Am I the only one who likes a light green text on a black background? I do actually find it much easier on the eye (and easier to read) than a white or light grey text.
Also, although I never used the old green screens much, it does give it a nice retro feel.
The only thing that would really put a hole in the ID argument be for someone to demonstrate that a living organism evolved through a process that did not require any kind of intelligent input. That is most certainly not what has happened in this case. I don't think it does any damage to the ID argument at all really.
Most people in the world agree that the attack on Afghanistan was justified and pretty much the entire world supported our response at the time.
I'm not sure that is entirely the case; at least round these parts (UK) doubts about, or outright opposition to, invading Afghanistan was already pretty strong )although it increased by orders of magnitude when it came to Iraq).
Prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, our military presence in the Middle East was not that significant. Our presence after the first Gulf war was a direct consequence of Saddam's invasion and an implementation of U.N. resolutions and ongoing defence of Kuwait.
Whilst we have direct those quotes from Osama bin Laden I don't think it was only the presence of US military in the Gulf--I also think it had a lot to do with the meddling of the CIA in the region's politics and perhaps the general sense that America wanted to take control of the region for its oil. The latter perception might arguably be false but there is little this administration has done to assuage those perceptions--quite the opposite in many ways.
Nothing we've done in the Middle East warranted a brutal attack against civilian targets and we cannot base our foreign policy on barbaric intimidation.
That, of course, goes without any argument from me!
In the case of WWII help had been requested so it wasn't really a case of "meddling" in other peoples' domestic affairs.
Seriously, the isolationist and "stay the heck out" approach is temptingly simple...
Characterizing the isolationist approach as "stay the heck out" is temptingly simple (although strictly, non-interventionism is more the preferred policy of American constitutionalists over isolationism). Both approaches are not really simply "stay the heck out" but more "stay the heck out of things that don't concern you" i.e. things that don't threaten U.S. domestic security. While all kinds of threat must be carefully weighed up, non-interventionism is generally understood to proscribe pre-emptive wars. Can anyone really say that Iraq or Afghanistan posed an imminent threat to America in a sense that justified the invasive actions taken? There is a strong case, in my opinion (and many others) for arguing that the terrorist threat against America actually spawned from its interventionist policies in times past. Perhaps a different approach would have been better this time?
When the growth of requirements exceeded the number of smart people, so more and more people entered programming who aren't smart enough to cope with expressive languages like C++ and Perl, which prize clever solutions that clever people can enjoy discovering. This led to the wide adoption of restrictive lowest-common-denominator languages like Java and Python, which prize doing things the long and tedious way so that Dumbo McMathbehard can maintain your code.
There are many different kinds of smarts--being able to code in a low-level computer language isn't the only indication of smartness.
Your kind of programming language egocentrism can get quite irksome.
A good point and one often neglected. I suspect, however, that the parent really meant that the removal of pigs and turkeys would not have a significant destructive effect on the surrounding ecosystem.
A classic example of this tactic can be heard here. The joker (playing a slow but fairly pleasant, lonely redneck) kept the sales lady on the phone for nearly 40 minutes!
(Apologies to the squeamish for the "man sitting on toilet" image!):D
Brain maturation doesn't stop you're senile or dead.
I think you might be confusing brain maturation with brain ageing: a brain will, indeed, continue ageing throughout a person's life but is said to reach biological maturity around our mid-20s or so. This is the same with other parts of the body too; that's why, thankfully, we don't have to go through puberty up until we are dead also--these parts of the body also stop physically maturing (but not ageing) at around our early to mid-20s. Brain maturation is different to maturation of the mind. Mental/emotional maturation can continue indefinitely as a person gets older (or even regress!) but these are two different (albeit interrelated) concepts in, on the one hand, biology and on the other, psychology.
On another note, while we are all focussing on MySpace controversy these days when, frankly, the biggest problem I see is the new video-based social networking sites like YouTube. Recently, when I allowed myself to be distracted by the mostly harmless (and pointless) videos on YouTube I ended up randomly clicking on various videos in the related playlists. After doing this for a few minutes it didn't take long before a video appeared of a minor wearing very little clothing and "shaking their booties" at the camera and sometimes much worse. Some of you may think this is no bad thing but when the child in question is around 11-13 years old it gets quite disturbing, particularly when these videos would be invariably commented on by 45 year old men be telling these children in no uncertain terms exactly what they wanted to be "doing" to them.
When I saw reported this incident to YouTube, thankfully the video and the account of the abusive commenter were, thankfully, taken down within 24 hours but just in case you think this an isolated incident once you click on one of these videos that's when all the other ones will start to show up in the related playlists. You could spend an hour as I once did just clicking through and reporting these videos and perverts to YouTube but you will soon realise that there are literally thousands of similar incidents on YouTube and that you, on your own, have no chance of making an impact on the overall situation. I do see this as a problem and, sadly, the solution is often only when companies like Youtube and others--with their eyes mostly on corporate and shareholder profits--come under the threats of media exposure and government intervention (as happened with MySpace).
The answer, may be for such websites to have separate domains and membership for minors and adults as is the case with Second Life - http://teen.secondlife.com/ (if you agree, please write to such websites and your political representative). This immediately removes most, if not all, of the problems currently associated with sites like YouTube and MySpace. But if membership is to be mixed then it should have a strict child-safe content policy throughout and be much more closely monitored by staff and volunteers. After all, it is only too easy for children to get around such flawed and utterly ineffective concepts as "mature content walls" requiring nothing more than mouse-click confirmation or fake date-of-birth to get around (which can be observed happening way too often!).
Personally, I cannot see a valid reason why a child should socially network with unfamiliar, untrusted adults or why any adult would want to be able to socially network with children unless it be for nefarious purposes. This would never be tolerated anywhere off-line so why on-line?
I think sometimes people can get off-the-mark when they talk in terms of comparing the dangers of the Internet with outside; it's not as thought the problem with one goes away by pointing out that the other is statistically more dangerous. Whatever the case, the Internet represents an additional danger that needs to be dealt with and we should be doing as much as possible to make both safer for children. It just happens to be that in many ways it is easier to do something about the Internet because there are means of control that don't exist out in the big, bad world.
The Internet can also facilitate predatory behaviour: the predator does not need to risk exposure in the outside world or even go to the trouble (at least initially) when it is much easier to sit behind the computer and use a chat program, networking site and webcam to indulge his predilections. This ease of access into the world of predatory behaviour and the perception of anonymity and privacy may even encourage those who would otherwise baulk at the thought of the risk of getting caught or having to go to the extra trouble of planning the abuse more carefully and actually having to physically go to another location to carry it out. Many on-line incidents probably never go reported as they would do if the equivalent were committed in the outside world. Parents may also assume their children are safe to leave unsupervised at home but would otherwise always ensure a responsible adult is with the child when they go out.
When we bring up statistics we need to be sure exactly what statistics we are using as types of abuse can differ along with the resulting effects; but they all can cause harm whether actual physical or emotional. For example, some statistics include only actual physical contact with the child, some include only physical harm caused and not emotional. Abuse on the Internet is more likely to be of the emotional/mental variety and sometimes lead to physical contact and abuse, sometimes not. The incidents exposed by such sting operations as http://www.perverted-justice.com/ and TV show "To Catch A Predator" on MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10912603/ bother me deeply. I feel strongly that some, if not all, of the people caught in these act felt somehow empowered and facilitated to do what they did as a result of having access to the Internet. It is possible that some may never have abused at all had the Internet not offered them the avenue to do so. In many cases they were hardcore, repeat abusers but in some cases they just seemed like guys who got carried away with an idea and the Internet presented to them and fuelled the opportunity to indulge in it. Maybe it would have happened anyway, maybe not, but social networking websites certainly provide them with the opportunity and the means to do it.
It's a good point you make. I didn't get that impression of this particular article, though. The general thrust of the article seemed to me to be largely driven by the quotes from the actual report itself rather than any kind of editorialising comment. I can't be sure without reading the original report in its entirety, though.
As to the points you raise in your linked comment, I believe this is true of most, if not all, (British) tabloid newspapers and I wouldn't single out the Daily Mail as anything different. Their bias tends to be on the rather conservative side and their style appealing to the emotion rather than intellect; but I would also add that the kind of frothing-at-the-mouth, leftist style of accusations of against them of "racism" (with them writing often about illegal immigration being the main cause for such accusations as far as I can tell) are also just as unreliable, in my opinion--I think a person would have to be prepared to call the legal system racist also to make that one stick.
Anyway, like yourself I just don't take tabloid newspapers as a serious research source, but I would not dismiss everything they say out of hand.
I think the parent was intending to say that a person could at the very least read Wikipedia as a starting point as opposed to no research at all. He's not saying that it is a preferable source of information, just that there is no excuse for not having done a a little bit of research these days. Not that I am defending his argument though.
Having read the Wikipedia article on Fascism I do think it gives it fairly reasonable, balanced treatment.
The trouble is then, if you did X, there would be no way of punishing you for doing X unless we had a law describing that X is punishable and by what punishment. And you would have no way of knowing that you were going to be punished for doing X.
You state that there is a big legal difference between the 2. There is not. Check out Google-Hacking: The heart of the rulings is: The presence of a service on an open network is sufficient to grant authorization to use that service regardless of the intent of the owner of the service. That has been held for both HTTP & Anonymous FTP.
One problem with discussions on legality like this is that laws and legal opinions differ from country to country. I am speaking from a UK perspective and I should have clarified that. IANAL but in the UK, at least, I believe the law is clear that piggy-backing on any wireless connection is illegal where it is not specifically provided for that purpose. It is up to you to ensure you are legally authorized to use it.
Your initial argument was that the hardware/service cannot legaly authorize you to use a service....
That was another poster's argument, not mine.
The plain fact is that for any automated system connected to the open network- HTTP/FTP/DNS/DHCP etc - it must be the service which provides the authorization as there is no human interaction at the point of contact. The rules that govern that authorization are the responsibility of the service owner - as upheld in the US by the Google-hacking cases.
Then this precedent applies in the US but not necessarily anywhere else. AFAIK the UK Computer Misuse Act takes a different view but I would welcome a correction by someone who knows better than myself.
I appreciate there might be difficulties in some cases deciding in court whether somebody is doing the latter deliberately or just simply by accident...
Per the ruling & the laws I've seen tyring to criminalize this, they don't make a distinction....
That is the current case in the UK too but I meant although there is no distinction in technical infringement, the law here allows for a distinction between deliberate vs. accidental infringements affecting the severity of the penalty to the extent that a case can be dismissed or not brought to court at all. In the latter case, someone connecting to a neighbour's network would rarely be brought to court or convicted (at least upon first complaint) - the complaining neighbour would most likely just be told to secure their network and the offending neighbour warned to be more careful about selecting theirs. These sorts of woolly issues crop in law all the time in many issues and mostly are resolved without going to the courts unless they are repeated offences. I don't believe we are talking solely about these sorts of cases though and not in the case of TA.
You want to make using someone else's access point a criminal offence, fine....
I did not actually say that (and it would be a somewhat over-simplified statement anyway) but what I am saying is that comparing a public web-server to an unsecured wireless AP is mostly specious and a red-herring - every one who uses that argument knows full well the difference between a set of technologies commonly intended and known to provide public access to web content and something commonly intended and known to provide a user with a private network. Any person looking for a public, free wireless access point would most likely not find it in a residential street and it would behove them to make sure they are within eye-shot of a clear sign somewhere that says something like "Free wireless access point - this is our SSID...". Otherwise, you'd better assume it was private (whether it was secured or not).
I take on board your comments on board regarding Windows and it is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed by Microsoft if courts are going to be effective in applying any laws. But I will stick by my (rephra
There is no technical difference between the protocol exchange in the HTTP & the 801 series, both are automated request/response protocols which grant authorization.
There are many technical difference between HTTP and 802.11x but I assume you meant "no conceptual difference". However, more importantly, there is a big legal difference between the two: It is perfectly legal to access using HTTP files placed in a public directory on a web server but it is not legal to deliberately access someone's computer and/or ISP services via a wireless network without permission - and that permission that does not include simply broadcasting the SSID.
I appreciate there might be difficulties in some cases deciding in court whether somebody is doing the latter deliberately or just simply by accident (for example, if you happen to live next door to your neighbour and you both are using the same default SSID), but in the case outlined in TA is pretty cut-and-dried: he was parked outside the house; he was "seen in the area on several previous occasions over the past three months and is believed to have been reported to police by a neighbour concerned that he was acting suspiciously". In these cases, people who indulge in such actions should expect nothing less than to be prosecuted and convicted.
I find it easier to have Firefox allow only 1st party cookies and delete all cookies on exit. For the few sites I want cookies to be saved for log in details I just add them to the exception list as "allow". This way I don't get any prompts and no cookies can trace me.
I don't see any conflict of interest. I know if my content is crap no-one comes to my site and no-one clicks my ads. If my content is great there will be more visitors to see and click my ads. I don't think I've ever thought "I must write this article in a particular way because it will attract more people to click on my ads" - it just doesn't work like that. I think you've just overestimated the appeal of a few paltry (and it would be very paltry if your content was crap) ad-clicks over the attraction, satisfaction and reward of running a website with great content and satisfied visitors. And on the Web, niche-appeal is more effective than mass-appeal when it comes to visitors and click-through rates - mass appeal just puts you into competition with the big guns. The most successful contextual ad-related sites are those who communicate clearly with a narrow target audience.
Besides, if anyone thinks they can create a poor or fake content website just to get a ton of Adsense clicks they will soon dispossessed of that notion when Google blacklists their website and cancels their Adsense account. This worked for only a short while a few years back until Google got wise to it.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you took my post a little too seriously ;-)
Yes, I recall coming across your website some time last year... to me, it's a work of art! :D
Umm... shouldn't that be "body bgcolor=tan"?
(Describing Asians as "yellow" is not exactly politically correct these days! ;-) )
Am I the only one who likes a light green text on a black background? I do actually find it much easier on the eye (and easier to read) than a white or light grey text.
Also, although I never used the old green screens much, it does give it a nice retro feel.
The only thing that would really put a hole in the ID argument be for someone to demonstrate that a living organism evolved through a process that did not require any kind of intelligent input. That is most certainly not what has happened in this case. I don't think it does any damage to the ID argument at all really.
Only that those Republicans and Democrats have also been voted for.
I'm not sure that is entirely the case; at least round these parts (UK) doubts about, or outright opposition to, invading Afghanistan was already pretty strong )although it increased by orders of magnitude when it came to Iraq).
Whilst we have direct those quotes from Osama bin Laden I don't think it was only the presence of US military in the Gulf--I also think it had a lot to do with the meddling of the CIA in the region's politics and perhaps the general sense that America wanted to take control of the region for its oil. The latter perception might arguably be false but there is little this administration has done to assuage those perceptions--quite the opposite in many ways.
That, of course, goes without any argument from me!
In the case of WWII help had been requested so it wasn't really a case of "meddling" in other peoples' domestic affairs.
Characterizing the isolationist approach as "stay the heck out" is temptingly simple (although strictly, non-interventionism is more the preferred policy of American constitutionalists over isolationism). Both approaches are not really simply "stay the heck out" but more "stay the heck out of things that don't concern you" i.e. things that don't threaten U.S. domestic security. While all kinds of threat must be carefully weighed up, non-interventionism is generally understood to proscribe pre-emptive wars. Can anyone really say that Iraq or Afghanistan posed an imminent threat to America in a sense that justified the invasive actions taken? There is a strong case, in my opinion (and many others) for arguing that the terrorist threat against America actually spawned from its interventionist policies in times past. Perhaps a different approach would have been better this time?
There are many different kinds of smarts--being able to code in a low-level computer language isn't the only indication of smartness.
Your kind of programming language egocentrism can get quite irksome.
I have to ask what you were doing with your keyboard in the bathroom while you shave. Are you really that addicted to Slashdot?!
A classic example of this tactic can be heard here. The joker (playing a slow but fairly pleasant, lonely redneck) kept the sales lady on the phone for nearly 40 minutes!
(Apologies to the squeamish for the "man sitting on toilet" image!) :D
I think you might be confusing brain maturation with brain ageing: a brain will, indeed, continue ageing throughout a person's life but is said to reach biological maturity around our mid-20s or so. This is the same with other parts of the body too; that's why, thankfully, we don't have to go through puberty up until we are dead also--these parts of the body also stop physically maturing (but not ageing) at around our early to mid-20s. Brain maturation is different to maturation of the mind. Mental/emotional maturation can continue indefinitely as a person gets older (or even regress!) but these are two different (albeit interrelated) concepts in, on the one hand, biology and on the other, psychology.
Maybe you just became a sneaky, paranoid kid because it was the choice you made rather than because your parents locked up the computer?
On another note, while we are all focussing on MySpace controversy these days when, frankly, the biggest problem I see is the new video-based social networking sites like YouTube. Recently, when I allowed myself to be distracted by the mostly harmless (and pointless) videos on YouTube I ended up randomly clicking on various videos in the related playlists. After doing this for a few minutes it didn't take long before a video appeared of a minor wearing very little clothing and "shaking their booties" at the camera and sometimes much worse. Some of you may think this is no bad thing but when the child in question is around 11-13 years old it gets quite disturbing, particularly when these videos would be invariably commented on by 45 year old men be telling these children in no uncertain terms exactly what they wanted to be "doing" to them.
When I saw reported this incident to YouTube, thankfully the video and the account of the abusive commenter were, thankfully, taken down within 24 hours but just in case you think this an isolated incident once you click on one of these videos that's when all the other ones will start to show up in the related playlists. You could spend an hour as I once did just clicking through and reporting these videos and perverts to YouTube but you will soon realise that there are literally thousands of similar incidents on YouTube and that you, on your own, have no chance of making an impact on the overall situation. I do see this as a problem and, sadly, the solution is often only when companies like Youtube and others--with their eyes mostly on corporate and shareholder profits--come under the threats of media exposure and government intervention (as happened with MySpace).
The answer, may be for such websites to have separate domains and membership for minors and adults as is the case with Second Life - http://teen.secondlife.com/ (if you agree, please write to such websites and your political representative). This immediately removes most, if not all, of the problems currently associated with sites like YouTube and MySpace. But if membership is to be mixed then it should have a strict child-safe content policy throughout and be much more closely monitored by staff and volunteers. After all, it is only too easy for children to get around such flawed and utterly ineffective concepts as "mature content walls" requiring nothing more than mouse-click confirmation or fake date-of-birth to get around (which can be observed happening way too often!).
Personally, I cannot see a valid reason why a child should socially network with unfamiliar, untrusted adults or why any adult would want to be able to socially network with children unless it be for nefarious purposes. This would never be tolerated anywhere off-line so why on-line?
I think sometimes people can get off-the-mark when they talk in terms of comparing the dangers of the Internet with outside; it's not as thought the problem with one goes away by pointing out that the other is statistically more dangerous. Whatever the case, the Internet represents an additional danger that needs to be dealt with and we should be doing as much as possible to make both safer for children. It just happens to be that in many ways it is easier to do something about the Internet because there are means of control that don't exist out in the big, bad world.
The Internet can also facilitate predatory behaviour: the predator does not need to risk exposure in the outside world or even go to the trouble (at least initially) when it is much easier to sit behind the computer and use a chat program, networking site and webcam to indulge his predilections. This ease of access into the world of predatory behaviour and the perception of anonymity and privacy may even encourage those who would otherwise baulk at the thought of the risk of getting caught or having to go to the extra trouble of planning the abuse more carefully and actually having to physically go to another location to carry it out. Many on-line incidents probably never go reported as they would do if the equivalent were committed in the outside world. Parents may also assume their children are safe to leave unsupervised at home but would otherwise always ensure a responsible adult is with the child when they go out.
When we bring up statistics we need to be sure exactly what statistics we are using as types of abuse can differ along with the resulting effects; but they all can cause harm whether actual physical or emotional. For example, some statistics include only actual physical contact with the child, some include only physical harm caused and not emotional. Abuse on the Internet is more likely to be of the emotional/mental variety and sometimes lead to physical contact and abuse, sometimes not. The incidents exposed by such sting operations as http://www.perverted-justice.com/ and TV show "To Catch A Predator" on MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10912603/ bother me deeply. I feel strongly that some, if not all, of the people caught in these act felt somehow empowered and facilitated to do what they did as a result of having access to the Internet. It is possible that some may never have abused at all had the Internet not offered them the avenue to do so. In many cases they were hardcore, repeat abusers but in some cases they just seemed like guys who got carried away with an idea and the Internet presented to them and fuelled the opportunity to indulge in it. Maybe it would have happened anyway, maybe not, but social networking websites certainly provide them with the opportunity and the means to do it.
It's a good point you make. I didn't get that impression of this particular article, though. The general thrust of the article seemed to me to be largely driven by the quotes from the actual report itself rather than any kind of editorialising comment. I can't be sure without reading the original report in its entirety, though.
As to the points you raise in your linked comment, I believe this is true of most, if not all, (British) tabloid newspapers and I wouldn't single out the Daily Mail as anything different. Their bias tends to be on the rather conservative side and their style appealing to the emotion rather than intellect; but I would also add that the kind of frothing-at-the-mouth, leftist style of accusations of against them of "racism" (with them writing often about illegal immigration being the main cause for such accusations as far as I can tell) are also just as unreliable, in my opinion--I think a person would have to be prepared to call the legal system racist also to make that one stick.
Anyway, like yourself I just don't take tabloid newspapers as a serious research source, but I would not dismiss everything they say out of hand.
If you did read the article you would have seen that half of it was quoting the government report.
(SARCASM ALERT!)
They could, of course, have completely made up a fake government report.
I think the parent was intending to say that a person could at the very least read Wikipedia as a starting point as opposed to no research at all. He's not saying that it is a preferable source of information, just that there is no excuse for not having done a a little bit of research these days. Not that I am defending his argument though.
Having read the Wikipedia article on Fascism I do think it gives it fairly reasonable, balanced treatment.
Kids, don't do X! Mmmkay?
The trouble is then, if you did X, there would be no way of punishing you for doing X unless we had a law describing that X is punishable and by what punishment. And you would have no way of knowing that you were going to be punished for doing X.
One problem with discussions on legality like this is that laws and legal opinions differ from country to country. I am speaking from a UK perspective and I should have clarified that. IANAL but in the UK, at least, I believe the law is clear that piggy-backing on any wireless connection is illegal where it is not specifically provided for that purpose. It is up to you to ensure you are legally authorized to use it.
That was another poster's argument, not mine.
Then this precedent applies in the US but not necessarily anywhere else. AFAIK the UK Computer Misuse Act takes a different view but I would welcome a correction by someone who knows better than myself.
That is the current case in the UK too but I meant although there is no distinction in technical infringement, the law here allows for a distinction between deliberate vs. accidental infringements affecting the severity of the penalty to the extent that a case can be dismissed or not brought to court at all. In the latter case, someone connecting to a neighbour's network would rarely be brought to court or convicted (at least upon first complaint) - the complaining neighbour would most likely just be told to secure their network and the offending neighbour warned to be more careful about selecting theirs. These sorts of woolly issues crop in law all the time in many issues and mostly are resolved without going to the courts unless they are repeated offences. I don't believe we are talking solely about these sorts of cases though and not in the case of TA.
I did not actually say that (and it would be a somewhat over-simplified statement anyway) but what I am saying is that comparing a public web-server to an unsecured wireless AP is mostly specious and a red-herring - every one who uses that argument knows full well the difference between a set of technologies commonly intended and known to provide public access to web content and something commonly intended and known to provide a user with a private network. Any person looking for a public, free wireless access point would most likely not find it in a residential street and it would behove them to make sure they are within eye-shot of a clear sign somewhere that says something like "Free wireless access point - this is our SSID...". Otherwise, you'd better assume it was private (whether it was secured or not).
I take on board your comments on board regarding Windows and it is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed by Microsoft if courts are going to be effective in applying any laws. But I will stick by my (rephra
There are many technical difference between HTTP and 802.11x but I assume you meant "no conceptual difference". However, more importantly, there is a big legal difference between the two: It is perfectly legal to access using HTTP files placed in a public directory on a web server but it is not legal to deliberately access someone's computer and/or ISP services via a wireless network without permission - and that permission that does not include simply broadcasting the SSID.
I appreciate there might be difficulties in some cases deciding in court whether somebody is doing the latter deliberately or just simply by accident (for example, if you happen to live next door to your neighbour and you both are using the same default SSID), but in the case outlined in TA is pretty cut-and-dried: he was parked outside the house; he was "seen in the area on several previous occasions over the past three months and is believed to have been reported to police by a neighbour concerned that he was acting suspiciously". In these cases, people who indulge in such actions should expect nothing less than to be prosecuted and convicted.
I find it easier to have Firefox allow only 1st party cookies and delete all cookies on exit. For the few sites I want cookies to be saved for log in details I just add them to the exception list as "allow". This way I don't get any prompts and no cookies can trace me.
I don't see any conflict of interest. I know if my content is crap no-one comes to my site and no-one clicks my ads. If my content is great there will be more visitors to see and click my ads. I don't think I've ever thought "I must write this article in a particular way because it will attract more people to click on my ads" - it just doesn't work like that. I think you've just overestimated the appeal of a few paltry (and it would be very paltry if your content was crap) ad-clicks over the attraction, satisfaction and reward of running a website with great content and satisfied visitors. And on the Web, niche-appeal is more effective than mass-appeal when it comes to visitors and click-through rates - mass appeal just puts you into competition with the big guns. The most successful contextual ad-related sites are those who communicate clearly with a narrow target audience.
Besides, if anyone thinks they can create a poor or fake content website just to get a ton of Adsense clicks they will soon dispossessed of that notion when Google blacklists their website and cancels their Adsense account. This worked for only a short while a few years back until Google got wise to it.