COLUMN: Ending the busy signals

From Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96 From Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96Here's an alternative to theFrom Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96Here's an alternative to thenew modem access policyFrom Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96Here's an alternative to thenew modem access policythat does students good, too. From Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96Here's an alternative to thenew modem access policythat does students good, too. With all the brainpower percolating through this world-renowned Ivy League university, sometimes I feel like a mere Nittany Lion among a mass of intellectual Quakers. Immediately after I question my mental abilities, however, I open this newspaper and read about some new genius policy instituted by the administrators running this fine University. All of a sudden my self-confidence skyrockets, and I dust off the Yale Law School application and prepare to receive my gold Phi Beta Kappa key. After explaining the intricacies of the University's new modem policy and my far-superior alternative plan, I will magically transform from Jason Brenner, mediocre columnist, to Jason Brenner, intellectual guru. Plagued with an excessively high load of Wharton losers trying to check the CPPS homepage about job interviews and socially inept computer geeks visiting their favorite porn sites on the World Wide Web, the University's Internet server has essentially turned into one giant busy signal. Those of us needing to connect to e-mail or the Web find ourselves unable to merge onto the information superhighway. As a DP columnist, I find myself constantly surrounded by those who exert the most influence on the University's inner-workings -- mainly Anita, the friendly card-swiper at Class of 1920 Commons, and the guy who checks your backpacks for stolen books when you leave Rosengarten, to name a few. Because of my high-powered connections, I've learned from an anonymous source who serves as the University's provost (oops, so much for anonymity) how the school set about to solve this perplexing PennNet puzzle. (You gotta love alliteration.) Sensing the immediate urgency of the situation, the University commissioned 1,000 of the world's most experienced and intelligent Ph.D.'s at $100,000 apiece in order to solve this enigmatic dilemma. The aforementioned geniuses traveled to the University disguised as clueless freshmen, "Proud (and annoying) Penn Parents" and disgruntled fraternity pledges. Upon arriving at Eisenlohr at 4 a.m., they received their mission orders and met in a top-secret high-powered think tank located directly beneath Hutchinson Gymnasium -- indeed, what better location to hide a multi-billion dollar facility than underneath a decrepit gym with equipment older than Ben Franklin's outhouse? The clandestine assembly lasted for hundreds of hours as the prominent scholars formulated a myriad of computations in attempt to remedy the Internet dilemma. Only after nixing dozens of well-thought-out and carefully researched proposals (each of which could have merited the coveted Nobel Prize for Reduction of Internet Traffic had the paperwork not been destroyed) did the team of geniuses reach their conclusion: cut off Internet users after an hour on line. Scoff if you will: "That's simple. Even I could have thought of that." Truth be told, however, solutions like the one these geniuses dreamed up cannot be created without thousands of hours of high-powered intellectual give-and-take. So after all this hard work by a team of elite intellectuals, whose collective IQ has more digits than my tuition bill, what happens when I try to check my e-mail? Busy signal. Who would ever have thought that the people disconnected after an hour would call right back? Fortunately for this fine University, I have decided yet again to devote my wealth of mental power ("wealth" may not be the right word? I'm probably somewhere around the bottom third of the mental tax bracket) toward solving the problems dozens of overpaid bureaucrats can't seem to overcome. After sitting by my computer for five minutes, I've concocted a foolproof strategy for solving the Case of the Impotent Modem. Under the Brenner Proposal, the University would monitor the amount of time each student spends on the 'net. University President Judith Rodin would then personally hire three large muscular men with a history of violent crime (I'm sure we can find at least one or two from our neighborhood) and send them to the rooms of students who log on for more than two hours a day. The large irritable felons would drag these pathetic Internet addicts from their rooms and force them to engage in such novel behavior as having fun, going out and meeting members of the opposite (or same) sex. With this core group of losers off line, hanging out with a crew of angry ex-cons, the Internet will be free for use by those of us who need to e-mail friends or check a Web page for a class. Had the University asked me for my opinion in the first place, I could have saved the school from sinking millions of dollars into an elaborate think tank and salaries for those brilliant Ph.D.'s. In one fell swoop, I could have cleared Internet traffic, prevented a massive waste of tuition and helped a bunch of computer geeks find the social lives that have escaped them for the past two decades. Maybe I'm not as dumb as I look.