讀書報告 - The Last Lecture
有一天媽媽看其他的兩周一聚博友提起 Randy Pausch 的 The Last Lecture，牽起了一些思緒，因為 Randy 是在壯年時死於 Pancreatic Cancer。
第二天，媽媽見爸爸在看一本新書，「噢，是不是那個死於 Cancer 的 Professor？」。原來巧合地爸爸剛剛買了這本書，「現在也是好 hit 呢。」，「是的，剛剛有網友提及過呢！」
晚上，爸爸媽媽趁清林睡了，在房裡煲 Video，看畢了他的 Last Lecture - Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams 的錄影。
有興趣的可在這裡觀看：http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
當然，後來也讀完了他的書。書是寫於 Last Lecture 之後。內容除了有提及 Last Lecture，也有另外加入的。書不是他自己寫的，寫手是一個 WSJ 的 writer，據說，他是每天趁踏單車鍛鍊身體時邊用電話和 writer 「寫」完這本書。
Catch attention 的，除了 Pancreatic Cancer 外，Randy 是一個 Professor of Computer Science。因為，媽媽從前也是學 Computer Science 和 Electronic Engineering（對不起，從外表怎也看不出來的，太多人問過媽媽是不是讀文科的），看到書中提及的術語，例如 "ping"，好有親切感的。
另外，Randy 也教過 User Interface 科的，聽上來，這一科好像是一科「閒科」，他為了引起大家的興趣，第一課時就在學生面前「活活地」用鎚打爛一部 User Interface 好差勁的 VCR，"When we make something hard to use, people get upset. They become so angry that they want to destroy it. We don't want to create things that people will want to destroy." 果然，學生們都對這一課「另眼相看」。
媽媽從前的工作崗位也是和這些領域有關，亦受過 Usability 的訓練，所以對 Randy 所談及的也好有同感。User Interface and Usability 絕對是一個 technology product 的成功要素，看看 Apple Google Nokia 就明白。
Randy 真是一個好老師。
如他自己所說，寫這本書，主要是想留給他三個兒女的。他是一個這麼成功這麼有智慧一生這麼多 Fun 的人，真正遺憾的，就是不能陪著三個兒女長大。
書中的內容大都是人生的智慧。不妨在這裡引幾句點子。
﹣Head fake: teaches people things they don't realize they are learning until well into the process.
﹣Brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.
﹣When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it's really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.
﹣It can be a very disruptive thing for parents to have specific dreams for their kids. As a professor, I've seen many unhappy college freshmen picking majors that are all wrong for them. Their parents have put them on a train, and too often, the result is a train wreck.
﹣There's a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. It's not something you can give; it's something they have to build. My Coach Graham know there was really one one way to teach kids how to develop it: You give them something they can't do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process.
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