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.

We'll be discussing We are Legion at the end of November.

This month, I've been busy and also trying to finish Orbital by Harvey before my loan period finishes. (It's an e-book loan on Libby and I can't get an extension.) So I haven't started quite yet.

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

I ran the dead horse ultra today! It went well, I had to work through some foot discomfort and crashing physically from going out too hard.

Ran the first half in almost exactly 3 hours and finished up the second half in just over 3 1/2. It was my first ultra (and actually my first official race longer than 5 miles) and I am very quite happy with how it went.

I am tentatively planning on running a 50 mile race sometime next year and depending on how that goes shooting for a 100 mile at some point in the next couple years. Anyone who has any questions (or advice) please let me know!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Hey all I own a pixel 8a if that's relevant and am looking for a controller that is Bluetooth and costs 50 dollars or less on Amazon. I'm not too picky as long as it can hold the phone and is of good quality. Thank you!

I was trying to find out why Lidarr wasn't matching my copy of The Cure's Greatest Hits. Found out I've got some bootleg Russian release that's catalogued on discogs (I eventually found the musicbrainz release and updated my profile to include bootlegs). So I search "Lidarr use specific discogs release" and the duck duck go search assist spat out some text about Lidarr not using discogs and cited this Tildes post.

It's curious because that post is 3yrs old and doesn't talk about discogs integration in Lidarr, just one mention of discogs in the post and some folks talking about Lidarr in the comments (It did cite a relevant GitHub issue about it though). The AI response mentioned that some users track new releases with Lidarr and downloads disabled, while covered in the post, it seems fairly tangential to my query.

I'm curious why it decided to check or cite a tildes post. No tildes posts came up in the first couple pages of search results. I use tildes from the same location, though on my phone where this query was on my desktop, and have done a couple DDG queries using "site:tildes.net" on my phone.

Has anyone else seen a search assist cite an unexpected site? Not unexpected as in irrelevant, that's all too common, but small and specific sources.

Something more lighthearted:

My wife has been doing a project that requires her to get people's information over the phone much more than usual. This leads to her and them using unofficial phonetic alphabet terms ("A as in aardvark" instead of "A as in alpha"). This is usually fine except when they choose a word that is ambiguous or just a word not known to the other party. Someone said "V as in Veya" to her, and we still don't know what a Veya is.

This got me thinking about what inappropriate words you could use. I suggested "V as in Vasectomy".

So how about it, Tilderists? What are your "wrong answers only" suggestions for a NOGO phonetic alphabet?

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Ever since I was a kid, the kitchen TV has been on in the morning while we eat breakfast and get ready for school. I remember Flipper and Rocky and Bullwinkle being on when we were younger and then Katie Couric and Matt Lauer on The Today Show later on.

As an adult, I've been looking for something linear to watch in the morning while I eat breakfast to put a stop to my bad habit of doom scrolling. I have about 30-45 minutes between walking my dog and logging onto my work computer where I eat breakfast and sit at the kitchen table. This is kind of "me time" to get ready for the day and try to get my brain to ramp up into work mode that has taken the place of my morning commute ever since COVID now that I work remote. Here's what I've tried and why I don't like them:

• The Today Show (and other mass-market morning news): honestly these have some "real" news in them but I feel like there's too much time wasted on filler & fluff & pop culture that I don't really care about.
• CNBC, usually Squawk on the Street: I like that this is more straight to the point but it's more heavily financial than I really need it to be. I'm not an active investor so, while I like getting business/market news, I don't need 45 minutes dedicated to it.
• Bloomberg's Bloomberg Brief on YT: this is a bit broader than the previous option, but still more heavily focused on financial markets than I really need to be.

I'm mostly interested in major world events, economics, tech, and business. I specifically do not care to hear about pop culture and sports (that's for after work) and I'm so tired of hearing about American political theater (although I'd like to know when something concrete happens).

So yeah. What do you watch in the morning? Do you have any suggestions?

I have a Starlabs Labtop in great shape that I would like to sell. Problem is, I can't garner much interest on Craigslist/Facebook Marketplace. Are there any computer Buy/Sell sites in Canada such as Pinkbike.com for used bicycles?

I use a Mac for work, Linux for my personal machine, and the same mouse between the two. I’m accustomed to the dpi/acceleration on Mac, so when I switch to my PC at the end of the day there are slight inaccuracies with the pointer. My wrist compensates to cover the gaps and I develop wrist strain after short periods of use.

Does anyone know how to make the Linux mouse dpi/acceleration as close to identical as possible with my Mac?

chimera linux w/ gnome btw