TPO 07
Conversation 1
Eric: Hi, Professor Mason, do you have a minute?
Pro: Yeah, of course, Eric. I think there was something I wanted to talk to you about too.
Eric: Probably my late essay.
Pro: Ah, that must be it. I thought maybe I’d lost it.
Eric: No, I'm sorry. Actually it was my computer that lost it, the first draft of it. And, well, anyway, I finally put it in your mail box yesterday.
Pro: Oh, I haven't checked the mail box yet today. Well, I'm glad it's there. I will read it this weekend.
Eric: Well, sorry again. Say, I can send it to you by email too if you like.
Pro: Great. I'll be interested to see how it all comes out.
Eric: Right. Now, ah, I just have overheard some graduates students talking. Something about a party for De Adams?
Pro: Retirement party, yes, all students are invited. Wasn't there notice on the Anthropology Department's bulletin board?
Eric: Ah, I don't know. But I want to offer help with it. You know whatever you need. De Adams, well, I took a few anthropology classes with her and they were great, inspiring. That's why I want to pitch in.
Pro: Oh, that's very thoughtful of you, Eric, but it will be low key, nothing flashy. That's not her style.
Eric: So there's nothing?
Pro: No, we'll have coffee and cookies, maybe a cake. But actually couples of the administrative assistants are working on that. You could ask them but I think they've got covered.
Eric: Ok.
Pro: Actually, oh, no, never mind.
Eric: What's it?
Pro: Well, it's nothing to do with the party and I'm sure there are more exciting ways that you could spend your time. But we do need some help with something. Work pilling a database of articles the anthropology faculty has published. There is not much glory, but we are looking for someone with some knowledge of anthropology who can enter the articles. I hesitate to mention it. But I don't suppose it's something you would
Eric: No, that sounds like cool. I would like to see what they are writing about.
Pro: Wonderful. And there are also some unpublished studies. Do you know De Adams did a lot of field research in Indonesia? Most of them haven't been published yet.
Eric: No, like what?
Pro: Well, she is really versatile. She just spent several months studying social interactions in Indonesia and she's been influential in ecology. Oh, and she's also done work in south of America, this is closer to biology, especially with speciation.
Eric: ah, not to seem uninformed
Pro: Well, how's species form? You know, how two distinct species form from one. Like when population of the same species are isolated from each other and then developed into two different directions and ended up with two distinct species.
Eric: Interesting.
Pro: Yes, while she was there in the south of America, she collected a lot of linguistic information and sounds, really fascinating.
Eric: Well. I hate to see her leave.
Pro: Don't worry. She'll still be around. She's got lots of projects that she's still in the middle of.
Lecture 1
Theater History
Pro: The 19 century was the time that thought what we called: Realism developing in European in theater. Um… to understand this though, we first need to look at the early form of drama known as the well-made play, which basically was a pattern for constructing plays, plays that the beginning with some early 19 century’s comedies in France proved very successful commercially. The dramatic devises use here word actually anything new, they have been around for centuries. But the formula for well-made play required certain elements being included, in a particular order, and most importantly, that everything in the plays be logically connected. In fact, some of the player writes would start by writing the end of the play. And the word “backward” toward the beginning, just to make sure each event let logically from what has gone before. Ok, what are the necessary elements of well-made play? Well, the first is logical exposition. Exposition is whatever background information you have to review to the audience. So, they all understand what is going on. Before this time, exposition might come from the actors simply giving speeches. Someone might watch out the stage and see: “lyric quotation”. And until all about the felting family of Romeo and Julie, but for the well-made play, even the exposition had to be logic, believable. So, for example, you might have two servants gossiping as they are cleaning the house. And one says, Oh, what a shame master sound still not married. And the other might mention that a rumor about the mysterious a gentle men who just moved into the town with his beautiful daughter. These comments are parts of the play logical exposition. The next key elements of the well-made play refer to as the inciting incidents. After we have the background information, we need a king moment to get things moving, they really make the audience interested in what is happened to the characters we just heard about it. So, for example, after the two servants review all this background information, we need the young man. Just is he first lies eyes on the beautiful woman, and he immediately falls in love. This is the inciting incidence. It sets off, the plot of the play. Now, the plot of well-made plays is usually driven by secrets. Things, the audiences know, but the characters often don’t know. So, for example, the audience learned through a letter or through someone else’s conversation. Who is the mysterious gentle man is, and why he left the town many years before. But the young man doesn’t know about this. And the woman doesn’t understand the ancient connection between her family and he is. Before the secret are reviewed to the main character, the plot of the play perceived as the series of the sorts of the up and down moments. For example, the woman first appears not to even notice the young man, and it seems to him like the end of the world. But then, he learns that the she actually wants to meet him too. So, life is wonderful. Then, if he tries to talk with her, maybe her father get furious, for no apparent reason. So, they cannot see each other. But, just the young man has almost loved all hopes, he finds out, well you get the idea, the reversal the fortune continue, increasing the audience’s tension and excitement. They can wonder that everything is going to come out or care it not. Next come in, elements known as the: An obligatory scene. It’s scene, a moment in which all the secrets are reviewed. In generally, things turn out well for the hero and others we are care about, a happy ending of some sorts. This became so popular that the playwright almost had to include it in every play which is why is called: the obligatory scene. And that’s followed by the final dramatic element---the denouement or the resolution, when all the lucent have to be tight up in the logical way. Remember, the obligatory scene gives the audience emotional pleasure. But the denouement offers the audience a logical conclusion. That’s the subtle distinction we need to try very hard to keep in mind. So, as I said, the well-made play, this form of playwriting, became the base for realism in drama, and for a lot of very popular 19 century plays. And also, a pattern we find in plots of later many play, and even movies that we see it today.
Lecture 2
Biology
Pro: So, that is how elephant uses infrasound. Now, let’s talk about the other and the acoustic spectrums, sound that is too high for humans to hear---ultrasounds. Ultrasound is used by many animals that detected and some of them seen out very high frequency sounds. So, what is a good example? Yes, Kayo.
Kayo: Well, bats, since there is all blind, bets have to use sound for, you know, to keep them from flying in the things.
Pro: That is echolocation. Echolocation is pretty self-explanatory; using echoes reflected sound waves to located things. As Kayo said that bat used for navigation and orientation. And what is else. Make.
Make: Well, finding food is always important, and I guess not becoming food for other animals.
Pro: Right, on both accounts. Avoiding other predators, and locating prey, typically insects that fly around it at night. Before I go on, let me just respond something Kayo was saying--- this idea that is bats are blind. Actually, there are some species of bats, the one that don’t use echolocation that do rely on their vision for navigation, but its true for many bats, their vision is too weak to count on. Ok, so quick some rays if echolocation works. The bats emit the ultrasonic pulses, very high pitch sound waves that we cannot hear. And then, they analyze the echoes, how the waves bound back. Here, let me finish the style diagram I started it before the class. So the bat sends out the pulses, very focus birds of sound, and echo bounds back. You know, I don’t think I need to draw the echoes, your reading assignment for the next class; it has diagram shows this very clearly. So, anyway, as I were saying, by analyzing this echo, the bat can determine, say, if there is wall in a cave that needs to avoid, and how far away it is. Another thing uses the ultrasound to detect is the size and the shape of objects. For example, one echo they quickly identified is one way associated with moff, which is common prey for a bat, particularly a moff meeting its wings. However, moff happened to have major advantage over most other insects. They can detect ultrasound; this means that when the bat
approaches, the moff can detect the bat’s presence. So, it has time to escape to safety, or else they can just remain motionless. Since, when they stop meeting their wings, they will be much hard for the bat to distinguish from, oh… a leave or some other object. Now, we have tended to underestimate just how sophisticated the ability that animals that use ultrasound are. In fact, we kinds of assume that they were filtering a lot out. The ways are sophisticated radar on our system can ignore the echo from the stationary object on the ground. Radar are does this to remove ground clutter, information about the hills or buildings that they doesn’t need. But bats, we thought they were filtering out kinds of information, because they simply couldn’t analyze it. But, it looks as we are wrong. Recent there was the experiment with trees and specific piecies of bat. A bat called: the laser spear nosed bat. Now, a tree should be use and acoustic challenge for bat, right? I mean it got all kinds of surfaces with different shapes and angles. So, well, the echoes from trees are going to
be massive and chaotic acoustic reflection, right, not like the echo from the moff. So, we thought for a long time that the bat stop their evaluation as simply that is tree. Yet, it turns out that is or at least particular species, cannot only tell that is trees, but can also distinguish between a pine tree, deciduous tree, like a maple or oak tree, just by their leaves. And when I say, leaves, I mean pine needles too. Any idea on how we would know that?
Stu: Well, like with the moff, could be their shape?
Pro: You are on the right track---it actually the echo of all the leaves as whole the matters. Now, think, a pine trees with little densely packed needles. Those produced a large number of fain reflection in which what’s we called as: a smooth of echo. The wave forms were very even, but an oak which has fewer but bigger leaves with stronger reflections, produces a gigots wave form, or what we called: a rough echo. And these bats can distinguish between a two, and not just was trees, but with any echo come in smooth and rough shape.