AI and Me - Issue 2026.4

There are lots of tool/model/skill changes listed below, but the biggest overarching change is simplicity. The models are changing faster than the tools. I am increasingly finding little long-term value in anything that tries to improve the model from the outside. So the last couple of months have seen the removal of many tools and a lot of skills. Instead, I am now focusing on improving my inputs and pushing the model to verify and prove the output.ModelsOpus and Fable are from Anthropic. Astra and Sol are from OpenAI. My primary model usage:Code - Opus 5.5 - it does just enough. Astra and Fable tend to get a little too caught up in the weeds. This is a big change for me. I had been avoiding Opus all year, but 5.5 is a dramatic improvement.Research - Astra (Fable for second opinions) - Does a great job of covering all your basesCode Review - Astra (sometimes Sol 6.1) - Similar to research, it does a very good job of considering all of the potential angles, regressions, etc. In fact,…