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+## 2026-09-16 (18) — the tail OPTIMISATION IS INERT ON EVERY POWER-OF-TWO POPULATION >= 512 ROWS, including the 4096-row tile
+
+Established before writing the rewrite (15)-(17) argued for, and it changes
+whether that rewrite is worth doing at all. No code; this entry is the gate.
+
+### The arithmetic
+
+A mask over `n` rows is `ceil(n/64)` words (`lgj-abi`'s `mask_words_for`, and
+this file's own `mask_words_for`). The facade's algebra ops walk `U64x8`, so a
+TAIL exists only when `words % 8 != 0`. For a power of two, `words = 2^(k-6)`,
+and `2^(k-6) % 8 == 0` for every `k >= 9`. So:
+
+| rows | words | tail | tail SHARE of the op | what the REWRITE would WIN |
+|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
+| 64 | 1 | 1 | 100 % | 67 % |
+| 128 | 2 | 2 | 100 % | 67 % |
+| 256 | 4 | 4 | 100 % | 67 % |
+| **512** | **8** | **0** | **none** | **none** |
+| **4096** | **64** | **0** | **none** | **none** |
+| 10 000 | 157 | 5 | 73 % | 49 % |
+| 65 536 | 1024 | 0 | **none** | **none** |
+| 1 000 000 | 15 625 | 1 | 2.6 % | **1.7 %** |
+| 16 777 216 | 262 144 | 0 | **none** | **none** |
+
+⊘ **Two corrections, both codex on #316, both to this table and its headline.**
+
+**(a) The headline dropped its own condition.** It read "inert on every
+power-of-two population". False below 512 rows: 64/128/256 rows are 1/2/4
+words, so `words % 8 != 0` and the tail is the WHOLE op. The derivation right
+above the table says `k >= 9` and the prose below said "at or above 512 rows" —
+the TITLE is what lost it, which is the fourth level of this session's one
+defect class: after a label outrunning its accumulator, a claim outrunning its
+evidence and a measurement outrunning its regime, **a headline outrunning the
+derivation directly beneath it.**
+
+**(b) A SHARE is not a WIN, and this entry conflated them.** The 16 ns is the
+padded tail's share of the current op; the rewrite does not remove it, it
+replaces it with #315's measured fixed-step tail of **5.33 ns**. So the win is
+`(16 − 5.33) / current`, and every share figure overstated it by exactly
+`16 / 10.67 = 1.5×`. At a million rows: current `1953 × 0.31 + 16 ≈ 621 ns`,
+win `10.67 ns ≈ 1.7 %` — not 2.6 %.
+
+**Every power-of-two population at or above 512 rows has NO TAIL AT ALL**, and
+this workspace's shapes are overwhelmingly powers of two — the 4096-row tile,
+the 64-word mask, the 512-byte node, the 4096-centroid codebook.
+
+### What this does to (15)-(17)
+
+Those entries are not wrong; they are **scoped narrower than they read.** The
+probe swept `base = 8` and `base = 64` WORDS — 512 and 4096 rows — plus `k` of
+1..7, i.e. exactly the small end, and its "7 of 8 mask sizes have a tail" is a
+statement about ARBITRARY sizes. The consumers' sizes are not arbitrary.
+
+So the honest reading of the merged measurement:
+
+- "the padded tail is routinely larger than the work it trails" — true **at
+  8-71 words**, which is 512-4544 rows.
+- On a million-row table the same tail is **2.6 %**.
+- On the canonical 4096-row tile it is **0 %** — the op has no tail to pay for.
+
+### Consequence: the 11-function rewrite is NOT justified yet
+
+It would touch a hot facade across six realizations to win 0 % on the canonical
+shape, ~2.6 % on a large arbitrary one, and a lot on sizes like 10 000 rows.
+Whether that last case is real is a CONSUMER question nobody has asked yet:
+which populations actually reach `mask_and` and friends, at what row counts.
+
+**The gate for step (b) is therefore not "a quieter machine" (what I told the
+reviewer on #315) — it is a census of real consumer population sizes.** If they
+are powers of two, the work is inert and should not be done; if arbitrary row
+counts dominate, it is worth ~2.6 % there and much more on small masks.
+
+### And ternlog specifically points the other way
+
+For `mask_ternlog` the padded form is **ONE** instruction — a full-width
+`vpternlogq zmm` over the zero-padded register. The fixed-step peel measured in
+(16) needs **three** logic ops at 4-lane plus more at 2-lane plus a scalar
+step. So for ternlog the padded tail may well be the CHEAPER shape, which is
+the opposite of the direction (15) proposed for it, and is an independent
+reason not to sweep all 11 sites uniformly.
+
+### The rule this is an instance of
+
+(15)-(17) were each about a label outrunning its measurement. This one is one
+level up: **a measurement outrunning its REGIME.** The numbers were correct at
+the sizes probed and the conclusion was stated without them. Before a kernel
+optimisation lands, ask what the consumer's actual shapes are — a 3x win on a
+size nobody runs is worth nothing, and the cheapest way to find that out is
+arithmetic on the size formula, not another benchmark.
+
+### The consumer census (18) called for — run, and it closes the question
+
+Done read-only against `lance-graph-java`'s `lgj-abi`, the binding consumer of
+the facade's mask algebra.
+
+**1. There is NO tiling of the population.** `lgj_pattern_open(n_rows, …)` /
+`lgj_rowstore_open(n_rows, …)` take the row count directly and a mask spans the
+WHOLE population (`abi.rs::mask_words_for` = `n_rows.div_ceil(64)`). The only
+"tile" in that crate is the 12-byte facet register, not the rows. So the padded
+tail is paid ONCE per op and amortizes over the entire body — the favourable
+direction for the status quo.
+
+**2. Every committed population size is blind to the tail**, and in a
+bimodal way that is worth seeing laid out:
+
+| rows | words | can it see a tail? |
+|---:|---:|---|
+| 4, 8, 10, 16, 32, 64 | 1 | **all tail** — not one full group |
+| 70, 100, 128 | 2 | **all tail** |
+| 200 | 4 | **all tail** |
+| 500 | 8 | none |
+| 1000, 1024 | 16 | none |
+| 4096 | 64 | none |
+| 64000 | 1000 | none |
+
+The small sizes are correctness fixtures where the op IS its tail and speed is
+irrelevant; every size large enough to have a body has **zero tail**. So no
+committed test or bench in the consumer can ever exercise the regime the
+optimisation targets — which is exactly why #315's probe had to choose
+`base = 8` and `64` words to see it at all.
+
+**3. Where it does bite** — reported as the WIN the rewrite would deliver, not
+the tail's share, per the correction above (padded 16 ns replaced by #315's
+measured fixed-step 5.33 ns, against a body of `groups × 0.31 ns`):
+
+| population | tail share | REWRITE WIN |
+|---:|---:|---:|
+| 5 000 rows | 85 % | 57 % |
+| 50 000 | 35 % | 23 % |
+| 100 000 | 21 % | 14 % |
+| ~325 000 | 7.5 % | **5 %** |
+| ~502 000 | 5 % | 3.4 % |
+| 1 000 000 | 2.6 % | **1.7 %** |
+| ~1 735 000 | 1.5 % | **1 %** |
+| any power of two ≥ 512 | 0 % | **0 %** |
+
+So the crossovers move in with the correction: the win falls under **5 %** above
+~325 k rows and under **1 %** above ~1.74 M, where the share figures put those
+thresholds at ~502 k and ~2.6 M.
+
+### Verdict on step (b): DO NOT BUILD IT
+
+The optimisation is worth something only for arbitrary populations in roughly
+the **5 k – 325 k row** band (where the WIN, not the share, clears 5 %). Outside it: under 512 rows the op is all tail and
+untimed, above ~2.6 M rows it is under 1 %, and on every power of two it is
+exactly zero. Against that it would touch a hot facade at 11 sites across six
+realizations, and make `mask_ternlog` WORSE (its padded form is one full-width
+`vpternlogq`; the peel is three ops plus more).
+
+**So step (b) is closed as measured-not-worth-doing, not deferred.** Reopening
+it needs a named consumer workload whose populations sit in that band — not
+another kernel benchmark.
+
+Cross-ref: (15) the trip-count finding and the codegen witnesses stand
+unchanged — `U64x4 &` really is bit-identical to a hand-written loop, fixed
+peels really are packed on aarch64, the `avx512vl` gate really is unnecessary.
+What is withdrawn is only the implied priority of acting on them.
+
+---
+
 ## 2026-09-16 (17) — ⊘ CORRECTS (16) twice: the unit was OBSERVATIONS not widths, and "lower bound" was one claim too many
 
 Both caught by coderabbit on the same PR (#315), both are errors (16) introduced