Data Scientist living abroad in Singapore 🇸🇬 Writing on data science, AI, and productivity.https://vinlam.com/https://vinlam.com/posts/llm-repos/https://vinlam.com/posts/llm-repos/A live dashboard tracking hundreds of open-source LLM repositories - updated daily with stars, forks, and growth trends so you can spot what the community is actually building with right now.Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/fitness/https://vinlam.com/posts/fitness/A timeline of my fitness journey - key milestones, personal bests, and small experiments across different sports over the years.Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/training-plan/https://vinlam.com/posts/training-plan/How I used AI to design, iterate, and maintain a periodised 20-week training plan for HYROX and a half marathon - from writing the metaprompt to updating it with real data.Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/run-clubs-in-sg/https://vinlam.com/posts/run-clubs-in-sg/A compilation of Singapore's exploding run club scene. I made this resource both for myself and to get friends to join me running.Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/tools/https://vinlam.com/posts/tools/Exploring how single-file HTML tools and AI coding assistants have transformed my workflow - from idea to deployed tool in minutes. No frameworks, no build steps, just pure simplicity and speed.Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/machine-learning-design-patterns/https://vinlam.com/posts/machine-learning-design-patterns/My notes on essential machine learning design patterns from Google Cloud experts, featuring practical insights on ML system architecture and implementation strategies for engineers.Thu, 02 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/defining-agents/https://vinlam.com/posts/defining-agents/Everyone argues on the definition of an AI agent because it's hard to define *exactly* what an AI agent is. Here I share my go-to definition.Thu, 28 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/local-llm-options/https://vinlam.com/posts/local-llm-options/There are many open-source tools for hosting open weights LLMs locally for inference, from the command line (CLI) tools to full GUI desktop applications. Here, I’ll outline some popular options and provide my own recommendations. I have split this post into the following sectionsFri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/agents-table/https://vinlam.com/posts/agents-table/A comprehensive comparison table of open-source AI Agents frameworks.Fri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/useful-mac-apps/https://vinlam.com/posts/useful-mac-apps/Here's a collection of tools that have genuinely enhanced my daily productivity as a knowledge worker and data scientist.Tue, 29 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/why-switch-from-jekyll-to-astro/https://vinlam.com/posts/why-switch-from-jekyll-to-astro/Here's why I recently switched my blog framework from Jekyll to Astro.Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/what-are-embeddings/https://vinlam.com/posts/what-are-embeddings/If you’ve heard of the term "embeddings” before but don’t quite understand it, this post is for you.Wed, 12 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/scoping-projects/https://vinlam.com/posts/scoping-projects/When there is a data science problem to solve, my instincts are to start coding and build something impactful with the latest technologies. However, I’ve learnt the importance of slowing down and taking the time to ask “Why?” to understand the root business problem from the stakeholders’ perspectives.Tue, 11 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/nlp-tasks/https://vinlam.com/posts/nlp-tasks/Knowing traditional NLP tasks is useful to understand the capabilities of (Large) Language Models. Although LLMs may outperform in many areas, smaller fine-tuned models will always have a place due to their faster latency and lower costs. Here is an overview of NLP tasks.Mon, 10 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/networking-tips/https://vinlam.com/posts/networking-tips/Moving to Singapore with zero connections, I faced the challenge of building a professional network from scratch. Networking can change your career trajectory, leading to opportunities you might never have encountered otherwise. Here are five tips I've learned to make networking more enjoyable.Fri, 07 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/llm-training/https://vinlam.com/posts/llm-training/Understanding the training process of AI assistants reveals how they evolve from simple language models to sophisticated, useful tools. Here's a breakdown of the stages involved.Thu, 06 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/prompting-llms/https://vinlam.com/posts/prompting-llms/Large Language Models (LLMs) are complex probabilistic machines that predict the next word. Prompt engineering is about conditioning them for desired outputs. Each instruction steers the model's generation. Here are tips to prompting LLMs to generate useful outputs to your problems.Tue, 04 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/reading-more/https://vinlam.com/posts/reading-more/I've read 4x as many books this year compared to previous years by implementing these tips.Thu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/switching-careers/https://vinlam.com/posts/switching-careers/In this post, I’ll share how I transitioned from mechanical engineering to data science in 2020 while working full-time.Tue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/why-write-online/https://vinlam.com/posts/why-write-online/In today’s tough job market, especially in the competitive data science field, writing online and building a personal profile helped me stand out and find freelance work.Mon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/why-move-abroad/https://vinlam.com/posts/why-move-abroad/Last year, my partner and I made a life-changing decision to uproot our comfortable lives in London and move to Singapore. We'd never been there before and had no connections. Here's why we moved.Sun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/writing-habit/https://vinlam.com/posts/writing-habit/I recently signed up to an online writing course. Here's why.Sat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/ai-news/https://vinlam.com/posts/ai-news/Keeping up with the latest breakthroughs and industry trends can feel like an endless pursuit, leading to information overload. With so much information available, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Here’s how I stay updated without getting bogged down.Fri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/raycast-for-productivity/https://vinlam.com/posts/raycast-for-productivity/Here's why Raycast is a game-changer for productivity and I'll highlight my most frequent use cases and demonstrate how you can significantly improve your workflow.Tue, 23 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/why-use-local-llms/https://vinlam.com/posts/why-use-local-llms/As someone who regularly uses Large Language Models (LLMs) for personal use and builds apps with LLMs - the choice between self-hosted open weights LLMs and proprietary LLMs is a recurring theme. Here, I share my personal insights as to why I use locally hosted LLMs.Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/jensen-huang-nvidia/https://vinlam.com/posts/jensen-huang-nvidia/Here are my highlights from Jensen Huang's keynote, NVIDIA CEO, hosted by ATxInspire Singapore.Thu, 07 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/h2o-genai-day/https://vinlam.com/posts/h2o-genai-day/Here are my highlights from H2O.ai's Singapore GenAI Day, a fantastic event showcasing their latest contributions to GenAI.Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/openai-dev-day/https://vinlam.com/posts/openai-dev-day/Here are my thoughts on OpenAI's recent Dev Day announcements.Wed, 08 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/tips-for-tabular-ml/https://vinlam.com/posts/tips-for-tabular-ml/For this blog post, I'll focus on tabular and time-series data (in the context of machine learning (ML) competitions) since this is the most common data type that data scientists face and has the highest applicability/utility.Mon, 30 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/anomaly-detection-intro/https://vinlam.com/posts/anomaly-detection-intro/In this beginner-friendly post I’ll introduce the concept of anomaly detection, also known as outlier detection, focusing on the popular technique of density estimation.Thu, 21 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/first-month-in-singapore/https://vinlam.com/posts/first-month-in-singapore/Here’s an overview of what I’ve been up to and my main takeaways from 24 hours of meetups and conferences on Generative AI, Machine Learning for finance, and Data Engineering.Wed, 06 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://vinlam.com/posts/welcome/https://vinlam.com/posts/welcome/Thanks for stumbling upon my website.Sat, 19 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT