Alexander Karpukhin

18 · cs @ waterloo · first commit 2021-10 · 17 projects · 2,542 commits

I love the intrinsic beauty of software.

I'm a generalist and don't have a specific set of things I like to work on. Past work has been in SaaS products, mobile apps, Linux systems tooling, graphics, developer tools, games and security research.

This page contains a timeline-like graph of my projects, descriptions of some of my projects and a bit of my writing.

§ 01projects

order · · show · · · · · made ■ hand · ◧ started by hand then kept building with agents · □ agents

1◐Lecture Recorder~□—A macOS app that records lectures, transcribes them, and lets Codex turn each course into Obsidian notes.2●Summarsky$□● 169 usersSummarizes an ebook chapter by chapter, tracks its characters and settings, and puts all of it in one reader.··3●Marksy$◧● 3.9k usersGrades IB coursework (IA, EE, TOK) against the official criteria before the student submits it.·4○Caffeine optimizationπ◧—My IB Extended Essay. A model of caffeine, tolerance and sleep, and gradient descent to find the best weekly dose schedule.·5●Vente$◧● 2.1k usersA Spanish nightlife app. Pick a date and a place, see the events and who else goes, then share the photos after the night.········6●DistroPack$◧● 57 usersBuilds Linux packages (deb, rpm, Arch, Alpine, tar) from one upload and hosts them in signed repositories.······7●Power Options#◧● 381 starsA Linux power manager with a GUI. It makes laptops last longer on battery.···············8○rndr#■—A 3D engine in Rust that renders on the CPU. I wrote all of the vector and matrix math myself.9○Stealthy MDM Blockerπ■—An attempt to remove the MDM restrictions from an iPad while the MDM server still sees a compliant device.10○Dotfiles Synchronizer~■● 22 starsA background service that commits and pushes my config files to git each time they change.11○libpel#■—A C library that draws shapes and text on PNG, JPEG and WebP images.12○elconf~■—A CLI program that draws the electron configuration of an element into a PNG file. A school chemistry project.13○Intrusion@■—A first-person multiplayer horror game in Unity. Kids defend a house against an intruder.14○japm#■● 12 starsA package manager in C with a curses interface, for the small tools that the main package manager does not have.·················15○Countdown timer~■—A countdown timer for the terminal. I made it to try .NET 6.·····16○Terminal Video Player~■● 20 starsPlays a video file or a YouTube video in the terminal as ASCII characters.·····17○CUBIK@■—A 2D parkour shooter in Unity: a cube with guns, a grappling hook and a jetpack. My first game on itch.io.

commits in the month: 1–2, 3–5, 6–10, 11–20, 21+.

● live ● published ◐ building ○ archived

hover a row to read the project here. click a row to open the full page. j/k move, ⏎ opens.

§ 02highlights

01 / 07○ archived2025

Caffeine optimization

My IB Extended Essay. A model of caffeine, tolerance and sleep, and gradient descent to find the best weekly dose schedule.

a · weekly schedule

responder · ·

sleep risk · ·

00h04h08h12h16h20h

mon

tue

wed

thu

fri

sat

sun

0 mg a week

b · bodily state during 28 days

caffeine in the blood0.00

tolerance0.00

sleep deprivation1.00

productivity1.44

day 0day 28

c · final reward

8,064

productivity over 28 days

no caffeine 8,064the essay 9,109

reward per epoch

fig. 01 · my extended essay, live. click a slot to set a dose, or run gradient descent. it is computed here, not played back · ·

02 / 07○ archived2024built before coding agents

rndr

A 3D engine in Rust that renders on the CPU. I wrote all of the vector and matrix math myself.

loading the mesh

triangles 0pixels tested 0inside 0written 0fps 0

fig. 02 · rndr's renderer in your browser, on the meshes of its examples. drag to turn the mesh, point at it to cast a ray · · │ · · │

03 / 07● live2025 → 2026

Marksy

Grades IB coursework (IA, EE, TOK) against the official criteria before the student submits it.

users: ●3.9k
this month: ●CA$374
best month · apr 2026: ●CA$1.9k
commits: 373

a draftIA, EE or TOK

a mark for each criterionin pdf rendered citations for each markwhat to fix first

many draftsat once

graded in one run

an oralto practise

timed, like the real onefollow-up questionsfeedback by criteria

a topicto study

free textbookssimulations in the chapters

your sourcesfor the essay

keepreviewreplace

your subjectsand exams

subject picker, timetablegrade calculators

fig. 03 · what a student brings to marksy, and what comes back

DistroPack

Builds Linux packages (deb, rpm, Arch, Alpine, tar) from one upload and hosts them in signed repositories.

users: ●57
package families: 5
architectures: 4
commits: 235

1 · the developer

upload the files

binary-x64·

binary-arm64·

changelog·

choose the targets

[.deb][.rpm][.pkg.tar.zst][.apk][.tar]

[x86][x64][arm][arm64]

$ release v1.2.3 (a github action can do this)

2 · distropack

x86x64armarm64

debian, ubuntu
.deb····

fedora, rhel, rocky
.rpm····

arch linux
.pkg.tar.zst····

alpine
.apk····

tar archive
.tar····

signed with gpg, then published

apt ✓dnf ✓pacman ✓apk ✓

3 · the people who use it

$ echo 'deb https://files.distropack.dev/download/TheAlexDev23/power-options/deb /' | sudo tee /etc/apt/source…

$ curl -fsSL 'https://files.distropack.dev/pubkey?user=TheAlexDev23&project=power-options' | gpg --dearmor | s…

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install power-options-gtk

their own package manager. nothing from you to install

fig. 04 · one release, from the developer to the people who install it. the file names and the version are examples

Vente

A Spanish nightlife app. Pick a date and a place, see the events and who else goes, then share the photos after the night.

users: ●2.1k
App Store rating: 4.4
commits: 557
commits in 2025-04: 132

Vente screen: pick the place — fig. 05 · a night out in vente, on the current screens. the app is in spanish

Vente screen: see who goes — fig. 05 · a night out in vente, on the current screens. the app is in spanish

read more →venteapp.es ↗app store ↗

06 / 07● live2026

Summarsky

Summarizes an ebook chapter by chapter, tracks its characters and settings, and puts all of it in one reader.

users: ●169
input formats: 7
commits: 84

in: epub, docx, odt, rtf, html, md, txt

fig. 06 · summarsky's reader, drawn as dots. the book is pride and prejudice

Stealthy MDM Blocker

An attempt to remove the MDM restrictions from an iPad while the MDM server still sees a compliant device.

The iPad gets its rules from an MDM server. Its traffic goes through my proxy, and it trusts my proxy's certificate.

fig. 07 · the ipad, the mdm server and what sits between them. click a chapter to jump to it. the restrictions are an example

Actually, quants aren't a waste of talent2026-10-044 min→