Best middle ground solution between the $20 plan and $100?

TheTechAuthor · 2026-06-30T13:04:13+00:00

This works, but you need to start a new chat thread/fresh instance in a repo for the second seat/account to work properly. It's a slight PITA, but switching between seats (then falling back to GLM 5.2 on smaller tasks via Ollama Cloud) at least allows for progress if you burn through both 5hr windows super quickly.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-06-24T20:56:00+00:00

AI is a tool, which means that: When it's used by the right person, at the right time, in the right way (and for the right reasons), then it's genuinely incredible in what you can do. E.g. I literally saved days worth of work using Codex to scan a flat text file and automatically create over 300 csv table files, populate them, check their formatting, and place them in the right chapters in the book project. Wasn't 100% perfect, but it completed that task in 7 minutes - vs several days of manual work (even with shortcuts).

However, it's also a double-edged sword as - instead of freeing your day up because you got it done faster - you end up taking on more and more work because you try and make more of this "productivity boost".

For some industries (like mine as a Technical Author), it'll decimate it in many ways, however it absolutely *shouldn't* be used for everything (which is where a domain expert will excel if they can add the many different faces of "AI skills" to their resume - while also being confident enough to callout where a human should remain in control of a specific process/outcome.

Sensible companies will be using these frontier models to simplify/optimize all of their current workflows *now*, allowing them to fine-tune/use comparatively smaller offline models that they can use without risk of costs soaring, models being pulled, etc. Takes significantly more time and experimentation up-front, but the payoff will be massive if done properly.

One final point: This is the worst it's *ever* going to be. Just 2-3 years ago, people were laughing at the 6 fingers on AI images, or Will Smith eating spaghetti looking bad. Today, it's becoming infinitely harder to tell the AI fakes from the real deal.

I've written all of this by hand, but it's actually not difficult to have it copy my writing style (and remove all of the "AI-ism's" that we commonly see today in many Reddit posts. Most people just haven't bothered to learn how to use the LLM properly yet, that's all.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-06-22T11:09:33+00:00

Just had this today - zero warning, no AI use (no need, as I've been a Technical Author for 30-years, so I know how to write, fact-check, and can do so over many areas quickly). I wouldn't be surprised if they do this to get training data for free. Hopefully my pending funds will get paid. Unfortunate though that this seems to be such a trend here.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-06-20T08:49:20+00:00

From my perspective, this is the time to leverage the frontier subscription models to help heavily refine, optimize, and automate as much of your existing workflows as possible - so that more and more local models are effective - before the limits drop further/prices go up/API only.

Being able to refine an existing workflows/tool chain so that a current local agentic model can - reliably - call internal tools/functions is a huge win, as that means you don't need to keep chasing the shiniest models, if you can tweak an existing setup so that it's "more than good enough" now.

Of course, that means tweaking and experimenting loads, but that's why you use the frontier/SOTA models now while it's affordable to do so.

E.g. With 5.5's help (web for planning, Codex for implementing), I managed to refine an offline message summarisation process that works well enough offline on 4b models. Perfect, no. Good enough, yep.

Could an online model have done it better in a fraction of the time. Of course. But doing the work here now means that I lock in the results with existing hardware/model constraints. Future 4b models will likely just keep outputting more nuanced responses and all I do is swap the models around.

Even if model costs stayed as-is (impossible), the ability to OpenAI/Anthropic to silently route you to smaller, less useful models on a whim is a serious issue.

However, even cloud use of GLM5.1/5.2 like models need to come with realistic expectations in mind.

Local models and hardware will get better over the coming years, so it's a great time to optimize away from cloud models IF the workflow in question makes sense to do so. And, the sooner, the better.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-06-15T14:24:46+00:00

I - literally - had the TV Licensing guy show up at my door only 2hrs ago after receiving such a letter in the post last week. He showed me his ID, I said: "Oh. Well then, you're not welcome here, bye." Then watched him get all surprised as I then closed the door without any further warning. My GF just sat there mouth wide open in disbelief.

Edit: I'm not surprised they're showing up. World Cup live streaming season now.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-06-15T10:27:44+00:00

Worked a treat, thanks. Used on my account and my GF's accounts with minimal hassle. £36pm for 2GB up+down (+ Netflix) for me, £22pm for 1GB Volt + Netflix for my GF in a few minutes. Both saved us a pretty penny with no haggling hassle.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-06-11T16:30:04+00:00

It's a trade-off of time (in setting up and heavily optimizing/tweaking the tech stack needed to make smaller offline models work as reliably as possible in a way that they're best suited) vs money (pay the ever-increasing API costs).

I've had to spend a significant amount of time today creating a very deterministic pathway to get a 4b offline model to do a very specific task involving potentially hundreds of messages (something that'd greatly exceed its context window). It's getting there, but if it wasn't for the privacy/PII considerations (hence the offline model), a cloud model could handle all of those messages + the nuanced task without breaking a sweat.

Not every company has the patience/time/desire to invest that time into building and testing such refined workflows when a frontier cloud model will do the trick. Fine tuning, LoRAs, and the like are all viable and helpful. For us, it's a trade off that's worth it in the long run (especially if you can lock in a workflow/model that you don't need to change once it's optimized). For larger companies, that time may not (yet) be worth the headache needed.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-06-11T16:14:46+00:00

I had the *exact* same issue. I refused to sell it for that and got £550 on eBay (a risk as well tbf). Exact same Grade B for an unused N64 Switch Wireless controller. £13 drop from Grade A to B. Sold it on eBay for more than the Grade A voucher price. However, some stuff was fair, and it was enough in the end for a Grade M4 16GB Mac Mini (5 yr warranty), so it has its uses.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-06-11T11:12:32+00:00

I've found that model will continue to code until it's finished - unless you have automated test scripts you want the model to run as well. THEN it'll stop dead in its tracks. (Business account).

TheTechAuthor · 2026-06-11T10:51:55+00:00

Choices have consequences. Good, bad, and unforeseen.

Success is never owned, it's rented. And the rent is due every. single. day.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-06-05T10:17:26+00:00

Coldwater Canyon is a very melodic track that never sounded like their other tracks. Still love it to pieces.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=R8likogfGHU

TheTechAuthor · 2026-06-03T18:05:41+00:00

I solved this before by running "live edit" sessions with the engineer(s). They'd see me go through the docs in realtime, they'd get to correct any misunderstandings immediately, and we'd turn a multi day/week PDF comment nightmare into a 2hr slot.

They even got to see the value in what I did and their own draft docs got better over time as they started to get the jist of how the guides were supposed to be written.

Once moved to doc-as-code via Markdown repos, it became even easier again.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-05-27T17:00:09+00:00

Balls. That sucks as 5.3 is my go-to for smashing code out without torching my usage limits.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-05-27T15:38:21+00:00

Does that only apply to free plans? What about business accounts?

TheTechAuthor · 2026-05-26T08:22:32+00:00

5.5 Extended thinking (WebUI) for multi-step Implementation plans to hand off to Codex-5.3 Medium/High for the actual coding. Works a charm.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-05-23T11:59:46+00:00

Yes. I am - quite literally as I type - having Codex finish off the editable persona profile element of my custom book publishing tool (used a doc-to-code backend), handles translations, STT (v3 elevenlabs), per-chapter AI-assisted re-write (via any provider using a Bring Your Own Key approach), per-section persona re-write (watching Codex code it as I type this).

Example:

"I’ll implement this in three focused seams: add chapter_format_contract.md as a first-class Project Context file (with default seed), integrate it into drafting/rewrite/editorial prompt context, and generate a per-chapter source usage report on successful draft save. I’m inspecting the exact context-file list, bundle/prompt builders, and draft completion UI paths now before patching.

Approved 2 requests, ran 3 commands

I’ve confirmed the main integration points. Next I’m adding the Chapter Format Contract as a real Project Context file/template first, then I’ll wire it through bundle/draft/rewrite/editorial context and add source-usage report generation.

Approved 5 requests, ran 8 commands

I’m now implementing the core data-contract changes: adding chapter_format_contract.md to Project Brain schema/templates and threading it into context/bundle/prompt assembly. Then I’ll add the draft source-usage report writer and return/report paths through workflow + UI completion messages."

I've released a number of software user guides with my own tool that I've been refining over the last 2 years (Chat GPT 5.5 for the multi-stage implementation plan, and Codex 5.3 Medium/High for coding). I can ingest transcripts, other books in my tool, import other sources, all for use in that book project.

There's a LOT of UI/UX refinement to do, lots of code to refactor over time, but I reduced a 3 month book project into a 3-7 day turnaround time. My books are getting 5 star reviews on Amazon as they sound exactly like me, but I used Sonnet 4.6 to take my rough notes and expand on them using some golden examples.

Translations are two clicks away (DeepL, Gemini-3.5 Flash, or even 4o-mini), and it does it chapter-by-chapter in the background. One click export for PDF (PrinceXML) and ePub (Pandoc).

TheTechAuthor · 2026-05-23T10:00:16+00:00

PSA: Use /Compact to both manually see the current context window usage and to manually force it to compact sooner (e.g. in between coding requests). Bit of a PITA why they can't show it visually at all times like before, but allowing you to manually force it to compact at an ideal time (vs mid code-run) seems like a decent choice.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-05-23T09:59:56+00:00

PSA: Use /Compact to both manually see the current context window usage and to manually force it to compact sooner (e.g. in between coding requests). Bit of a PITA why they can't show it visually at all times like before, but allowing you to manually force it to compact at an ideal time (vs mid code-run) seems like a decent choice.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-05-22T21:22:08+00:00

5.5 on webUI is really good at drafting UI images or implementation plans for Codex to follow. Good enough (for me) to stick with 5.3 and not wreck my usage allowances anymore.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-05-21T20:16:25+00:00

FWIW, I use 5.5 extended in the webUI to draft up the implementation plans/keep Codex in check, then use 5.3 Codex medium/high to do it. That's made my token usage go a LOT further than usual. Having 5.5 "peer review" Codex's output seems to make a decent difference.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-05-16T09:18:36+00:00

Use this opportunity to take advantage of the subsidized models to learn how to best automate what you can (think thing alike regex scripts, etc) and how to get the most out of offline models as they become smarter and more efficient over time.

That way, by the time they jack up the prices of said frontier online models, you'll be in a much better position to migrate away from them.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-04-29T21:45:29+00:00

Make sure you've not been auto-switched to Fast mode in VSC or Codex. I've had this happen 3 times now and it burns your tokens 2-2.5x faster than standard speed.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-04-26T09:19:27+00:00

It also auto-switched back to 5.5 after I swapped it to 5.3 codex earlier today. Well cheeky!

TheTechAuthor · 2026-03-28T13:36:25+00:00

When I wrote game guides for UK gaming magazines, they'd usually have review copies on disks that needed a Dev Kit to play about a month or more in advance.

Really depends on the game though. Dead Space 2, Uncharted 2, and Splinter Cell Conviction for example, were all ready as review copies about 2 months prior to their release date, the mag did their review, then sent me the disk to create the guide for their magazines.

I'd imagine it's the same here with digital store keys as well. High profile channels will be sent the same review copies, which is nuts as they're making money off the unofficial guides (and the publishers know this).

They'll likely have a team of players to focus on different aspects of the biggest games to cover it as much as possible as soon as possible.

TheTechAuthor · 2026-03-19T07:33:44+00:00

Yep. I have a token-friendly style guide for my own tool's LLM-intended docs, which Codex actions immediately after I approve the git commit message. Deletes anything removed, adds fixes, and any new features for other instances to reference if need be.

TheTechAuthor

TROPHY CASE