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Randy pausch's last lesson
Tuesday, September 6, 2007, Carnegie Mellon University.
I'm glad to be here. What Indira didn't tell you was that this series of lectures used to be called "the last lecture". If you give your last speech before you die, what will you say? I thought, well, I can match this number, but they changed the name (Journey Series Speech). [Laughter]
Therefore, if someone just walked in and didn't know the background story, my father always taught me to introduce the elephant in the room first. Look at my CT scan. My liver has about 10 tumors. The doctor told me that I still have 3-6 months of healthy body. It was a month ago, so you can do the math. I have some of the best doctors in the world. The microphone is broken? Then you have to speak louder. Are you ready? All right.
This is the case. We can't change it, we just need to decide how to deal with it. We can't change the cards in our hands, but we can adjust how to play them. If I don't look depressed enough, I'm sorry to disappoint you. [Laughter] I assure you, I'm not denying the reality. It's not that I don't know what happened My family, my three children and my wife, we just left the camp. We bought a lovely house near Chesapeake in Norfolk, Virginia. We are doing this for the future of our family, which is better. The other thing is that I am surprisingly healthy now. I mean, this will be the biggest cognitive dissonance you have ever seen, and my physical strength is very good. In fact, my health is better than most of you.
[Randy squats down and starts doing push-ups] [Applause] So if someone wants to cry or pity me, they can come down and do a few of these first, and then you can pity me. [Laughter]
Well, what shall we not talk about today? We are not talking about cancer, because I have spent a lot of time talking about it, and I am really not interested. If you have any auxiliary herbs or treatments, please don't come. We won't talk about anything more important than realizing our childhood dreams. We don't talk about my wife or my children. Because I am in a good mood, but I am not good enough to talk about them without tears. Therefore, this is more important and we have to exclude it. We don't talk about spirit and religion, but I want to tell you that I made a dying change. I just bought an Apple computer. [Laughter and applause] I know I can get the support of 9% of the audience. But what exactly are we talking about today? Tell me about my childhood dream and how I realized it. I've always been lucky in this respect.
Talk about why I believe I can help people realize their dreams, and also talk about some lessons. I am a professor, so I should have some experience and lessons, and how you can use what you heard today to realize your dreams or help others realize their dreams. When you grow up, you may find it more interesting to help others realize their dreams.
So what was my childhood dream? You know, I had a wonderful childhood. I mean, no kidding, I went back and looked at the papers at home. Surprisingly, I can't find any pictures of me who didn't laugh when I was a child. This is a very gratifying thing. This is our dog, isn't it? Oh, thank you. This is my dream photo. I had many dreams.
Of course, there are many waking hours! I was born in 1960. When I was eight or nine years old, there was a man on TV who landed on the moon. Anything can happen, and we should not ignore the great power of inspiration and allowing dreams.
So, my childhood dream? You may not agree with this list, but it is my dream. Experience zero gravity, join the NFL and write an article for the World Book Encyclopedia-I guess you can see that I have been a nerd for a long time.
[Laughter] To be Captain Kirk, does anyone here have this childhood dream? Not at Carnegie Mellon University, no. I think I can be a person who won a big plush toy in an amusement park, and I also want to be a Disney fantasy engineer. This list is in no particular order, but I think they are getting more and more difficult, except for the first item.
All right, experience zero gravity. It's important to have specific dreams. I didn't dream of becoming an astronaut, because I wore glasses since I was a child. They told me, oh, astronauts can't wear glasses. I think, well, I'm not really an astronaut, I just want to float freely. So, when I was a child [laughs], the prototype was 0.0. [Slide shows little Randy floating on the table]
But it didn't work. We know that NASA has a plane called Vomiting Comet, which is used to train astronauts. It flies in an arc, about 25 seconds after each arc top, just like ballistic dive, which is roughly equivalent to weightlessness for 25 seconds. NASA has a program that allows college students to make research suggestions in competitions. If they win, they can fly. I think it's cool. We have a team. We are well organized. They won the game and were allowed to fly. I'm very excited because I'm going with them.
Then, I hit the first brick wall, because the space agency clearly stipulated that teachers should not fly with the student team. My heart is broken. I think I've worked too hard! So, I read this document carefully. It turns out that NASA has a promotion project that allows students to bring a local media reporter from their hometown. [Laughter] randy pausch, a website reporter. How easy it is to get a press card! [Laughter]
So I called NASA and said I needed to know the number of the fax file. There asked, what documents do you want to fax? I said I was going to resign as a school consultant and apply to be a reporter. He said, don't you think it's a little too explicit I said, yes, but our project is virtual reality. We will bring a lot of virtual reality helmets, and students from all teams will try this and let the real reporters who go with other teams take pictures.
Jim Fowler said, you bastard. The person who answered the phone said it was a fax number. In fact, we have also fulfilled our promise, which is one of the topics you will hear in the next lecture, that is, having goods on hand, so that you will be more popular. If you are curious about what zero gravity looks like, I hope the sound can. [Slide, video, Randy's zero-gravity experience] This is me. [Laughter] You still have to bear the consequences at the bottom. So, the first dream of childhood, draw a tick.
Ok, let's talk about football. My dream is to join the national football league. Most of you don't know, in fact, no (laughs) no, I didn't get into the NFL. But I'm afraid I got more from this unfulfilled dream than any dream I realized.
I have a coach. I was nine years old when I joined the team. I am the youngest child in the club. I have a coach, Jim Graham, who is six feet four inches tall. He used to play guard at Pennsylvania State University.
He is a very traditional big man. I mean, very old. Passing the ball before he knows his position is cheating. [Laughter] First day of practice, here he comes. You know, he is so big that we are all afraid of him.
He didn't bring any football. How can we practice without the ball? A child said, I'm sorry, coach, but we don't have a ball. Coach Graham said, that is, how many people can there be on the court? A team 1 1 person, 22 people. Coach Graham said, OK, how many people touch the ball at a given moment? One of them. He's right, so we have to practice other 2 1 person tasks.
This is a good story, because it is about basic skills. Basic skills, basic skills, basic skills. You must lay a good foundation, otherwise all those fancy things will not work.
Another Jim Graham story. Once we were doing exercises, he kept staring at me. You did it, yes, you did it wrong. Go back and do it again. You owe me. Do push-ups after practice. Later, an assistant coach came up and said, Coach Graham is very strict with you, isn't he? I said, yeah. He said that this is a good thing. He said that when you screw up, no one says anything to you, which means they give up. This is a lesson that I will remember all my life. It's very bad when you see yourself making a mess and no one tells you. Your critics tell you that they still love and care about you.
After coach Graham, my other coach, coach Setriff, taught me a lot about the power of passion. He will put the players in the most inappropriate position in a certain game. It's like letting all the short people take over, right? This is ridiculous. But we only play one game, right? Our opponents were really caught off guard. Because when you only play a new position in a game, freedom is synonymous with recklessness. God, then you didn't beat up your opponent in that game.
That kind of enthusiasm is really strong. Until today, I think the most comfortable place is the football field. I mean, it's just one person's stuff, you know, if I'm solving a problem, people will see me walking around the corridor with a football. Because you know, when you were very young, playing ball, training and football have become a part of your life. I'm glad it's part of my life. If I don't realize my dream of playing football, it's nothing. What I get now may be more valuable. Because look at the NFL now, I think how well those guys are doing.
Ok, so I learned a sentence from EA, which I like very much and is related to today's conversation, that is, you can't wait for experience. I think this statement is absolutely lovely. Let's talk more about football. We send our children to play rugby or football or swimming, or any other activities. This is actually the first example of what I want to call a dead end or indirect learning. In fact, we don't care about children learning football. I mean, well, my three-point touchdown posture is beautiful, and I also know how to do knee block and other skills. These are all very good, but we send our children to learn more important things. Teamwork, sportsmanship, perseverance, etc. And it is absolutely important to learn these tricks. You should pay attention to these, because they are everywhere.
The author of the next simple but world book encyclopedia. When I was a child, we had a full set of encyclopedias of world books on the bookshelf. For freshmen, this is just paper. We used to call these things books. When I have become an authoritative person in virtual reality, but this is not really important, so I am only at the level of people who want to harass the world books. They called me and asked me to write an article. This is Caitlin kelleher. If your local library still collects this encyclopedia, you can read this article. Look at the virtual reality entry under the V letter. Right there. What I want to say is that after being selected as the author of the World Book Encyclopedia, I now believe that Wikipedia is an absolutely excellent source of information, because I know the real quality control level of encyclopedias. They asked me to write.
All right, next.
[Laughter] [Slide Meeting Captain Kirk] Sometimes you realize that there are some things you won't do, so you may just want to get close to those who do them. I mean, my god, a role model for young people. [Laughs] [Put Captain Kirk on the slide of his starship Enterprise control station]
I mean, it's everything you want. What I have learned and helped me improve my leadership is that, in fact, he is not the smartest person on board. I mean, Spock is smart. McCaughey is a doctor and Scott is an engineer. What do you think he can do to become the captain of this ship?
But you should know that there is obviously an ability called leadership. Whether you like this TV series or not, you can learn a lot about how to lead others by watching his actions. Besides, he has the coolest toys! [Laughter] [Star Trek Toy Slide] I mean, God, when I was a kid, I was fascinated that he had this thing [taking out the Star Trek walkie-talkie], and he could talk to the spaceship with it. I think that's really eye-catching Of course, I also have my own one now, which is smaller in size. [takes out his cell phone] This is cool.
I finally realized this dream. Captain Kirk and his god william shatner wrote a book, which I think is very cool. Co-written with CHIP Walter, an excellent author in Pittsburgh. Their books are basically about the science of interstellar travel, and science fiction on TV has become a reality. They visited the highest university in China, and they came here to study the setting of our virtual reality. We set up a virtual reality system for him, and it looks like this. [Slide showing Star Trek Command Center] We put the system on red alert. He is a very interesting person. He didn't expect this. [Laughter] It's great to see your childhood idol, but it's even better when he comes to your lab to see your wonderful work.
Cool. This is really a proud moment for me.
Win a stuffed animal. This may seem normal to you, but when you were a child, you would see tall and strong men walking around the amusement park with those big plush animals, right? This is my lovely wife. I have many pictures of the stuffed animals I won. [Laughter] [Showing some slides of large stuffed animals] This is a photo of stuffed animals that my father and I won. I won a lot. This is my dad. He did win. These are important parts of my life and that of my family. But you know, I can hear cynics thinking, "In this era when digital technology manipulates reality, maybe the teddy bears in those photos are not really with me, or maybe I spent 5 yuan money to let others take pictures next to the teddy bears in the theme park." I think, in this age of cynicism, how to convince people? I said, I know, I can show them those bears! Take it out. [Several big stuffed animals are moving on the stage] [Laughter and applause] Just put them against the wall.
Jay Pausch (Randy's wife):
It's hard to hear your voice.
[Adjusting Randy's microphone]
Thank you, dear. Our moving truck doesn't have enough space to transport these bears to Chesapeake, so if anyone wants a part of my life at the end of the speech, please come up and get it on a first-come-first-served basis.
Ok, next, be a Disney fantasy engineer. This is very difficult. Believe me, it is easier to experience zero gravity than to become a Disney fantasy engineer. When I was a child, when I was 8 years old, my family took me across America to visit Disneyland. If you watch the movie Holiday Adventure, which one is very similar to it! [Laughter] This is an adventure. [Showing slides of the whole family at Disney] These are old photos, which I took in front of the castle. Besides, for those who like to predict, this is Alice's flying car.
[Laughter] I think this is the coolest place I have ever been. But I'm not saying, gee, I want to experience this. I mean, I want to build these things.
So I graduated from Carnegie Mellon University for ten years and thought I was qualified for any job. I sent an application letter to Disney Fantasy Project in a hurry, and they gave me some of the friendliest "Go to hell" replies I have ever received. [Laughter] This is a letter. We have carefully examined your application. At present, we don't have any positions that require your specific qualifications.
Now think about it. You received these rejection letters from a place famous for sweeping streets. [Laughs], so I'm a little depressed. But remember, brick walls exist for a reason. Brick walls are not used to stop us. Brick walls are designed to give us a chance to show how much we want them. Because the brick wall is to stop those insincere people, those others.
Ok, fast forward to 199 1 year. When we were at the University of Virginia, we made a system called Virtual Reality One Day 5 yuan. Just one of those incredible beautiful things. As a junior teacher at that time, I was very scared. Jim Fowler is here, and I like telling this story. He knows my undergraduate tutor Andy Fan Dan. The first academic conference, I was scared to death. The idol of the user interface circle came over and suddenly hugged me and said, this is from Andy. From then on, I thought, well, maybe I can succeed. Maybe I do belong in this business.
Another similar story is that our system has achieved unexpected success, because at that time, everyone needed 500 thousand to do virtual reality. Everyone is depressed about it. And we actually assembled a usable system with some parts of 5000 yuan. People's reaction is, oh, my God, the story of HP garage is happening again. Therefore, when I gave the report, the whole room was boiling. During question and answer time, a man named Tom Fornas went to the microphone and introduced himself. He was a big shot in the field of virtual reality at that time. I don't know him, but I've heard a lot about him. Then he asked a question. I said, I'm sorry, are you saying that you are Tom Fornas? He said yes. I said, then I'm willing to answer your question, but first, you
Do you want to have lunch with me tomorrow? [Laughter], this episode is profound, and there is a lot of humility in it, but it also makes that person unable to refuse. [Laughter]
A few years later, Disney Fantasy Project is carrying out a top-secret virtual reality project. After they broadcast TV advertisements in the Propaganda Department, they also denied the existence of a virtual reality attraction. Therefore, the Disney Fantasy Project does keep the secrecy watertight. This is Aladdin's scenic spot, where you can fly magic carpets and use helmet monitors, sometimes called crocodile cameras. That is me. I am no longer unknown. When the project just started, you know, they started to put advertisements on TV, and I was asked to introduce the development of virtual reality to the Secretary of Defense. Well, Fred Brooks and I were asked to give a briefing, which gave me an excuse. So I called them and said, listen, I'm going to brief the Secretary of Defense. I want to get some materials from you, because your virtual reality is one of the best systems in the world. They are a little reluctant. I said, look, you talk about patriotism in Disneyland all day.
Are they all fake? They said, "Well, all right. [Laughter]
But they said that this project is very new, and the public relations department has no video for you. I want to contact the department that makes this system directly. Hit the jackpot! I spoke to a man named Jon Snoddy on the phone. He is the most impressive person I have ever met and the head of this department. No wonder their work is also impressive. So he gave me something, and we had a brief chat. He gave me something, and I said, hey, I'm going to attend a meeting at your place soon. Do you want to have lunch together? I will lie and make an excuse to say that I am going to your place, so it seems that I am not in a hurry to see you, but I will have lunch with you even if you are in Neptune! [Laughter] Jon said, OK. Then I spent about 80 hours talking to all the virtual reality experts in the world and said, if you had the chance to visit this incredible project, what questions would you ask? Then, I sorted out what they said and memorized it. Anyone who knows me knows that I can't remember things. Because I can't be a nerd, you know, [Silly voice] Hey, question 72.
So, I went. It was a lunch of about two hours. Jon must think I am a different person, because all I do is speak for Fred Brooks, ivan sutherland, Andy Fan Dan and Henry Fox. So if you want to talk to smart people, it is very easy to be smart. At the end of lunch, I just, as we say in business, threw a stone and asked for directions. "I said, you know, I want to have an academic holiday. He said, what is that? [Laughter] The beginning of cultural conflict. So I talked to him about whether I could come and work with him. He said, it's good. It's just, you know, your job is to tell others things, and our job is to keep secrets. But Jon Snoopy is Jon Snoopy, and he went on to say, "But we will find a solution. "I am very happy to hear this news.
Another thing I learned from Jon Snoopy-I can easily spend an hour talking about what I learned from Jon Snoopy-is that he told me that if you wait long enough, people will surprise you and make you gasp in admiration. He said that when you are angry with others, you just don't give them enough time. Give them more time, they almost always surprise you. I think he is really right. To make a long story short, we have reached a legal contract. Disney Fantasy Project will publish the first-some say the first and last-academic articles.
The agreement is where I will go, provide my own funds, work for six months, do a project and publish a paper. Then we fucked the bad guys. [Showing photos of Randy's former dean], I can't always have wind and rain, then I won't have any credit. You must show your mind to the public. This man is my dean at the University of Virginia. His name is not important. Let's just call him Dean Wormer. (Dean Wormer plays the role of animal house in the film. )
[Laughter]
Dean Volcker met with me. I said I wanted to take an academic vacation, and the fantasy project allowed an academic to participate, which was unheard of. I mean, none of this would have happened if Jon had a clear head. This is a very secret organization. Dean Wormer looked at the document and said, It says here that they will own your intellectual property. I said, yes, we agreed to publish the paper. There are no other intellectual property issues. I don't apply for a patent either. He said, yes, but you can apply. So this agreement won't work. You go and ask them to correct this little article, and then you come to me.
I thought, what? Then I said to him, I hope you understand how important this is. If we can't reach an agreement, I will leave my job without pay, and I will still go there to do it. He said, hey, I may not even allow this. I mean, you already have intellectual property rights in your head, and they may dig them up, so that won't do either. [Laughter] It is important to know that you are quarreling with others as soon as possible, and it is equally important to get rid of it as soon as possible.
S
So I said to him, OK, let's meet each other halfway. Do you think this dream project is a good idea for us? He said, I also have countless hearts. I think, um, we have something in common. Then I said, is the question about intellectual property based on what you said? Shouldn't this be judged by the director of the host institute? He said, well, that is. I said, if he agrees, you agree? [He says] Well, I'm fine. Whoosh, like Wile, chasing a bird, a bird [cartoon]. Whoosh, I'm already in Jean Brock's office. He is the best man in the world. I told him, let's talk from a macro perspective, because I don't want to do it anymore. On the whole, do you think this is a good idea? He said, if you ask me, I have information at hand.
Limited, but I know my star teacher is in my office. He is very excited about it, so please tell me more information. This is a lesson for managers. They all said the same thing. But think about what they said. [Growling loudly]: I don't know! [Happy Voice] Well, I don't know much, but my star teacher is very excited here, so I want to know more. Both of them are saying, I don't know, but one is a good method and the other is a bad method. Anyway, we finally solved the problem. I went to the fantasy project. Everyone is happy, and I want to try it.
Some brick walls are made by people. My job is the Aladdin Project. This is a great decision. It's unbelievable. This is my nephew Christopher. [putting Chris's slides on Aladdin's device] This is the device. You sit on this motorcycle-like thing. You can drive your magic carpet and put on a helmet monitor. This helmet monitor is very interesting because it has two parts, which is a very clever design. Only one cap touches the customer's head to transmit data, and other parts-all expensive hardware-can be stuck on the cap. So you can mass-produce hats, and there is basically no cost. So I actually washed my hat during my academic holiday. [Laughter]
I like fantasy engineering. This is an amazing place. It's spectacular. Everything I've ever dreamed of. I like the model studio. People are crawling around on this room-sized model. Walking in that magical place will give you inspiration. I always remember when I went, someone asked, do you think the expectations are too high? I said, have you all seen the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Or Willie Wonka and the chocolate factory? When Wilde told the little boy Charlie that he would give him a chocolate factory. He said, "Charlie, has anyone ever told you the story that the little boy suddenly got everything he wanted?" Charlie opened his eyes wide and said, "No, what happened to him"? Wilde said, "He lived happily ever after". [Laughter]
Ok, I think it's a one-in-five chance to participate in the Aladdin project. It completely changed me. Not only did I participate in a good project, but I also trembled to contact the society and solve the real man-machine interface problem. Most people who do man-machine interface live in this fantasy world composed of white-collar workers with doctoral and master's degrees. You know, if the ice cream doesn't spill on you, you're not doing field work. Most importantly, I learned from Jon Snoddy how to make artists and engineers work together, which is a real legacy.
We published an article. That's really an academic and cultural scandal. When we were writing an article, the people of the fantasy project said, let's put a beautiful big photo on it, too. As you can see in business magazines. For computer graphics professional groups, although accepting articles, it is a deviant behavior. Can they be allowed to do so? There are really no rules! So, we published an article. Surprisingly, all the papers accepted by the computer graphics professional group have the tradition of putting color pictures on the front page. So I changed the world a little bit. Six months later, they came to me and said, Do you really want to be a fantasy engineer? You can stay. I said no, it was the only time in my life that I surprised my father. He said, "You what? You wanted this since you were a child, and now you have it. Are you ...? There used to be a bottle of antacid in my desk drawer. Be careful what you wish for. That's a particularly stressful job. Overall, the pressure of fantasy projects is not so depressing, but which room am I in-oh, Jon left halfway. Many places look like the former Soviet Union. It used to be a little scary. But it worked out in the end. If they say, "Stay or never walk into this building again", I might do it. I may not want tenure, but stay. But they made my choice easy. They said, you can, because you can eat cake. So I basically became a consultant for fantasy projects one day a week and worked for about 10 years. So you should all be professors. Because you can eat both.
Then I consulted some projects, such as Disney adventure and virtual jungle cruise. I think the best interactive experience is Jesse Schell in Pirates of the Caribbean, and he contributed a lot to it. That's great.
These are my childhood dreams. It's good. I feel good, too. Then the next question is, how can we make others realize their childhood dreams? . I'm glad to be a professor again. What can make people realize their childhood dreams better than school? Well, maybe at EA, I don't know. It may be second only to here. When I was at the University of Virginia, a young man named Tommy Bennett approached me and said he was interested in joining my research group. This made me realize that I can help people realize their dreams. Because when we talked, he said, Oh, I have a childhood dream. When people tell you, it is easy to find their dreams. I said, well, Tommy, what was your childhood dream? He said, I want to work for the next Star Wars movie. You must remember when it was. Tommy is there. He came today. What year is this year? You went to college.
Two.