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 · 16/12/2025

founder Sanity = traction − comparison...boy, I'm deep in the negative right now.

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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 · 17/11/2025

10. *If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.* Last one's just a reminder. For more context and nuance, check out hardikvala.com/blog/stick-o...

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 17/11/2025

6. *If you quit now, will it increase your ability to get through the Dip on something more important?* 7. *Is your desire to stick motivated by sunk cost?* 8. *Are you letting pride get in the way?* 9. *Would you regret the journey if you quit now?*

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 17/11/2025

0. *Are you panicking?* 1. *What exactly are you thinking of quitting?* 2. *Are you willing to be the best in the world?* 3. *Is your persistence going to pay off?* 4. *Are you making measurable progress?* 5. *How can you fail fast?*

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 17/11/2025

"Quit the wrong stuff. Stick with the right stuff. Have the guts to do one or the other." — Seth Godin, The Dip A questionnaire I've developed up over years to navigate major stick or quit decisions: hardikvala.com/blog/stick-o... Answer with your gut, not your brain.:

hardikvala.com

⛰️ stick or quit: a manual

hardik vala: technical founder (yc s23, ex-google, ex-apple)

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 13/11/2025

Wow, figma failed me

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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

Me: “who’s your favorite entrepreneur?” GF: “you” Me: “I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m a fraud.” GF: “that’s most entrepreneurs” Me: “good point”

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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

This is a cool resource: github.com/nayafia/lemo... . Documents a bunch of ways to make money with open source, with pros and cons of each approach.

github.com

GitHub - nayafia/lemonade-stand: A handy guide to financial support for open source

A handy guide to financial support for open source - nayafia/lemonade-stand

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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 · 29/10/2025

JAX / TPU docs are incomplete. For anyone looking to run Pallas kernels (JAX's kernel lang) on TPUs, make sure you're running Python 3.10+.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 29/10/2025

Tensor Logic does not seem all that different from torch and tf, and don't see how it solves hallucinations. The unification of symbolic logic, database operations, and tensor transformations was intellectually instructive tho. arxiv.org/abs/2510.12269

arxiv.org

Tensor Logic: The Language of AI

Progress in AI is hindered by the lack of a programming language with all the requisite features. Libraries like PyTorch and TensorFlow provide automatic differentiation and efficient GPU implementati...

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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 · 18/10/2025

A remix on llama2.c: ModernBERT, in one file of pure C: github.com/hardik-vala/...

github.com

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 13/10/2025

How do people visualize tensors? especially when reading foreign pytorch / jax code.

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 03/10/2025

Running the muon optimizer may be slower, but doesn't muon offer a faster rate of convergence, making it faster than adam in aggregate?

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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

• 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀 built on Flower's federated learning framework: • 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗚𝗿𝗶𝗱 - A cloud network of distributed compute and data nodes for training • 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 - On-device SDK for LLMs • 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘀𝗲𝗿 (𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘴𝘦𝘳?) - AI browser that can leverage local information in a privacy-friendly way

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 03/10/2025

• In a similar vein, federated learning is being positioned as the 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗟𝗠 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝘄𝗮𝗹𝗹. We have ~15T tokens worth of public training data, but ~2000T tokens of private training data. Federated learning can unlock those trapped tokens.

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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

Took a break from CC, and took Gemini CLI for a spin. Good DX still lacking: * No indicator in terminal telling you # code lines highlighted in IDE * Tends to make spurious formatting changes * Gets stuck in tool calling loops

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Hardik @hardikvala.com · 25/09/2025

(screenshots from DeepSeek-V3.1 vocabulary)

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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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