Daniel Kish: How I use sonar to navigate the world

512,685 views ・ 2015-03-31

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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I was born with bilateral retinoblastoma,
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retinal cancer.
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My right eye was removed
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at seven months of age.
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I was 13 months when they removed my left eye.
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The first thing I did upon awakening from that last surgery
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was to climb out of my crib
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and begin wandering around the intensive care nursery,
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probably looking for the one who did this to me.
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(Laughter)
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Evidently, wandering around the nursery
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was not a problem for me without eyes.
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The problem was getting caught.
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It's impressions about blindness
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that are far more threatening
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to blind people than the blindness itself.
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Think for a moment about your own impressions of blindness.
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Think about your reactions when I first came onto the stage,
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or the prospect of your own blindness,
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or a loved one going blind.
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The terror is incomprehensible to most of us,
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because blindness
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is thought to epitomize ignorance and unawareness,
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hapless exposure to the ravages of the dark unknown.
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How poetic.
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Fortunately for me, my parents were not poetic.
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They were pragmatic.
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They understood that ignorance and fear were but matters of the mind,
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and the mind is adaptable.
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They believed that I should grow up
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to enjoy the same freedoms and responsibilities as everyone else.
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In their own words, I would move out --
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which I did when I was 18 --
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I will pay taxes --
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thanks -- (Laughter) --
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and they knew the difference between love and fear.
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Fear immobilizes us in the face of challenge.
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They knew that blindness would pose a significant challenge.
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I was not raised with fear.
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They put my freedom first before all else,
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because that is what love does.
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Now, moving forward, how do I manage today?
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The world is a much larger nursery.
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Fortunately, I have my trusty long cane,
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longer than the canes used by most blind people.
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I call it my freedom staff.
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It will keep me, for example,
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from making an undignified departure from the stage. (Laughter)
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I do see that cliff edge.
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They warned us earlier that every imaginable mishap
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has occurred to speakers up here on the stage.
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I don't care to set a new precedent.
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But beyond that,
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many of you may have heard me clicking as I came onto the stage --
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(Clicking) --
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with my tongue.
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Those are flashes of sound
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that go out and reflect from surfaces all around me,
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just like a bat's sonar,
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and return to me with patterns, with pieces of information,
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much as light does for you.
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And my brain, thanks to my parents,
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has been activated to form images in my visual cortex,
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which we now call the imaging system,
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from those patterns of information, much as your brain does.
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I call this process flash sonar.
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It is how I have learned to see through my blindness,
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to navigate my journey
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through the dark unknowns of my own challenges,
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which has earned me the moniker
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"the remarkable Batman."
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Now, Batman I will accept.
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Bats are cool. Batman is cool.
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But I was not raised to think of myself as in any way remarkable.
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I have always regarded myself much like anyone else
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who navigates the dark unknowns of their own challenges.
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Is that so remarkable?
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I do not use my eyes, I use my brain.
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Now, someone, somewhere,
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must think that's remarkable, or I wouldn't be up here,
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but let's consider this for a moment.
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Everyone out there
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who faces or who has ever faced a challenge,
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raise your hands.
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Whoosh. Okay.
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Lots of hands going up, a moment, let me do a head count.
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(Clicking)
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This will take a while. (Clicking) (Laughter)
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Okay, lots of hands in the air.
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Keep them up. I have an idea.
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Those of you who use your brains to navigate these challenges,
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put your hands down.
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Okay, anyone with your hands still up
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has challenges of your own. (Laughter)
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So we all face challenges,
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and we all face the dark unknown,
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which is endemic to most challenges, which is what most of us fear, okay?
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But we all have brains
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that allow us, that activate to allow us
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to navigate the journey through these challenges. Okay?
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Case in point: I came up here
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and -- (Clicking) -- they wouldn't tell me
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where the lectern was.
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So you can't trust those TED folks.
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"Find it yourself," they said.
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So -- (Laughter)
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And the feedback for the P.A. system is no help at all.
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So now I present to you a challenge.
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So if you'd all close your eyes for just a moment, okay?
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And you're going to learn a bit of flash sonar.
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I'm going to make a sound.
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I'm going to hold this panel in front of me, but I'm not going to move it.
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Just listen to the sound for a moment.
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Shhhhhhhhhh.
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Okay, nothing very interesting.
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Now, listen to what happens to that same exact sound
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when I move the panel.
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Shhhhhhhhhhh. (Pitch getting higher and lower)
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You do not know the power of the dark side.
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(Laughter)
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I couldn't resist.
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Okay, now keep your eyes closed
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because, did you hear the difference?
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Okay. Now, let's be sure.
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For your challenge,
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you tell me, just say "now" when you hear the panel start to move.
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Okay? We'll relax into this.
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Shhhhhhh.
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Audience: Now. Daniel Kish: Good. Excellent.
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Open your eyes.
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All right. So just a few centimeters,
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you would notice the difference.
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You've experienced sonar.
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You'd all make great blind people. (Laughter)
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Let's have a look at what can happen
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when this activation process
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is given some time and attention.
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(Video) Juan Ruiz: It's like you guys can see with your eyes
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and we can see with our ears.
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Brian Bushway: It's not a matter of enjoying it more or less,
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it's about enjoying it differently.
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Shawn Marsolais: It goes across. DK: Yeah.
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SM: And then it's gradually coming back down again.
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DK: Yes! SM: That's amazing.
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I can, like, see the car. Holy mother!
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J. Louchart: I love being blind.
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If I had the opportunity, honestly, I wouldn't go back to being sighted.
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JR: The bigger the goal, the more obstacles you'll face,
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and on the other side of that goal
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is victory.
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[In Italian]
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(Applause)
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DK: Now, do these people look terrified?
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Not so much.
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We have delivered activation training
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to tens of thousands of blind and sighted people from all backgrounds
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in nearly 40 countries.
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When blind people learn to see,
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sighted people seem inspired
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to want to learn to see their way better, more clearly, with less fear,
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because this exemplifies the immense capacity within us all
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to navigate any type of challenge, through any form of darkness,
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to discoveries unimagined
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when we are activated.
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I wish you all a most activating journey.
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Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
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Chris Anderson: Daniel, my friend.
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As I know you can see, it's a spectacular standing ovation at TED.
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Thank you for an extraordinary talk.
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Just one more question about your world, your inner world that you construct.
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We think that we have things in our world that you as a blind person don't have,
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but what's your world like?
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What do you have that we don't have?
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DK: Three hundred and sixty-degree view,
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so my sonar works about as well behind me as it does in front of me.
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It works around corners.
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It works through surfaces.
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Generally, it's kind of a fuzzy three-dimensional geometry.
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One of my students, who has now become an instructor,
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when he lost his vision, after a few months
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he was sitting in his three story house
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and he realized that he could hear everything going on throughout the house:
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conversations, people in the kitchen, people in the bathroom,
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several floors away, several walls away.
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He said it was something like having x-ray vision.
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CA: What do you picture that you're in right now?
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How do you picture this theater?
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DK: Lots of loudspeakers, quite frankly.
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It's interesting. When people make a sound,
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when they laugh, when they fidget, when they take a drink or blow their nose
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or whatever, I hear everything.
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I hear every little movement that every single person makes.
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None of it really escapes my attention,
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and then, from a sonar perspective,
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the size of the room, the curvature of the audience around the stage,
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it's the height of the room.
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Like I say, it's all that kind of three-dimensional surface geometry
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all around me.
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CA: Well, Daniel, you have done a spectacular job
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of helping us all see the world in a different way.
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Thanks so much for that, truly. DK: Thank you.
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(Applause)
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