Flutterby™! : Randy Pausch's last lecture

Next unread comment / Catchup all unread comments User Account Info | Logout | XML/Pilot/etc versions | Long version (with comments) | Weblog archives | Site Map | | Browse Topics

Randy Pausch's last lecture

2007-09-20 19:07:18.334482+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

Ripping off a MetaFilter entry feels like it's cheating, but the entry on Randy Pausch's last lecture deserves some wholesale distribution. Randy Pausch is dying of liver cancer. He's also a virtual reality pioneer, university professor, and lots of other stuff. On September 18th he gave a lecture on "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". You can read the Wall Street Journal's summary, but I started up the direct feed on a side computer, in VLC, to listen to it, and it's grabbed me.

For Eric it's a good look at someone who's found tremendous fulfillment in teaching and academia. For me it was a reminder of the earlier days of real time computer graphics. It's got some good notes on parenting, kids, dreams, computer graphics and programming, all sorts of cool stuff. It's funny, poignant, and if you were going to waste somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours on a rented movie, this'd be worth a watch instead.

And he considers the Alice project his professional legacy, if you're interested in VR or teaching programming that looks worth checking out.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Software Engineering Current Events Graphics Pop Culture Education Video Economics ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2007-09-20 20:53:23.587362+00 by: Diane Reese

It's marked to watch this evening, thanks.

(As an aside, I learned through reading Pausch's pages that my college advisor is now the President of CMU, and has been for the past decade! Shows how attentive I've been, huh. Heh, maybe I should have encouraged S#2 to apply there after all...)

#Comment Re: made: 2007-09-24 14:46:54.199096+00 by: Dan Lyke

Ideas In Food had an embedded video link to the 5 minute summary.

#Comment Re: made: 2007-09-26 01:18:33.283191+00 by: Dan Lyke

And, for the archives, Google Video link.