Mark Polyakov's Website
Hello! I'm a technology enthusiast who loves figuring out how things work. On the weekend, you might find me biking around Lake Washington, reading hard sci-fi, struggling to solve the latest Project Euler problem, designing a circuit board, writing spaghetti code in C++, or writing even spaghettier code in Common Lisp.
Right now I'm a 4th-year undergraduate at the University of Washington, Seattle. In June 2023 I'll receive my degrees, one in Mathematics and another in Computer Science.
Projects
Software
You can find all of these projects and a few smaller ones on my Github Profile. All are Free and Open Source.
- (WIP) LOST: Open-source Star Tracker, a package for identifying constellations in night-sky photographs, to determine the orientation of a satellite. LOST is the first open-source implementation of a number of star-tracking-related algorithms.
- (WIP) Kreo, a reverse-engineering tool for detecting classes, class hierarchies, and methods in compiled C++ binaries, by a combination of dynamic and static analyses. Kreo uses ideas from research in programming languages and software engineering. I'm working on Kreo with a couple other folks, and we're hoping to publish a paper before too long.
- Anypaste, a smart command-line file sharing tool. It selects a hosting site automatically based on the type of file being shared.
- SpecDB, a site for viewing and comparing CPU and GPU hardware specifications.
- (Small) Remotely, a shell-scripting library that makes it really easy to write scripts that automate the setup of remote servers. I think of Remotely as the smallest possible Ansible alternative.
- (old) Sam's Serif, a recursive/fractal font renderer with HTML5 Canvas.
- (Small/old) Beat Ballot, a democratic music player. Users connect to a host's "room" then suggest or vote for which song they want to be played next. Developed with Yuyu Madigan, Cyrus Arora, and Daniel Williams in 24 hours for nwHacks 2019.
- (Small/old) Monsanto Simulator, an online multiplayer game about genetics created for a high-school biology course. Might be useful if you're teaching biology! Not hosted anywhere, but setup instructions are on Github.
Hardware
- Synchronous Digital Clock and power supply, fully custom design and assembly. Lots of info at the link!
- Motorized Cat Door, control two cat doors in the garage with a switch in the kitchen.
- (Small/old) OpenSpeedCoach, a fitness tracker/speed coach for rowers, made at nwHacks 2020. Counts strokes with an accelerometer, records distane and speed with GPS.
Other
Little games
School
I currently attend the University of Washington, studying Computer Science and Math. I take notes digitally for some of my classes. The first link below is the most recent. I take notes on paper for many classes, which are not listed here.
- CSE 421, Algorithms
- CSE 312, Foundations of Computing II
- CSE 351, The Hardware/Software Interface
- CSE 490Q, Quantum Computing
- MUSIC 120, Survey of Music
- CSE 444, Database System Internals
- JSIS B 357, Geopolitics of Energy
- CSE 414, Intro to Database Systems
- LING 400 Anki Flashcards (Download .apkg)
- PHIL 100, Intro to Philosophy
During the 2020-21 school year I took the Advanced Calculus sequence (Math 334/5/6). The final project for this sequence was a paper on a mathematical topic of our choice. In previous years, these papers were posted on a public-facing class website (for example, here are the 2019-20 papers). However, a new instructor taught the sequence in 2020-21, and did not maintain a public website. I make my paper publicly available here:
Abelian Sandpiles and Self-Organized Criticality (Math 336 Final Paper)