u/QAGillmore

I've been trying to use Plaud to help with a mineralogical analysis I'm working on at the microscope. Basically, I count grains and read out the mineral at each count. I've added all terms to my custom dictionary, I'm speaking loudly and clearly several inches from the device, the device is outside of its sleeve, and there is no external noise. Nonetheless, Plaud is consistently losing 5% to 15% of the words I'm reading into the device. I even tried reading back from Plaud's own transcript as a test and again got about 8% fewer words back. Is this lossiness expected or is there maybe some tweaking that would help improve the word recovery? Thanks

I've been trying to use Plaud to help with a mineralogical analysis I'm working on at the microscope. Basically, I count grains and read out the mineral at each count. I've added all terms to my custom dictionary, I'm speaking loudly and clearly several inches from the device, the device is outside of its sleeve, and there is no external noise. Nonetheless, Plaud is consistently losing 5% to 15% of the words I'm reading into the device. I even tried reading back from Plaud's own transcript as a test and again got about 8% fewer words back. Is this lossiness expected or is there maybe some tweaking that would help improve the word recovery? Thanks

TL;DR: Walgreens new Shared Services consent is an offense to customers

I'm new here and I apologize if I'm posting inappropriately. It appears customers are welcome to post. That said, I'm a regular Walgreens customer and want to preface this by saying I have tremendous respect for how hard it is to have a public-facing job. It's especially challenging to be a pharmacist or pharmacy employee where you are also concerned about your customers' health.

Anyway, I was picking up my medications this morning at my local Walgreens and on the checkout keypad was asked to consent to Walgreens enrolling me in a new "Shared Services" program. There was no button to deny consent, only a button to talk to the staff. I was told that if I didn't agree I would have to wait for them to reverse the order and reprocess it...every single time I pick up prescriptions. Essentially Walgreens (the corporation, not the hard-worked pharmacy staff) was going to make my life difficult if I didn't agree to their program. I asked for paperwork explaining the program. The entities that might be given my personal information to help process my medications includes Centralized Services, PhLEX Support, Phone Support, Micro-fulfillment, and Workload Balancing. There was no indication of how many of these were hired third parties and what their security policies were.

I understand that a program like this can help reduce the workload for pharmacy staff on the floor. Some relief is sorely needed. I am truly shocked at the current working conditions for licensed pharmacists and certified technicians while giant corporations involved in health and wellness are making record profits. With that in mind, I felt terrible denying the pharmacy my consent and making the pharmacist have to stop and reprocess my prescription. But I cannot in good faith allow Walgreens to share my personal medical information with any mercenary that offers the lowest price. And yes, I know I'm being a bit dense if I assume this isn't already happening. But sometimes you have to take small stands. I had a nice conversation with the pharmacist after the whole ordeal and learned about his history and how he lost his private pharmacy to corporate greed. I truly feel for this man.

Though I would hate to make Walgreens employees have to work any harder than they already do, I would encourage anyone who can to resist this additional grab by Walgreens and tell them they can't do anything they want with your private information.