Slashback: Pie, Election, Alarm

Slashback this evening with another batch of updates and responses to previous Slashdot posts, including: how Firefox users can avoid post-cookie Web tracking (for now), more on open-source graphics drivers, and an alarm clock that sounds perfect for annoying a spouse. Read on for the details.

Does he feel like Reese Witherspoon? Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier writes "After many years of trying, Branden Robinson has finally won the Debian Project Leader election. Linux Magazine has an in-depth interview with Robinson about his plans as DPL, the problems that face Debian, and what it's like to finally win the election."

(We mentioned Robinson's election a few days ago.)

In lieu of perfection, fixability is a good start. gyardley writes "After discovering that a company called United Virtualities was making use of Flash's Local Shared Objects to silently restore my deleted cookies, I decided to combat this marketer behavior with a Firefox extension.

Objection 0.1 adds a 'Local Shared Objects' line to Firefox's Options > Privacy panel, allowing you to delete them as easily as you'd delete cookies. It's still pretty rudimentary - all or nothing deletion, working on Windows only - but Slashdotters are more than welcome to improve it. Since Local Shared Objects have the same functionality as cookies, we need the same amount of control over them as we do over cookies - and built into the browser, not tucked away in some obscure Macromedia page."

Sure, come on in, there's still some punch and snacks left, I think. orv writes "The Unichrome project has issued a response to VIA's recent open source announcement covered on Slashdot.

The response (and further comment) clarifies the current Unichrome driver situation and whilst welcoming VIA's move suggests that VIA should become more involved in existing open source projects rather than simply issuing repeated grand sounding press releases. The Unichrome project has provided and supported a full open source driver, including MPEG support, for the Unichrome and Unichrome Pro chipsets for the past two years."

But this implies that 'perky' is the desired state. dhalsim2 writes "Yahoo reports of a Smart Alarm Clock Set for Perky Wakeups. On the heels of Clocky comes this new alarm clock that will monitor a sleeper's brain waves to determine the best time to wake him up. The device uses a microprocessor within a headband that wirelessly transmits brainwaves to the clock. When the person is in a light sleep and is likely to wake up 'perky,' the alarm will go off. Brain wave monitoring? Sounds a lot like Plankton's Plan Z."

Comments

The whole PIE thing really bugs me

[jessmeister]

I have blogged on this repeatedly and even mentioned a good article which should give some perspective on this whole cookie question. Its not that cookies are such a bad thing when used correctly. Some people dont want to use them and thats fine. For them let them log in repeatedly and see ads that arent relevant or contextual to what they have been doing or watching. Coming up with another way of tracking users isnt the problem. The problem is that users are scared of the tracking. Educate the masses on the benefits and advertisers would see positive results. Who knows maybe they wouldnt have to resort to making ever more annoying advertisements just to try and snare my attention.

Re:Uhhhh

[Sparr0]

The device monitors how deeply you are sleeping, if you are dreaming, etc. If you are woken up when you are sleeping lightly you are likely to wake up quickly, but if your alarm interrupts a dream you tend to wake up slowly and more tired. Have you ever woken up early and felt ready to go, but felt like sleeping til your alarm goes off... then when it does you feel tired? This prevents that by picking a time close to your target wakeup time (but before your cutoff time) when you are the least likely to wake up tired.

Slashbacks really need a tag line

[Eradicator2k3]

Something along the lines of:

Slashback: Because you enjoyed these articles the first TWO times around.
or
Slashback: The nice way to say DUPE!!!
or
Slashback: This time we realized we've duped a story before we posted it.

OTOH, what's to prevent unscrupulous editors from going back and editing the topic from Linux, YRO, etc. to Slashback in an attempt to cover their butts?

Re:I don't want "perky."

[Geek of Tech]

>> I just want a clock that'll make my wife wake up non-grouchy. I'm sure there's a huge market for this device.

Why? How many different people have to worry about your wife waking up grouchy? :P

Flash bypassing cookie protections

[mckyj57]

Objection 0.1 adds a 'Local Shared Objects' line to Firefox's Options > Privacy panel, allowing you to delete them as easily as you'd delete cookies. It's still pretty rudimentary - all or nothing deletion, working on Windows only - but Slashdotters are more than welcome to improve it. Since Local Shared Objects have the same functionality as cookies, we need the same amount of control over them as we do over cookies - and built into the browser, not tucked away in some obscure Macromedia page."

I find it easier just to use the Flashblock extension. In the (very rare) event I need to run a Flash display, I just click the play button.