Last Lecture

(thanks to Paul for pointing me to this)

A couple weeks ago, Randy Pausch (a pioneer in virtual reality and professor at Carnegie Mellon) gave a lecture at CMU on "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". Although dying from pancreatic cancer, Prof. Pausch gave one of the most moving and uplifting lectures I've had the pleasure of seeing.

The lecture is long (over an hour), but pays the viewer back with a glimpse into a wonderful outlook on the world, how to live your life, and our responsibility to those around us to help them live theirs.

As I was watching it, I was reminded of how J. Michael Straczynski (aka, JMS or create of Babylon 5) described actor Andreas Katsulas after he passed away last year. After describing the party Andreas hosted for friends a couple months before his death, JMS shared that by how he lived and laughed and shared the last months of his life, Andreas had shown him the right way to die. With the gift of this lecture, Prof. Pausch has done the same.