Routing Between Gemini 3.7 Flash and 3.1 Pro by Rework Cost, Not Speed
A single question replaced my model-selection ritual: can a machine catch this output when it is wrong? Here is how that splits work between 3.7 Flash and 3.1 Pro, plus the pricing math across the December 31 cutover.
Moving to the Batch Tier Cancels Out the Gemini 3.7 Flash Price Increase Exactly
Introductory pricing for Gemini 3.7 Flash ends on December 31, 2026, and the rate doubles the next day. Here is which models are affected, which are not, and how to project your January bill from the usage you already have.
When Sampling Parameters Were Deprecated, Diversity Broke Before Determinism Did
Deprecating temperature, top_p and top_k hurt the diversity-generating side of my pipeline, not the deterministic side. Counting real call sites, moving diversity to the input layer, and measuring effective diversity.
Still image or short clip? Deciding feature placement from the cost gap between Nano Banana 2 Lite and Omni Flash
When I froze over whether a wallpaper app's hero asset should be a still image or a short moving loop, the deciding factor was not taste but the order of magnitude of the cost. Here is how to normalize Nano Banana 2 Lite and Omni Flash onto the same footing, down to a working decision function.
How Well Does Omni Flash Hear 'Rotate the Camera 30 Degrees Right'? Measuring Where Conversational Edits Land
Public-preview Gemini Omni Flash lets you re-edit a generated video in plain language. 'Make the lighting evening' lands; 'rotate the camera 30 degrees' often misses. Here is a running log of where instructions land, sorted mechanically by comparing before/after frames.
A Gemini stream drops halfway — restart it, or have the model continue?
Most apps silently restart a dropped stream. Here is the arithmetic behind continuing from the partial output instead, and where to put the threshold.
What language should your system instruction be in? Measuring three approaches when most prompts arrive in the user's language
Keep the system instruction in English, or translate it into the user's language? I measured input tokens per language with countTokens, then lined up output-language match and schema compliance to find where nine tokens is enough.
Collapsing Video Understanding into One Native Call with Omni Flash
How I replaced an ffmpeg frame-extraction pipeline (7-9 calls per clip) with a single native Omni Flash call, the measured differences, and the boundaries where keeping frame sampling still wins.
Designing Batch Image Costs with Nano Banana 2 Lite: Decide by Measuring
How to fold the fastest, cheapest image model, Nano Banana 2 Lite, into high-volume generation: measuring per-image cost, a two-tier setup with a quality model, and retry handling grounded in real numbers.
Splitting Bulk Image Generation Cost in Two with Nano Banana 2 Lite: A Draft-and-Render Design
A two-tier cost design that routes first-pass generation to Nano Banana 2 Lite and final renders to the standard Nano Banana 2, with a minimal Python router you can adapt.