Randy Pausch, the com­put­er sci­ence pro­fes­sor from Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty whose “Last Lec­ture” caught the pub­lic imag­i­na­tion, has died of pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. Thanks part­ly to a Wall Street Jour­nal arti­cle writ­ten last Sep­tem­ber, the pub­lic dis­cov­ered the remark­ably upbeat and uplift­ing lec­ture Pausch gave soon after get­ting diag­nosed. Titled “Real­ly Achiev­ing Your Child­hood Dreams” (see video below, or down­load on iTunes here), the lec­ture became a media sen­sa­tion and went viral across the web. And it served as the basis for Pausch’s bestelling book, The Last Lec­ture. If you haven’t seen the video, give it your time. It will teach you some­thing more valu­able than any­thing else we serve up here.

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By now, many of you have prob­a­bly seen (or at least heard about) the last lec­ture by Randy Pausch, a com­put­er sci­ence pro­fes­sor from Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty, who is dying from pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. Enti­tled “Real­ly Achiev­ing Your Child­hood Dreams,” the lec­ture (see video below) is upbeat and uplift­ing with­out being the slight­est bit morose. And it sets an exam­ple for how we can think about liv­ing and dying. The lec­ture has been watched by mil­lions on YouTube, and it serves as the basis for a new book called The Last Lec­ture, which is now the num­ber one best­seller on Ama­zon. We’ve added the video to our YouTube playlist. If you haven’t seen it yet, give it your time. It will teach you some­thing more valu­able than any­thing else we serve up here. Also, you can down­load it on iTunes.