Fact: Hackaday stores the __qca cookie. Just go to the cookie manager in your browser and inspect what hackaday is storing. According to [1] the _qca cookie may use your “computer’s IP address, pixel code, referring HTTP location, current HTTP location, search string, time of the access, browser’s time, any searches made on the applicable website, and other statistics” in order to “analyze Log Data from different websites and combine it with other non Personally Identifiable Information to produce the Reports that are made available on the Quantcast.com Site, to enable web publishers and advertisers to deliver audience segments that are appropriate for their products or services.”

About Quantcast [2]:
Quantcast relies primarily on tracking pixels that publishers install on the pages of their sites to measure audience data, which is then used to compile visitor profiles and build a detailed picture of web audiences.
Quantcast also correlates and compares information across websites and platforms to reveal usage patterns and relationships among websites

So Brian, please do us a favor and do not treat your audience as stupid.

[1] http://herbmiller.me/2012/05/18/__qca-cookie-what-makes-it-appear/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantcast