MEHTA, U.
A personal site,
preserved on film.

I. ABOUT · THE SUBJECT · AS RECORDED

A short biography.

Aarav Mehta, born 1 9 9 9, of Pune, India. By trade an engineer; by inclination a writer; by habit a maintainer of small, careful things. Has been making objects on computers since the autumn of 2·0·1·9, and writing about them, in long sentences, for almost as long.

Subject reports steady output at approximately one substantial artifact every six weeks, with intermittent essays as the spirit allows. To date: 11 shipped works, 14 published essays, no abandoned projects under active responsibility.

Reply latency, by post or by wire: approximately 36 hours, with honest answers preferred over fast ones.

— preserved as recorded; no further annotation required.

II. CATALOGUE · ELEVEN WORKS · FOUR PRESENTED

From the file cabinet, four entries.

1. i.

   THREADWELL v0.4.2

   Recorded FEB 1985 · Operational · Subject's largest object.

   Opinionated reader for long essays. Built solo over six weeks of nights; shipped to a closed list of forty private readers; continues to receive small typographic revisions every few weeks.

   stack · ts · pg · bun · 14,210 lines · 6 wk build

2. ii.

   FIELDNOTES v2.1

   Recorded SEP 1984 · Maintained · Open source.

   Local-first writing tool for engineers. Open source on github; daily driver for the subject; approximately twenty-four hundred installs at last count.

   stack · svelte · sqlite · tauri · 6,140 lines · 24 wk build

3. iii.

   MARGINALIA v1.0 final

   Recorded JUN 1983 · Retired NOV 1984 · Frozen.

   A study in editorial typography. Twelve hand-typeset long essays; retired with intention and preserved as it stood on the day it closed.

   stack · html · css · 3,016 lines · 8 wk build

4. iv.

   EARLIER WORK 2019 — 22

   Eight student and weekend pieces, consolidated under a single entry. Available on request to the custodian.

III. WRITING · FIVE MOST RECENT

From the writing volume.

1. 17 V 26On knowing when a piece of writing is finished.12 pp.
2. 02 IV 26The website as a small private museum of the self.8 pp.
3. 28 I 26Notes on building software you have to live with.17 pp.
4. 14 X 25In praise of the long maintenance period.9 pp.
5. 02 VIII 25What I learned writing a tool for myself.6 pp.

— nine further pieces, 2021 — 25. Available on request.

IV. REACH · BY POST OR BY WIRE

The subject prefers to reply slowly.

By post

Pune, Maharashtra, India · 411 0XX

By wire

hello@aarav.me

By writing

read.aarav.me

By code

github.com/aarav

Reply, p50

36 hours

Reply, p99

72 hours