I notice that after a certain time period all the topics are marked as read, even if I haven't read them. This is bothersome because I like to quickly check interesting topics at times like in the morning before school and then do a more thorough read later. Unfortunately, by that time all the topics are marked as read so it is hard to determine which ones have new posts.

Is this time period setable or disableable? What is it set to right now?

Personally I would like to see this delay set longer (to 24 hours at least) or disabled completely (so you have to manually read the topics or "mark all as read" to mark them as read), but I don't know how other people feel about this.