Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams (2007) [video]

Re:Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dream... by qntty on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @06:28PM (#24994139)

The first time this went around in 2007, watching it made me feel like an alien. Everybody seemed to find it so inspiring, but I just found it kind of sad. The whole thing about being a Disney engineer seemed like such a manufactured dream. I don't want to criticize someone who died too young, but it just all seems so empty to me. I don't understand why a tenured professor who has all the freedom in the world would choose to go out of his way to work for such an evil corporation. It's kind of funny that Disney ended up being the embodiment of all the villains in their movies.

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Re:Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dream... by crysin on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @06:36PM (#24994190)

He wanted to create something that brought joy to children. As "evil" as Disney may or may not be, being an Imagineer and getting to use your technical skills to bring enjoyment to kids is something he felt very passionately about. Being a tenured professor doesn't give you the same outreach as working for Disney does when building an amusement park ride.

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Re:Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dream... by qntty on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @06:46PM (#24994269)

I understand the appeal, it just still baffles me that everybody who had anything to say about found it inspiring, since I find it so distasteful. Not that it's wrong to feel that way, but it's just strange to me that nobody seemed to have a problem with it.

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Re:Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dream... by shoreofwonder on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @06:52PM (#24994319)

The Cory Doctorow book "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" (readable for free online) captures the duality of Disney very well.

On one hand, it produces brilliant, creative, high quality work, and makes it accessible to everyone. On the other hand, it's quite willing to destroy everyone else's work in order to ensure it stays on top.

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Re:Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dream... by cambalache on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @10:06PM (#24995304)

> and makes it accessible to everyone

If you pay. It heavily litigates you if you even put a decal of their characters (many who were taken from common European folklore) in your child care center. Disney has been the worst influence on copyright law in the US. Tt's impossible to assess its impact but I wouldnt be surprised if the monetary value of that stiffing of use would be in the hundreds of million.

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Re:Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dream... by yesenadam on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @09:03PM (#24995024)

Download in multiple formats here https://craphound.com/down/download/

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Re:Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dream... by orsenthil on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @11:54PM (#24995767)

I understand this comment completely. I got 'inspired' by the lecture and book, and was excited a join a company that is so highly portrayed in that book/lecture.

I had to leave within a year as I realized it was not suitable for me.

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Re:Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dream... by aitchnyu on Thursday November 05, 2020 @09:26AM (#24998490)

In his book, he talked how an act of kindness he encountered by Disney staff as a child led his parents to get $100000 of tickets for their charity over the years. As an employee, he got execs to confess Disney wont do that anymore.

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Re:Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dream... by cambalache on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @10:09PM (#24995323)

I dont know why you are being downvoted I thought the same. People were raving at the time and I couldnt get the point. I mean, I understand that personally for Mr Pausch it was a cruel tragedy and I see that he spoke from his heart, but the message was pedestrian if not cliche. I think we can be adult enough to empathize with the person and offer a fair criticism of his work.

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