Randy Pausch, the Carnagie-Mellon computer scientist with terminal cancer whose “Last Lecture” video lit up the Internet last year, has lost his battle with cancer. He was 47 years old.
His “Last Lecture” video was inspiring, and touching. I remember thinking this healthy-looking, optimistic guy couldn’t possibly be dying, but sadly I was proven wrong. He must have been an amazing professor and a wonderful dad and husband.
Go watch his Last Lecture if you haven’t seen it already, and also see his surprise commencement speech in May. And then go hug your loved ones.
Randy came down to UNC while I was there and I was privileged enough to have him teach me how to use Alice. I didn’t realize it at the time but that was when he was courting Jai. Jai was the UNC Comp Sci Outreach Coordinator at the time. She soon left and I ended up taking her place as Outreach Coordinator for the next year.
Probably my most vivid memory of Randy was having lunch with him and Russ Taylor at 411 West in Chapel Hill and listening to him expound on why he thought Amazon.com was a good stock to buy (this would have been spring of 1999, if I recall correctly). He seemed very sure of himself, almost cocky, but very straight forward without any hint of guile.
He will definitely be missed. 🙁
Thanks for sharing that, Tanner. I’d love to hear other stories you may have about him.