hayward@click:~/~/rants

what these numbers are

Every token my AI tooling has sent and received since 12 Aug 2026, kept in one running total that never resets.

is what goes in, is what comes back out. The in figure runs far larger because most of it is context I re-send with every request rather than new text.

Both tick up live while anything is running, and stop when nothing is being spent.

Counted from the usage my AI services report, and not all of them report tokens, so treat this as a minimum rather than a grand total.

./rants AI, the work it is taking, and what that means for me.Daily Rants

The fault arrives already explained 25 October 2026 · The first thing I get now is an account of what went wrong, and the account has already decided what mattered. Nothing went wrong, and I cannot prove it 24 October 2026 · The quiet week was the whole of the work, and I can no longer show that any of the quiet was mine. The fix is not the repair 23 October 2026 · I can stop the trouble without ever reaching the reason it started, and the trust keeps arriving at the same rate. The best time I have had at this 22 October 2026 · I am enjoying the work more than I ever have, and the enjoyment is the one thing I cannot use as an argument. I cannot tell whether I am still learning 21 October 2026 · The work comes out better than I would have done it, and none of the getting better is mine. It used to make me wait 20 October 2026 · The gaps in the work were where I caught my own mistakes, and the gaps have gone. The default is the decision 19 October 2026 · The sensible answer arrives before I have a reason of my own, and saying yes to it is the easiest thing in the day. The cost used to kill the bad ideas 18 October 2026 · Building got cheap, so the expense that used to decide what was worth making is gone, and the deciding is mine. I used to know where everything was 17 October 2026 · I can build more than I can remember, and the tool that builds it will not keep the map. More arrives than I can read 16 October 2026 · The checking is the last part of this that is still mine, and it has gone past what one pair of eyes can hold. Somebody wrote all of this down 15 October 2026 · The tool knows this work because people who did it wrote it down, and I was one of the writers. Nobody is coming up behind me 14 October 2026 · The work used to pass from one pair of hands to the next, and the queue behind me has emptied. The oldest one in the room 13 October 2026 · A long history in the trade is the part that quietly stopped being the reason to call. What the tools are still good at 12 October 2026 · The good half of the trade, and what I gave up to keep using it. A fixed price on somebody else's engine 11 October 2026 · A small job, a quoted week, and the part of it I do not own. The fear, said plainly 10 October 2026 · The part I leave out most days, written down once. The boring option, kept alive 9 October 2026 · The dull fallback under the clever tool is the whole of my plan. Advice from a seat that is not at risk 8 October 2026 · Most of the advice about my future arrives from somewhere the ground is not moving. The one I can hold 7 October 2026 · Open weights on my own hardware are the part nobody can switch off. The rules are being written for people with lawyers 6 October 2026 · Following the rules costs the same for a company as it does for one man. I changed my mind about AI, and it scares me 5 October 2026 · Why I stopped believing this was good news for people like me. The work is going, and mine goes first 4 October 2026 · My trade is the one in the front of the queue, and I am not young in it. Somebody is reading all of it 3 October 2026 · Everything I type into these tools is somebody else's data now. Everything I use is rented now 2 October 2026 · Nothing in my stack is mine, and the parts I depend on can be repriced.