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Slashback Graphics Mozilla Software The Internet Debian Toys News

Slashback: Pie, Election, Alarm 158

Posted by timothy from the irs-is-a-nest-of-worms dept.
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."

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Slashback: Pie, Election, Alarm More

Slashback: Pie, Election, Alarm

Comments Filter:

  • Smart Alarm Clock for Perky Wakeups (Score:5, Funny)

    by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:06PM (#12239999) Homepage Journal
    on the heels of this, comes news of a Smart Alarm Clock for Perky Wakeups ...

    Yes, but make sure you don't get the Darth Vader edition of the Smart Alarm Clock for Perky Wakeups.

    That one not only reads your brain waves, but instead of adjusting itself to help you, it uses the dark side of alarm clock force to ring just a little bit too much ... and then on alternate Tuesdays it doesn't wake you up at all and laughs in an evil way when you finally regain conciousness ... plus it always broadcasts CNN.

  • Broken Link (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:07PM (#12240006)
    The unichrome link is broken:

    http://unichrome.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

  • The whole PIE thing really bugs me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jessmeister ( 225593 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:08PM (#12240011) Homepage
    I have blogged on this repeatedly and even mentioned a good article [dynadco.com] 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:The whole PIE thing really bugs me (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      How about advertisers can go fuck themselves? How about I'm going to employ every blocking technology I can get my hands on because it's none of your damn business? How about I'll delete all my cookies at the end of a session except the ones that I whitelist to leave alone? I want to know why people, advertisers in particular, are so damn interested in what I choose to do with my computer? Fuck off you assholes. I want to do my shit and be left the fuck alone. Okay? You can't have my money. Go to fucking he

    • Re:The whole PIE thing really bugs me (Score:4, Interesting)

      by NickFortune ( 613926 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @08:38PM (#12240534) Homepage Journal
      Its not that cookies are such a bad thing when used correctly
      Bad for whom?
      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.
      And no doubt spammers worldwide would suddenly see the errors of their ways and spam no more, give that targetted ads driven by tracking cookies were suddenly so effective...

      I'm sorry, I can't see it. Advertising is not an industry known for it's string ethical stance, and let's face it, such plagues as popups and flash ads were rife long before most people started disabling cookies.

      Logging in isn't such a big problem. I allow session cookies where they have a clear and useful purpose, so I only have to click that button once or twice a day.

      And besides which, my surfing habits are none of their business.

      • > Advertising is not an industry known
        > for it's string ethical stance

        I wonder why?

        "Hey," says the advertiser, "we'll give you free internet service if you use our special browser that shows you ads."

        "Why, that *is* a good deal," says the consumer, who signs a contract and gets online with the free account.

        Then he runs off and downloads a program that hides the ads, so he doesn't have to see them. Now he's got free internet service at the advertiser's expense, but the advertiser isn't getting to a
        • You seem to be saying that it is acceptable for advertisers to embrace the postmodern amorality so popular in corporate circles, and yet that consumers who do the same are bad people.

          I pay for my connect time in cash. Your hypothetical user may operate a double standard but your scenario hardly applies to the majority of internet denizens.

          On the other hand, the amorality of internet advertising is far from hypothetical. Just look at the prevalence of popups and popunders. Look at the ads that jump, fla

          • > If we accept the notion that time
            > is money, and my time is most
            > definitely worth money, then these
            > advertisers, by wasting my time, are
            > stealing from me.

            No, they're not. You *trade* watching the ad for using the web site, so you don't have to pay any actual money.

            But you're stealing from *them* when you use an ad blocker. Either they paid for something they didn't get (showing you the ad), or you DIDN'T pay for something you DID get (viewing the web site).

            Which is just like my exampl

            • No, they're not. You *trade* watching the ad for using the web site, so you don't have to pay any actual money.

              Really? According to whom?

              But you're stealing from *them* when you use an ad blocker. Either they paid for something they didn't get (showing you the ad), or you DIDN'T pay for something you DID get (viewing the web site).

              Show me where I signed. For my ad blocking to be considered theft, I would have to have made a formal agreement. You obviously feel that there is some sort of contract

              • > According to whom?

                According to the site's owner and advertisers, which outvotes *you* at least two to one.

                > For my ad blocking to be considered
                > theft, I would have to have made a
                > formal agreement.

                Not really. If you do something that costs me money, and you *know* it's going to cost me money, and I haven't agreed to let you do it, most legal precedents I've seen seem to be in agreement that you are in fact liable.

                Of course, nobody is going to sue you for two bucks, so it doesn't make much

                • > According to whom?

                  According to the site's owner and advertisers, which outvotes *you* at least two to one.

                  That presumes that my computer is a democracy and that you and your advertisers are citizens of it and have votes. I know that none of you paid for the hardware, nor for the electricity or connection costs, so it's "no representation without taxation" as far as I'm concerned.

                  But assuming for a second that your logic is sound: There are you and your advertisers on the one hand. That's ho

                  • > That presumes that my computer is a
                    > democracy and that you and your
                    > advertisers are citizens of it and
                    > have votes.

                    Nope. It presumes that your connection to my web site is a shared property, because you are on one end and I am on the other, and if either end is dropped the connection doesn't exist. Your end of the connection contains exactly one person: you. My end, on the other hand, contains all the people involved in the maintenance of the site. So you get one vote on how this connection
                    • http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-196948-highl i ght-agetty.html

                      > That presumes that my computer is a
                      > democracy and that you and your
                      > advertisers are citizens of it and
                      > have votes.

                      Nope. It presumes that your connection to my web site is a shared property,

                      Odd, I could have sworn you told me that I was not entitled to do as I wished on my own computer because you and your advertisers outvoted me.

                      Your example is flawed, anyway, because there's no rational reason I couldn't turn

                    • This is getting tedious.

                      Let me spell it out for you. My company *used* to do web advertising. We never used popups. We never installed malware. We just wanted people to accept a cookie so we could gather data.

                      Unfortunately, people were so reluctant to accept cookies, we couldn't gather valid data. We'd have twelve thousand impressions in a week, and only two hundred cookies returned. So no matter *how* much we wanted to cater to people's preferences, we didn't have the information to do it.

                      We're not in t
                    • We're not in the web advertising business anymore. We're not in the SEO business, ei

                      Let me spell it out for you. My company *used* to do web advertising. We never used popups. We never installed malware. We just wanted people to accept a cookie so we could gather data.

                      Thank you for that. It's so much easier to appreciate your points with a little bit of context.

                      I also agree that this is getting tedious, so I'll try and be brief.

                      I applaud your moral stance, I acknowledge your propriety in your busin

    • Oh no I'm very well educated in what happens with the data collected. I've seen way to many cookies used to follow me around the net. Gage my surfing habits, then once certain companies compile the data in reference to my IP number, Internet account etc. All that remains is to let their servers get broken into and the lives and lifestyles of now it seems hundereds of thousands (not the original thousands as we were told originally) of Americans are wide open to identity theft. Not that the cookies were t

    • 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.

      That's why I have my browser set to ask me what I want to do with cookies, then I use per-site allow/block settings depending on whether I need to log in or not. If I don't need to log into it, or don't need settings to persist, then I don't let the cookies get set. (Alth

  • Just what we need (Score:5, Funny)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:08PM (#12240016) Journal
    An alarm clock that transmits our dreams to the FBI. Or let's the FBI sends it's dreams to us.

    But If I wore my tin foil hat, it would be kind of counter productive ....

    Wouldn't it?

    • Re:Just what we need (Score:3, Interesting)

      by RevDobbs ( 313888 ) *

      FWIW, I know that I feel much better after four hours of sleep than I do after six; I always assumed that the reason the extra sleep left me groggy was that I was being jarred awake from deep sleep (details here [upmc.com]). I find sleep fascinating, and always enjoy reading the disussions on it -- especially on how to get the most out of it. It seems like quite a safe tuning parameter to optimize, and a lot easier to get into than nootropics [ceri.com].

      I gladly, and with out hesitation, welcome our brain-monitoring alarm

    • Re:Just what we need (Score:4, Funny)

      by artifex2004 ( 766107 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @08:20PM (#12240420) Journal
      An alarm clock that transmits our dreams to the FBI. Or let's the FBI sends it's dreams to us.

      But If I wore my tin foil hat, it would be kind of counter productive ....

      Wouldn't it?


      That's why you should be sleeping in a Faraday Cage [wikipedia.org], of course. Problem solved.
    • That depends, if you rewired the alarm clocks so the dream the FBI sends to you is immediately sent back by the second alarm clock, it could be quite entertaining.

  • Wakeup watch... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Polo ( 30659 ) * on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:10PM (#12240018) Homepage
    There's already a watch that helps you wake up at the "optimal" time:

    http://www.sleeptracker.com/ [sleeptracker.com]

    • Do you know if that works?
      Looks interesting - If I'm not woken during a light sleep-phase I am completely wasted myself, it would be nice to have something to help ;)

  • Uhhhh (Score:3, Interesting)

    by elid ( 672471 ) <eli DOT ipod AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:10PM (#12240026)
    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.

    What if I go to sleep late? Will this thing let me sleep till 2PM? I don't really understand the use of this thing.

    • Re:Uhhhh (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sparr0 ( 451780 ) <sparr0@gmail.com> on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:16PM (#12240060) Homepage Journal
      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.
      • drilling the tiny holes for the elctronic probes doesn't hurt one bit

      • That's what it sounded like to me -- that you'd set it for a time range, long enough to be pretty confident of hitting a light-sleep phase. It sounds like a really great idea; something I think I'd love to have. I just have one question:

        Who gets to wear the headband -- me or my girlfriend?
        • Just wait for the model that can monitor more than one headband at a time.

          • Okay... and when does the alarm go off? When I'm in the optimal light-sleep phase, or when she is? (I thought that part of the question would have been obvious from my original post.)

            I'm thinking the real solution would be to have small speakers mounted the headband itself, right near the wearer's ears, with the alarm only loud enough to wake up that person; then we could each have one and both benefit.
  • If only ATi would release drivers for its cards supporting 3d acceleration on Linux. Never buying from them again.
    • Agreed. I will not purchase an ATI drive until they release a top notch driver (with similar quality to nVidia's official linux drivers) on a regular basis...

      Currently, nVidia has a stronghold on the linux market and it shows. It is simply ridiculous that I cannot buy a new model ATI card, plug it in, and have it work with video games under linux. Not only is it ridiculous, it is embarassing.
    • I like their script that overwrites your xorg.conf file. That thing is great. It breaks my keyboard, my mouse, assigns arbitrary and wrong refresh rates for my monitor, and a couple other things I'm too tired to think of right now. Last time it didn't even work.

      I'll give the Free software thing a try soon, but it hasn't been a high priority for me, as I don't use my hardware acceleration near as much as I thought I would (I thought my nice job would give me money to play games: it did, but took away my

  • Morning Wood (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:12PM (#12240033)
    When the person is in a light sleep and is likely to wake up 'perky,' the alarm will go off.

    Hardware hack, anyone?

  • Warbraining anyone? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:13PM (#12240041)
    > The device uses a microprocessor within a headband that wirelessly transmits brainwaves to the clock.

    If you want to make it to work in the morning, you've gotta take the tinfoil hat off before you go to bed. And pay no attention to the black van with the three dozen Pringles cans mounted on the roof. We^H^HThey are not monitoring your dreams. Honest.

  • The article stated that VIA is releasing grand statements, rather than actually doing something. The truth is, though, it isn't just VIA. It's everyone. Even you. Everybody's problem is, even if you have an idea and a plan, going through with it is difficult. 100% of my clients are fully capable people, however, sometimes they just need a little bit of a push. That's why we need to SHOW these companies that they WILL get something out of coming into the open source community. We need to show them we

  • Firefox and cookies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ad0gg ( 594412 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:15PM (#12240054)
    Firefox needs to disable third party cookies by default. There's no reason why images/iframes from other(3rd party) domains should be allowed to set cookies. I don't see any reason why 3rd party cookies should be allowed, they are frequently abused and used as web bugs that track your web browsing from site to site.

    • Hear^2! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by interactive_civilian ( 205158 )
      I completely agree. Or, even as a compromise, for those of us who want to be notified of cookies and choose to allow, deny, or allow for session, it would be REALLY nice if the default button was "deny" rather than "allow".

      it is really annoying to have to mouse over to the button that I choose the most often.

      btw, if there is anyway to change this behavior short of recompiling, I would love to know how. :D

    • A lot of web sites now complain when you don't have cookies enabled. I like the mid-way solution of having them enabled for the session only, with a few exceptions (Like slashdot.)

      As for flash local shared objects, that's easily defeated simply by not installing flash. If I wanted to watch animated commercials I'd be watching TV (I don't allow animated GIFs either.)

      • I have never installed Flash on Firefox, leaving that to IE. Aside from the lame timesheet program we have to access via IE at work, viewing Weebl and Bob, and the occasional Flash game, I almost never use IE for anything.
    • Actually, its also used by sites that use an ASP for site-statistics. Such as HBX (formerly Hitbox) by WebSideStory. These systems depend on cookies (and since they're set by the HBX servers, not by your site, they're third party). These ASPs provide accurate "visit" tracking, instead of just hits, page views, etc. Tracking a visit accurately does require some client-side involvement.

      I can't say I particularly like it, but, it is a perfectly valid use of third party cookies.
    • Firefox needs to disable third party cookies by default.

      Well, until they do that, I've found the Cookie Culler [mozdev.org] extension very helpful for clearing out the dead wood quickly without killing the cookies that I actually do want to keep.

  • Slashbacks really need a tag line (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eradicator2k3 ( 670371 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:21PM (#12240086)
    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?
    • Note to editors: I think slashback is really good. Many many times have I thought "That's an interesting story", and wondered what happened because of it. For example: Pressuring a multinational corporation. That kind of stuff always appears in the news, but very rarely do we actually see the effect of that pressure (because it isn't deemed "interesting"). In conclusion: I think slashback is one of the best things I've seen on slashdot in a long time.

      Am I the only one?
  • when I first saw it - the /. editors in their 9sic) "wisdom" elected to reject it. Thank you for the extension. Maybe it should make /. front page as an article in its own right.

  • I don't want "perky." (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Shag ( 3737 ) * on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:33PM (#12240157) Journal
    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.

  • Alarm clock?!? (Score:3, Funny)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:35PM (#12240174)
    1) I'm never likely to wake up "perky"!

    2) I don't need an alarm clock to annoy my spouse -- I can do that just fine all by myself!

    3) I've never actually used an alarm clock. I tell myself what time it is and what time I want to get up just before I go to sleep, then I wake myself up at the optimal point in my sleep cycle. Only problem with this is I tend to wake myself up too early!
  • "plus it always broadcasts CNN" Aaaagh! Make it stop... :(

  • Cookie Madness (Score:5, Informative)

    by shirai ( 42309 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @07:47PM (#12240233) Homepage
    I'm probably not the first one who's thought of this but it seems to me that cookie abuse could be reduced dramatically without affecting most websites by doing the following:

    "Disable cookies on all images that are being pulled from another domain."

    That is, if a web page grabs an image from another domain (a banner, pixel, etc.) then pull it but don't send any of the cookie information for that image.

    I mean isn't that the way that most developers track access across websites? You put a one-pixel image and set the cookie through there. Then by reading the http_refer, you know where they've been and associate it to a single user. To track across sites though, this pixel is usually on a separate domain than the site being accessed.

    By the way, I originally thought to disable cookies on all images but realized some servers may do security checking via cookies before sending an image. But there is very little legitimate use for sending cookies on images that are outside the domain.

    Also, the same could be said of ANYTHING that is pulled off a different domain including scripts, css, etc. If it is on the same domain, send the cookies. If not, then make the request but don't send the cookies.

    I would say precious few sites would depend on this behavior and it shouldn't break anything except for the tracking (which we want to break). Not saying that a site couldn't be made to break on this but I can't think of many reasons why a site would.

    By the way, I think cookies are great for the most part. SlashDot uses them, I use them, anything with a login (mostly) uses them. I find it humorous when people insist that cookies are evil and you shouldn't have a single one. You can just as easily fake a cookie for a session by sticking an ID in the URL which, personally, I think is worse. Now your personally identifying tracker is available for all to see.

    • Re:Cookie Madness (Score:2, Insightful)

      by mabinogi ( 74033 )
      actually, I dislike cookies as session identifiers, as it limits you to one session per browser.
      A session key in the url allows you to log in multiple times, and possibly as multiple users.

      It's not something that you need to do every day - but when you're trying to set up something like a CMS with varying levels of access control, it becomes a pain in the neck to either have to keep logging in and out to verify the way it looks to different users, or have IE, Opera, Mozilla and Firefox all open at once.
      • But logging in multiple times is only good for you, the builder, it's nice being able to log into a site, lose the window, go to the site again and I'm still logged in.

        I personally think things should be built to work well and coherantly for the average person, but not screw up the rest of us.
        Which will waste more time in total?
        You opening up a few web browsers
        People having to log into sites a lot more

        Ya know what'd be worse? web browsers sharing cookies, then you'd have to use multiple computers.

        soap bo
    • "By the way, I originally thought to disable cookies on all images but realized some servers may do security checking via cookies before sending an image. But there is very little legitimate use for sending cookies on images that are outside the domain."

      Seems to me that'd be a great way to deal with image leeching on the web. Not the only way but not a bad way. One of the neat features of the web is that it can be so inter-connected, but since bandwidth costs money, not everybody feels those features ar
    • The default behaviour in IE for sites in the internet zone is to block all cross-domain cookies.

      IIRC, the W3C even recommends that HTTP clients do not send cookies across domains.
    • That's already an option in mozilla. One problem is it breaks MSN passport - any site which uses it needs to be able to use a cookie from the passport domain rather than their domain. There's probably other cross-site logins like that it causes problems with. And while you or I may not like passport, there are many many people who use it.
    • That is, if a web page grabs an image from another domain (a banner, pixel, etc.) then pull it but don't send any of the cookie information for that image.

      I think you might have missed the point of webbugs...

      If you let the image itself load, the site that hosts it doesn't need you to allow a cookie, you've already given them 90% of what they want... Any site they partner with, that you visit, will record you as visiting in their log file. If, on any of those sites, you enter some personal information
  • It might be that VIA had to release the MPEG part of the driver the way they did in order to comply with the patent licence they got from whoever owns the relavent MPEG patent(s).
    • Nah, the binary interface just hides the register specs to their chipset. All the actual mpeg code is inside the chipset.
      This is more likely simply an attempt to control the provision of the API to their own proprietary VMI (VIA MPEG Interface) SDK. Basically an attempt to tie people to their platform, so that once you write yoru code to work on VIA systems, you'll have to write it over again if you want to use anyone elses hardware.

  • Is it just me... (Score:3, Funny)

    by jptechnical ( 644454 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @08:03PM (#12240321) Homepage
    or does this guy look alot like the south park creator? - http://www.axonlabs.com/images/ben-whiteboard.jpg [axonlabs.com]

    Personally, I don't want anything attached to my head while sleeping that was built by this buncha goobers. - http://www.axonlabs.com/images/group-daniel.jpg [axonlabs.com]

  • ...referenced above, and in the previous YRO article [slashdot.org], to set your privacy preferences, or use a Firefox extension. All you have to do is right-click on a Flash object in a web page to bring up a context menu, and choose "Settings..." (although one wonders if this could be disabled at the Flash object author's choosing).

    (Actually, I find it more disturbing that a Flash object in a web page could access a local webcam or microphone. Has anyone seen this capability in use?)

    Thanks to "bigtallmofo" for brin

  • Alarm clocks (Score:4, Informative)

    by Sir Holo ( 531007 ) * on Thursday April 14, 2005 @08:09PM (#12240355)

    This may beat the 90-minute rule.

    Sleep cycles are about 90 minutes long, so setting the alarm at a 90-minute interval from when you fall asleep will make it more likely that you'll wake up on the high side of sleep, and more likely that you'll feel refreshed. The rule fails if something disturbs your sleep pattern, though, which is where this device (if it exists) would be better.
    • I've heard 90 minutes and I've heard 3 hours. I guess the 90 minutes must just be a further break down of the 3 hour cycles.

      From my own experience, it definitely seems to work. If I take I nap and I wake up before 1.5 or 3 hours, I feel really groggy. If I wake up in the morning after getting less than 3 cycles (actually about 8.5 hours for me), I generally have more trouble motivating myself to move. In fact, it seems to be harder to wake up after 7 hours of sleep than 6, I assume due to the cycles. Thank
  • What's the deal? Editors running out of material to post? How is this any different than multiply posted "news" items?

    Actually come to think of it ... this is good news! The /. editors have finally seen the light! Cheers!

  • Kind of like iron . . . (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SEE ( 7681 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @08:27PM (#12240452) Homepage
    To see anybody associated with Debian quoting "release early and often".
    • To see anybody associated with Debian quoting "release early and often"

      The problem is, the rest of the Linux world just won't stand around and wait for Debian... I just wish they'd go and say "ach, to hell wi'it..." and shovel it out the door and then issue a service pack some months down the road... you know, like Microsoft do...

  • Flash bypassing cookie protections (Score:5, Informative)

    by mckyj57 ( 116386 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @09:19PM (#12240773)
    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.
  • I had the same idea about 2 years ago. I checked last night and it's written down in one of my notebooks. Just goes to show that if you think up an idea, chances are someone else has thought of it, or will shortly.

    Should have gone for the patent back then ;-) Actually, my problem isn't a lack of ideas, it's not having experience with starting a startup...


  • BUT I prefer to 'wake up feeling perky' the old fashioned low tech way.

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