I’ve written before that I am using a new RSS app called Birchfeed because I really like its keyboard shortcuts in the web app. The developer continues adding new features, and today it added a fast way to clear out unread messages. It provides a visualization of the age of articles and an easy way to mark them as read.
The United States is in no way a Christian nation. The religion of the United States is capitalism and its deity is itself. Money is the idol.
We can’t have nice things in the United States because there will always be somebody who exploits them for their own gain. Spam has ruined email, phone calls (telemarketing) and now text messaging. The number of political text messages I am receiving is exhausting, so I have created a new mode on my Pixel 10 so that only messages and calls from my starred contacts come through.
Wouter Groeneveld aptly writes of the same frustration I have had in obtaining human support from Xfinity. My prediction is that soon we will be charged premium prices for human interactions, which will be on top of the processing fees we pay for nearly all electronic transactions. Imagine Xfinity providing a yearly subscription service, which they might even call Xfinity Prime, that provides a 1-800 number to call and to which I provide my member number for the privilege of waiting on hold for an hour to talk with a person.
Readwise Books
The creek has run dry. This is Pebble Creek after about a month of no rain.
For some reason the Spotify media controls that appear with Android’s notifications and lock screen have become more persistent and thus more annoying to me for the last few weeks. I went into the phone settings, searched for media, found an option for Pin media player and turned that off. I understand the media player there when I am playing music, but it was constantly appearing even when nothing is playing and I found that annoying.
I wonder whether the iPad mini prices will come down at Christmas or next year?
Boosting Xfinity Internet Speed
TL/DR; If you are using an older WiFi access point you may need to enable a setting called NAT boost, NAT acceleration, hardware NAT, or flow offload to see performance at the highest range of what the hardware vendor says it supports.
It started with an email from Xfinity last Thursday saying it was time to upgrade our Xfinity TV equipment at no extra cost. I clicked through expecting a replacement for the cable set top box we have in the living room, but instead saw an offer to replace the Arris Surfboard cable modem we have used for many years with the Xfinity Wifi Gateway.
Several years ago I bought the Arris Surfboard rather than rent a cable modem from Xfinity, they were reasonably priced and paid off in less than two years of avoiding the monthly rental fee. I wasn’t terribly surprised with Xfinity telling me the cable modem should be upgraded given its age, and the fact that while we have had 1 Gbps service provisioned I was seeing on average 320 Mbps of Internet speed. Because Xfinity “upgraded” us to the 1 Gbps service for a lower price than the 400 Mbps I was paying previously I choose to avoid dealing with Xfinity given their terrible customer service.
Just watched Joanna Stern’s review of the iPhone Duo and based on what I saw, I would not buy it at this time. Not only is it too expensive, but too buggy.