IANAL but I think that FSF's publication of GPL licences could be considered a service to humanity, and since FSF is an organisation, it should have the right to use trade marks and service marks. Since the GPL is a well-known "service" (licence), perhaps it could be considered a service mark. Therefore, if another entity publishes a "GPLv4" licence, the FSF could require it to change its name since FSF was the first to use the GPL name for the service of a copyleft software licence.
Training isn't enough, it's one half of what's needed. The other half is motivation: People who are entrusted to set passwords have to know what constitutes a bad password and the motivation to use a good one. An underpaid overworked disengaged employee would probably not care whether the passwords they choose are strong or weak, even with training.
The Great Law of Computer Security: Networked computers are insecure by nature. Everything that is stored within a networked computer can and will be compromised. Corollary: Always use a non-networked computer to store critical data, or better yet, no computer at all; a piece of paper inside your wallet is probably safer at most situations. Shortened version: Distrust all computers.
I think Northrop Grumman, albeit a large company, still has the creativity to innovate and seek interesting solutions to engineering problems. I also think that the flying wing concept has not received the attention it deserves. I find the marriage between Scaled and Northrop an interesting development which may be good or bad, but we don't know that yet. We have to wait to see how Northrop is going to utilise Scaled within its family of engineers, and how much contact there is going to be between Northrop and Scaled people. I am optimistic that Northrop may make good use of Scaled and develop something interesting.
Counting on fixed intfastructure for Africa is wrong: The people are scaterred around in a vast continent. Ever seen Africa from Google Earth? It's full of small villages everywhere, even inside deserts and jungles. We should aim to potentially connect the whole of the African population to the Internet, not just those living in cities, and therefore we have to account for those in remote villages. Fixed cables are probably sufficient for the biggest of the African urban centres, but we need a wireless solution to connect the rest of the people. Furthermore, there are people in Africa who don't like staying in the same place much time, they are accustomed to move around (nomads or descendants of nomads). Other Africans may be so dependent on a specific kind of job that they may move whenever they have to change employer, just to have access to a job. Mobile phones do have some kind of penetration in the African continent and some people are used to them. These are all additional reasons why we need a wireless Internet solution,preferably something that could work with their mobile phones. 3G, WiFi, WiMax, and for the most remote of the villages, GPRS and satellite access are good candidate technologies for bringing more Africans to the Net. That's all about the technology. But the biggest problem is not technological, but rather economic and societal: People just don't have much to pay and even those who do are victims of monopolies, and nobody who has the power to help them thinks about them. Some people think that because Africa lives in poverty it should focus solely on covering its basic needs (food, shelter, peace). I think non-basic needs like access to information must not be overlooked. Many times better access to information can help one to find better ways to cover their basic needs. For example, farmers in Africa could benefit from the Internet by learning about agricultural technology and finding out information about new plants that they could grow. The fact that Africa missed the industrial revolution doesn't mean that it has to miss the information revolution as well.
Speaking theoretically, it would be possible to start a mailing list for the purpose of creating a group capable of building an amateur particle accelerator (or deaccelerator), spreading the word and waiting until enough smart people got interested in the project, then secure the necessary land, materials, and perhaps a government permit, and start making it. Of course there are many *practical* difficulties (there aren't enough smart people out there, the governments would probably distrust amateur mad scientists, few people have enough free time to pursue such interests, and the fact that professionals are already doing this work may make the amateurs look redundant in the society's view). But, fundamentally speaking, intrinsic motivation and love for science are far more powerful motivators than money, so if society embraces or allows amateurs to contribute, they would probably do a much better job (like paid programmers vs free software hackers).
We would have free education for everyone if amateur teachers volunteered every day to teach students the arts and the sciences. Wouldn't this be nice? Of course, universities and professional teachers would feel offended, but overall the society would proceed faster with free amateur-driven education. We have this with free software, we have lots of developers willing to code for the love of it and allow everyone to use the fruits of their hobby, and some people still don't want to appreciate what rms et al have done.
Lot's of people here cannot or don't want to understand what rms talks about. You have to be able to discern some abstract concepts in a philosophy before commenting on it or on its supporters. Free software is essentially a practical way to create a post-scarcity reality in the software market. It's important to understand the importance of this achievement in order to develop an appreciation of free software.
I believe that the US cannot realistically expect to continue to lead the world in basic scientific research [...] What I believe it *can* expect to do is to continue to lead the world in applying research and turning up with innovative products [...] This is also at the heart of the US immigration policy [...] It's a bit parasitic, but it works.
If a country isn't good at basic research, it must fix that and become good, otherwise it's going to die. Period.
The US must focus on revitalising its research, not in using basic research coming out of other countries and attracting top talent from aboard to think of new products instead of doing basic research.
I don't think the US can focus on applying research and continue trying to attract the best brains in the world. It's fundementaly contradictory. The best brains want to work on new stuff, not new applications of old stuff. There are of course bright people who focus on applications, but I believe the smartest of all enjoy engaging in things completely different and never seen before and therefore most probably in basic research.
There are economic problems with this approach as well. The US may be able to continue it for, say, 100 or 200 years, but not in the long term. You can't continue applying old research forever, at least not in a capitalist economy. Capitalist economies need to give opportunities to new entrepreneurs, but they can do so only if the economy expands. Expansion can occur with new markets, with innovation, etc. It isn't easy to continue innovating merely on applications forever, at some point you must find something completely new - ie engage in basic research. The US could use basic research coming out of other countries to think of new applications for one or two centuries, but then what? The rest of the world would change their copyright/patent laws to disallow publication of their basic research in the US, or even keep their best research completely secret, or even keeping their best researchers by force. The US would start feeling the pressure of other countries taking up researchers, so it would then try to expand with new markets instead of innovation, for example by declaring war on some countries or by changing their regimes in order to expand its borders or its export markets. This could keep going on for another 50-100 years, perhaps, depending on the strength of the US military in relation to other countries. At some point the US wouldn't be able to expand on land anymore, and fall, internal disintegration, and revolt would follow.
Furthermore, there are also military implications which require countries to engage in basic research if they want to secure their long term existence. A world power cannot sustain itself merely on its military strength or its marketing. Every world power or empire must engage in basic research in order to develop new products and new markets, and new weapons as well. Basic research often yields new military applications unthinkable before, and the first country that would be able to harness, for an example, the energy released by matter-antimatter annihilation on a massive scale would probably be able to militarily outstrength the US within a few years.
So, basic research is needed in order to keep attracting the best researchers (because that's what they actually enjoy doing), to keep the economy operating normally (for expansion), and to keep the military properly equipped to ensure the long-term existence of a world power.
If the US wants to continue being an active player in world geopolitics in the long term rather than the short term, it must keep its science output steady, and this means investing in basic research in addition to new applications. In practice, this translates to a need for guaranteed academic freedom, better education, more funding, and delicate management of any internal fundamentalist forces seeking to return the world to the dark ages again.
Just a thought... The fact that unpopular research is underfunded or censored may give rise to new gentleman scientists: people who have a passion for research and possess the necessary wealth to pursue it independently. I personally believe that the best research is done when you have the means to do it independently, not as an professional researcher in a company, the government, or a university. When you research while being effectively an employee you end up focusing more on sustaining the paycheck and getting promotions, and you either publish or perish. If you can live independently and you seek answers to scientific questions you can do a much better job (provided you can get access to specialised equipment if needed) since you are motivated solely by your research, not the paycheck. Of course there are people who do work for a paycheck and yet consider their research to be of primary importance, and they would continue it even without the paycheck, but I'm afraid the majority of professional researchers don't think like that. I bet a properly equipped, motivated, and independently wealthy amateur researcher following the true spirit of the scientific method would produce results of higher quality than a professional researcher working in an institution for a paycheck, albeit the professional may outproduce in terms of quantity, with the only exception being professionals who are amateurs at heart and truly love what they do. So, although I insist that the government must fund research as much as possible, underfunding may have some positive social consequences as well. Nothing is all negative, there may be something positive in everything you consider negative. Society has a need for research, and if professionals are underfunded, then the self-motivated amateurs may arise more prominently to fill the gap. Again, I would like to repeat that underfunding is definitely not desirable, but I just wanted to show another side of it.
they standardises on a single browser to cut down their costs. too bad their chosen browser is the most buggy and standards-avoidant piece of software ever made. it probably won't take long until customers standardise on a different supplier.
how long until crackers get control of armed robots? how long until windows embedded are used to control such robots? computer security practices in government aren't advanced enough to ensure these robots won't get into the wrong hands.
To play devil's advocate here, there's no such thing as "passive fructose/sugar consumption". In other words, if you smoke in an enclosed space, it directly affects me. If you eat crap, it doesn't.
If a large percentage of the population is obese, it then becomes a common sight to see obese people out in the street, and the subconscious mind may interpret this as a normal situation. You don't see obese people suddenly dying in the street, so there is no direct indication outside scientific papers and the media that obesity is bad. The more obese people there are out there, the more "normal" and "acceptable" it becomes, and this may prevent newly obese people from attacking their disease: "Why should I lose weight? everyone is like this! I am normal!"
Having contributed code (the mysqli layer) to the Drupal PHP CMS, I can say that its code quality surpasses that of most other PHP projects, and is an example of good PHP workmanship.
it's like an alien environment on our own planet. sure am glad these things are 500m down.
Not as alien as you think. We all evolved from down there, you know. It looks alien because we separated a long time ago. Kinda like UK and US, with many customs and cultural elements being different only because they took different paths some time ago, but they both have the same roots. So, if you learn to look more closely, you'll see that there are many similarities and analogies between land and sea (or UK and US), and you probably can recognise them better if you know some natural history or paleontology.
The extinction of the human species will come when a nuclear missile silo fires up all its warheads after its Micro$oft embedded OS crashes with a blue screen of death.
Not only humans made mamooths extinct, but we also unearth all of their remains so that the next intelligent species after our own extinction won't find any of them, at least not in good shape.
* We trust all hand tools like wrenches and sockets to be exactly the size on the label * We trust all of our doctor's opinions whether or not a second opinion is recommended * We trust our math applications to do math properly * We trust our spell checkers to check properly
I don't know how many think like I do, but I generally take everything with a grain of salt. I have never trusted 100% any doctor opinion. If there is something I may say that I trust completely, this is probably rigourous mathematical proofs. Everything else is not to be trusted completely. But it also depends on what definition you put on the word trust.
A socket may not be of the correct size: The assembly line might have malfunctioned at some point, or a worker might have been sleepy during work. Doctors may act unprofessionally and medicine does not know everything. Maths apps may hide bugs in their source code. And I won't comment on the spell checker example, as I completely distrust all automated spell checkers under the sun, especially the one bundled in Word.
Most as are unfortunately irrelevant to the user's needs, ie they try to sell you something you don't want in the first place. As a result, advertisers design their ads to attract more attention in any way possible. The ads therefore become annoying, and the users generally try to avoid them.
It is logical to conclude that if a user spends more time on site A than site B, then they will have trained their memory to remember the position of ads on site A and their eyes to quickly recognise any new ads appeared on site A, with the end result that they will be more effective in automatically avoiding not only clicking but even seeing any ads on site A, for example by remembering exactly how much they have to scroll down when they are on site A to hide all ads from their view. However, on site B where they don't spend much time, they won't be as effective in automatically recognising where the ads are displayed, and their eyes may end up on a banner or text ad for some microseconds, or perhaps they may mistakenly click on an ad cleverly camouflaged as a content link.
From this follows that there may be users who click more on ads displayed on sites they rarely visit, because they have learnt how to avoid ads on their regular sites. Even if an ad actually sells what the user wants to buy, it may have more chances to be clicked on site B than on site A, because on site A the user has trained his brain not to see any ads in the first place.
That said, I would like to point out that marketing is not about selling what you have but having what people want to buy.
This means you have to find out what the people want and then find a way to satisfy their needs. Knowing what the customers are going to buy and approximately how much they are willing to pay, you then have to build your solution to their problem as a product, make it available, and ensure that all potential buyers are aware of its existence and are capable of reaching your product with minimal hassle. That's the most optimal form of marketing.
Unfortunately, because of ignorance (not knowing what marketing is), economic factors (you often have at hand something nobody really wants and you may not be financially capable of building another product), and psychological factors (pathological egoism expressed as the desire to oppress your customers, the people who actually allow your business to survive the first place) many times the marketing practitioners follow less optimal forms of marketing, like trying to force customers buying something they don't really need. This may actually help the profitability of a company in the short-term, but it's not a good long-term strategy as at some point your customers will revolt (avoiding all ads is such a form of revolt).
Marketers who fail to focus on the customers's needs and use ads as a form of propaganda have to grow up or else they will start losing their jobs whenever customer revolts affect the bottom line. When (or if) marketers take their job seriously, they will direct the operations to build the right solutions and the advertisers to stop designing annoying ads and focus more on targeting the right ads to the right users and making their ads actually useful in the customers's daily lives (an ad should ideally help people to find the optimal solution to their problems).
On the Web, all this boils down to more individualised content. The Web is not a mass medium. Unfortunately most advertisers have more experience with print and broadcast media, and try to form analogies of whatever they know about mass media on the Web. They think that an ad should be produced and then "pushed" to the customers. That's wrong. If marketers and advertisers were doing their jobs well, the ads would be "pulled" by the customers themselves and even "shared" between customers having similar needs.
Such postings are good for generating controversy and short-term traffic, and they're definitely easy to write. But they don't build sustainable value.
At least 99% of people out in the World Wild West seek nothing more than clicks on their ads. Being easy to write is a big plus for them. They are not interested in sustainable value, and certainly they don't seek to build value for the users; they only want to make themselves richer, and only in the short-term.
The Internet began as a community of a few worthy people of heroic standards. Being an Internet/ARPANET/USENET/BBS user in the good old days was quite a personal achievement. The barrier of entry was so high that only people above a certain intelligence level could get it. Then, as more users came in, the companies discovered it and people from anywhere in the intelligence curve surged in. The barrier of entry was lowered, but there was no facility to help newbies elevate themselves. Soon, stupid questions and flamebaits appeared in mailing lists and the newsgroups. Lunatics took over the Web, a service of the Internet originally designed by scientists for scientists. Then the Web surpassed all other services, and the Internet officially died; it was dumped down just like education. Another network replaced it, and I call this The StupidNet.
You have to search a lot in order to find the fragments of the original Internet scattered around in the present StupidNet. It's like SETI scanning for the ET signal. We know it must be somewhere out there, but the noise is so much we can't find it in reasonable time. That's what searching for intelligent people on StupidNet is like today.
If touch interfaces get popular, businesses selling screen cleaning kits will make billions. Unconvinced? Try touching your TFT with your fingers while eating a double cheeseberger spiced up with respectable amounts of ketchup.
Slashdot Mirror
IANAL but I think that FSF's publication of GPL licences could be considered a service to humanity, and since FSF is an organisation, it should have the right to use trade marks and service marks. Since the GPL is a well-known "service" (licence), perhaps it could be considered a service mark. Therefore, if another entity publishes a "GPLv4" licence, the FSF could require it to change its name since FSF was the first to use the GPL name for the service of a copyleft software licence.
Training isn't enough, it's one half of what's needed. The other half is motivation: People who are entrusted to set passwords have to know what constitutes a bad password and the motivation to use a good one. An underpaid overworked disengaged employee would probably not care whether the passwords they choose are strong or weak, even with training.
I'd assume Sexdactylics would type faster than the rest of us with such a keyboard!
The Great Law of Computer Security: Networked computers are insecure by nature. Everything that is stored within a networked computer can and will be compromised. Corollary: Always use a non-networked computer to store critical data, or better yet, no computer at all; a piece of paper inside your wallet is probably safer at most situations. Shortened version: Distrust all computers.
I think Northrop Grumman, albeit a large company, still has the creativity to innovate and seek interesting solutions to engineering problems. I also think that the flying wing concept has not received the attention it deserves. I find the marriage between Scaled and Northrop an interesting development which may be good or bad, but we don't know that yet. We have to wait to see how Northrop is going to utilise Scaled within its family of engineers, and how much contact there is going to be between Northrop and Scaled people. I am optimistic that Northrop may make good use of Scaled and develop something interesting.
Counting on fixed intfastructure for Africa is wrong: The people are scaterred around in a vast continent. Ever seen Africa from Google Earth? It's full of small villages everywhere, even inside deserts and jungles. We should aim to potentially connect the whole of the African population to the Internet, not just those living in cities, and therefore we have to account for those in remote villages. Fixed cables are probably sufficient for the biggest of the African urban centres, but we need a wireless solution to connect the rest of the people. Furthermore, there are people in Africa who don't like staying in the same place much time, they are accustomed to move around (nomads or descendants of nomads). Other Africans may be so dependent on a specific kind of job that they may move whenever they have to change employer, just to have access to a job. Mobile phones do have some kind of penetration in the African continent and some people are used to them. These are all additional reasons why we need a wireless Internet solution,preferably something that could work with their mobile phones. 3G, WiFi, WiMax, and for the most remote of the villages, GPRS and satellite access are good candidate technologies for bringing more Africans to the Net. That's all about the technology. But the biggest problem is not technological, but rather economic and societal: People just don't have much to pay and even those who do are victims of monopolies, and nobody who has the power to help them thinks about them. Some people think that because Africa lives in poverty it should focus solely on covering its basic needs (food, shelter, peace). I think non-basic needs like access to information must not be overlooked. Many times better access to information can help one to find better ways to cover their basic needs. For example, farmers in Africa could benefit from the Internet by learning about agricultural technology and finding out information about new plants that they could grow. The fact that Africa missed the industrial revolution doesn't mean that it has to miss the information revolution as well.
Speaking theoretically, it would be possible to start a mailing list for the purpose of creating a group capable of building an amateur particle accelerator (or deaccelerator), spreading the word and waiting until enough smart people got interested in the project, then secure the necessary land, materials, and perhaps a government permit, and start making it. Of course there are many *practical* difficulties (there aren't enough smart people out there, the governments would probably distrust amateur mad scientists, few people have enough free time to pursue such interests, and the fact that professionals are already doing this work may make the amateurs look redundant in the society's view). But, fundamentally speaking, intrinsic motivation and love for science are far more powerful motivators than money, so if society embraces or allows amateurs to contribute, they would probably do a much better job (like paid programmers vs free software hackers).
Who would make a better how-to? An amateur who does it for the love of it, or an employee who just wants to keep the paycheck coming every week or so?
We would have free education for everyone if amateur teachers volunteered every day to teach students the arts and the sciences. Wouldn't this be nice? Of course, universities and professional teachers would feel offended, but overall the society would proceed faster with free amateur-driven education. We have this with free software, we have lots of developers willing to code for the love of it and allow everyone to use the fruits of their hobby, and some people still don't want to appreciate what rms et al have done.
Lot's of people here cannot or don't want to understand what rms talks about. You have to be able to discern some abstract concepts in a philosophy before commenting on it or on its supporters. Free software is essentially a practical way to create a post-scarcity reality in the software market. It's important to understand the importance of this achievement in order to develop an appreciation of free software.
If a country isn't good at basic research, it must fix that and become good, otherwise it's going to die. Period.
The US must focus on revitalising its research, not in using basic research coming out of other countries and attracting top talent from aboard to think of new products instead of doing basic research.
I don't think the US can focus on applying research and continue trying to attract the best brains in the world. It's fundementaly contradictory. The best brains want to work on new stuff, not new applications of old stuff. There are of course bright people who focus on applications, but I believe the smartest of all enjoy engaging in things completely different and never seen before and therefore most probably in basic research.
There are economic problems with this approach as well. The US may be able to continue it for, say, 100 or 200 years, but not in the long term. You can't continue applying old research forever, at least not in a capitalist economy. Capitalist economies need to give opportunities to new entrepreneurs, but they can do so only if the economy expands. Expansion can occur with new markets, with innovation, etc. It isn't easy to continue innovating merely on applications forever, at some point you must find something completely new - ie engage in basic research. The US could use basic research coming out of other countries to think of new applications for one or two centuries, but then what? The rest of the world would change their copyright/patent laws to disallow publication of their basic research in the US, or even keep their best research completely secret, or even keeping their best researchers by force. The US would start feeling the pressure of other countries taking up researchers, so it would then try to expand with new markets instead of innovation, for example by declaring war on some countries or by changing their regimes in order to expand its borders or its export markets. This could keep going on for another 50-100 years, perhaps, depending on the strength of the US military in relation to other countries. At some point the US wouldn't be able to expand on land anymore, and fall, internal disintegration, and revolt would follow.
Furthermore, there are also military implications which require countries to engage in basic research if they want to secure their long term existence. A world power cannot sustain itself merely on its military strength or its marketing. Every world power or empire must engage in basic research in order to develop new products and new markets, and new weapons as well. Basic research often yields new military applications unthinkable before, and the first country that would be able to harness, for an example, the energy released by matter-antimatter annihilation on a massive scale would probably be able to militarily outstrength the US within a few years.
So, basic research is needed in order to keep attracting the best researchers (because that's what they actually enjoy doing), to keep the economy operating normally (for expansion), and to keep the military properly equipped to ensure the long-term existence of a world power.
If the US wants to continue being an active player in world geopolitics in the long term rather than the short term, it must keep its science output steady, and this means investing in basic research in addition to new applications. In practice, this translates to a need for guaranteed academic freedom, better education, more funding, and delicate management of any internal fundamentalist forces seeking to return the world to the dark ages again.
Just a thought... The fact that unpopular research is underfunded or censored may give rise to new gentleman scientists: people who have a passion for research and possess the necessary wealth to pursue it independently. I personally believe that the best research is done when you have the means to do it independently, not as an professional researcher in a company, the government, or a university. When you research while being effectively an employee you end up focusing more on sustaining the paycheck and getting promotions, and you either publish or perish. If you can live independently and you seek answers to scientific questions you can do a much better job (provided you can get access to specialised equipment if needed) since you are motivated solely by your research, not the paycheck. Of course there are people who do work for a paycheck and yet consider their research to be of primary importance, and they would continue it even without the paycheck, but I'm afraid the majority of professional researchers don't think like that. I bet a properly equipped, motivated, and independently wealthy amateur researcher following the true spirit of the scientific method would produce results of higher quality than a professional researcher working in an institution for a paycheck, albeit the professional may outproduce in terms of quantity, with the only exception being professionals who are amateurs at heart and truly love what they do. So, although I insist that the government must fund research as much as possible, underfunding may have some positive social consequences as well. Nothing is all negative, there may be something positive in everything you consider negative. Society has a need for research, and if professionals are underfunded, then the self-motivated amateurs may arise more prominently to fill the gap. Again, I would like to repeat that underfunding is definitely not desirable, but I just wanted to show another side of it.
Perhaps several different biochemistries developed, with one becoming too successful and displacing others.
they standardises on a single browser to cut down their costs. too bad their chosen browser is the most buggy and standards-avoidant piece of software ever made. it probably won't take long until customers standardise on a different supplier.
how long until crackers get control of armed robots? how long until windows embedded are used to control such robots? computer security practices in government aren't advanced enough to ensure these robots won't get into the wrong hands.
If a large percentage of the population is obese, it then becomes a common sight to see obese people out in the street, and the subconscious mind may interpret this as a normal situation. You don't see obese people suddenly dying in the street, so there is no direct indication outside scientific papers and the media that obesity is bad. The more obese people there are out there, the more "normal" and "acceptable" it becomes, and this may prevent newly obese people from attacking their disease: "Why should I lose weight? everyone is like this! I am normal!"
Having contributed code (the mysqli layer) to the Drupal PHP CMS, I can say that its code quality surpasses that of most other PHP projects, and is an example of good PHP workmanship.
Not as alien as you think. We all evolved from down there, you know. It looks alien because we separated a long time ago. Kinda like UK and US, with many customs and cultural elements being different only because they took different paths some time ago, but they both have the same roots. So, if you learn to look more closely, you'll see that there are many similarities and analogies between land and sea (or UK and US), and you probably can recognise them better if you know some natural history or paleontology.
The extinction of the human species will come when a nuclear missile silo fires up all its warheads after its Micro$oft embedded OS crashes with a blue screen of death.
Not only humans made mamooths extinct, but we also unearth all of their remains so that the next intelligent species after our own extinction won't find any of them, at least not in good shape.
Not really, I actually just gamble.
* We trust all of our doctor's opinions whether or not a second opinion is recommended
* We trust our math applications to do math properly
* We trust our spell checkers to check properly
I don't know how many think like I do, but I generally take everything with a grain of salt. I have never trusted 100% any doctor opinion. If there is something I may say that I trust completely, this is probably rigourous mathematical proofs. Everything else is not to be trusted completely. But it also depends on what definition you put on the word trust.
A socket may not be of the correct size: The assembly line might have malfunctioned at some point, or a worker might have been sleepy during work. Doctors may act unprofessionally and medicine does not know everything. Maths apps may hide bugs in their source code. And I won't comment on the spell checker example, as I completely distrust all automated spell checkers under the sun, especially the one bundled in Word.
Most as are unfortunately irrelevant to the user's needs, ie they try to sell you something you don't want in the first place. As a result, advertisers design their ads to attract more attention in any way possible. The ads therefore become annoying, and the users generally try to avoid them.
It is logical to conclude that if a user spends more time on site A than site B, then they will have trained their memory to remember the position of ads on site A and their eyes to quickly recognise any new ads appeared on site A, with the end result that they will be more effective in automatically avoiding not only clicking but even seeing any ads on site A, for example by remembering exactly how much they have to scroll down when they are on site A to hide all ads from their view. However, on site B where they don't spend much time, they won't be as effective in automatically recognising where the ads are displayed, and their eyes may end up on a banner or text ad for some microseconds, or perhaps they may mistakenly click on an ad cleverly camouflaged as a content link.
From this follows that there may be users who click more on ads displayed on sites they rarely visit, because they have learnt how to avoid ads on their regular sites. Even if an ad actually sells what the user wants to buy, it may have more chances to be clicked on site B than on site A, because on site A the user has trained his brain not to see any ads in the first place.
That said, I would like to point out that marketing is not about selling what you have but having what people want to buy.
This means you have to find out what the people want and then find a way to satisfy their needs. Knowing what the customers are going to buy and approximately how much they are willing to pay, you then have to build your solution to their problem as a product, make it available, and ensure that all potential buyers are aware of its existence and are capable of reaching your product with minimal hassle. That's the most optimal form of marketing.
Unfortunately, because of ignorance (not knowing what marketing is), economic factors (you often have at hand something nobody really wants and you may not be financially capable of building another product), and psychological factors (pathological egoism expressed as the desire to oppress your customers, the people who actually allow your business to survive the first place) many times the marketing practitioners follow less optimal forms of marketing, like trying to force customers buying something they don't really need. This may actually help the profitability of a company in the short-term, but it's not a good long-term strategy as at some point your customers will revolt (avoiding all ads is such a form of revolt).
Marketers who fail to focus on the customers's needs and use ads as a form of propaganda have to grow up or else they will start losing their jobs whenever customer revolts affect the bottom line. When (or if) marketers take their job seriously, they will direct the operations to build the right solutions and the advertisers to stop designing annoying ads and focus more on targeting the right ads to the right users and making their ads actually useful in the customers's daily lives (an ad should ideally help people to find the optimal solution to their problems).
On the Web, all this boils down to more individualised content. The Web is not a mass medium. Unfortunately most advertisers have more experience with print and broadcast media, and try to form analogies of whatever they know about mass media on the Web. They think that an ad should be produced and then "pushed" to the customers. That's wrong. If marketers and advertisers were doing their jobs well, the ads would be "pulled" by the customers themselves and even "shared" between customers having similar needs.
At least 99% of people out in the World Wild West seek nothing more than clicks on their ads. Being easy to write is a big plus for them. They are not interested in sustainable value, and certainly they don't seek to build value for the users; they only want to make themselves richer, and only in the short-term.
The Internet began as a community of a few worthy people of heroic standards. Being an Internet/ARPANET/USENET/BBS user in the good old days was quite a personal achievement. The barrier of entry was so high that only people above a certain intelligence level could get it. Then, as more users came in, the companies discovered it and people from anywhere in the intelligence curve surged in. The barrier of entry was lowered, but there was no facility to help newbies elevate themselves. Soon, stupid questions and flamebaits appeared in mailing lists and the newsgroups. Lunatics took over the Web, a service of the Internet originally designed by scientists for scientists. Then the Web surpassed all other services, and the Internet officially died; it was dumped down just like education. Another network replaced it, and I call this The StupidNet.
You have to search a lot in order to find the fragments of the original Internet scattered around in the present StupidNet. It's like SETI scanning for the ET signal. We know it must be somewhere out there, but the noise is so much we can't find it in reasonable time. That's what searching for intelligent people on StupidNet is like today.
If touch interfaces get popular, businesses selling screen cleaning kits will make billions. Unconvinced? Try touching your TFT with your fingers while eating a double cheeseberger spiced up with respectable amounts of ketchup.