"The Last Lecture" is the best hour of video I've watched in a long time...

The first vid is about 9 minutes long and from ABC news... The second vid is the full lecture - about an hour long. If it sounds at all like something you're interested in, or you need a shot of Grade A pure optimism in your life, I can't recommend it highly enough.

Randy Pausch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"Randy Pausch (born Randolph Frederick Pausch on October 23, 1960) is a Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In September 2006, he was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer. He pursued a very aggressive cancer treatment that included major surgery and experimental chemotherapy; however in August of 2007 he was told that the cancer had metastasized to his liver and spleen. He then started palliative chemotherapy intended to extend his life as long as possible, which was then estimated to be three to six months. He remains vigorous and active six months later (February 2008.)



"Last Lecture"

Pausch delivered his "Last Public Lecture", entitled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", at CMU on September 18, 2007. This talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk", i.e., "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?"

...During the lecture, Pausch was upbeat and humorous, alternating between wisecracks, insights on computer science and engineering education, advice on building multi-disciplinary collaborations, working in groups and interacting with other people, offering inspirational life lessons, and performing push-ups on stage.

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