Articles for July, 2008
This has been around a lot (I even saw it mentioned in my local newspaper) so it’s probably not news to anyone, but I wanted to save this link so I can find it again.
This is definitely an amazing, thought-provoking look at leading a rich and fulfilling life, from someone who knew he didn’t have long to live and yet still showed more energy and excitement for life than just about anyone:
Dr. Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon CS professor, Dead at 47 (TechCrunch)
Wow. I go on vacation and come back to find that I someone has been impersonating me. How did I discover this horrible fact? The 360 Flex folks posted an interview with me, but I sure don’t remember meeting up with them. What’s more, the alleged interview takes place in a Starbucks, and I don’t ever remember going into a Starbucks before. (At least my imposter did his homework enough to know that I don’t drink coffee.)
Okay, so I did know that they interviewed me (although in my memory it didn’t happen at Starbucks), and those are in fact my answers to their questions. (I actually wish they had reformatted them a bit. I think they are a bit tough to understand as they appear in the post but I didn’t realize the context in which the answers would be presented.) In any case it’s quite a silly read, and the other speaker interviews they’ve posted are even funnier. Poor Tom sure puts up with a lot of heckling from John.
Although I’ve never been to 360 Flex before, I’ve always wanted to go. I was fortunate enough to get chosen as a speaker — hopefully my presentation will turn out well enough that they’ll let me come back again =). And I definitely meant it when I said that there are so many presentations I’m looking forward to, that there was no way I could limit my list to just two!
Oh, and I suppose I should make two small corrections. One, i haven’t actually started working on my slides/presentation content for 360 Flex yet (oops!). Two, as of now I’m not planning to include any stick figures in my presentation. That’s not to say I never have, however =)
P.S. I know the issue of identity theft is a real one, and a very serious one. In fact a couple of weeks ago I thought I might had been a victim of identity theft (expected bills and checks were missing from my mail) and it was very disturbing. So please don’t take my joke about someone impersonating me as a sign that I don’t think identity theft is a real, serious issue!