Chapter 18 · The statement at month's end
Meta-alphabet
In the brief edition: Which AI plan, which setting, which model, on purpose
What was read, and when
- The recorded pair: 27 September 2026, seconds apart, one model by its API, with the vendor's defaults except the effort setting (low, then the highest the model accepted), no system prompt and one turn. The question named no product.
- The makers' plans pages for the United States, read on 27 September 2026, their figures in a browser; the second maker's Latin American page, read on 25 and 27 September 2026; the third maker's page for Mexico and the first maker's Spanish page, 27 September 2026. The first maker's help page on effort, read on 27 September 2026. The desktop app's model menu and effort control, captured on 18 September 2026 on one account.
- The coding assistant's post, dated 25 March 2026, on a change from 24 April 2026; read on 27 September 2026.
- Mexico: the central bank's fixed rate of 25 September 2026; the law on the value added tax, last reformed 12 November 2021, articles 1 and 18-D.
- The plan's bars: the courses' log, 19 September 2026, one account, which also ran the program that drove the test.
- The weekly's estimate, 19 September 2026, and its bill, 22 September 2026, at rates copied into its settings file as it stood on 20 September 2026. Its own reckoning, not a vendor's invoice.
- The author's two plans, read and cancelled on 20 September 2026; the free month taken on 24 September 2026.
- Table 18.1: the makers' pages for the United States, 27 September 2026.
The sources are printed in the full edition, chapter by chapter, with the day each was read. This page prints the same list.