Tony is a Geek

Last week, I republished my "old" article on IBM developerworks as it had defaulted into "draft" mode as I hadn't kept it up to date.  So I make a few tweaks and republished it. https://developer.ibm.com/recipes/tutorials/create-a-3d-digital-human-with-ibm-watson-assistant-and-unity3d/   I then noticed that I could potentially use it for the content of an internal IBM badge for Intellectual Capital, so I applied for it and got the badge. https://www.youracclaim.com/badges/b851fb86-d554-4d56-ba80-dc37199a8b94 Then I was asked by the reviewer, James Belton, if he could publish on LinkedIn / Twitter about the article as he was genuinely impressed and was actually going to follow it himself this weekend: This got me thinking.  Maybe I should do a refresh, start again article, seeing as this article originally started life in early 2018.  I mean technology has moved on soooo much since then, hasn't it?.... .....well, apparently not!.... An internal request came u...

  Epic Games’ MetaHuman Creator lets developers create realistic digital humans within minutes Why is this relevant?  Well.....way-back-when....I was looking into having Digital Humans as an interface for things such as Chatbots etc... and to be honest, the technology was at 2 extremes.  You had the likes of Soul Machines that would ask you to part with a few million quid for an awesomelly realistic digital human interface or you could use the Open Source version that was, well, let's just say, a bit 1995 PS1 style , but it would kind of do the job. Well....now, you can create that Soul Machines level of Digital Human and not only that, you can do it pretty quickly too. I might have to go back and create a new updated developer article using the new technology. https://venturebeat.com/2021/02/10/epic-games-metahuman-creator-lets-developers-create-realistic-digital-humans-within-minutes/ https://venturebeat.com/2021/02/10/epic-games-metahuman-creator-lets-developers-cr...

As an amusing piece of BBC News, this story came out after I published the info about it being BBS time, well, I was writing it for what seems like ages, so maybe it was 10 mins before or after, whatever.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55908193 The funny thing is.... he's a multi-millionaire sitting on a tax haven island someplace getting bored - yes, read how much he sold the Bebo site for,........twice!  Yes, I fully appreciate that he had to put the "hard work in" in the first place to make it happen, in essence fleecing people for their details and then flogging all that data to a company who was going to try and find a way to exploit it and/or sell it to others.... That's not what I wanted to focus on though, what I was amused by was the fact that he is sitting there, bored stupid (island or no island) and he's fed up with Social Media sites ( as I was eluding to in this Page ), and was no doubt thinking to himself.... hmmmm.... what the world need...

" What the...? Why?.....Really?.... Have you got nothing better to do? " These are all the types of phrases I've heard from Mrs.IsAGeek all week....well, I am on "vacation" this week, during a Global pandemic, with a Lockdown being placed on us all...so I can't go anywhere... So, what is a late 40s IT Geek meant to do?.... setup a BBS, of course! CLICK HERE FOR A VISUAL AND TEXTUAL DESCRIPTION OF HOW TO DO THAT So, fire up your 56k Baud modem, strap yourself in.....and let's go back to the 1990s! CLICK HERE FOR A VISUAL AND TEXTUAL DESCRIPTION OF HOW TO DO THAT and yes, here is a teaser - I did indeed get it all working (eventually), well, nearly, kind of.... Yep, those are real files available within the BBS....for me to download and use on the IBM PC 110 device.... except that one is precious, I'll wait until I get some of the TFT screens setup on the other devices before I use this too much.  Still, pretty awesome though.  Sigh...I'm such a ge...

Okay, so these particular one's are not "new", they have been sitting on the shelf for the past few years gathering a bit of dust.  I did stick 2xAA batteries in the back (as that is all they need), but they turned on and went straight off again.... I assumed they were broken or something.  Then I found the CMOS battery slot hidden behind the IR cover, swapped that out for a new one and plugged the external PSU for the Atari Portfolio (more about that later!) in and lo'and'behold, we have working devices!  I started with the 1MB model, just to make sure I didn't fry anything and then I moved over to the more "precious" 2MB model.  I also switched out the Duracell batteries for rechargeable ones and then had to find out how to "up" the contrast so I could see stuff! Well, I was mightily impressed by these little devices, they are awesomely powerful with their little 486 motherboards and no moving parts.  They run MS-DOS v5 too...  I'll f...

UPDATE: okay, okay, okay....so my time machine is playing havok with me at the moment, I got my timeline out of sync.... apparently this event is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN for another 3 WEEKS!  But, it will happen and I imagine the following will still be 100% valid :-) ..... so...this weekend will be noted by most people as being pretty much the same as the past X amount of weekends during the COVID-19 lockdown...it'll involve minimal "going out", maybe an essential trip to the supermarket and far too much viewing of Netflix or Amazon Prime. However, I am a little shocked (but not surprised) about the total lack of news / information that this weekend is also the time when 'Perseverance' is going to land on Mars.  Yes, yet another piece of robotic NASA junk is going to be hurled at Mars, drive around a bit, crush some rocks, gather some questionably grainy images and pretty much not do much and be a total waste of "normal" peoples time.... Well..... this tim...

Well, the plan is to "finish" off the mess I made in the garden during Lockdown v1.0... but current snow & freezing weather conditions may put a halt to that, we'll see.... it might be nice to get outside for 4-5 hours per day, moving soil around and filling in the failed "canal" that I built.... anyway, if it does end up being a week of sitting inside with the heating on....I'll make sure I flick through this book: Although, that IBM PC 110 will always be winking at me from the background, wanting me to "do something" with them....we'll see...