About — Marc Manley

I've been a creative and technology professional since the mid 90's, working in academic, corporate, and non-profit settings, and while my role now as an imām might seem like a 180º pivot from technology that couldn't be farther from the truth.

My years in IT and the visual arts have served me well and continue to serve me in my role as Imām and Religious Director at Middle Ground. I use technology every day;

a Hermes agent for sending emails via Mailchimp's API;
Claude tapping into Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve to do rough cuts of videos of my classes and khuṭbahs;
a Python-based flashcard generator for my Arabic class, assisting students in vocabulary retention;
a social media card generator using Ionic's framework to make graphics for YouTube, Instagram, Substack and more, that all adhere to our branding.

Like I said: I'm in the thick of it even though I don't work at DevOps any more.

So I'll be dropping some posts and thoughts about [tech] projects I'm working on as well as some thoughts on technology in general. I hope you'll enjoy stopping by.

Current Stack

Hardware

MacBook Pro M2 Max 64GB RAM

My MBP is where I run Qwen 3.6 locally as well as do all of my video and audio editing. I'm eyeing the new M5 but money...

GMKtec G10 Mini PC

I initially picked this up at Microcenter to run a Roon music server. But then decided to loop it into a couple of projects I wanted to tinker with. It has

an AMD Ryzen 5 3500U 2.1GHz Processor;
16GB DDR4-2400 RAM; 512GB Solid State Drive;
an AMD Radeon Vega 8 Graphics card;

It's small, light and gets the job done. I can use my MacBook Pro for the heavily lifting.

Software/AI

OpenAI (ChatGPT)Anthropic (Claude)GeminiQwen3.6HermesTailscaleTwingateRustDeskVS Code (IDE)

Qwen is the LLM model that I'm using to do the “thinking” in my current al-Khizānah project (I'll eventually make a post about this project with further details), an Arabic-document OCR project.

I'm also leveraging Qwen with Hermes to do agentic tasks like sending emails via the MailChimp API.

Audio/Video

Lumix

I'm currently using two Lumix (Panasonic) bodies

Lumix S1M2
Lumix S52X

for a variety of video usages:

live streaming,
podcasts and lectures,
freelance video work (check out Accessible Automation).

I shoot with:

7Artisans Cinema lenses,
a Sirui 75mm T2.9 1.66 Anamorphic lens (because everyone should live stream with an anamorphic lens!),
AKG AT875r mic and Hollyland wireless mics for audio cpature,
Blackmagic Video Assist (7") for capturing in the BRAW codec,
Nanlite fs-300c lights,
and a Zoom H5 Studio audio recorder.

I also have a variety of older vintage lenses that I occasionally use. I edit using DaVinci Resolve alongside Claude using Blackmagic's API.

Professional Experience

Imām & Co-Founder of Middle Ground

In 2014 I left my IT career at the University of Pennsylvania and moved to Southern California to become the imām at the Islamic Center of Inland Empire. In 2015 I left ICIE and co-founded Middle Ground.

Before coming to SoCal I worked in the IT department at the School of Design (now the Stuart Weitzman School of Design).

Before that I worked in a variety of IT positions at different institutions (Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin, Morgan-Lewis a lawfirm located in Philadelphia). I also enjoyed my time working at WEMU in Ypsilanti, Michigan, as a NPR radio DJ spinning jazz.

Language skills:

Spanish.

Arabic.

Japanese.