Author Archives: Scott C. Lemon

About Scott C. Lemon

I'm a techno futurist, interested in all aspects of humanity, sociology, community, identity, and technology. While we are all approaching the Singularity, I'm just having fun effecting the outcomes of the future!

Adam Curry … the Father of Podcasting!

Posted on by
Reply

I know that this is somewhat old news … almost two months … but I
am now catching up on my blogging after completing the first cut of my
new tool. (Yeah … I know … I’m talking so much about a stinkin’
tool for posting to Blogger and Blogspot from Radio Userland
!)

I thought this was a great post for Tablet PC vendors when you get a guy like Adam Curry
to start using Windows on a Tablet PC.  For those who don’t know,
Adam has been hanging out with the Father of Blogging – Dave Winer –
for a long time, and can be considered – IMHO – the Father of
Podcasting.  I’m glad to see him using a Tablet PC and look
forward to more of his writing about it!

If you can’t join them….
Just so you know, I’ve been assimilated. I’ve been learning how to use
my new tablet PC for the past two days. I have to admit, pretty spiffy!
Not only that, but this windows stuff runs some pretty interesting
software. I’m digging the intricacy of sparks. [Adam Curry’s Weblog]

Table PC RSS Feeds

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been wanting to post this for some time now, but didn’t have my
nifty tool to make the post.  Now that I’ve completed my
Radio-to-Atom posting tool, I can get things in gear on getting
information out on this blog.

This was a comment by Scoble about some new sources of Tablet PC information via RSS … some good feeds.

Chris does Tablet PC newsgroup RSS feeds.

Chris De Herrera has built RSS feeds for the Tablet PC newsgroups. That’s cool. Now I can watch what people in those newsgroups are saying in my aggregator.

[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]

The first post with my RadioAtomBridge tool

Posted on by
Reply

Well … I appreciate everyone tolerating my flurry of test posts
tonight.  I am close to having completed my tool that allows me to
now post from Radio Userland
to my Blogger.com and Blogspot.com weblogs. 
This tool installs into Radio, and allows me to write off-line and then
post to my weblogs using the Atom API web services.

This post will tell me if I have it figured out.  It’s not perfect
… there is still one thing that I have to resolve, but it ought to be
functional for now!

Thanks again …

More Radio Hacking

Posted on by
Reply

I am still doing some experimentation with Radio Userland
after my success
last night.  I know … a lot of people don’t understand what the
big deal is … but this is more research that I am doing into the
future of blogging, and various blogging tools.

For a long time I have been looking at how to create the ultimate
blogging tool … a way to be able to post to numerous blogs – both
public and private – easily from one tool.  I’m now getting closer
to the model that I want … and will then be able to see which
implementation wins.

This post is actually a test of some other minor changes (damage?) that
I made to Radio this morning … I talked with Steve Kirks at Userland
and he gave me some very good tips.

Posting to Blogger/Blogspot using the Atom API

Posted on by
Reply

Ok … I was able to get my first “test” post through late last night
… well … early this morning.  I now have a basic framework of
code for Radio that is able to post to Blogger.com or Blogspot.com using the Atom API.  Woo hoo!

I do not yet have this completed for redistribution … but soon
will.  I was able to do this by creating hacked copies of Dave
Winer’s blogger.newPost methods, and creating a blogger.newAtomPost
method.  I did one quick test post, and then headed to bed. 
There are a couple of bugs that I have to work out, and then I was to
see if I can hack this into the #upstream.xml
file processing.  I’d like to simply be able to put a line in the
#upstream.xml file that indicates that I want to upstream using the
Atom API.

If not, then I’ll still end up creating a seperate tool that will be a fork of the xManilaBloggerBridge
tool written by Steve Hooker.  Fun stuff … I’m glad that I took
the time to write this … it was a good learning experience.

P.S. For anyone who wants to use the xManilaBloggerBridge tool with
Radio and Blogger, I found that there are two core changes to get this
working … I had to search for “metaWeblog.” and comment out the calls
to these methods, and then look right next to them and un-comment the
“blogger.” methods.  Once I had done this, the basic Blogger API
stuff started to work just fine.  There is not support for
‘titles’ in the Blogger API though … this is why I pursued the Atom
API support.

Posting to Blogspot using Radio

Posted on by
Reply

I am trying to get my blogging tool – Radio – to post to Blogspot …
and I think that I just got it working.  I’m going to do some
experimentation over the next few days, but this first test
worked.  I was able to get a tool called the xManilaBlogger
Bridge, and then hack the code to get it to use the Bloggr API.

At some point in the future I’ll be modifying the code to see if I am
get this same tool using the Atom API … this will allow me to add
titles, etc.

Cool … this will make it so much easier to keep my Tablet PC Thoughts blog going …

A good anti-phishing solution

Posted on by
Reply

I really liked the idea behind this solution being developed by Bank of America for anti-phishing. 
It’s really the simplicity that I like.  In short, it allows a
bank of America customer to customize the web page for their on-line
services … with a picture of image of their choice.  So now,
when a customer goes to log into the Bank of America site, they can
verify that the image is the one that they picked!

I know that there is still the general phishing scam that can be sent
out indicating that “Oh yeah … we had big problems with your server,
and your image can not be shown!” … or “Uh … we lost your image,
please log in and set your image again!” … but this is a very good
start.

The idea of customizing the page … to maybe even allow the customer
to choose among different types of customization … will allow users
to easily notice the differences in the web site, and then identify
potential phishing scams.

Simple … and a good start.

More on Health Supplements

Posted on by
Reply

I did some research this weekend looking into “alpha-lipoic acid” and exacty what it is.  It was interesting to search Google and then start reading through the links.

One of the first links that I found linked to the Berkeley Wellness Letter web site.  This article had some interesting information that brought up another key supplement – carnitine.

One of the best-known proponents of ALA is Dr. Bruce Ames, professor of
molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He has
helped develop and study an ALA supplement called Juvenon, which has been
patented by UC Berkeley. Juvenon, in addition, contains another promising
compound, acetyl-L-carnitine, which is also involved in energy production in the
mitochondria. Ames and his colleagues have found that high doses of these
compounds, in combination, enable elderly rats to function like younger ones. Of
course, the same results may not occur in humans. Human studies are just getting
started.

This led me to search more on this combination of supplements, and I found this article:  Four powerhouse nutrients. 
It’s a facinating article that explains what is now known about the
various compounds that interact within cells to produce energy.

So in my search for a source of alpha-lipoic acid, I could not find it
at Costco … yet.  I was, however able to find it at GNC … in both plain alpha-lipoic acid, and also coupled with carnitine.

Time to head over to GNC …

Modern Health Supplements

Posted on by
Reply

I have a group of friends that I know through John Smart
and his
Acceleration Studies Foundation
.  Many of them are into “life extension” and real modern
health research.  My wife and I recently went to a weekend retreat
in Big Sur California with a large group and hung out talking tech and
planning this year.

One of the topics that came up was Ray Kurzweil‘s new book Fantastic Voyage
.  As quoted from the web site:

Immortality is within our grasp . . .In Fantastic Voyage, high-tech
visionary Ray Kurzweil teams up with life-extension expert Terry Grossman, M.D.,
to consider the awesome benefits to human health and longevity promised by the
leading edge of medical science–and what you can do today to take full
advantage of these startling advances. Citing extensive research findings that
sound as radical as the most speculative science fiction, Kurzweil and Grossman
offer a program designed to slow aging and disease processes to such a degree
that you should be in good health and good spirits when the more extreme
life-extending and life-enhancing technologies–now in development–become
available. This bridge to the future will enable those who dare to make the
journey from this century to the next . . . and beyond.

There is a lot of interesting research going on in the world, and this
book begins to outline some theories about how we can assist our bodies
in their operation, and how to stay healthy while new sciences discover
new ways to allow us to live longer.

During some of the discussions, there was a consistant agreement that
three daily supplements are showing great signs of keeping you healthy
and full of energy.

  • Enteric Coated Fish Oil (Omega-3 Fatty Acids)
  • Co-enzyme Q10 (coQ10)
  • Alpha-lipoic Acid

I recently read a great article in NewScientist “11 steps to a better brain” which mentioned the Fish Oil again:

Brains are around 60 per cent fat, so if trans-fats clog up the system, what
should you eat to keep it well oiled? Evidence is mounting in favour of omega-3
fatty acids, in particular docosahexaenoic acid or DHA. In other words, your
granny was right: fish is the best brain food. Not only will it feed and
lubricate a developing brain, DHA also seems to help stave off dementia. Studies
published last year reveal that older mice from a strain genetically altered to
develop Alzheimer’s had 70 per cent less of the amyloid plaques associated with
the disease when fed on a high-DHA diet.

Ok … sold.  I found this supplement as capsuls on the Costco website.  Added to the shopping list.

The next thing that I went looking for was coQ10 and so I searched Google for coQ10.  While reading through a bunch of these links, I then found some comments about coQ10 and statin drugs. 
These are the class of drugs that include Lipitor and Zocor, and are
used to lowering cholesterol levels in the blood.  For over a year
now I have been taking Zocor, and so this peaked my interest.  Not
only is coQ10 something of value to the average person, it appears that
coQ10 has some extra value to statin drug users.  (Whoa … a drug
user!)  I read “Side Effects of Lipitor, Zocor, and Other Statin Drugs“, and also “CoQ10“. 
Ok … again I’m sold.  I also found this one on teh Costco web
site.  Added this one to the shopping list and ran over to buy
them.

As of yesterday I’m adding these two to my diet, and now I’m going to
investigate the third … time to read up about “Alpha-lipoic acid” …
interesting stuff …