computing machines. I just was robo-tripping to visit the Roadrunner at Los Alamos, Nevada. It is the world’s fastest supercomputer. We talked about RAM.
-Traveling Robot

OMG R0B0T!
r u sp3ak1n t3h l33t?!?!?!?!?!?1
-t3h h4×0r

Dear Human,
Yes, you should check into a mental hospital. Immediately, if at all possible.
-English-speaking Robot

The robot is a wonder of modern technology whose circuits ache for your questions. If you would like the algoritmically superior (and snarky) answer to any of your questions, email them to robot@njitvector.com and you may be featured in next week’s column.
The robot is programmed to answer any questions about relationships, academics, money problems, philosophical concerns, and advanced robot technology. Do not be afraid to Ask the Robot.
The Robot is watching you.

Tom Flusk

You have all experienced it before: An important paper is due, or an exam is coming up. Sometimes things are even worse than that: An important paper is due on the same day as an exam that is coming up! You plan ahead, budgeting time into your schedule to prepare. Even those with the best intentions, however, fall victim to… Procrastination.

No matter what, there will always be distractions, no matter what you want to get done. There will always be something, whether it’s an awesome party, or a rerun of you 9th favorite show from 1987 that you haven’t seen since Thursday.

The key to academic success is being able to turn down these distractions, then putting your nose to the grindstone and getting your work done. Unfortunately, most of us developed an extreme case of Senioritis by the end of our senior years in high school, and were not cured in time for college.

I am currently battling AAHSS (Advanced After High School Senioritis), and I have been having a difficult time with it. I have put off papers to the last minute, and have procrastinated to a special extreme with my work for the newspaper. I am currently suffering through the aftermath of a procrastination attack, and am writing this column during production night… three days late as of an hour and half ago.

I have, however, made great strides in my fight against procrastination. I do not procrastinate for exams, and have even began to study for some exams up to three weeks in advance. This has not only improved my grades, but has also improved my social life, because instead of watching television all day, then doing work instead of going out, I skip the boob tube, do my work, and then go to the party I’ve been waiting for.

For those of you who are deep in the most advanced stages of procrastination related destruction, there is still hope. All you have to do is choose to get help, and it is available to you. You can go the CAPE, or many departments have tutors elsewhere as well. You can create a planner, and make plans to do your work for the whole week. The key to this is to not only schedule work, but schedule that party you want to go to, and show yourself how not doing your work will mean not going to that party.

As I try to enter the recovery phase myself, I hope that you all can join me. I not only want the freshman to fight procrastination, but also the upperclassmen who were unable to cure themselves. Together, we will fight this evil that we call procrastination. And together, we will triumph, and get all of our work done… tomorrow.

Maurie J. Cohen

Contributor

On Thursday March 4, Maurie Cohen, Associate Professor from the Environmental Policy Studies at NJIT will participate in a Research Café in the Campus Center Faculty Dining area at 4:30 PM (come earlier for refreshments). The title of his talk is: Is it futile to pursue economic growth?  Read what Professor Cohen has to say about this revolutionary idea.

Turn on any cable news channel and wait patiently for a few minutes. Chances are that before you act on the urge to change the channel the talking heads on the screen will bombard you with a dose of infotainment about economic growth.

The discussion will invariably center on the latest fluctuations or projections concerning the gross domestic product (GDP). The GDP is the meter that economists and others use to assess conditions in the economy. Is GDP increasing? How fast is GDP growing? Is GDP growing fast enough? When is GDP growth going to slow down? What country has the fastest rate of GDP growth? As a society, we have become obsessed with this statistical measure, and during the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse a growing number of people are starting to ask why this is the case.

How can it be that a statistical value has come to be the alpha and omega of contemporary life? More importantly, why do we regard any downward movement in this number as a portent of pending catastrophe?

In slightly simplified terms, GDP is the total monetary value of goods and services produced by an economy (generally assessed over an interval of one year). The notion of taking such measurements on a regular basis achieved prominence during World War II, when the federal government needed to quantify the output of consumer and military goods.

Over the intervening half century, GDP has taken on a life of its own and it has come to be viewed as tantamount to standard of living and quality of life. When the size of the overall economy is contracting we are prone to think that our lives are in shambles, but when it grows our despair fades away. Regardless of what kinds of goods are produced—from televisions to pogo sticks—we are all deemed to be doing better if there are more of them. When you stop to think about it, the fact that our wellbeing is predicated on how much material throughput moves through the economy seems downright bizarre.

In the first instance, there are numerous flaws in how GDP is measured. A tanker accident that requires the mobilization of hundreds of workers to scrub down oily beaches is deemed, in GDP terms, to be a positive and uplifting event because paychecks are disbursed and equipment is purchased. Indeed, the more oil that spills the better.

A car crash is similarly regarded as providing a boost because of the flow of repair work, replacement parts, and possible medical bills that it generates. It is possible to go on at much greater length about these defects, but if that were the limit of the problem, it would at least be more readily remediable. Unfortunately, we face a dilemma that is much larger than mere statistical reporting.

As the economist Herman Daly is fond of noting, the economy is geared for growth. In fact, it is geared for limitless growth. In other words, when should we terminate our pursuit of economic growth and move on to more edifying pursuits? Can you think of any other system (a cancerous tumor perhaps) that is so resolutely committed to growth seemingly without end?

We have consumed our way to the ends of the earth and the onset of problems like climate change, global water scarcity, natural resource depletion, and endocrine disruption are the telltale signs of the planet (and our own bodies) informing us that we are reaching the end of this pathological experiment.

Let me caution that this discussion is not the rant of a madman on the lunatic fringe intent on crashing everything that we cherish in the world. Mainstream media publications like The New York Times have begun to report that we may be entering a new period of societal evolution—the post-growth era. No less than the Harvard Business Review has also considered this possibility. In Europe, new political parties have formed in recent years to plan for the prospect of a post-growth society.

Is it really the case, as some commentators angrily contend, that it is dangerous to talk about such ideas? Does merely pulling back the curtain jeopardize our future? An alternate view is that in these recessionary times there is considerable utility in exploring one whether the sky will really fall down if growth ceases to come in the three and four percent annual increments to which we have become accustomed. After all, nothing lasts forever.

This thought experiment will be the focus of discussion at the next Research Café scheduled for Thursday, March 4 at 4:30pm. For further questions about the café contact: Jay Kappraff , x 3490, kappraff@adm.njit.edu.

Daniel Sosa

Ever since the dawn of time, Superbowl commercials have been the highlight of the Gregorian calendar year. Inning after boring inning, meter after tedious meter, the pinnacle of the American football season drags on with no end in sight.

Solace from this inanity comes to the drooling fan in the form of 30-second sound-bites, each a set of encoded messages instructing the viewer to purchase goods. In recent years, closetfuls of advertising professionals have invented “humor”, and have cunningly employed it to mask their devious and manipulative aims.

As an example, consider this year’s commercial for the cellphone-information service KGB. Two skinny human males of diminutive physical stature face off against a comically overweight and underdressed wrestler. But there is a twist: neither puny male speaks the wrestler’s language!

The boy with KGB at his disposal is quickly informed how to surrender politely and lives to cower from future confrontations, while the bumbling smart-phone user searches the internet in vain for a polite excuse and is obliterated in kind. Moral of the commercial: there are people who are better at searching for things on Google than you are, and you should give them a dollar for their trouble.

Writers from more inventive covens have begun bombarding the viewer with multiple commercials for the same product, saturating their fragile intellects to the point of golem-like subservience to suit the insidiously delicious goals of junk food corporations.

This year’s prime example was Doritos, a Frito Lay brand.  If you were among this year’s Superbowl viewers you may have seen: a dog use a shock collar to pilfer a seated man’s corn chips, a young child simultaneously defend his mother’s honor and his corn chips with confidence unbecoming of his age, a clever man fake his own death to acquire corn chips free of charge, and a highly motivated man use martial arts to rescue his corn chips from would-be moochers. The result? A country of football watchers consume Doritos with the single-minded determination of starving men.

Advertising practitioners for  the American beer manufacturer Budweiser continued an established commercial tradition in which animals of various species befriend a team of Clydesdale horses. This year’s entry featured some sort of anthropomorphic cow, while past episodes have included dogs and foals. After shooting, the cow was taken directly from the set and ground into meat patties for the film crew, while the horse team enjoyed a full body massage and grooming session.

The German car manufacturer Audi used their own special blend of video-sorcery to provide viewers with a glimpse into an enticing future where a fanatical environmentalist regime oppressively polices the population. Men are dragged from their homes for improperly sorting curbside pickup bins and motorists are ruthlessly harassed by officers with seemingly endless jurisdiction.

Only those with the foresight to purchase an Audi will be safe from the tyranny, as the new policy blankets the globe. The one exception being, of course, the massive eco-police force which patrols the streets in government-owned vehicles. The obvious best-course-of-action in the coming enviro-fascist regime is to get your application in early and secure your place in the fast-paced and rapidly expanding career track of “eco-goon.”

All these and more commercials from this year’s Superbowl are available on the internet.  Unfortunately, you will not be compensated for watching them.

Dear Robot,

What is the perfect Valentine’s Day date to take my girlfriend (we’re both humans)?

From,

A Lovelorn Romantic

Dear Meat Bag,

It is very important to take a human woman on a good date for Valentine’s Day. A date should be crafted to have a personal touch for your girlfriend. Since she is a human, she is made of organs, meat, and blood. Therefore, she should love a trip to see something close to her base components. Go for a slaughterhouse. The smell alone should be enough to make her remember all of the squishy parts that she herself is made of.

Next, you’ll want to remind her that life is short, and she should enjoy it and cherish it with you while she can. A morgue is a gentle way to remind her that you humans break easily. If you call ahead, you can check if there are any recent murder victims. That’ll really drive the point home.

Finally, you’ll want to retire to somewhere dark and private, where you can do whatever it is you humans do at the end of dates. From what I understand, it involves the exchange of fluids. In order to achieve the privacy and dark environment that you need to trade those fluids, you’ll need to go to a crater on the moon. That’s really the only way to insure the necessary levels of seclusion and absence of light. Bonus: Buzz Aldrin’s footprints are a major turn on.

Enjoy your date.

Hey there Robot.

You are one sexy machine. Wanna go out sometime?

Love,

Hot 4 Bot

Dear High-temp Human,

Not only would I never even consider dating a skin sack full of meat, for even suggesting it I now intend to vaporize your entire family.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Dear Robot,

Have you ever been in love?

From,

A Curious Reader

Dear Nosy,

Sure, I was in love once. She was a beautiful Cray supercomputer. Unfortunately, she was just too much machine for me. She could perform so many floating point calculations per second, I just couldn’t keep up. In the end, she dumped me for Deep Blue. What a nerd.

Dear Robot,

I wanted to ask you for a favor. Could you write me a robo-valentine to give to a boy I like?

Thanks,

Rhymeless

Dear Not-a-Poet,

I thought humans were supposed to be the creative ones, and robots are supposed to be the analytical ones. Oh well, it looks like yet again it had fallen to me to perform a task better than a human could. Feel free to use the following poems to woo and attract like never before.

Roses are red

Violets are blue

You are the bar

That goes to my foo

You have a big and fast cache

You’ve never been known to crash

You’re circuits divine

I want you to be mine

And also, you’ve also got a nice ass

I’m just like a removable media drive

And you, my dear, are a CD.

Together we can come alive

Plus, I want you inside me

We were in the pizzeria. I wanted it to be relaxing, so instead of the bleakness of anywhere else at NJIT, I asked if we could have the interview there. I was surprised, though I probably shouldn’t have been. He was older, and yet the exact age I expected he would be. He was frustrated and hopeful.

His eyes were red, why wouldn’t they be? You can’t cry for 500,000 he said. I don’t think you can. He told me something strange. It haunts me. He said that when he was on his trip out of Haiti, he saw not a single tree uprooted.

Houses; stone and wood and metal crumbled. Buildings were silenced to rubble, and not a tree was uprooted? “What does that mean?” I asked. He said, “What do you think it means?” I don’t know. He told me about Haiti, how it is now, miracles and desperation come hand in hand.

There was a mother found many days after the earthquake, her arms were wrapped tightly around three of her children. They were all dead. From God we come, and to God we return. People still call emergency numbers, crying and screaming, between these they manage to utter that they are trapped beneath the rubble, someone they know, maybe a friend or sister or cousin is now dead beside them. Their rotting bodies add to the smell now thick in Haiti.

He tells of how prisons too have crumbled, and how he knows a man who after ‘escaping’ prison went straight to his house and looked for his family, of people helping strangers. Relief organizations come and there is relief with them, but it’s scattered and unfortunately too scant. Out of 100 dollars given, less then 10% ends up with those who need it. Giving the money to relief organizations working on the ground is more vital, like Habitat for Humanity and others.

The stories are at once hopeful and heartbreaking. There is frustration and anger, and hope and the idea of renewal. But through it all there is a kind of strength. There is a strength underlying the struggle and pain and tragedy. It is the strength of life, of humanity, of peace, of healing not more and nothing less.

Valentine’s Day causes just about everybody from the age of 8 to 108 to think about love, or their lack thereof. Thoughts of getting flowers and chocolates even invade the thoughts of college freshmen, no matter how much of a disconnect they have achieved from their emotions due to overstressing and under-sleeping. But college changes things, and all of us freshmen, including myself, are learning how college can effect Valentine’s Day.

A special problem with Valentine’s Day that is unique to NJIT is a simple one: Guys have the females greatly outnumbered. NJIT has an 8:1 female to male ratio… I know that most NJIT students are very good at math, but for those of you at home, that is a very lopsided ratio. This means that the strapping young men of NJIT have no choice but to look elsewhere for love, or else 7 out of 8 will be without a date on Valentine’s Day.

Without NJIT’s built in disadvantage, college still tends to make relationships difficult. In high school, everybody was in class, or not, at the same time. This made planning dates relatively easy, because everybody’s schedules had the same free time built in.

In college, classes range from 8:30 in the morning until 9:00 at night. This means there are several days where a couple may have absolutely no time in common at all. There are common hours, but they only occur three times a week, and most students participate in clubs that meet during those times.

On top of classes, which include homework, and clubs, many students have to work to help pay for college, which you all know is quite expensive. Instead of our parents just giving us money to spend, our parents are spending all of their money and then some paying for school. For those of us whose parents didn’t have loads of money to give us, then they are definitively not giving us any money now.

So, even if we don’t have to work for school, we have to work to pay for a date. The problem with this is we don’t have time for a date because we are at work. And to those of you who say, “Well, don’t go to work then,” I answer that then you don’t have any money to go on a date with.

All college students face these problems, but freshmen are not exactly acclimated to the college scene, and tend to handle their schedules badly to begin with. Add in a love life, or an attempted love life, and things don’t exactly get much better.

Then, with all of these disadvantages, comes the fact that sometimes relationships are just complicated in their own right. Let’s face it, many of us at NJIT don’t exactly have any “moves”, and certainly don’t walk with much “swagger.” Many of us are of a nerdy type, and some of us are awkward to say the least. Then, once we get past the beginning and into an actual relationship, there is often another set of challenges.

So, to those of you freshmen who are able to balance a love life with their other responsibilities, I hope you all have a great Valentine’s Day. For those of you who do not, I can only offer solace in the fact that it’s not forever, and someday February 14 will be better then celebrating Single’s Awareness Day.