By now you’ve probably heard of “The Last Lecture”. Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist, gave the lecture as part of a series where speakers were asked to give a lecture as if it were their last lecture of their life.

For Randy, this was significant. Because he was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer in September, 2006. Doctors told him he would live 3 - 6 months. A year later he delivered “The Last Lecture”:

The speech last fall was part of a series Carnegie Mellon called “The Last Lecture,” where professors were asked to think about what matters to them most and give a hypothetical final talk. The name of the lecture series was changed to “Journeys” before Pausch spoke, something he joked about in his lecture.

“I thought, damn, I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it,” he said.

Randy died at his home in Virginia today. Below is the full lecture. It’s a little over an hour long, but I promise you won’t be disappointed. Be sure to stick around until the end for what Randy calls, “the head fake”. A word of caution, you might want to grab the kleenex.

R.I.P. Randy Pausch (October 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008)

May the best thing that happened to you in 2007 be the worst that happens to you in 2008.

Thank you to all the troops who will be spending this holiday away from your families. You’re in our hearts and prayers. God bless you for your service.

Unbelievable.

HotAir has continuing coverage and more photos.

Here is what the bridge looked like (courtesy of Minneapolis Riverfront Bridges):

Bridge type: steel and concrete deck-arch truss bridge

Designed by the Minnesota Department of Transportation, this bridge has a high water clearance and no mid-river piers in order to facilitate navigation of large vessels up to the two locks at St. Anthony Falls, which were opened four years earlier. The single cross-river arch has a span of 458 feet.

UPDATE: Here is a slideshow of amateur pictures taken at the scene. (Hat tip: The Spike) And Doug Ross has lots of “before” pictures of the bridge in question, too. Really gives you some perspective on the magnitude of this collapse.

UPDATE 2:
President Bush gets blamed in less than 24 hours. A new record.

UPDATE 3:
…and now it’s because of Iraq. Apparently there’s no money left to fix the problems… Note to nutroots: this bridge was deemed “structurally deficient” in 1990… long before Bush and Iraq were available to blame.

May the best thing that happened to you in 2006 be the worst that happens to you in 2007.

Thank you for your continued readership. 2007 will mark my fourth year in this blogging adventure and I couldn’t keep doing it without your support.

From AP:

NEW ORLEANS - A chance to dine with embattled Gov. Kathleen Blanco fetched a winning bid of $1 at a recent fundraising auction hosted by a group of business leaders.

Allah says, “98 cents was skimmed off the top by Louisiana politicians and split 43 ways. The remaining two cents was distributed to Katrina victims, who spent it on strip clubs.”

Priceless.

…you’re too stupid to be operating a computer.

From the press release:

NASA Schedules Briefing to Announce Significant Find on Mars

WASHINGTON - NASA hosts a news briefing at 1 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Dec. 6, to present new science results from the Mars Global Surveyor. The briefing will take place in the NASA Headquarters auditorium located at 300 E Street, S.W. in Washington and carried live on NASA Television and www.nasa.gov.

Any guesses on what they’ve found? Here’s a few ideas:

1. The source of liberalism.

2. John Kerry’s military records.

3. Elvis

4. Iraq’s WMDs

5. Osama bin Laden

6. Britney Spears’ career

7. More Hurricane Katrina evacuees

8. A vast collection of single, unmatched socks

9. The additional votes needed to give Al Gore the 2000 election

10. Aliens willing to do the work Americans won’t

From RedOrbit:

Korean student Jeong-Hyun Lim has been named as the mysterious guitarist who gained vast Internet popularity for his video on the Web site YouTube.

The New York Times reported that since Lim posted a video of himself playing the guitar on YouTube eight months ago, curiosity over the unidentifiable guitarist’s identity has swelled on the Internet due to the musical talent he revealed in the 5-minute, 20-second video.

Lim had chosen to perform a difficult rock arrangement of Johann Pachelbel’s Canon for his video after Taiwanese guitarist Jerry Chang did the same last year, and Lim’s version eventually found its way onto YouTube under the name funtwo.

While Lim has been the subject of much Internet chatter regarding his guitar prowess based on his now famous video, the 23-year-old has remained quite modest.

Some said my vibrato is quite sloppy, Lim told the paper. And I agree that so these days I’m doing my best to improve my vibrato skill.

I first heard about this last week on the news in Chicago. If the video doesn’t completely impress you, how about the fact he’s totally self-taught on the guitar?

Amazing.