Thursday, July 30, 2015

Cookies

Google tells me that under EC laws my blog has to warn you about cookies and let you press clickies to say you understand the "risk".

I checked the UK version of TOS and the bug-ugly cookie-heading is there. I will assume it is there for Das Occasionallenstevie, Le Stevie Occasionalle, Las Stevie Occasioñalles et al. But I think I need to make something clear.

Cookies are important for adding state-awareness to the stateless protocol intended for scientific paper sharing that is the World Wide Web. Essentially, every time you click to send something once you have "logged in" to a bank or a forum or whatever, the browser has to append something that effectively logs you in again because the WuhWuhWuh cannot remember from one click to the next what you are doing and who you are.

Because of the way cookies get implemented, they can also be used to tell one site that you have visited another. This is why is is essential to erase your cookie cache after booking your session at Mistress Alexa's House of Executive Correction and before you try and browse Amazon or Google or StIgnatiusChurch.org.

TO BE CLEAR: Google uses cookies to spy on you, I do not because, when you get down to it, I don't give a flying bleep where you've been, who you went with or what type of rubber you were dressed in1.

Disable your browser's ability to deal with cookies and you won't bother me at all. The blog might not display properly, it should but who the bleep knows what Google do with those insidious cookies? The comments probably won't work, but I doubt that will worry anyone. It has been about fifteen years since anyone left a comment because the CAPCHA thing that prevents bots from getting into the comments also prevents humans from doing so, I'm told. Something to do with JavaScript2 or not having it or something. Again, who gives a bleep?

So: If you hate cookie use, tell your browser you don't want to use them when you view The Occasional Stevie.

See if I care.

  1. This is not the case if you are female and were clad in very small amounts of well-ventilated PVC, revealingly cut. Such garb is relevant to my interests on scientific grounds
  2. That festering boil on the backside of the interwebs

2 comments:

Steve A said...

Not only do I have to suffer an enormous number of annoying cookie warnings (how did I survive before the EU decided to protect me from myself?) but the Stevie blog often determines that I'm in Slovakia and helps me by switching the menu into Slovak. Sigh

Steve A said...

PS I just got this helpful response: "Váš komentár sa uložil a bude viditeľný po schválení vlastníkom blogu." Courtesy of Google translate I now know this says: "Your comment has been saved and will be visible after approval by the blog owner."