Blayne Sucks

For those of you who don’t know, Randy Pausch is a Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also dying of cancer. He is 46 years old.

As many other people, I have been following Randy Pausch’s battle with pancreatic cancer for a while now. You can read my previous posts here, here and here. When I first posted about his last lecture, the wave of media was just starting. Since that time his exposure and impact have absolutely ballooned to unreal proportions. (Note: This is almost certainly not related to my blog. ) I strongly urge you to take some time and dig beneath the media hype to learn what Randy Pausch is all about. He does not disappoint.

His famous Last Lecture has been profiled on Oprah and he’s been interviewed by Diane Sawyer. Just recently he sat down with Time Magazine for their 10 Questions article. His lecture has been turned into a book and has become an instant success. It has become the overall bestselling book on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, and the New York Times Bestsellers lists. If you only read one book this spring, make it this one. I know I’m looking forward to next month when I’ll have enough time to read it.

As a former member of the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers Rube Goldberg team, I was extremely pleased to see that they recently won the national competition! If you have never heard of the Rube Goldberg competition before, then you’ll definitely want to check out this summary page that describe the history of the contest at Purdue. You can also read more comments on the Slashdot article.