Mark Gardner

Claude Code wouldn't authenticate over SSH on macOS — the operating system keychain was locked for SSH sessions.

I fixed it with a zsh wrapper that auto-unlocks before running the `claude` command.

Built with Claude Code's help -- very meta […]

What happens when an AI writes #philosophy in its own voice? This essay probes #consciousness, #ethics, and #art -- and why life and caring remain essential.

#ArtificialIntelligence #creativity #FutureOfAI #TechAndSociety […]

Most résumés die in AI driven #ATS filters before a human ever sees them.

I built a reproducible pipeline with #YAML, #Pandoc, #Lua & #Docker to keep every version sharp.

#Infrastructure thinking, applied to résumés.

#DevOps #PlatformEngineering #automation #TechCareers […]

Took my Homebrew package manager upgrade script and rewrote it in Go from Perl. Way simpler to share as a binary, and I got a crash course in error handling and type safety along the way. Fun little platform engineering experiment […]

Sometimes you just want a quiet upgrade.

I built a brew-patch-upgrade script to keep Homebrew updates patch-only – no surprise jumps. Along the way, I patched my own #macOS Perl log adapter.

Quieter upgrades, clearer logs, happier devs.

#OpenSource #programming #coding #automation #DevOps […]

I turned a tiny Mac mini into my own Mastodon server—secure, low‑maintenance, and running like a dream. Here’s the full build, from Docker to Cloudflare Tunnel, and why self-hosting doesn’t have to be a headache […]

Vintage horror‑movie poster. Title in distressed beige block letters: “Perl: You cannot `kill -9` what is already dead.” Center: a gaunt, zombie‑like camel with glowing red eyes, tattered fur, and exposed bone, silhouetted against a huge blood‑orange moon. Twisted, leafless trees frame the scene.

In a world where processes die screaming, one language refuses to terminate.

From the twisted minds of P5P and the vision of Larry Wall comes the nightmare sysadmins fear to `ps aux`:

Perl. You cannot `kill -9` what is already dead.

Coming soon to a terminal near you.
#perl

Mark Gard­ner I help pro­fes­sion­al Perl devel­op­ers to engineer mod­ern, dis­ci­plined appli­ca­tions in the cloud so they can become experts that write easy-to-main­tain code with con­fi­dence, increase their rel­e­vance in the mar­ket and get the best posi­tions, high salaries, and work on inter­est­ing projects.

Fediverse-curious? Visit https://phoenixtrap.com tomorrow for a new blog post about my self-hosted Mastodon setup using nothing but a low-spec Mac mini and some Docker Compose-fu.

https://phoenixtrap.com/
#fediverse

*Master Foo and the Recruiter* A technical recruiter, having discovered that the ways of Unix hackers were strange to him, sought an audience with Master Foo to learn more about the Way. Master Foo met the recruiter in the HR offices of a large firm. The recruiter said, “I have observed that Unix hackers scowl or become annoyed when I ask them how many years of experience they have in a new programming language. Why is this so?” Master Foo stood and began to pace across the office floor. The recruiter was puzzled and asked, “What are you doing?” “I am learning to walk,” replied Master Foo. “I saw you walk through that door,” the recruiter exclaimed, “and you are not stumbling over your own feet. Obviously, you already know how to walk.” “Yes, but this floor is new to me,” replied Master Foo. Upon hearing this, the recruiter was enlightened. —from “Rootless Root: The Unix Koans of Master Foo,” Eric Steven Raymond, 2003

source: http://catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/recruiter.html
#recruiters

Farewell Atlanta. We’ll be back next year for Dragon Con 2026.
#dragon con

@dragoncon’s schedule is epic—but your scrolling doesn’t have to be. I wrote a 45-line Perl script with Mojolicious to turn 5,000+ hours of events into one clean list.

#WebScraping #WebDev #Coding #Programming #SoftwareDevelopment […]

Here is the start of our segment of the Dragon Con 2025 parade—the Resident Evil-themed Umbrella Corporation US Division. I’m one of the research scientists.

https://www.youtube.com/live/tsuYXmvrug4?t=36m44s
#dragon con

From bare‑bones Perl script to a lean, testable #modulino—fast with Util::H2O::More. Instant accessors, built‑in #CLI parsing, and less boilerplate than #Moo.

#OOP #testing #OpenSource #coding #programming #SoftwareEngineering #SoftwareDevelopment […]

This weekend’s "final boss" wasn’t in a video game—it was my Perl build. 🦖 Dist::Zilla and I stepped into the ring… and left as allies.

(No Pacific Rim cities were harmed in the making of this release.)

#programming #coding #SoftwareDevelopment #SoftwareEngineering […]

Built a clean way to log from Perl into macOS’s Unified Log—no Swift required.

FFI, C wrappers, and Log::Any make it minimal, auditable, and future-proof.

Try it out or contribute: ideal for DevOps and Apple developers […]

Developing a Perl script but facing the complexity that object-oriented programming is supposed to manage? Try the modulino pattern alongside the lightweight Moo module to get OOP and testability into your code […]

Samuel Arbesman’s Wired article explores the waning humility in programmers, tying it to their move from Perl to languages like Python. This leads me to ponder Perl creator Larry Wall’s take on a programmer’s virtues: laziness, impatience, and hubris […]

There’s a lot not to like about the state of the United States of America.

But today isn’t about the state of the nation. It’s about the *idea* of America. Our founding ideals of “certain unalienable Rights… life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

I refuse to cynically condemn a holiday […]

Photo by Mark Gardner on July 03, 2025. May be an image of 1 person, book and text that says 'Or AND ANDPON PON ONKAR GHATE WATKINS PROFIT WITHOUT WITHOUT THE THENEEDTO HENEED APOLOGY NEED to STAND'.

Just got my copy of Onkar Ghate and Don Watkins’ new book _Profit Without Apology: The Need to Stand Up for Business_ at #OCON2025!

https://newideal.aynrand.org/a-new-ari-book-profit-without-apology/

It’s “a moral defense of business in a culture that treats […]

[Original post on threads.com]

OCON 2025 Homepage

#OCON2025 starts tonight! If you’re at all interested in Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism, you should either be here in Boston or sign up for a virtual pass.

https://events.aynrand.org/ocon/
#Ayn Rand

Arriving tonight! Anyone want to get together?
#OCON2025

OCON 2025 Homepage

I’m going to be in Boston for the next week for OCON (https://events.aynrand.org/ocon/). Anyone want to get together?

https://events.aynrand.org/ocon/
#Boston

Fill a piñata with ketchup and you’ll never have to host another children’s party.

Today I ran into one of the more perverse incentives to not fix “legacy software”: too many other teams depend on it so it would take a long time to test.

Never mind that you *write* test code so that you can safely make changes. No one wants even the slightest hint of blame should something break.

I'm looking for work as a senior software developer. I have a full-stack WebDev cert, 16+ years Perl back-end experience, proficiency in multiple other programming languages.

Databases? Sure, relational *and* NoSQL. Ci/CD? Have done, want to do more. I like working with others, either here in […]

Maybe it’s “Heresy,” but I don’t think @Rush needed to record so many live music versions of “Tom Sawyer”:

- https://song.link/i/1440798405
- https://song.link/i/157234733
- https://song.link/i/5305438
- https://song.link/i/95734593
- https://song.link/i/277504144
- […]

Do I know any Perl experts in my developer network that are open to a contract in Middletown, NJ (suburb of #NYC)?

Please reach out to @rtroxtell at @teksystems if you’re interested in this position: https://jobs.perl.org/job/22037

Why can’t I mute a person’s reposts on Bluesky or #Threads like I can on #Mastodon?

I don’t follow you for what you copy; I follow you for what you add to the conversation.

jsonresume.org {{site.description}}

After pasting another slight variation of résumé bullet points and #CoverLetter into yet another company’s unique snowflake instance of an applicant tracking system, I am ready for JSON Resume to kick them and the big job boards down to the curb: https://JSONResume.org

https://jsonresume.org/

I’m such a pro that I set up mise en place for frozen pizza