I Turned Myself Into an Action Figure

I Turned Myself Into an Action Figure

Part of being in tech, especially in emerging memory technology, is constantly switching between the serious and the surreal. One day you’re in kernel debug mode, the next you’re explaining complex system architectures on a whiteboard, and then suddenly you’re jumping on the latest craze such as making yourself into an action figure.

It’s fun. It’s human. And honestly? It’s a reminder not to take yourself too seriously. (Even if your job title suggests differently)

Why Blister Packs Are Suddenly Everywhere

If you’ve been seeing action figure-style blister packs all over your timeline lately, you’re not imagining things; it’s a full-blown craze.

This trend kicked off when OpenAI released the ChatGPT-4o model on May 13, 2024, and introduced a set of new image generation capabilities that included more refined control over layout, packaging design, and high-fidelity photo rendering. People instantly began using it to turn themselves (and their friends, pets, and even fictional alter-egos) into collectible-style figures—complete with accessories, personality-driven packaging, and clever titles.

Why blister packs? They’re nostalgic, instantly recognizable, and strangely satisfying. The combination of pop culture toy aesthetics with modern personal branding hits a sweet spot. Whether you’re a tech professional, artist, or just someone who loves a good meme, these creations are the perfect blend of humor, identity, and design.

For me, it was a way to merge my professional identity with a playful twist. I spend my days working on serious memory tech—CXL, persistent memory, data platforms—but this was a chance to repackage that story (literally) in a totally unexpected way.

Plus… who wouldn’t want to be their own action figure?

The Prompt

Here is the prompt I used to create the final image

Create an image. Create an action figure of the person in the photo.

Next to the figure, there should be the toy’s equipment, each in its individual blister.

1. A book called “Programming Persistent Memory”. Use the attached book cover image
2. Cell Phone
3. A MacBook Pro (closed)
4. The MemVerge logo (Use the attached logo)

Don’t repeat the equipment under any circumstances. 

The blister pack should have a black header with a large white text –Steve Scargall – with smaller white text underneath – Director of Product Management. The blister pack background should be beige with a black border.

Visualize this in a realistic way. The action figure must retain my facial features with a smiling expression, and be rendered in high-detail, photorealistic quality.

The Result

While the result is very impressive this generation/version of the model struggles to maintain the original facial features, so you end up with something that doesn’t quite resemble your original image.

Blister Pack Steve

Final Thoughts – Collect ’Em All!

Honestly, this whole thing was way more fun than I expected. I got to see myself as a mini collectible, complete with accessories I actually use every day. There are lots of model styles, so maybe this is the start of the Tech Legends collection. Next time I’ll convert this to a 3D model that I can print on my 3D printer. Time to turn them into shelf-worthy greatness.

How to Build acpidump from Source and use it to Debug Complex CXL and PCI Issues

How to Build acpidump from Source and use it to Debug Complex CXL and PCI Issues

This article is a detailed guide on how to build the latest version of the acpidump tool from its source code. While many Linux distributions, like Ubuntu, offer a packaged version of this utility, it’s often outdated. For developers and enthusiasts working with modern hardware features, particularly those related to Compute Express Link (CXL), having the most current version is essential.

Before you begin, it’s important to remove any old, conflicting versions of the tools. If you have previously installed the acpica-tools package from your distribution’s repository, you should remove it to prevent conflicts.

Read More
Your Personal Codespace: Self-Host VS Code on Any Server

Your Personal Codespace: Self-Host VS Code on Any Server

GitHub Codespaces and other cloud IDEs have revolutionized development, offering a complete VS Code environment that runs on a remote server and is accessible from any browser. It’s a game-changer for productivity and flexibility.

But what if you could have that same powerful, seamless experience on your own terms?

This guide will show you how to build your very own private Codespace, replicating the convenience of the GitHub experience on any server you control—be it a machine in your home lab, a dedicated server, or a budget-friendly cloud VM. We’ll explore two distinct paths to get you up and running with a persistent, browser-based VS Code instance on Ubuntu 24.04, complete with AI assistants like Gemini and GitHub Copilot to boost your workflow.

Read More
Programming Persistent Memory: A Comprehensive Guide for Developers Book

Programming Persistent Memory: A Comprehensive Guide for Developers Book

After many months of hard work by everyone involved, I’m very pleased to announce that the book “Programming Persistent Memory: A Comprehensive Guide for Developers” is now available for download in digital PDF & ePUB formats from https://pmem.io/book , and Kindle & paperback through Amazon .

Beginner and experienced programmers will use this comprehensive guide to persistent memory programming. You will understand how persistent memory brings together several new software/hardware requirements, and offers great promise for better performance and faster application startup times―a huge leap forward in byte-addressable capacity compared with current DRAM offerings.
This revolutionary new technology gives applications significant performance and capacity improvements over existing technologies. It requires a new way of thinking and developing, which makes this highly disruptive to the IT/computing industry. The full spectrum of industry sectors that will benefit from this technology include, but are not limited to, in-memory and traditional databases, AI, analytics, HPC, virtualization, and big data.   
Programming Persistent Memory describes the technology and why it is exciting the industry. It covers the operating system and hardware requirements as well as how to create development environments using emulated or real persistent memory hardware. The book explains fundamental concepts; provides an introduction to persistent memory programming APIs for C, C++, JavaScript, and other languages; discusses RMDA with persistent memory; reviews security features; and presents many examples. Source code and examples that you can run on your own systems are included.
What You’ll Learn
- Understand what persistent memory is, what it does, and the value it brings to the industry
- Become familiar with the operating system and hardware requirements to use persistent memory
- Know the fundamentals of persistent memory programming: why it is different from current programming methods, and what developers need to keep in mind when programming for persistence
- Look at persistent memory application development by example using the Persistent Memory Development Kit (PMDK)
- Design and optimize data structures for persistent memory
- Study how real-world applications are modified to leverage persistent memory
- Utilize the tools available for persistent memory programming, application performance profiling, and debugging
Who This Book Is For
C, C++, Java, and Python developers, but will also be useful to software, cloud, and hardware architects across a broad spectrum of sectors, including cloud service providers, independent software vendors, high performance compute, artificial intelligence, data analytics, big data, etc. 

Read More