About Mark Keating [-1] s

Welcome to my site 🙂 [0]

Mark Keating is an odd male with roughly five decades of chronological competence in his girth.[1] He is married to Leigh[2] a girl of great patience and unsurpassed kawaii-ness. They both live in Lancaster, UK, conveniently since they are wed, with their sons, Benjamin, Elliott and Asher. They are terrorised by a cat called Darwin[3] and various tropical fresh-water fish.

Mark Keating stumbled sideways[4] into the magnificent world of Perl[5] by way of linguistics, literature,[6] a publishing company and an undefined close association with Matt Trout.[7]

He is the the managing director of Shadowcat Systems Limited[8] a software development company specialising in Perl, Python, Node (and other OS languages) and modern web technology; secretary of the Enlightened Perl Organisation,[9] a Perl-based organisation that promotes modern Community projects and Enterprise Grade support for the Perl Language; chair of the Perl Foundation Marketing Committee, member of the tpf steering committee, member of the Perl Advocacy Group and leader of NorthWestEngland.pm[10] a group dedicated to Perl and Open Source communities (though receptive to other languages/technologies)/

He is responsible for feats of adminion munging such as the organising the London Perl Workshop from 2008-17.[11] He has been the Chair of FLOSSUK since 2016 and a member of the council since 2014. Mark organised both the Dynamic Language Conferences of 2012 and 2015 and the European Perl Conference in Glasgow of 2018.

He is a neophyte evangilist of modern Perl and an advocate of Enlightenment thinking.[12]

Mark has presented at a number of conferences and is found on YouTube and other social media channels. A list of links can be found at mdk.me.

Mark contributes to his local Lancaster community via Digital Lancaster, Independent Lancaster and the Ethical Small Traders Association.

A lover of communities and the social mix that is humanity. Blessed with melancholy, feels he is both a champion and a sceptic of the future.

Studies the cliche that is humanity as an amateur with a powerful microscope and a zoological guide to the mating habits of the hermaphroditic annelid.

A poet, writer, a lover of nonsense, surrealism and whimsy.

Identifies as a male, but otherwise refusing to be easily defined. He is an advocate of; change, equality, aspiration, opportunity and education.

Quick Description: Married, parent, pet owner, omnivore, author, photographer, dreamer and child.

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[-1] Notes that start at minus one what an odd thing! Sorry for the Tautology but this title is here so that it can be scanned by people who can’t see, or choose not to display the graphic, also makes it index friendly.

[0] For those of you who dislike the animation, design, layout, text or other aspects of this site you find dis-pleasurable, tough titties. This is my site I will do with it as I please. There is but one caveat to this, if you have a sensible suggestion to improve the site that doesn’t use aggressive opinionated bile or disagreeable rhetoric then please feel free to contact me as I appreciate balanced thinking.

[1] For an exact calculation here we must rely on the following set of metrics. First calculate Mark’s probable age, for the purpose of this example we will use 38. Next calculate the closest way to fit that into a system that displays Marks age as less than -or equal to- 30, so we will use base 13, hence Mark’s age in base 13 would be 2C. Mark’s current age is in fact 20, though he will not say in which base that is calculated.

Since the first written version of this about page a whole decade has almost passed and another child has appeared.

[2] Kathryn Leigh Keating, nee Sims, also known as Starkitten, her blog can be found at Leigh Keating Personal Site.

[3] Darwin was originally named after the eminent naturalist Charles Darwin, though within a few short weeks of owning him they decided that he was named after the award not the illustrious scientist.

These days his terror comes in the form of belly rubs, whining for food and the occasional bout of madness and tail chasing.

[4] Opinions as to the validity of this statement vary. Some say that he stumbled, others proclaimed he was pushed, personally he claims not to have understood the context of the event at the time and on future reflection doesn’t understand the context of events enough to speculate.

[5] For more information on Perl, go to: Perl Homepage. Or to: Perl on Wikipedia.

[6] He has a BA Hons 2:1 in English Literature.

[7] View Matt’s homepage

[8] Shadowcat homepage

[9] EPO homepage

[10] To join the mailing list for Northwestengland.pm please go to Shadowcat Lists.

[11] The London Perl Workshop is a yearly event run by the London.pm group for the London and wider world Perl community and other interested parties. Mark organised the 2008 event on behalf of the then leader, Greg McCarrol and since then has been repeatedly asked to re-administrate the event.

[12] The Enlightenment is a period that would be hard to define. There is no definite agreement as to the start of the period or the time it covers. In fact many would argue that it wasn’t a single defining time period of change but a loose association of changes that can be seen as related but individual in nature. It was certainly a time in the western world when a radical set of events occurred and in which time a new way of thinking was brought into shape.

The Enlightenment is associated with the birth of modern thinking in which reason and not belief is the source of knowledge.

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