Top all-time · #3047
Abhijit Menon-Sen
Personal blog · toroid.org · on HN as amenonsensystemsprogramming
Abhijit Menon-Sen writes The Advisory Boar, a personal blog at toroid.org about systems and programming. Since 2008, 25 different Hacker News readers have linked it 34 times, most often “Using git to manage a website”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-12-04, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (19) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Abhijit Menon-Sen's blog mainly for its git-based website deployment guide (git push to a web server), and also for posts on India's crypto and telecom rules and Vodafone interfering with traffic.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 19 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
toroid.org: Abhijit Menon-Sen's web site
Most-linked posts?
- Using git to manage a website10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2008-12-22
- How are Unix pipes implemented?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-03-26
- /ams/etc/dot-india-crypto-nonsense2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-03-25
- Using Git with a central repository2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-04-21
- Understanding sudoers(5) syntax: a simple explanation (no EBNF)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-11-07
- Strange cryptographic decisions in Ansible vault2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-11-14
What Hacker News says?
> Encrypting Files > This really is a problem. If you’re/not/ [...] then there’s no one good tool that does this now. Filippo Valsorda is working on “age” for these use cases, and I’m super optimistic about it, but it’s not there yet. I've been (ab)using ansible-vault for this. It's apparently[1] now using reasonable primitives (PBKDF2+AES-CTR+HMAC-SHA256), but not necessarily the latest and bestest ones: https://gi…
Comment linking /ansible-vault-strange-crypto
on “The PGP Problem”Submitted How are Unix pipes implemented? as a story · 425 points
HN discussionThere are three companies involved (maybe more): The retailer, with which you have a contract, the importer and/or distributor, with which you don't, and the manufacturer, which is in another jurisdiction. Given that the manufacturer is usually somewhere abroad, which company will the legislature pick? There are two options, so I'd be shocked if the lawyers agreed on which option is better to write into the law. htt…
Comment linking /exide-warranty-nightmare
on “How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court”Submitted Using git to manage a website as a story · 172 points
HN discussionAs I've heard it, the alternative that drove the first hundred million users was the telco reading over your shoulder and/or randomly dropping your messages on the floor. Whatsapp grew big with customers of telcos like Vodafone, which may be less capable than Mark Zuckerberg's snoopshop but I wouldn't bet on their being nicer. See https://toroid.org/vodafone-smtp-mitm for example.
Comment linking /vodafone-smtp-mitm
on “Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go”Submitted What is fsck up to now? as a story · 76 points
HN discussionI limit my subs to mostly tech and feeds that post infrequently but well. I go back and forth between enabling Hacker News and disabling it. It's too busy and distracting sometimes when I need to get things done and I don't want to get lost it some lengthy article somewhere. Here are my current feeds sans HN http://abstrusegoose.com http://xkcd.com/ http://cmurphycode.posterous.com http://acmel.wordpress.com http://…
Comment linking /ams/etc
on “Ask HN: Apart from Hacker News, what else you read?”Submitted Exactly how much physical memory is installed? as a story · 73 points
HN discussionI think the general idea is that if you make your yield points explicit, you see them yourself, and if you generally try for 100% unit test coverage, you end up nudging yourself towards fewer yield points, a simpler state machine, and better karma overall. The complexity you see affects yourself more than the complexity you don't. I rather agree. FWIW my friend Abhijit Menon-Sen wrote a blog post on the matter last…
Comment linking /callback-heaven
on “Some thoughts on asynchronous Python API design in a post-async/await world”Submitted Using Git with a central repository as a story · 49 points
HN discussion> Is the cookie's value mapped to some in-memory entry in the application server, is it stored in a database, etc? Neither. At login the server signs the new session cookie with a secret application key. Later, when a client requests a page and sends over the session cookie, the server verifies the signature. If it matches, the data in the session cookie -- which usually includes the username, whether they're logged…
Comment linking /ams/etc/mojolicious-session-cookies
on “How to build (and how not to build) a secure “remember me” feature”Submitted How are Unix pipes implemented? as a story · 8 points
HN discussionFor simple static sites, I use a workflow very similar to this one[1]. It takes a minute or two to set up, but once it's all configured, you can deploy to your heart's content without ever worrying about exposing your .git directory to the world. [1] http://toroid.org/ams/git-website-howto
Comment linking /ams/git-website-howto
on “Please stop serving .git to the outside world”Submitted Moving to Modern Neovim [from Vim] as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI like git push web http://toroid.org/ams/git-website-howto
Comment linking /ams/git-website-howto
on “How Facebook pushes updates to the site”Submitted How are Unix pipes implemented? as a story · 6 points
HN discussionI've been following this http://toroid.org/ams/git-website-howto for several years now.
Comment linking /ams/git-website-howto
on “GIT is the new FTP”Submitted Understanding sudoers(5) syntax: a simple explanation (no EBNF) as a story · 3 points
HN discussiontext looks very much like a copycat of this tutorial, minus all the explanations: http://toroid.org/ams/git-website-howto
Comment linking /ams/git-website-howto
on “GIT is the new FTP”Submitted Using Git to manage a web site as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis document is from 2001. http://toroid.org/ams/etc/dot-india-crypto-nonsense
Comment linking /ams/etc/dot-india-crypto-nonsense
on “Govt of India proposes to ban SSH (Or wants you to use 40 bit keys)”Submitted Understanding Sudoers(5) Syntax (2015) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionhttp://toroid.org/vodafone-smtp-mitm too.
Comment linking /vodafone-smtp-mitm
on “Vodafone.pt is rewriting CSP headers to whitelist Vodafone and jQuery”Submitted Strange cryptographic decisions in Ansible vault as a story · 2 points
HN discussionMy two favorite resources for getting started with git: 1) Using Git with a central repository: http://toroid.org/ams/git-central-repo-howto 2) A succesful Git branching model: http://nvie.com/git-model
Comment linking /ams/git-central-repo-howto
on “My Common Git Workflow”Submitted Using Git to manage a web site as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> Thanks for the awesome write-up. Glad you enjoyed it. :-) > I have considered doing something totally ridiculous like setting up a Raspberry Pi with a camera and machine vision software to watch the LED displays on these devices to glean status information. Silly, but... Ha! I actually have a PoE camera pointed at the display of my UPS. Here's what it looks like right now: https://toroid.org/misc/ups-display.jpg N…
Comment linking /misc/ups-display.jpg
on “What is fsck up to now?”Submitted How do authors tell genuine translation offers from personalised SEO linkbait? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionAm not really surprised that this happens in India. On the contrary, I was expecting this to happen quite sometime before. Never underestimate the stupidity of Indian bureaucracy (inherited and modeled from the Soviets, rivals even Vogonic bureaucracy), particularly when it comes to technical matters involving software and computers. On another note, http://toroid.org/ams/etc/dot-india-crypto-nonsense ; on how compe…
Comment linking /ams/etc/dot-india-crypto-nonsense
on “India to block .XXX top-level domain”According to Indian Department of Telecommunications (as of 2010), you can only use RSA keys up to... 40 bits http://toroid.org/ams/etc/dot-india-crypto-nonsense
Comment linking /ams/etc/dot-india-crypto-nonsense
on “Dear Department of Telecom, Government of India”
