u/Fatphree

Hi everyone. I'm trying to figure out which pet insurance covers routine care before renewing my dog's coverage.

Most plans seem to cover accidents and illness, but routine care is an add on or has different limits. Every comparison says something different, so I'm still not sure which pet insurance covers routine care the best.

For those who have it, has the routine care option actually been worth the extra cost, or do you just pay for annual checkups yourself?

I have been trying to understand how to find someone on WhatsApp when you do not have their number saved in your phone. This person I am trying to reach is a former colleague and we lost touch after she changed her mobile number. I have her name and her city but that's all.
I searched on internet many times but i cannot get the answers. Some websites are saying you can search by username but I do not think WhatsApp has username system like for example Telegram. Other websites are giving steps that look very outdated and not matching what I am seeing in my app at all.
I also read that there are third party tools claiming to help with how to find someone on WhatsApp using only a name, but these websites do not look very trustworthy to me and I am worried about putting any personal information there.
My WhatsApp version is latest updated one on Android. I have already tried asking mutual contacts but they are also not having her new number.
I would be very grateful if someone with more experience could explain what is actually possible and what is not. Is there any official way inside the app ? Or is the only real option to get the number from someone who has it?

Everyone's focused on whether the discord age verification system works, but the real question is whether it was ever meant to work.
Discord rolled out age verification for certain servers and content categories after regulatory pressure. most people don't know is that the verification layer they implemented is handled by a third party ID processor, not Discord directly. That means your document data is leaving Discord's infrastructure immediately. I've looked into the terms for the verification provider they use. It's not pretty. I've tested verification bypass via region switching still works in several cases, VPN use during the verification flow produces inconsistent results (sometimes flagged, sometimes not) and the system doesn't distinguish between account age and user age, which is a flaw.

The discord age verification rollout also affects server owners in ways that aren't documented. If your server gets flagged as requiring verification and users fail or skip it, those users aren't just blocked from NSFW channels. In some configurations they lose access to the whole server without any notification to the server admin.
I've been running a privacy focused server for four years. This was not in any changelog.

Has anyone actually read the full data retention clause on the verification processor Discord is using, or are we all just clicking through and hoping for the best?

Hi everyone, I hope this is okay to post here. I've been trying to find the best health tracker for my situation and honestly the more I read, the more confused I get, so I figured I'd just ask people with real experience.
my cardiologist recently suggested I start monitoring my resting heart rate and HRV daily after some mildly elevated readings at my last checkup. Nothing serious yet, but she wants data before my next appointment in three months.
I've read that Garmin devices tend to give more accurate HRV readings than Apple Watch or Fitbit, but I also came across a few posts saying the chest strap monitors are more reliable than wrist based ones for anything clinically relevant. I'm not sure which direction to go. My budget is around 200 250 euros, and I'd prefer something I can wear to bed without it being too bulky, since sleep tracking was also mentioned as useful.
I did try a friend's Fitbit Sense for a week and the app was fine but the HRV data seemed inconsistent from night to night, which made me second guess whether I was even wearing it right or if the readings are just naturally that variable.
My main worry is spending money on something that looks like the best health tracker on paper but doesn't actually give my doctor anything useful to work with.
Has anyone here been in a similar situation, monitoring heart related metrics on recommendation from a doctor rather than just for general fitness? What did you end up with, and did your cardiologist find the data actually helpful? And is wrist based accuracy really that far behind a chest strap for everyday HRV tracking?
Thank you in advance for any input, I really appreciate it.

"brain rot" got named Oxford's Word of the Year in 2024, which feels very right for where we're at as a society..

The term describes that foggy, mentally drained feeling after hours of scrolling through short, mindless content. And while it's not an actual medical diagnosis, it's not totally made up either. Research links heavy tiktoks, reels use to weaker focus, fragmented attention, and worse working memory. One study even measured brain activity during attention tasks and found differences in people more prone to short video addiction though their actual performance wasn't that different from everyone else, so take that with caution.

The honest answer is that most studies are correlational, meaning we can't say for sure whether doomscrolling causes the brain fog, or whether people who already struggle with attention just naturally gravitate toward loweffort content. I'd say both, honestly.

What does seem clear is that content type matters. Fast, unpredictable, highreward formats train your brain to expect constant stimulation, which makes slower, more demanding stuff feel genuinely harder to sit with. Not great.

Anyone else notice they can barely get through a 10-minute YouTube video without picking up their phone? Asking for a friend (the friend is me).

https://preview.redd.it/rjma20w9nt6h1.png?width=1536&format=png&auto=webp&s=df5d22fdec63e54599dc79bfc0d2d71d3a659876

I've been spending way too much time on this site lately and a thought hit me that I can't shake: who owns Reddit? Like, who actually owns Reddit at the corporate level, and what does that mean for the data we casually dump into comments, DMs, and subreddit subscriptions every day?

I know it went public a while back, so technically shareholders own a chunk, but there's a difference between publicly traded and who actually calls the shots on data policy. Between the executives, the big institutional investors, and whatever AI licensing deals they've signed, I feel like the question of who owns Reddit has gotten murkier, not clearer.

Every comment I've ever written is sitting in a dataset somewhere, Reddit has signed deals letting companies train AI on our posts, deleting an account doesn't actually delete the conten, voting history, subreddit subscriptions, and post timing all paint a pretty detailed behavioral profile and all of those this really worry me...

So when we ask who owns Reddit, are we really asking who owns us on Reddit? The user generated content is the product, the data is the product, and we're just… here, generating both for free.

Curious how others in this sub think about this. Do you treat Reddit like a public square where you assume everything is permanent and monetized? Or do you still use throwaways and compartmentalize? And does knowing who owns Reddit actually change how you behave on the platform, or is it one of those things where you shrug and keep scrolling?

im trying to keep my cat entertained without buying another random thing she ignores after two days. been looking at a cat window perch because she already spends half the day sitting by the window judging birds.

my cat is kinda chunky honestly, around 14 pounds, so now im scared about the whole thing falling off the glass. i watched a few setup videos nd every single one makes it look way easier than it probably is.
the reviews are different. some people say their cats love it instantly, others say the suction cups gave up in the middle of the night and launched the cat into another dimension.
i dont get if these perches actually stay attached long term or if everybody is secretly re-sticking them every week.

anyone have a cat window perch that actually survived a heavy cat and normal daily use?

our beagle has been having stomach issues for weeks now and the vet suggested proviable for dogs to help with his digestion... im looking at the price and im wondering if this is just expensive yogurt for dogs
proviable is a probiotic specifically for dogs, has like 7 strains of bacteria and prebiotics or something. vet says its supposed to help with diarrhea and overall gut health. fine but $40 for 30 capsules?? thats more than my kids vitamins
our dog started random diarrhea about a month ago, we changed his food (no help), added pumpkin to his meals (slight improvement), now hes back to having issues every few days, vet ruled out parasites and major issues and bloodwork came back normal
the vet basically said his gut bacteria might be off and proviable could help rebalance things. she also mentioned an alternative called fortiflora but said proviable has more strains. of course the one with more stuff costs more

some sites sell proviable for $25 others for $50 (same product??), there are different versions like proviable dc vs proviable forte, it needs to be refrigerated apparently, only lasts like 30 days once opened and vet wants 4-6 weeks of treatment minimum
also concerned because i found cheaper probiotics at petsmart that claim to do the same thing... but the vet specifically said dont use those because the strains arent the same. how am i supposed to know if shes giving me good advice or just pushing the brand they sell at the clinic?
tried giving him plain greek yogurt last week and that made things WORSE not better... so maybe the vet has a point about needing specific dog probiotics
anyone used proviable for dogs successfully? did it actually help with stomach issues or did you waste money? also any tips for getting capsules into a dog who somehow detects medication no matter how well i hide it in cheese?
this dog is costing more than the kids but cant exactly tell him to suck it up when hes clearly uncomfortable

I’m trying to keep random neighbourhood cats out of my yard because my dog goes crazy every time he sees one. I thought I'd try cat repellent and be done with it, but it didn't work. I got one of those spray bottles from the shop and used it around the fence and near the garden. I also tried a homemade mix I saw online with vinegar and citrus. It kind of worked for a day, but then the same cat just walked right through as if I'd sprayed water. The dog went crazy again at 6 am. I don't get whether cat repellent actually works in the long term or if I'm just supposed to keep reapplying this stuff forever. Has anyone found something that actually keeps cats away?