I was a guest on Chris Matthieu’s Rubyology podcast today.   We talked about the upcoming AdhearsionConf 2010 in San Francisco August 14-15 2010. (among other things)…

You can jump to the Rubyology site or listen below:

 

 Rubyology 86: Adhearsion: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Last August I wrote a post called “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Health Insurance Reform“. When the post hit my Facebook page it ignited quite a discussion…one that ultimately led me to de-friending an old friend on Facebook, and in real life as well.

During this process, the friend in question offered to give me $50 to pay for Health Insurance. While I don’t believe he intended the offer in malice, to me it showed a genuine lack of respect for me as an individual, and a fundamental chasm between the way he and like-minded others looked at their fellow humans.

It wasn’t until I saw this video of a recent Tea Party protest where one angry protester throws dollars at a man with Parkinson’s that I realized the reason why I reacted so negatively to his offer. My friend, regardless of intent, made me feel like the guy with Parkinson’s, sitting silently on the ground while insults and dollars are thrown at him, essentially telling him, “We’re healthy and rich, you’re sick and poor, now go fuck off!” If you haven’t seen the video, here it is:

We live in a world of our own making. How we treat our neighbors, family, friends…even when we disagree is the greatest measure of our humanity.

Before the de-friending occurred, somewhere amidst a $50 Paypal transfer and my outright shock of the depth of his self-entitled rant, he forwarded me a Glenn Beck video and asked me to watch it. Having never actually watched Glenn Beck’s show, I acquiesced. This turned out to be a bad descision.

Thinking that somehow Glenn Beck would convince me that Health Care Reform in this country would lead to Nazism in America was possibly THE WORST argument he could have presented. Here’s the ACTUAL VIDEO he sent me asking me my “honest opinion.”

I honestly didn’t know what to say. Trying to follow Glenn Beck’s line of reasoning or finding accuracy in his logic is like trying build a house of cards with a retarded kid who just keeps screaming “UNO! UNO! UNO!”

So yesterday, after my epiphany about the Tea Party Parkinson’s video, when I saw this brilliant rant about Glenn Beck by Jon Stewart, it all tied together for me:

This is how I lost a friend in the Health Care Reform debate: Compassion.

You see, you can’t quantify compassion. You can’t solve compassion with an equation or by throwing dollars at people any more than you can draw conclusions by drawing circles on a blackboard. When someone is sick, you shouldn’t have to ask if they can afford to live.

It shouldn’t even be a factor.

It’s not my job or my mission to convince my ex-friend otherwise. It just made me sad that he doesn’t see just how wrong he is. Or how he made me feel. Or how he chooses to treat his fellow man. He lacks the fundamental human capacity for compassion. And I choose to not to live in his compassionless world.

If we live in a world of our own design…of our own making…I want mine to be a compassionate world. A happy world. A world where someone with Parkinson’s or Asthma or Cancer doesn’t have to be mocked or condescended to because they are sick, or worry about whether or not their insurance provider will cover this particular trip to the emergency room. That’s MY American dream.

Unfortunately there are some friendships that have been sacrificed along the way. I’ll gladly trade those for logic and reason and compassion any day.

Now I’m going to go outside and enjoy the rest of this beautiful spring day. You should too!

“I’ll just tell you this, if this passes and it’s five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented — I am leaving the country. I’ll go to Costa Rica.”

Nice one Rush.  Costa Rica…with its Universal Health Care…supposedly one of the most comprehensive in Central America.

He’s such a boob.  Why do you listen to him people, why?

Think Progress » Limbaugh vows to flee the country if health care passes..

Since Google launched Google Buzz, I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around their strategy.    One of the first public (Buzzes? Buzzez? Buzz’s?)  I received was from Jeff Pulver, who posted a rather “wait and see” opinion on Buzz…

“Feeling a little buzz around me. It will be interesting to see how this platform evolves. Seems like another piece in the items which will help define the future of how we communicate using non-telephony platforms.” – Jeff Pulver via Buzz.

This prompted a flurry of other comments, including:

Joel Mark Witt - I’m loving Buzz. It is bringing the conversation to me… in my Gmail inbox … where I live most of the time.

geo GELLER - i am not sure this is not another distraction and too landlocked in email – its not twitter – its your email list which is nice but but but and further more hmmm

I commented on the similarity to FriendFeed and how I felt like my Gmail inbox was starting to become almost as forgotten as MySpace (or Orkut!)

Part of the conversation included a discussion of how people are linked up in Buzz.  Google apparently has been autoconnecting Buzz profiles to other Buzz users based on who’s already in your Google Contacts list and this is causing a bit of a stir in the privacy world…

WARNING: Google Buzz Has A Huge Privacy Flaw

Anyway…I agree with Jeff and certainly think  the Buzz has some growing to do.   It’s already much more user-friendly and easier to grasp than Google Wave (I wonder how many Waves there are about Buzz?).  Picasa provides photo sharing…Google chat is already integrated.  And if you integrate Google voice, then you have AudioBoo functionality as well.   Connect your Twitter and Facebook feeds, and suddenly Google is your social networking glue.  They should’ve called it Gluegle.

Buzz might just be Google’s secret back door into social networking.

Oh, and if you’re trying to figure out how to get started with Google Buzz….go here:  http://www.google.com/buzz

December 22 – Red Fox Lounge, Winter Park Florida
December 23 – Red Fox Lounge, Winter Park Florida
December 25 – Howl at the Moon, Orlando

This blog, Diggz.org was nominated for an Orbbie.  I’ve been working on diggz.org for about 10 years.

I mostly write about technology and business stuff, and pretty much I anything that interests me. I make no money from it…just do it for fun.

And awards.

Please vote  (one vote allowed per person per day, Free Orlandosentinel.com registration required)

Here’s the link:  Vote for Diggz.org!

You’ll feel extra good about it all day long.

Check out my recent posts about the man who founded Casselberry, Heath Care, and the best way to fight crime in Orlando.

Despite what a handful of lawmakers may say, the dispute between Google and AT&T over Google Voice is not so much about fairness or rural access as it is about steamy phone sex and piles of money.

These lawmakers, including Steve Buyer, an Indiana Republican and John Shimkus, an Illinois Republican — who have received a combined $200,000 from AT&T and Verizon over their careers, according to Opensecrets.org — have written to the FCC complaining that Google’s refusal to connect expensive rural calls is “ill conceived and unfair to our rural constituents.”

Technically, the dispute is over FCC regulations governing how long-distance and local phone companies pay each other for traffic that passes from national to local networks. Since Congress deregulated the telecommunications industry in 1996, much of this traffic comprises extremely lucrative sex chat lines, which the national carriers wind up paying for. AT&T has never been happy about that, and it’s now livid that Google Voice can avoid having to connect such calls — thus dodging this twisted fee scheme.

AT&T vs. Google Voice: Sex, money, the feds, and your phone bill — DailyFinance.

I’ll be playing again tonight 9/10/09 8:30pm at the Red Fox Lounge.

In case you missed last night…here’s some video…

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2134619

A few months back, Jeff Pulver, a friend and new media guru (amongst many many other things) was lamenting about Facebook’s 5000 friend limit.  Having nowhere near 5000 friends myself, I had no idea that Facebook limits you to 5000 friends.

To work around this limitation, Jeff created a “Fan” page for himself and the spillover Friend requests got funneled into the Fan page.   This got me to thinking about the concept of Friend and Fans.

I’ve noticed a new trend on Facebook…that third column you your main newsfeed page.  The one that usually starts with “Suggestions” and offers you to become fans or friends of new people or things.   You’ve seen them….”Become a fan of Laughing” was one I saw the other day.

Underneath the Suggestions you’ve got your Sponsored Ads.  You may have noticed that sometimes your Ads have fans too (perhaps friends of yours?).  These are simply implied endorsements.   This is where it gets tricky…and might be getting Facebook into some legal trouble.

Is there a distinction between being a Friend and a Fan?   Is Facebook using your “Friendship” or “Fandom” to help market products?  It’s all very gray, but Gawker thinks there may be more to it…

Gawker – Did Julia Allison Break the Law in Search of Facebook Fame? – julia allison.

I was really just testing one of the features of a Wordpress plugin, “Press This”.  But the article is interesting, nonetheless….

In-flight confrontations can lead to terrorism charges – Los Angeles Times.