I stay current on tech for both personal and professional reasons but I also really hate hype. As a result I've been skeptical of AI claims throughout the historic hype cycle we're currently in. Note that I'm using AI here as shorthand for frontier LLMs.

So I'm sort of a late adopter when it comes to LLMs. At each new generation of models I've spent enough time playing with them to feel like I understand where the technology is and can speak about its viability for different applications. But I haven't really incorporated it into my own work/life in any serious way.

That changed recently when I decided to lean all the way in to agent assisted coding for a project after getting some impressive boilerplate out of one of the leading models (I don't remember which one). That AI can do a competent job on basic coding tasks like writing boilerplate code is nothing new, and that wasn't the part that impressed me. What impressed me was the process, especially the degree to which it modified its behavior in practical ways based on feedback. In previous tests it was a lot harder to get the model to go against patterns that featured heavily in the training data, and then get it to stay true to the new patterns for the rest of the session. That's not true anymore.

Long story short, add me to the long list of people whose minds have been blown by coding agents. You can find plenty of articles and posts about what that process looks like so I won't rehash all the details. I'll only say that the comparisons to having your own dedicated junior or intern who is at once highly educated and dumb are apt. Maybe an even better comparison would be to having a team of tireless, emotionless, junior developers willing to respond to your requests at warp speed 24/7 for the price of 1/100th of one developer. You need the team comparison to capture the speed.

You've probably read, or experienced, that AI is good at basic tasks, boilerplate, writing tests, finding bugs and so on. And that it gets progressively worse as things get more complicated and the LoCs start to stack up. That's all true but one part that has changed, in more recent models, is the definition of "basic".

The bit that's difficult to articulate, and I think leads to the "having a nearly free assistant" comparisons, is what it feels like to have AI as a coding companion. I'm not going to try to capture it here, I'll just say it's remarkable.

The usual caveats apply, if you rely on agents to do extensive coding, or handle complex problems, you'll end up regretting it unless you go over every line with a magnifying glass. They will cheerfully introduce subtle bugs that are hard to catch and harder to fix when you finally do stumble across them. And that's assuming they can do the thing you're asking then to do at all. Beyond the basics they still abjectly fail a lot of the time. They'll write humorously bad code, they'll break unrelated code for no apparent reason, they'll freak out and get stuck in loops (that one suprised me in 2025). We're still a long way from agents that can actually write software on their own, despite the hype.

But wow, it's liberating to have an assistant that can do 100's of basic tasks you'd rather not be distracted by, answer questions accurately and knowledgeably, scan and report clearly about code, find bugs you might have missed and otherwise soften the edges of countless engineering pain points. And brainstorming! A pseudo-intelligent partner with an incomprehensibly wide knowledge base and unparalled pattern matching abilities is guaranteed to surface things you wouldn't have considered.

AI coding agents are no joke.

I still agree with the perspectives of many skeptics. Execs and middle managers are still out of their minds when they convince themselves that they can fire 90% of their teams and just have a few seniors do all the work with AI. I will read gleefully about the failures of that strategy over the coming months and years. The failure of their short sightedness and the cost to their organizations won't make up for the human cost of their decisions, but at least there will be consequences.

When it comes to AI in general I have all the mixed feelings. As an artist, I feel the weight of what AI is doing, and will do, to creative work. As a human I'm concerned about AI becoming another tool to funnel ever more wealth to the top. I'm concerned about it ruining the livelihoods of huge swaths of people living in places where there aren't systems that can handle the load of taking care of them. Or aren't even really designed to try. There are a lot of legitimate dystopian outcomes to be worried about.

Despite all that, actually using the technology is pretty exciting, which is the ultimate point of this post: What's your experience? Are you using agents for coding in practical ways? What works and what doesn't? What's your setup? What does it feel like? What do you love/hate about it?

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

I didn't watch the whole video and I'm not familiar with the channel so I don't want to make this a link post, but here's the source: The Lunduke Journal

I watched up to the point where the author explains how Microsoft tends to turn on all the privacy invading settings every time they push an update (not surprising). I guess if I had to use Microsoft products, I'd try to disable automatic updates and just do them twice a year in one go, while also turning off the settings I want off. Would it be practically feasible? I don't know. Having to go to those lengths to use some software just seems ridiculous.

After this Tildes post I was curious about the review scores, Steam Deck compatibility and ProtonDB ratings for the first Digiphile bundle and figured it's worth sharing. I've added two extra columns compared to the Humble Bundle posts:

• Early access because some of these games are "early access" releases.
• All Time Low sourced from isthereanydeal

Digiphile - Return of the Immersive Sim is now available with the following games, grouped by payment tier.

$9 Tier (aprox £6.85, €7.77)

$13 Tier (aprox £9.89, €11.23)

Everything in the $9 tier and the following:

$20 Tier (aprox £15.22, €17.27)

Everything in the $13 tier and the following:

$5 DLC add-on (aprox £3.80, €4.32)

They all sell this as a separate addon for an additional $5:

Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play? Should we post other Digiphile bundles or is this a terrible selection compared to Humble Choice?

Product Links:

• Steam Frame (standalone VR headset)
• Steam Controller (gen 2 design)
• Steam Machine (first-party mini PC)

Video Links:

• Official announcement
• Tested hands-on with additional details

Shipping in early 2026. Prices haven't been announced yet.

Hey Tildes food crew!

I made some olives 3 years ago and kind of a "set it and forget it" situation. And well, I forgot them for too long. It's been 3 years now and I've only found them because I was looking for jars for a new batch. I opened them up and didn't hear any "hiss", they smell good, there is no sign of mold (on the 2 good ones I'm keeping, we did lose one jar to mold), and I did a small taste test and they tasted olive-y and good. They have been in a cupboard for the entire time and I'm happy to share the recipes if that is helpful. The olives in each were slit to facilitate faster edibility. They both have a 5% brine, one with red wine vinegar and the other with balsamic vinegar.

I know we have quite a few crafty, homesteady, foody folks here and would appreciate any advice you can provide! Just making sure they are still safe to eat! Thanks!

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

I'm getting a little bit worried these days about the tracking features in chrome and was looking into Zen Browser. Does anyone here use it? Any thoughts?
Also looking for any simple non tracking browser alternatives!

We've had discussions around here before about where we get our news, and one of mine has been The BBC. I've used them as an occasional source for several years now. It seems that today (Nov 15th) marks a shift in their policy regarding access to their online site. BBC.com is no longer readable for free. I can look at their headlines, but as soon as I try to read an article, a subscribe pop-up appears, and there is no way around it. Archive sites will still have the articles, yes, but that is a different subject entirely.

As far as I'm concerned, that drops them from my list of news sources. I have tentatively replaced them with Reuters, which is visually clunky, but still free. The AP site, PBS and National Public Radio are other sites I frequent. For a British viewpoint, I'm also trying out The Guardian, which bombards me with SUBSCRIBE notices, but those can still be zapped out of sight.

Are there any other obvious sites I haven't mentioned? Not interested in right-wing propaganda by the way and I find most of the major American networks intolerable.

21st century version of the Jules Verne classic.

No new carbon added to the atmosphere.

Piece of cake? Impossible? Doable?

Discuss...

Sadly, I think I need to reduce my coffee intake. I only ever had a cup a day, but I've always been in to light roasts... roasted within walking distance of my house*... super fancy shit. Anyway, I'm trying to nail down some health things, so coffee has to go for a time.

I am now a tea person. I don't really like it, but I need something like that in the morning. I've started with Lapsang Souchong. This is pretty much the only tea I've ever had. I don't have any dairy in my diet, either, which seems to be a big part of tea-life.

Any top tips for getting into tea? I was just mocked for weighing tea... I guess that isn't as important in this scene.

* not joking about this :)

edit: thanks everybody! the first round of teas are:

• Lapsang Souchong
• Hojicha
• Irish Breakfast
• Margaret's Hope

so far so good!

I'd say that on Tildes as on other platforms, you see a lot more posts responding to a topic than you see comments on existing posts.

I get it. Responding to a prompt with a thoughtful, top-level comment is expressive, can often be therapeutic and comes with the bonus of possible comments by others on your entry.

Comments on existing thoughts are less sexy and possibly less fulfilling because you're riffing off of another person's idea, but as a reader and a community member, seeing user to user interaction is the best part of a social network.

I'm a perennial commenter - at best because I love conversation, at worst, with the hope that I can digress from the mainline conversation.

Where do you fall?

*Edit: I've just learned the difference in terminology between a top level comment and a comment. Edited to avoid confusion.

Have you had a fulfilling mentorship, whether as mentor or mentee? How does one gain a mentor? Are there professional associations that one pays a fee to join?

Advice on career development wanted. Especially advice for introverted, neurodivergent women in business.

I want to hear a variety of stories, of how you became good at "career", beyond becoming competent at "work", and how you learned to be good not only at what you do but how you go about doing what you do.

Thank you for your time.

I had an interesting experience this week. Not all union meetings are interesting, even if they are useful. Yesterday was a pleasant exception where it was both useful and interesting. For the first time, I witnessed AI coming up as a topic of conversation. There is no secret that people fear losing their jobs due to AI automation, and sure enough I saw proof of it to the extent that the union may consider adding some clauses around protecting jobs from AI.

How is it at your workplace? Where I work, this year I witnessed a very strong push to use AI. Messaging around using AI at town halls, messaging around using AI in team meetings, articles on the intranet site, IT events around how to craft good prompts, etc. I would not be surprised if they tied some leaders' bonuses to how much they can get their teams to use AI. This part is quite annoying to me, not to mention deceitful. If I were a leader I'd straight up tell my team about it. I am not a leader - leaders are not part of the union to begin with.

The whole thing made me also think about how my colleagues use AI. It really is a mixed bag. I see everything from the person who runs a 2-line email through AI five times to finetune every word, to myself who only reach for AI when I am stuck and it's just much faster than a search engine/forums/videos to solve my issues (for example needing a script in a programming language I am not familiar with).

I am hopefully starting a new job soon, and their health and vision insurance is UHC. We can also choose a regional plan (UPMC for anyone in the western PA area) through my wife's job.

All my previous employers have been local, so we've always had UPMC coverage. This is my first time dealing with a national insurance company.

Likely my new plan will be be less expensive and have lower deductibles than my wife's.

Pittsburgh is split between UPMC (a hospital system that grew an insurance arm) and AHN (an insurance provider who grew a hospital system). Ironically, UHC may offer me more options since they seem to have most of the UPMC and AHN providers in their network.

I've checked all my doctors and the major hospitals, and they are all listed as in-network. I'm already getting my maintenance medications through CostPlus, so I'm not that worried about prescriptions.

My wife and I are in our 40s and relatively healthy, but I know we are reaching the point where (statistically, and looking at friends the same age) we're likely to have some big health events in the next five years.

Outside the very obvious news story that comes to mind when thinking about UHC, what are your experiences with them? Things to watch out for? Things you wish you knew going in?

Edit: thanks everyone for your input. This largely confirms my expectations, but I appreciate people taking the time to share.