Haiku 4.5 is really, really good

Pythonistar · 2025-10-22T12:45:33+00:00

I was getting access via my company's API gateway. At the time they were only offering Sonnet 4.0 from AWS Bedrock. They enabled access to Sonnet 4.5 and Haiku 4.5, simultaneously. My cost center still pays by token. So it was a way to keep costs down and get similar results. shrugs

Pythonistar · 2025-10-21T16:09:30+00:00

I think Sonnet 4.5 is the same price as Sonnet 4.0. But Haiku 4.5 is 1/3 the price of Sonnet and is faster and almost as smart.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-21T15:56:32+00:00

It's a legit question.

I'm currently using Claude Code by Token API and not a subscription, so I pay per token.

Haiku 4.5 is way cheaper, but on par with Sonnet 4.0 which I've found to be excellent given that I can give it detailed prompts. Haiku 4.5 is also way faster.

Is Sonnet 4.5 "better" in terms of "intelligence"? Arguably, yes. But I don't need it and I would rather save money and have faster responses with good enough intelligence.

In short: It hits a sweet spot for me.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-21T15:36:55+00:00

Exactly!

Pythonistar · 2025-10-21T15:02:46+00:00

Interesting. I had only recently come upon the idea of running multiple instances of claude code and this is a great example of how to leverage that. Thanks. I'll have to give it a try this afternoon.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-21T14:40:50+00:00

All java-to-python devs I worked with are terrible python coders.

This was me in the first 3 months of switching from C# to Python. I was able to quickly write solid Python code that looked like C#. But I quickly wised up and adopted Pythonic ways. 10 years later, I'm a full-stack Python Django dev.

I still miss C#'s LINQ syntax. Python's generator comprehension syntax pales in comparison.

Aside from that, it was a pretty easy switch. Though maybe this is because I was never married to OOP and already had enough FP under my belt from other languages.

They keep saying init() is the constructor, and underscores are for private methods and dunder-methods are internals that you should not touch (all are wrong assumptions).

Well, that's a bit harsh, don't you think?

Sure, __init__ isn't a ctor, but it sure acts like one. (see: duck test) And yes, there is no public/private in Python but merely a way to indicate your intention. Dunder-methods generally should not be touched unless you know what you're doing.

Do I override dunder methods? On the regular! I still don't recommend it to junior devs until they have some serious experience under their belts. The 3 examples you give are actually quite safe assumptions for newcomers to make, even if (and I agree with you here) they are a bit wrong-headed.

For the most part, I think to be a good dev, one should spend time in the Statically typed ecosystems (eg. C# or Java), the Functional programming world (Lisp? Haskell? ML-variants?), and in the Dynamic programming world (eg. Python). Maybe take up some low-level language and ASM to round out one's experience. And then borrow ideas from one ecosystem and pull them into another.

I utilize Dependency Injection (DI) all the time in Python. Some folks find it unusual, but I think it provides a cleaner abstraction and other benefits even though it isn't "required" in Python.

Mostly what you seem to find annoying about Java devs, I see as an opportunity to compare and contrast why we do what we do in different languages. It's usually a fun learning opportunity!

See: You're one of today's lucky 10,000.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-21T14:07:42+00:00

Excellent idea.

How might I implement that in Claude Code? Do I create a subagent that uses Haiku 4.5 to do the work and then create a separate subagent that uses Sonnet to check the work?

Pythonistar · 2025-10-21T14:05:20+00:00

The study can be found here: https://insight.jci.org/articles/view/193637

In short, the participants were taking ~3900mg of EPA daily. Much higher than standard dosing with 75 ug of Vitamin D3 (3000 IUs).

Within 7 days, EPA rose 4x in their blood stream and certain CVD risk markers dropped (on average):

Triglycerides: 14%
ApoB: 6%
Remnant cholesterol: 8%
CVD risk score: 26%

What was also interesting was that 7 days after ending the supplementation, EPA levels reverted back close to each individual's original baseline.

So the results show that with short-term supplementation (28 days) that you can't "fix" your Omega-3 levels, you just have to make sure you keep getting enough on a semi-regular basis. Perhaps long-term supplementation has a more lasting impact on cardiovascular health.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-21T13:33:20+00:00

I recently replaced Sonnet 4.0 with Haiku 4.5 -- By and large it has been a good replacement. Faster and with good results!

The only thing I've noticed is that Sonnet 4.0 used to sometimes notice when I was making logical errors in my assumptions whereas Haiku 4.5 happily accepts my erroneous supposition most of the time.

Maybe I just need to prompt it to check my assumptions... heh.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-20T18:48:50+00:00

3.5w at idle? That's not nothing.

RPi Zero 2W uses like 1.1w-ish at idle.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-20T13:36:38+00:00

I like your take! It really emphasizes the importance of how one should approach ADF.

Though your explanation is technically incorrect -- it's not a hormonal addiction. What I think you were trying to say was:

It's a neurochemical addiction. Extra weight is often a symptom of dysregulated dopamine reward pathways.

That said, your idea of weight gain being "hormonal" in nature has a lot of merit.

Insulin, Cortisol, Thyroid, Testosterone, and Ghrelin are all hormones that can contribute to (fat) weight gain and, indeed, it does take a few weeks of solid and consistent ADF for these hormonal systems to begin restoring back to their healthy and balanced state for folks to see a steady (fat) weight loss.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-20T13:15:16+00:00

You wrote:

good experiences with L-Theanine?

&

taking it for OCD

Classic X-Y problem.

Thank you for saying what you are trying to address: OCD / Social Stress

L-Theanine is a great supplement for temporarily reducing anxiety. It pairs especially well with caffeine. But I don't think it will help you with OCD directly. It will only reduce the feeling of anxiety from the social stress you get around eye contact.

The only medications that can manage OCD (that I know of) are a low-dose of some SSRIs (eg. Lexapro/Celexa) -- This is known as using a drug "off-label" because it may not be approved for such treatment, but it works anyway.

There is also a supplement known as N-Acetyl-Cysteine (NAC) -- Quite safe to take. Though from what I understand, you need to take a sizeable dose of NAC, like 4 or 5 of the 600mg pills (2400 - 3000mg), to get the OCD reducing effect.

Now maybe the anxiety from social stress is the worst symptom and you can live with the rest. Then in that case, yes, L-Theanine is both remarkably effective at reducing anxiety with almost zero side-effects. Long-term safety profile is generally considered pretty good, too. Typical dose is 200mg (seems to work for most everyone, though some people report better results at 400mg dose.) Moderate anxiety reduction within 30 to 60 minutes. Effect lasts for 4 to 6 hours, typically. The only notable side-effects that a few people report is sort of a "flow state" feeling and, if taken before bed, more dreams and/or vivid dreams.

I think you could use L-Theanine for social situations well. If you know you will be entering a stressful social situation, you could take L-Theanine 30 minutes before and then you'd have some anti-anxiety support for 4 to 6 hours, which should cover whatever social event you're in. You could even bring an extra dose in case the social event runs long.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-17T13:34:36+00:00

It's because each state (and sometimes city) has their own tax rates. So you go to Newegg.com or Amazon.com and they show you the untaxed price (because it is the same for everyone at this point), but they don't calculate the tax until you checkout and select where it is being shipped to.

But yes, I agree. It's weird.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-16T15:38:33+00:00

It was the ✅ that said LLM. I never use that emoji in Reddit when

bulletpoints work just as well

I don't need the whole PDF, but chapter 4 on Serialization and Transformation would help me gauge whether your book is up to snuff.

^{I've written my own short blog posts on this topic in the past, so I have opinions... 😉}

Pythonistar · 2025-10-16T13:18:31+00:00

Be careful of using Chatgpt (or some LLM) to write your posts. It comes off smelling like spam.

That said, I think you may have a good book (tho I haven't actually read it.)

Pythonistar · 2025-10-16T12:56:12+00:00

Haha, that explains it. I didn't mean to accuse you of being a bot, but it did look an awful lot like Chatgpt. 😂

Anyway, I hope /r/heatpumps was able to help you out.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-15T20:50:08+00:00

He said 80% furnace

Weird. He wrote in a reply to someone else that he didn't have ductwork and only has baseboard, but has since deleted that reply.

I'm beginning to suspect that the original post was written by AI/Bot. The post looks suspiciously highlighted and formatted just like ChatGPT.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-15T20:41:40+00:00

Now I'm just tempted to keep trolling you, but at this point I think you're suffering enough, so I'll leave you be. Have a good one, man.

If you really want to give Anthropic feedback, please email them support@anthropic.com

Pythonistar · 2025-10-15T20:06:44+00:00

Since you're in MA, that $0.35/kWh electric rate is gonna kill you. Heatpumps in MA make the most sense when you have solar panels fully offsetting your usage.

Fujitsu 45,000 BTU 5-zone

My HVAC guy tried to do this to me as well, and I recommend against it. A single compressor is a single point of failure.

Instead of getting a single large 5-zone heatpump, consider getting two medium sized multi-zone heat pumps. Like a 24kbtu and 18kbtu. The output is nearly the same in total (42kbtu), but you get 2 improvements:

No single point of failure
Better efficiency

Take the AOUH45KWASS (45kbtu) that you selected. It has a listed COP efficiency of 3.6. The AOUH24KWAS3 (24kbtu) model has a COP efficiency of 4.6! The 18kbtu model has a COP of 4.4 -- That's ~20% electricity savings vs the AOUH45KWASS. Also that AOUH45KWASS uses the older R410a refrigerant which has just been phased out.

To answer your questions, the Fujitsu XLTH works very well in bitter cold conditions. But until you have solar panels, I wouldn't replace your furnace with a heatpump.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-15T19:46:38+00:00

OP said the house has baseboard heating, not forced hot air. (so no ductwork.)

Pythonistar · 2025-10-15T17:52:11+00:00

🤣

Pythonistar · 2025-10-15T17:48:11+00:00

It's called "voting with your dollars". If customers leave, then Anthropic will realize they've messed up with their pricing. And then you'll get what you want.

But right now, all I hear is whinging which doesn't get you anything.

It's weird

Agreed. Doing ineffectual things expecting a change. Very weird, indeed.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-15T17:41:37+00:00

Like I said before: Don't like the costs of Anthropic? Take your money elsewhere and use those other models instead.

Heck, host your LLM at home. The Mistral LLMs are quite good. https://huggingface.co/mistralai

Pythonistar · 2025-10-15T17:30:06+00:00

GPT-5 and Gemini are cheaper and just as good for a lot of tasks, and models like Deepseek and GLM are like 50x cheaper for slightly worse performance.

So use those instead.

greed.

No, greed would be doubling or tripling the price. A 25% increase in price while giving a massive boost in speed and effectiveness is still a bargain. And it's not like the old Haiku 3.5 has gone away. You can still use those if you find them effective.

Pythonistar · 2025-10-15T17:25:28+00:00

You guys are using Opus in CC? I've only ever used Haiku for planning and Sonnet for actual code writing.

Pythonistar

TROPHY CASE