I heard about this today. Randy Pausch, the author of Alice, is dying of pancreatic cancer. It's become commonplace for universities to have "last lectures" from dignitaries, but on the news of his fate Pausch gave a touching last lecture recently. Here's an article on it:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119024238402033039.html
---Mark mmille10@comcast.net
also mark guzdial who attended Randy Pausch's last lecture has written a moving blog about it which includes links to videos of the lecture http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK1LG69K8X6WGH9
squeakland@lists.squeakfoundation.org