September 20, 2003

Do Not Go Gentle Into That [Bad] Night

I'm sure all of you have read the famous poem by Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night. If you haven't, the basic gist of the poem is (and correct me if I'm wrong, English majors) that it rejects Alfred Lord Tennyson's notion of softly dying, as expressed in his poem, Crossing the Bar. Now, I know what you're thinking: what the hell does this have to do with anything and thanks for that little bit of info, Rohit, you stupid ass. But bear with me—I'm going to make a point.

The advent of cellular technology in the mid 1990s and its phenomenal popularity in subsequent years, led to a situation where people could be contacted where ever they went (within areas of coverage, of course). A less obvious, but no less important result of this great technological advance was that people could now make annoying noises where ever they were.

The regular, run-of-the-mill, annoying phone ring had turned into all kinds of high-pitched squeals emulating famous tunes. At first, people were shunned for being so presumptuous as to let their phone ring in a public setting that demanded quiet such as a classrooms, movie theaters, or public addresses. But as time went on, more and more people acquired a cell phone, and they made the same mistake of not setting it to silent when it was not supposed to ring. The social unacceptability of this egregious act slowly fell.

The bitter few (of which I was a strong part) that remained were looked as mean and angry when we continued to give dirty looks to those who let their phones ring. The issue was slowly dying, soon to become an accepted part of day-to-day life. Cellular disturbances are so commonplace these days that no one even blinks or turns their head when yet another obnoxious cell phone goes off while the professor is saying something very important. The current state of affairs are unacceptable.

It seems as if though everyone has just accepted that the issue is dead—crost the bar, if you will—and are contented in living with this sad state of affairs. Well—that's a crock of crap, I say! We can't go gentle into that [awful] night[mare]! We have to rage, rage against the dying of the hate and make sure that the people who continue to have the audacity to let their phone ring know that we are not going to stand for it any longer.

Of course I would not bring up this issue unless I had a solution. Let me say right away that some of you may not agree with my solution. What I have to say to that is that if you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Here's my fail-safe solution. It's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be nice, but I'm fairly certain that it will work. I intend to design a hovering robotic craft equipped with a 10,000 volt stun gun and a sensor for cellular frequencies. I think we can agree that the stun gun is the funnest way to hurt someone you particularly do not like, and moreover, it hurts!

The plan then would be to deploy these hovering robotic aircraft in classrooms, meeting rooms, lecture halls, and wherever else one might want a cellular free zone. The robotic crafts would listen for cell phone frequencies, hone in on the receiving (or perhaps even transmitting) source, and then shock the person with the phone with its 10K volt stun gun.

Not only would it make it so the person never, ever entered any building without remembering to turn off his or her phone; it would also serve as the perfect example for other would be noisemakers. After witnessing the horrific a site of someone being shocked by 10K volts of electricity, I know that I, for one, would never enter a building without double and triple checking to make sure my phone was off. Granted, some people are dumb, and would probably require more than one shock to finally remember to turn off their phones, but if you are that stupid, you probably deserve the damage that the stun gun does to you.

Now some of you may be thinking that this is a bit extreme. But the alternative plan I had come up with, which I scrapped as too unrealistic, was to have someone with a sniper rifle sitting around, ready to shoot anyone he or she saw with a cell phone. I decided, however, against this plan because it could lead to too much collateral damage. I mean, how do we know if a person was actually going to pick up her cell or actually just checking the time on it, right?

Others may claim that this plan is in violation of civil liberties. But at the rate we are going with cell phone abuse, I do not think this idea is too far fetched. Something has to be done! Don't you think?

Finally, I would just like to remind everyone out there thinking about stealing my idea that I came up with it. This is my intellectual property. Maybe I'll even patent the software I use to control the craft. So don't even think about stealing my idea. I thought of it first. And as for all you ambivalent folks out there, just remember: do not go gentle into the awful void of cell phone domination!