Introduction
Randolph Frederick Pausch (October 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) was an American professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Prior to his death from pancreatic cancer, Randy Pausch was most famous his “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” lecture speech (also referred to as “The Last Lecture”) that was delivered on September 18, 2007. Videos of the speech have been hosted on CMU’s dedicated webpage to Randy Pausch and on YouTube. So popular was his speech that, it was later turned into a book that went on to be a New York Times best-seller.
Basic Background
Randy Pausch was born to Fred and Virginia Pausch in Baltimore, Maryland. His father sold insurance, while his mother taught English. After graduating from Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in 1982, Pausch went on to graduate from CMU with a doctorate in computer science in 1988. From there, Pausch was employed as an assistant and associate director in the University of Virginia’s Department of Computer Science till 1997.
1 year after moving to CMU in 1997, Pausch co-funded the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU together with Don Marinelli. Also serving as Director of CMU’s Stage 3 research group, Pausch oversaw the development of Alice, a rapid-prototyping environment for interactive 3d graphics and virtual reality which he had initiated.
An award-winning teacher and researcher, he also worked with big companies like Adobe, Google, Electronic Arts (EA).
The Last Lecture
Randy Pausch’s magnum opus comes in the form of his lecture speech “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” delivered on September 18, 2007. Pausch later worked with Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Zaslow to turn the contents of his speech into a book titled “The Last Lecture”.
Even when faced with imminent death from pancreatic cancer, Pausch was upbeat and humorous throughout his entire speech. From talking about his early childhood dreams, how he accomplished (or tried to accomplish) them, and how sometimes, he had to change goals and adjust objectives along the way. Pausch also talked about how he tried in the best of his efforts to help others accomplish theirs, ended by encouraging the audience to achieve their dreams and to help enable the dreams of others.
The video of his lecture has reached millions and touched many people. Thousands of people contacted him later to say he had made an impact on their lives. His lecture also had a positive effect on people who were terminally ill.”I’m dying and I’m having fun. And I’m going to keep having fun every day, because there’s no other way to play it.
Based on this speech, a book was later compiled to showcase “last lecture” speeches from professors from all over the world often give speeches. During such speeches, the professors imagine their death and then speculate on what is most important to them in their lives. As contributed from Urmila: “… sadly enough in the case of Randy Pausch, he did not need to imagine his death, as by this time he was already aware of his imminent death, his pancreatic cancer having been diagnosed as terminal. Yet, the speech he gave that September day was not about dying, but living. He very rightly said, “Time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”. I actually agree with him. We all know that we will die one day or the other and I guess life is not about worrying about when it is that we will die but what we can do to make our lives seem fruitful. As Randy Pausch said, “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand”
Death of Randy Pausch
Randy Pausch died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 47 on Friday, July 25th, 2008 in Chesapeake, Virginia. He is survived by his wife Jai, and 3 children: Dylan, Logan and Chloe.
Alice
Alice is a radically different programming platform that helps students to learn computer programming. This software was aimed at attracting more women to the world of programming.Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create animations for storytelling and games. It’s interesting to note that Alice 3.0 software features characters from The Sims(A groundbreaking game produce by Electronic Arts).
Alice 2.0
Good things about Alice 2.0
It lowers the barrier towards programming because basic programming can only produce command line outputs which may be very discouraging to new programmers aspiring to produce the next Microsoft Windows. This is achieved by vibrant colours and drag-and-drop combined with quite accurate “what you see is what you get”. Also, the “language” in Alice is expressed quite close to our naturally language.
Bad things about Alice 2.0
I think Alice is still quite buggy especially the copying and dropping of blocks of code. Also, Alice offers very limit amount of typing. Simple things like x = x + 1 has to be clicked and dragged and dropped.
Story telling Alice
Currently only available on windows: http://www.alice.org/kelleher/storytelling/download.html
Alice 3.0
Carnegie Mellon will be working with PC game maker Electronic Arts Inc. (who owns “The Sims” series of games). By using characters from “The Sims”, Alice avatars will be more life-like and customizable
View the article
Reflection on Alice 2.0
While using Alice, i came across Popfly (poster for the mashup competition). I feel that their fundamental similiarity is that they allow applications to be made by drag-and-drop. I think these events signify a programming paradigm to a “higher level” language.
Programming used to be (and still mostly is) typing of words and compiled by the compiled. The appearance of Alice and Popfly changes the “language” used. Instead of plain text for symbols, identifiers; the same symbols and identifiers are represented using graphics.
I’m not sure how the early languages fared in terms of inherent bugs while compiling, Alice does have a long way to go to become a “language” to be taken as seriously as Java.
I also feel that Alice has brought animating to a level possible for people of almost all ages. One of the commercial implications might be that the advertising industry will face more competition because 3D videos can be made easier.
Famous Quotes by Randy Pausch
7 things that mattered most to Randy Pausch
Other Interesting Facts
His love for his family is what everyone should know and should learn from. When he found out he was going to die, he told himslef that he “couldn’t allow himself to wallow in self pity.” Instead, he should walk out any self-pity and live the most out of his life, providing whatever he could to his family. He even said, “I mean, the metaphor I’ve used is … somebody’s going to push my family off a cliff pretty soon, and I won’t be there to catch them. And that breaks my heart. But I have some time to sew some nets to cushion the fall. So, I can curl up in a ball and cry, or I can get to work on the nets.”
Notable Awards
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