Home on Sayak Dattagupta

A collection of math tournaments (and entrance tests)

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Preparing for the JEE, and specifically JEE Advanced, exposed me to some foreign mathematics problems. Usually, these problem sets were from university-level mathematics competitions for first- and second-year undergraduate students, competitions organized by universities for high school students, or simply problems from other entrance examinations.

I have omitted Mathematical Olympiads and their respective national-level equivalents.

A 10+2 level student with a background in the JEE or any equivalent entrance exam, who also has a decent amount of additional interest in the subject, can tackle a fair number of problems from here.

Hide your personal GitHub Pages repo

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

For people without the means to buy a domain name and host/self-host their site, or the technical know-how, GitHub Pages integrated with some sort of SSG seems like a saving grace.

However, unless you intend other people to witness your commits (and thereby, article history), you should make your site repo private. But using the github.io domain for a private repo in conjunction with GitHub’s free tier is impossible. This is exactly where something like Vercel, Netlify, or Cloudflare Pages steps in. Though these services have their own caveats and premium tiers, they make do.

Using GitHub as a decentralised contribution, centralised distribution system

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

If you are reading this, you are probably already aware of LibrExam. LibrExam, as of now, has been my most monumental achievement in software development — and yet, it has been on a two-month-long development hiatus.

Apologies.

Nevertheless, my project uses a (clunky) decentralised content contribution system that I would like to talk about here. It’s highly likely someone has already built something similar to - but much better than - this, but I could not care less. I only believe in homegrown technology.

Use copyleft licensing

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

There is no correlation between open-source code and open relationships. But people unwise enough to use a certain kind of license can be metaphorically forced into a variation of the latter. Shocking? Keep reading to learn more.

GPLv3 (and its SaaS equivalent, AGPLv3) is a ‘copyleft’ license. Whenever any entity (individual or corporate) utilizes GPLv3 (or its prior iterations) licensed code in their own software, they are forced to share the codebase of the said piece of software in a similarly ‘free’ or open-source manner — thereby maintaining ‘reciprocity’ and ensuring that originally open-source code doesn’t get absorbed into some proprietary codebase.

LibrExam (the birth of)

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mock tests are a global phenomenon. Every student — from American AP Physics 2 bros to Chinese Gaokao tryhards to Indian JEE Advanced sweats — takes them. And they usually cost a pretty penny.

Breaking ~~Bad~~ the mock examinations cartel.

Not anymore.

Goodbye legacy, propeitary, limited-in-scope-and-content test taking software. Welcome LibrExam. Welcome its AGPL-3 License (I am looking at you, Microsoft*).

The fundamental idea behind LibrExam is that it’s kind of decentralised. Obviously, using GitHub as a content-sharing-system, though novel, makes it centralised - but users always have the ability to share the JSON (yes, tests are written out in JSONs) file of their test; Moving away from third-party or self-hosted images is a different issue, however - I am still yet to figure that out (LibrExam is very, VERY much in alpha)

Subscribe to some RSS Feeds

Sun, 11 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

RSS (‘Really Simple Syndication’) feeds are an excellent way to stay up-to-date with recent posts on a website that supports them. Basically, think of it as a newsletter or notifier, but without the bloat, and with the added advantage of (usually) being able to read the said article in it’s entirety.

To get started with “subscribing” to RSS feeds, you simply need a RSS reader. I recommend Feeder (I would prefer you use F-Droid, or Droidify, to install it, instead of the Play Store) on Android.

About Me

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hi, I am Sayak Dattagupta, a freshman pursuing Electronics and Communication Engineering at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Guwahati.

Learning Resources

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Here is an (incomplete) list of resources that I have used to learn certain things.

Programming & Software

GNU Octave/MATLAB - Octave and MATLAB for Engineers by Andreas Stahel
LaTeX - Luke Smith
Daniel Hirsch
Tsoding

Education

JEE Physics
- Mohit Tyagi YouTube Channel (Check Playlists) (Hindi)
- Physics Interactions for IIT JEE YouTube Channel (Hindi)
- Physics Solutions YouTube Channel
- Physics Galaxy YouTube Channel (Check Playlists)
- Problems in Physics for IIT-JEE Advanced by Shashi Bhushan Tiwari
JEE Chemistry
JEE Mathematics
- Mathsmerizing YouTube Channel
- Acadza YouTube Channel (Hindi)
- Factorial Academy YouTube Channel
- Educative JEE Mathematics by K.D. Joshi (official Google Drive link)
- Cengage JEE (Advanced) Mathematics by Ghanshyam Tewani
Engineering Drawing, Projection and Spatial Graphics
- Suresh Babu’s YouTube Channel
- TIKLE’S ACADEMY YouTube Channel (Hindi)
Engineering Mathematics - Dr. Trefor Bazett’s YouTube Channel

Other

The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant
Professor Jeevanjyoti Chakraborty’s YouTube Channel

Useful Tools for Learning

AnkiDroid - Flashcard Software
A pen and a piece of paper

Projects

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Some things that I have worked on. You can grab my system dotfiles right here.

2026

xv6-utils: A collection of utilities for MIT’s xv6-riscv written in C.
mulang: A lightweight compiled language written in C targeting x86 assembly.
rust-fractals: Julia fractals rendered in Rust.

2025

LibrExam: A powerful, client-side, open-source and decentralized test and quizzing engine made using Vue.js.
clipper: Basic browser extension written in JavaScript that helps manage text copied in a web browser.
profstats: Python program integrated with a GitHub Actions workflow that automatically updates GitHub profile readme with language usage statistics.
This website: Used hugo to build a static personal website.

2023

visimusic: Python backend for a program that visualises listening statistics for ViMusic.

2021

A Discord bot: A now-defunct Discord bot made using discord.py, an API wrapper for Discord written in Python.