Best Selling Author, Virtual Reality Pioneer Randy Pausch Dies

Randy Pausch, noted human-computer interface scientist and pioneer systems developer in the concept of virtual reality, has died.

Although Pausch's name will be unfamiliar to the majority of visitors to the posting, at the moment you can find it under "Authors" on the New York Times Nonfiction Bestsellers List. You see, Randy Bausch and coauthor Jeffery Zaslow wrote a book called The Last Lecture.

The title of that book, and its subject matter, is based on a series of invited lectures given at Carnegie Mellon University in which the speakers were to give a hypothetical "last lecture" based on what they would say if they knew that they would soon die and about what they had felt to be among the important things that they had learned along life's way.

In Pausch's case, it was to be, literally, a "last lecture." He had been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas a year earlier and knew that he was running out of time. It was that lecture which evolved into the book.

My favorite quote from Pausch's talk that afternoon?

"It's not about how to achieve your dreams, it's about how you lead your life ... If you lead your life in the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you."

I could waste your time, and mine, by trying to summarize what Pausch said in his last lecture. Instead, I'll just say "go listen to it yourself."

Randy Pausch, PhD, was 47 years old.