iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Hardik @hardikvala.com · 10/01/2026

tried some hyperlocal queries against my fav ai web searches, e.g. - "Massage parlors that offer couples massages in Soma, SF" - "All cafes open past 6 pm PT on Sunday in downtown San Mateo, with space to work and outlets." disappointed by the results 😞

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 09/01/2026

when you accidentally leave your crawler running overnight 🤦‍♂️

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 23/12/2025

Yelp's AI search: Rating: 1 star Review: I asked, "give me cafes that are open past 6 pm PT on a sunday in downtown san mateo, with space to work and outlets." Only 1 result is in san mateo, and it's not located downtown.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 19/12/2025

If you're not using the most powerful model for your therapist prompt, you don't love yourself.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 29/11/2025

man, the #claude ux is not friendly to mcp connectors serving images. my bit.ly/tensordiagram mcp server can add tensor visuals to help with deep learning explainers, but the end ux here is not seamless...

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 28/11/2025

nobody asked for somebody to create a a visual explainer for torch.linspace. I did it anyways. #TensorViz

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 27/11/2025

burned too many tokens to get CC to draw a tensor with thanksgiving colors using bit.ly/tensordiagram

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 26/11/2025

I came across this meme over a year ago, and it still makes me laugh.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 25/11/2025

Got addicted to @srushnlp.bsky.social 's Tensor Puzzles, so I wrote a sequel with more puzzles: github.com/hardik-vala/.... Example:

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 21/11/2025

using None as an index value for torch tensors adds a new dim. ludicrously simple when visualized.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 20/11/2025

finally made sense of all the ways you can index tensors in pytorch / numpy #TensorViz

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 13/11/2025

Creating these visuals is addictive, but getting out of hand. Had to see the difference between torch chunk and unbind, but this visual doesn't need to exist. #TensorViz

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 12/11/2025

Not my best work. Created a visual of torch's transpose op over 3d tensors, but I don't know if the random coloring is instructive or confusing. #TensorViz

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 12/11/2025

TIL `tensor[None]` is just a shorthand for `tensor.unsqueeze( 0)` in torch.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 11/11/2025

seriously!? every time i open the app

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 10/11/2025

Visual explainer for the pytorch op, `torch.unbind` #TensorViz

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 09/11/2025

From Seth Godin's book, The Dip.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 07/11/2025

Finished the visual explainer for the torch op, `chunk`. #TensorViz

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 06/11/2025

Started a visual explainer for the torch op, `chunk`. The full explainer will have different arg combinations for no. of chunks and dim.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 05/11/2025

Framework lock-in is definitely not a day 0 / pre-PMF concern. mlechner.substack.com/p/why-we-sta...

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 05/11/2025

whytorch.org is quietly addictive. It's been fun playing with pytorch tensors in a visual format. Not affiliated with the project. Just a fan.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 02/11/2025

torch.outer(a, b), visualized #TensorViz (drawn w/ bit.ly/tensordiagram)

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 02/11/2025

Any time you see t[:, None] on a 1d tensor, it's just transpose #TensorViz

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 31/10/2025

if you, like me, forget how tensors get reshaped. (drawn with bit.ly/tensordiagram)

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 30/10/2025

Fed up with trying to imagine chains of tensor transformations in my head, wrote a library to relieve my pain: github.com/hardik-vala/.... Lets you visualize torch, jax, tf, numpy tensors in notebooks and other python contexts, for understanding and debugging. Enjoy.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 29/10/2025

is playground mode a new feature in colab? liking it for messing around with a notebook you authored that's also shared

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 28/10/2025

When you create a typo in the process of fixing one. Entropy refuses to go down.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 03/10/2025

• 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁-𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴: Emerging approaches to learning that are real-time and efficient, that don't require gradient updates. Things like model merging, context priming, etc. Nothing new but love the term from Sara Hooker's talk. Thanks to the Flower team for organizing!

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 03/10/2025

• Cool applications: e.g. 𝗖𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲! • 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘄𝗶𝗱𝘁𝗵 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 to make decentralized training feasible

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 03/10/2025

Takeaways from the Flower AI conference last week on decentralized / federated AI: • 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 from "federated" and "privacy", to "decentralized" and "open".

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 25/09/2025

One day, I would like my name to be immortalized as an LLM vocab token.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 17/09/2025

omg, the ONNX runtime is wicked fast. ran some perf benchmarks for ModernBERT on cpu vs gpu (rtx 4070) and ONNX was 3x faster than vanilla torch. not superior on cpu tho.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 17/09/2025

So any model trained/fine-tuned with llama outputs — even if it's not based on llama's architecture at all — must be prefixed with "llama" 😲 . e.g. huggingface.co/ai4privacy/l... (ModernBert fine-tune) License: www.llama.com/llama3_1/lic...

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 13/09/2025

OpenAI's hallucination paper is gaining attention, but in case you missed it FAIR published AbstentionBench a few mos ago: Benchmark for measuring LLM capacity to *abstain* against questions with underspecification, false premises, subjective interpretations, etc. arxiv.org/abs/2506.090...

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 12/09/2025

PyTorch installs have unseated code compilations.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 12/09/2025

Thanks @mlopscommunity.bsky.social for the shoutout in today's newsletter! www.controlpla.in/blog/prompt-...

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 26/08/2025

Do like how GPT-5 isn't as trigger happy with calling tools as earlier versions. It does a good job confirming and gathering arguments before firing a tool call. #AIAgents

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 15/07/2025

"What has been will be again, and what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 27/06/2025

Git is only 20 years old! Feels like it's been around way longer than that. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 20/06/2025

C'mon Claude 🤦‍♂️, why'd you have to overcorrect.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 19/06/2025

Vibe coded a way to track the utilization of my homelab GPU using a Github-style heatmap. Repo: github.com/hardik-vala/...

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 03/06/2025

TIL RFID chips, like the ones in our credit cards, are technically computers. They're part of a class of "disposable, battery-less" computers. From Structured Computer Organization, 6E: #LearnComputerEngineering

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 28/05/2025

Well deserved 👏👏👏 www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7mA...

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 23/05/2025

TIL that quantum AI accelerators is a thing. The collision of two waves.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 15/04/2025

A short essay on coping with self-doubt: www.hardikvala.com/blog/there-w... Spoiler alert: You can never get rid of it.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 05/03/2025

Last time I run `brew upgrade` on plane wifi.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 03/03/2025

Agents, in abstract terms: - An 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 is an entity that exists in an environment. - The 𝗲𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 is the part of the universe that the agent interacts with. - The agent 𝗼𝗯𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝘀 its environment and performs 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 on the environment. That's really it.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 26/02/2025

The workload scaling properties of training are just different from inference. Observed this first-hand at Google. #MLSky

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