#miles-and-points — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #miles-and-points, aggregated by home.social.
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Weekly output: TikTok fine, AI and healthcare, fixed wireless access, Google’s latest AI travel-search tools
About four years ago here, I wrote here that I had to bring my family to the Kennedy Space Center someday so they could see why I’m so crazy about watching rocket launches in person. I finally made that happen with Sunday morning’s launch of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on a Falcon Heavy rocket. The sound from the KSC visitor’s center, about seven miles from historic Launch Complex 39A, wasn’t nearly as loud as from the center’s press site. But the sonic booms of the rocket’s two side boosters landing may have been even louder than I remembered from 2018’s debut of that SpaceX rocket.
8/24/2026: TikTok Hit With $400 Million Fine for Violating Children’s Privacy Law, PCMag
The Friday-news-dump timing of the Department of Justice’s release about this settlement gave me a little extra time to gather some context about how much this fine might actually hurt the short-form video platform. Answer: not much!
8/26/2026: The Doctor Is Not Real. More Americans Comfortable Consulting AI for Health Info, PCMag
I’d missed chances to cover the last couple of interesting Pew reports about attitudes towards AI, but I did have barely-enough time Tuesday to read and write up this pair.
8/27/2026: 5G Home Broadband Is Soaring in Urban Areas, and This Carrier Comes Out on Top, PCMag
A report with a conclusion that I didn’t expect from an organization whose work I trust always gets my attention.
8/27/2026: Google’s AI Mode Can Track Flight Prices, Help You Book With Points or Miles, PCMag
Appropriately enough, I wrote this from the airport in San Diego. For additional insights about the utility of these tools from somebody with what I’m sure is millions of miles more travel experience than me, see Matthew Klint’s take at Live and Let’s Fly.
#AIHealthcare #AIMode #AITherapy #childrenSPrivacy #COPPA #fixedWirelessAccess #FWA #home5G #milesAndPoints #PewResearchCenter #TMobile #TikTok #travelSearch -
Weekly output: Robust.ai, United Airlines Starlink rollout, Ookla speed test rankings, UpScrolled, Shop with Points fraud risk, commercial space stations
This past week had me flying a long distance to trade snow for sand, in the form of Web Summit Qatar. This coming week will also have me flying from snow to sand, but not nearly as far: I’m headed to Las Vegas for the customer-experience company Medallia’s annual conference. (The organizers of each event are covering my travel costs.)
2/2/2026: Automation in the wild: Why real environments break perfect models, Web Summit Qatar
My one panel at Web Summit’s Qatar conference had me quizzing John Spinale, chief strategy officer at Robust.ai, about how that company has gone about designing robots to help ease the work of humans in warehouses.
2/2/2026: United Airlines: More Than 25% of Our Daily Departures Now Offer Starlink Wi-Fi, PCMag
I was able to add some context to this post because I’m an avgeek and know there’s a volunteer-run site tracking the state of United’s fleet–a site that I wrote about nine years ago.
2/3/2026: Latest Speed Tests Put T-Mobile Ahead of Rival Carriers, PCMag
I’ve been wondering why Ookla issues scores for AT&T’s fiber broadband, ignoring the rest of that company’s residential broadband services, while it grades other providers on a company-wide basis, and this time I asked Ookla far enough ahead of time to get a clear answer to include in my writeup of this survey.
2/4/2026: CEO of Would-Be TikTok Rival UpScrolled: We Won’t Censor Anybody, PCMag
Watching UpScrolled founder and CEO Issam Hijazi go on at Web Summit Qatar’s opening night about how that social platform would not practice censorship reminded me of all of the other times I’ve seen other social-networking executives say versions of that and then be proved wrong by reality.
2/4/2026: Shop on Amazon? Watch Out for This Sneaky Credit Card Points Scam, PCMag
I had started reporting this post in late December, then had to set it aside for CES, then had to set it aside for other pressing deadlines, and finally filed it on the last day of January.
2/6/2026: Space Startups to NASA: Hurry Up and Pick Someone to Build ISS Replacement, PCMag
Appropriately enough, considering a prior topic of my coverage this week, I finished and filed this post via Starlink from my Qatar Airways flight back to Dulles.
#AxiomSpace #ChaseSapphireReserve #Doha #inflightWiFi #InternationalSpaceStation #ISS #IssamHijazi #JohnSpinale #milesAndPoints #nasa #Ookla #pointsFraud #Qatar #robots #RobustAi #ShopWithPoints #spaceStation #Speedtest #Starlink #TikTok #UA #UnitedAirlines #UnitedAirlinesStarlink #UpScrolled #VastSpace #warehouses #WebSummitQatar -
In the last few years, air travel has gotten worse, but airport lounges have gotten WAY better.
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It doesn’t seem like any credit cards offer bonuses (ie. extra cash back or points) on EV charging (e.g. ChargePoint, Tesla, Electrify America, EVgo, etc). Anyone know any different?
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I continue to be impressed with United’s tech. Another great feature released this week.
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Flying Blue Points Nonstop: Austin to Amsterdam round-trip (36,750 points +$201 tax/fees) [18,375 points each-way] [Aug-Oct] – KLM / Flying Blue
#Airfare #Flights #Travel #FlightsFromAustin #FlightsFromSanAntonio #FlightDeals #EscapeATX #EscapeFlights #AirfareDeals #FlightsFromSanAntonio #MilesAndPoints