A
J o n e s
by Ray Bert Newspeak Staff
Two Towers After Hours presented its last performer of 1990 Friday night in Gompei’s with the appearance of Scott Jones and his “Life in the Laugh Lane" act. The evening was billed as an “entertainment extravaganza." and delivered for the crowd of several hundred as Jones bounced back and forth between five pretty distinct types of performance.
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The least popularof popular of these seemed to be his musical bits with both piano/ synthesizers and guitar. One singalong number and a short piece with goofy noises on the synthesizers came off well, but otherwise the music numbers were a bit lame comedy-wise (though he possesses considerable musical talent). Next, Jones had a sort of theme regarding generic products. He gave them away periodically as prizes and
held a mock game show at the end tc get rid of the rest of them. He also included a bizarre bit with a bunch of weird toys, his favorite of which was a rubber man-like figure covered with suction cups and named “Suckerman.” Noting that a copy of one of his comedy albums did not stick to Suckerman, he concluded that his material “doesn’t suck." Jones also did a fair amount of straight stand-up, most of which he did
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well. His interaction with the audience was effective, particularly his torment ing of a girl with a very strange, highpitched and quite audible giggle. The biggest laughs, though, were saved for two sequences of slides with Jones' running commentary reminis cent of George Carlin. The montage was composed of actual pictures Jones has taken on his cross-country travels, mostly of bizarre road signs and other strange visuals. Examples were a sign
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on a southern store proclaiming proclaim “HepUr-Sef,”and a speed limit sign lettered “55 means 55.” The humor came largely from the cumulative effect of the hundred plus slides together with Jones’ wry comments and observa tions. By the end of the two hour show they were moving so rapidly that many people were in a state of constant hys terics. All in all, a strange, varied and vastly entertaining evening.
T h e S t u d e n t N e w s p a p e r o f W o r c e s t e r P o l y t e c h n i c In s titu te
Volum e 18, N u m b e r 25
Tuesday, D ecem ber 11 ,1 9 9 0
Program makes abstract concepts more tangible
(News Service) The pattern that gradually lights up the computer moni tor in Peter Levin’s lab at Worcester Polytechnic Institute looks like a quilt in progress—several triangles appear, then more, then still more, until the entire area is Filled with what re sembles an intricate design for a onepatch coverlet. But the image on the screen is not the work of some robotic seamstress; rather it is something far more complex— a “mesh generator,” a computer-generated grid used in Finite element and boundary element analy sis. Levin, an assistant professor of electrical engineering who joined the WPI faculty in 1988, has been working graduate students and undergraduates to help students and scientists grasp the complex relationships between elec tric Fields and charges that are at the heart of electromagnetism, the study of the physics that underlies important technologies like power transmission and satellite communications. The greatest obstacle, he says, is that com prehending these relationships re quires not only mathematical dexterity but also, and perhaps most important, the ability to visualize abstract con cepts. “Because instructors who teach electromagnetism draw complex elec tromagnetic Fields on the blackboard, they are often forced to use fairly simple interactions as classroom ex amples and when they assign problems for homework,” Levin explains. “In the real world, the structure and shape of practical electromagnetic Fields are far more complicated. The challenge is to create a visual representation of all these Fields, even the most complex.
We are beginning to understand how we can use the computer to “draw” the difficult-to envision results of these processes.” Since 1989 Levin has been conduct ing his research in the Institute’s Computations Fields Lab, located on the third floor of Atwater Kent. Fund ing for the lab has come from a number of corporate sponsors including $68,500 from the Westinghouse Foun dation; equipment was purchased with a portion of a $ 130,000 grant awarded to the Electrical Engineering Depart ment by the Digital Equipment Corp. in support of Levin’s work in educa tional software development. Research in the lab continues to focus on the numerical analysis of electromagnetic field phenomena. Levin’s system is based on the Charge Simulation Program— software he wrote as a graduate student at Camegie-Mellon University, where he eamed his doctoral degree in electrical engineering. At WPI, Levin and Drazen Beadovic, a Ph. D. candidate from Yugoslavia, have been adding to the capabilities of the program, in creasing its flexibility and expanding the range of problems students can examine with the software. The goal is to incorporate the techniques of three dimensional boundary element analy sis into the computer program to make it capable of creating realistic repre sentations of highly complicated fields. “The work we are doing in the Computational Fields Lab at WPI has both a research and a teaching compo nent,” says Levin, “and we are doing state-of-the-art research here. This is one of the few labs in the world that is
actively involved in integrating the latest computer technology into both the classroom and industrial applica tions.” Levin explains that numerical analysis will play an “ever-increasing and vital role in the design and analysis of equipment that would be terribly expensive to build prototypes of. With the techniques we are developing at WPI we will eventually be able to help waste management companies design systems to remove aluminum cans from the waste stream, to help electric companies design more efficient and reliable power transmission equip ment, and to understand the compli cated process behind electric discharge machining, which is used in the manu facture of precision ceramic compo nents for the space and auto indus tries.” Programs such as these can also be used in determining whether electromagnetic fields have any harm ful effects on humans. The high-quality, state of the art numerical analysis programs, written at the Computational Fields Lab, are used in WPI’s undergraduate and graduate curricula. “We are one of the few schools in the country that have integrated this material into their courses,” says Levin, “and several of the colleges that do rely on these types of materials are using programs that were developed here at WPI.” The mesh generator is an example of how undergraduates can help scien tists understand extraordinarily diffi cult concepts. The program was writ ten by Andrew J. Hansen, a senior electrical engineering major from Nasal, Neb. Hansen began his research in January 1990 as an independent study. Working under the direction of
Levin, Beadovic and Arthur J. Butler, visiting assistant professor of electri cal engineering, Hansen created the grid, which Levin describes as”centra! to any numerical analysis program.” The independent study has become Hansen’s Major Qualifying Project. Hansen plans to remain at WPI to pur sue a master’s degree in electrical engineering and expects to continue his research in Levin’s lab. “Learning about electromagnetic fields as undergraduates gives electri cal engineering students a very big edge,” says Levin. “Electromagnetic
fields are not physical things you can see— you can measure and describe them but you can never see them. Three-dimensional numerical analysis gives us the ability to look at truly realistic representations of the physical world around us, and we are among the first researchers to build computer programs capable of making closer, more precise observations. We are successful because people on this campus are concerned with the stateof-the-art research aspect and care very much about integrating these programs into the curriculum.”
How the west was lost Upon reaching his destination, by Scott Runstrom Newspeak Staff
We have all seen it. A quiet little western town with perhaps twenty set tlers in it. Four or five families doing their part to close the great frontier. The men are out quietly feeding the chickens when suddenly the sound of an arrow whistling through the air is heard. A voice cries out in pain as the missile reaches its target, and scores of beastly savages storm over the hill, arrows flying. The men are killed and scalped, the women are raped, and the horses and children stolen. Only John Wayne and the U.S. cavalry can save the day. This is the stereotype that Kevin Costner is fighting against with his new movie “Dances with Wolves.” In presenting a realistic view of west ern life and Native American culture, Costner is reframing the old cliche' of “how the west was won” into a new perspective, more properly called “How the west was lost.” The movie opens with Costner lying wounded in a civil war field hospital, surgeons about to amputate his leg. He slips out of the hospital, however, and in an apparent suicide attempt rushes the confederate lines. The rebel soldiers all miss, and the diversion allows Union forces to suc cessfully overrun the enemy defenses. Costner is awarded by the general for outstanding bravery, and given choice of duty. He chooses to go west, to “see the frontier before it’s gone."
Costner finds his post deserted. He elects to stay, however, and soon en counters Indians. The rest of the movie centers around the development of the relationship between Costner and his new found companions. Through this development, the true Indian culture is exposed. Costner soon leaves his out post to become “Dances With Wolves,” abandoning “civilization” for the life of the noble savage. Indian practices are contrasted with the bru tality of the “pioneers,” and any notion of Manifest Destiny is destroyed be fore your eyes. When U.S. troops do emerge at the end of the film, they come not as liberators or defenders of justice, but as the savages. Common criminals bent on destroying an entire culture in the name of progress. Although over three hours long, “Dances with wolves” did not seem lo drag for even a minute. The power of the story was matched only by the incredible backdrop of Western South Dakota. By taking the stereotypical western and essentially turning it in side out, Costner reminds us that we do not have God given right to this land, that we can not do with it as we please. We have satisfied our endless needs and justified our bloody deeds in the name of God and destiny for too long. As our air is polluted, and the last of our rainforests destroyed, we would do well to listen to the true culture of Native Americans.
F in a n c ia l A id a p p lic a tio n s a r e n o w a v a ila b le
Financial aid applications for the academic year 1991-92 will be available at the beginning of C term. Current financial aid recipi ents in the classes of '92, '93 and '94 who have been enrolled since Term A '90 will receive financial aid packets in their mailboxes. If you do not receive an application and plan to apply for assistance, please obtain the necessary forms NF.WSPF.AK STAFF PHOTO / F.RIC KRISTOFF
The W om en's C horale group and the M en's G lee Club took part in a C hristm as show last week.
at the Financial Aid Office in the lower level of Boynton. Please take notice of subse quent articles in Newspeak, as well as the instructions contained in the application packets, describ ing the deadlines and process of applying for financial aid. For additional questions, contact the staff members of the Financial Aid Office.