Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

[Michael Chui]

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture - UPDATE | ETC Global News

This was an excellent talk, in very many ways. Yes, I know the woman at the beginning is grating; suffer through her, please: the rest of the video is all entirely worth watching.

I'm going to try to get myself a DVD copy of it.

[justfiverules]

- some additional background here:
Randy Pausch Background

Randy is an amazing guy - anyone who has Captain Kirk (William Shatner) send him a card saying "I don't believe in no-win situations" is someone special in my book! (Watch the video to see how and where Star Trek featured in his life...)

Recommended.

[Dan.Linehan]

That... was amazing.

Thank you.

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

That... was amazing.

Thank you.

Quite welcome. People like Pausch is why I'm somewhat glad that CMU rejected me; I would've had quite a dilemma about where to study for an undergraduate degree. As of now, I am seriously considering taking another shot at CMU for my graduate studies, but it's off-target now. Ah well.

[frogcat]

I never saw the video due to time/work constraints, but this article published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was brilliantly written.

CMU professor gives his last lesson on life

He is an inspiration for me.

[Michael Chui]

I really do recommend setting aside some time to watch it when you can. I expect they'll leave it up for some time; space is cheap.

There was a really nice quote somewhere in there that I can't find, where he says that the amount of life you have left shouldn't really change how you live it.

[Jenny]

Quite moving. Thanks Michael.

[Michael Chui]

By the way, you can actually download it in mp4 format here:
Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Oh, and he has a thing here:
Randy Pausch's Home Page

[Michael Chui]

Transcript is up, here:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/Randy/...transcript.pdf

Linked from his website.

[Zukin]

Thanks for the link to the transcript!

I read that he was going to post it sometime, so it's good to see that it's up now.

If anyone believes in remote healing, this may be a good case to try. If you don't believe in it, ignore my comment.

[Zukin]

And I just wanted to add...

Everyone, please avoid cancer risk factors like tobacco, alcohol, refined foods, etc so you can be with your family & friends and live life to the fullest as long as possible.

CANCER RISK FACTORS

[Mark Lapierre]

I'm generally not highly emotional, but even I was moved by his lecture. Thanks Jenny for sending me the link, and thanks Michael for putting it up here.

[JimOfferman]

Wow. What a great lecture. Such awesome stories and what a wise man!

I loved this bit:

So. How do you get people to help you? You can’t get there alone. People have to help you and I do believe in karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to help you by telling the truth. Being earnest. I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short term. Earnest
is long term.

So very true!

[Michael Chui]

I'm still working on learning some of the lessons he offered.

[Lychee]

Too bad most people aren't like this.

[Sarek@Vulcan]

When I saw this thread you talking about a man who tells advice before he dies I didn't expect anything like this, I watched it and it is amazing, lots of positive energy in it and good advice and it was touching.

[Ilya]

Yes the guy is brilliant. But I have this sad thought - would we watch this lecture if he was not dying? I'm not saying that it is a PR stunt, but it tells a lot about what it takes us to listen and to learn from a wise guy.
For example, he has a lecture on time management from 1999. The link can be found on his site. He was as great then as he is now. But this lecture has remained virtually unknown until now. Sad.

It turns out that the guy was working in the field I'm very interested myself - using games for learning. And now I find out about his work, when it's basically too late.

[Michael Chui]

I'm trying to remember how I found out about him, and I can't. I believe that I would have followed him closer if I knew about him sooner, but I can't know that for sure.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I've watched many shows and presentations by people who weren't dying: I'd like to think that I would have watched his even if it wasn't his "last lecture".