hmkuldell:

Reading Salon’s The best viral video of the decade, and I saw a vid I hadn’t seen. Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” is a bigger time investment than what I normally dedicate to YouTube videos, but this one — all hour and 16 minutes of it — is worth it. At the end of every year I look at what I’ve done, what I could do better and what I want to do, so this lecture fit right in.

Salon’s description:

In the fall of 2006, Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch learned he had pancreatic cancer. He was given a fatal prognosis of death within a few months. A year later, he delivered a speech at the school titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” The talk, part of series centered on the imperative of a hypothetical parting shot of wisdom, was in Pausch’s case all too literal. Witty, inspiring and darkly frank, Pausch’s Last Lecture opened with a PowerPoint CT scan of his tumors and featured plainspoken advice like, “The best gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap.” Life, for all of us, is a terminal condition. Pausch, who died in July 2008, showed us how to stage its final act.

Great video, great person.  Definitely something that helps put everything in perspective for the new year.