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Mark's Blog

The ramblings of a mad man. I mean developer. Same thing now I think about it.

It’s Not the AI. It’s Dave.

It’s Not the AI. It’s Dave.

A developer’s cynical, funny takedown of AI doom fears — from WOPR and Skynet to a real AI agent breach, arguing it’s bad fences, not bad AI.

22/09/2026

Snippets from an Agency Life: WordPress Functions I Kept Reaching For

Every client of an agency is unique. Unique hosts, unique hosting control panels, unique acceptance of “just use a plugin…

18/09/2026
After WarGames, I Did the Same Thing to Terminator. It’s Worse.

After WarGames, I Did the Same Thing to Terminator. It’s Worse.

Not too long ago, I used a crazy amount of time to do math homework on WarGames – a movie…

17/09/2026
WarGames Broke My Heart (As a Developer, 40 Years Late)

WarGames Broke My Heart (As a Developer, 40 Years Late)

I loved WarGames at the cinema in 1983. Decades later as a developer, I ran the numbers on WOPR’s launch code hack – and the plot falls apart.

12/09/2026
Management Bullshit: The Performance Review

Management Bullshit: The Performance Review

Three years of pay freezes, blame for risks I flagged, and flattery to keep me quiet. What performance reviews really mean – recorded as it happened.

07/09/2026

Walking Away

Twenty-something years of fax machines, flying laptops, plain-text credit card numbers, and tickets marked urgent for a single full stop. Here’s why I handed my notice in – and why I don’t have a single regret.

07/09/2026
The Colombo Effect

The Colombo Effect

Before the tech world settled on the term “scope creep,” I had my own name for it: the Colombo Effect…

04/09/2026
Management Bullshit: A Field Guide to AI bullshit

Management Bullshit: A Field Guide to AI bullshit

Corporate language has been a virus seeking hosts all along. It spread through meetings (“let’s take this offline”), emails (“as…

02/09/2026
Twenty-Odd Years a WordPress Developer, and the Plugin Review Team Still Made Me Feel Like a Fraud

Twenty-Odd Years a WordPress Developer, and the Plugin Review Team Still Made Me Feel Like a Fraud

I have been doing this ever since WordPress was the new kid on the block. Back when it was a…

02/09/2026

The Department of Absolute Certainty

A modest proposal for eliminating doubt, uncertainty and all other forms of reality

02/09/2026
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