johnhendron.net: hendron’s digest - a weblog

Just yesterday, a colleague of mine shared a video with me, the so-called Last Lecture of Dr. Randy Pausch. It took place in Pittsburgh last September, and who knows why I hadn’t heard about before now.

You likely have heard of it; at almost 2-hours in length, I watched a portion before and after dinner. I became very interested for two reasons.

• This is the guy that started Alice, the 3D programming outfit that’s free for schools and universities to use and that I want to get running at our own high school this year,
• This really was his “last lecture,” as he’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

As one obituary mentioned this morning, we have a different perspective of advice from someone that’s dying.

In reading his obituary in the New York Times, I couldn’t help but focus on the last paragraph which deserves mention. It is trivial in light of the profound advice Professor Pausch gave in his lecture, but, its placement in an article reporting his death today commands us to tap into our sense of humor, something Pausch did repeatedly in his own talks.

Dr. Pausch gave practical advice in his lecture, avoiding spiritual and religious matters. He did, however, mention that he experienced a near-deathbed conversion: he switched and bought a Macintosh computer.