u/3rddog

So, I spoke to a friend who turned up at a clinic for regular treatment, and they were told their Alberta Healthcare coverage (AHCIP) was no longer valid, and they would have to pay for treatment. They called the AHCIP eligibility line 1-888-422-6257 to check and sure enough they were told their coverage was no longer valid. No notice, no warnings, just gone. And they have been unable to find out what to do to get it reinstated.

I’ve been in Alberta for 22 years, had the same PHN and card all that time. No expiry date on the card. I checked myself using the automated line above, and it looks like my coverage is also invalid. That said, I find it suspicious that it is apparently no longer valid after today, the exact day I choose to check.

Has anyone else checked recently and found their coverage has gone as well? Could this just be a system glitch?

[edit] There’s a chance this is a glitch in the system, and if you have an old green & white PHN card not linked to your drivers license, that doesn’t have an expiry date, then the system may be falsely returning “invalid” for any date but today as a result. This was the case with my friend, so it’s possible that the clinic used the same data to check eligibility and got the same result.

[edit] It’s also possible to check eligibility using the Alberta MyChart web site. Take a look at “Insurance Coverage” on your account and it should show the “effective from” date and possibly an expiry date, if you have one. Mine showed no expiry date (so I assume it’s still valid, the above automated line notwithstanding). The only anomaly was that it showed effect-from 2019, but I’ve had that PHN since I moved to Alberta in 2004. So 🤷‍♂️

Started using Krea 2 on a MacBook M3 36Gb using Comfy Desktop about a week, ago, and I've been getting some pretty good results, but I'm struggling with prompts.

I'm trying to generate some images for use in a horror-themed RPG adventure for my friends online, and no matter how hard I try I can't seem to get Krea to generate a dark or badly lit room, or moody lighting. I've tried following some online examples, but getting nowhere. It always falls back to well lit sunny rooms. I've tried things like ((dark room)) ((moody atmosphere)) ((badly lit)), etc.

I've seen that there are some LORA's I could use, but the problem is that memory is on the ragged edge on the Mac, and even a single LORA enabled at 0.1 strength causes an out-of-memory error. Workflow is as described here with no modifications: https://civitai.com/articles/32643/krea-2-turbo-on-apple-silicon-comfyui-workflow

Can anyone advise on particular words or phrases that might give me better results.

A few days ago, I upgraded my MacBook Pro M3 to Tahoe 26.5.2. I noticed today that I have a new disk mounted in Finder called “update”. I’ve tried ejecting it, even after multiple restarts, but I just get multiple messages telling me a process is using the disk. I’ve not noticed any other issues with the machine.

I’ve searched online and found a lot of conflicting reports. It appears it’s a temporary disk created during the update process that it failed to remove when complete. Some reports say to just leave it, some say it’s ok to force eject it, some say it means I should reinstall the OS from scratch.

Can anyone please clarify what I need to do here, preferably without screwing up the machine? Can I just leave the drive there? Will it cause future updates to fail? Can I force eject it?

As the title says, I have an external USB drive (2TB MyPassport) attached to my MacBook Pro M3 that I use for backup copies of some files and as a Time Machine drive. Ever since I upgraded to Tahoe 26.5.1 the drive disconnects randomly, either when I’m using the machine or more often when it’s sleeping overnight. I keep getting the message that the drive was not ejected properly, then a few minutes later the drive reconnects without me doing a thing. The same drive has been ok for years, but I’m convinced that it started misbehaving following the latest Tahoe upgrade.

I’ve found some hits for the problem online, and I’ve tried the most common fix - changing the “Put hard drives to sleep whenever possible” setting to “Never” - but the problem persists. I’ve tried using a different USB socket & cable, but no joy. I’ve not tried a different drive yet, because it’s kinda expensive to do so.

Anyone else getting the problem, or any suggestions for a fix?

My wife passed away 8 years ago, and I spent some time afterwards cleaning up our various retirement funds. After some months, I ended up with the bulk of those savings in various accounts at ATB - we’d been saving there for several years, had a good relationship with our financial advisor, and the returns have been good. I accepted at the time that ATB was not a chartered bank, not regulated by the federal government, and not a member of the CDIC or Alberta's provincial Credit Union Deposit Guarantee Corporation.

Feeling uneasy about the current Alberta UCP government and their proclivity for ignoring or changing the law, I’ve asked the ATB advisor a few times whether there is any risk of the UCP directing investments or changing the legislation to allow them to do so. Every time, I’ve been told there is zero risk, but I find this hard to believe. ATB is owned exclusively by the province and the provincial government “guarantees” the funds. That’s more government involvement than I’m comfortable with.

So, what’s my exposure here? What risks am I running in keeping the vast majority of my retirement savings with ATB? Is it within the government’s reach to interfere for their own benefit and to my detriment? Should I consider moving to a federally guaranteed bank, such as RBC, or another investment company?

My wife passed away 8 years ago, and I spent some time afterwards cleaning up our various retirement funds. After some months, I ended up with the bulk of those savings in various accounts at ATB - we’d been saving there for several years, had a good relationship with our financial advisor, and the returns have been good. I accepted at the time that ATB was not a chartered bank, not regulated by the federal government, and not a member of the CDIC or Alberta's provincial Credit Union Deposit Guarantee Corporation.

Feeling uneasy about our current UCP government and their proclivity for ignoring or changing the law, I’ve asked the ATB advisor a few times whether there is any risk of the UCP directing investments or changing the legislation to allow them to do so. Every time, I’ve been told there is zero risk, but I find this hard to believe. ATB is owned exclusively by the province and the provincial government “guarantees” the funds. That’s more government involvement than I’m comfortable with.

So, what’s my exposure here? What risks am I running in keeping the vast majority of my retirement savings with ATB? Is it within the government’s reach to interfere for their own benefit and to my detriment? Should I consider moving to a federally guaranteed bank, such as RBC, or another investment company?