*Interview conducted in October-November, 2024.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What technology have you found hardest to adopt in your life?

Rosner: One of the things I missed out on culturally is gaming. I’m not a gamer. I’ve never played Call of Duty or any of the popular games. My last major gaming experience was Tank Command back in 1980, and I played Tetris in the 80s as well. That’s where my gaming history ends. I’ve missed the last 40 years of video games. Maybe I saved a lot of time by not gaming, considering how much time it takes. These days, video games are designed to offer about 60 hours of gameplay if you’re working through a story, which is a huge time commitment.

Jacobsen: That is a lot of time. What else have you avoided?

Rosner: I don’t code. Do you code? Everyone should know how to code, or at least have some understanding of it.

Everybody should have at least two years of coding experience by the time they graduate high school. I learned a bit of programming in the 1970s at school, but that was BASIC—something outdated now, with at least 30 programming languages having come since. I should also know more about genetics.

There’s a lot I should know too—quantum mechanics and general relativity at the mathematical level, where you spend a semester working through the material and understanding general relativity’s 4×4 matrix of values that determines the local curvature of space or something similar. I have a deep, intuitive, non-mathematical understanding of how these things work, but I can’t express them in mathematical terms. So, I feel I missed out there.

Jacobsen: What do you feel are your technical deficiencies, handwriting?

Rosner: I can handwrite, and I can sign signatures, but I don’t do it enough to feel confident. No one does anymore. Most people print instead, and cursive feels like a waste of time unless you’re addressing wedding invitations, in which case, you either hire someone or use a printer that can simulate handwriting. Coding is definitely one deficiency.

What about maintaining the skill to play an instrument?

Jacobsen: Yes, playing and maintaining an instrument is another skill I’ve lost. I could, however, pick up choir singing quite easily since I talk often, which exercises the voice. I have a deep voice, and bass singers are always needed. 

Rosner: Have you ever been tempted to join a choir?

Jacobsen: Sometimes. Initially, not for the music, but because of a woman I was seeing. 

Rosner: Yes, if you join a choir, you might meet a nice lady. That happened to me once, so I joined. Choirs are often full of nice ladies.

Jacobsen: What about these nice ladies?

Rosner: The interesting thing is that while these women live within a nice, often Christian framework, they sometimes feel both obligated and excited to be sexually adventurous within a committed relationship.

—

Rick Rosner, American Comedy Writer, www.rickrosner.org

Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Independent Journalist, www.in-sightpublishing.com

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