Abhijit Menon-Sen

I am a programmer, but I have spent years perfecting disguises that allow me to mingle occasionally with surface-dwellers. With my pale, clammy skin and unnaturally large, light-sensitive eyes, I could never have passed for a productive member of society otherwise.

I live in a small village in the Himalayas in North India, and make a living by projecting an air of calm authority in dire circumstances, such as the imminent demise of your Postgres database.

Away from work, I dabble compulsively — and write with varying levels of expertise and enthusiasm about subjects including Unix, linguistic trivia, bureaucracy, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy.

(There's a subject-wise index; or see everything in chronological order.)

Some recommendations

How are Unix pipes implemented?
The implementation and history of an iconic Unix feature
Exactly how much physical memory is installed?
A quest to make Linux report all of the 16GB of RAM I have
What is fsck up to now?
Studying the progress of a long-running filesystem check
Birds named after women
The latest in a series of articles about bird names
Understanding sudoers(5) syntax
A simple guide to sudo configuration (with no EBNF!)
Renault Duster AWD review
A long-term owner's review of a capable, no-frills vehicle

Programming

You can write to me at ams@toroid.org