It appears that Ken has a major case of sour grapes. I am a user of ad blockers. I use them not only to eliminate annoying ads, I use them to protect my privacy. I do not like the idea of personalized advertising based upon what websites I visit. I do not like the idea of advertisers downloading cookies on to MY computer just because I view a web page that contains one of their ads. What web sites I view, is between me and the web site I am viewing, not some advertiser. I view web ads as an infection, needing to be controlled. AD BLOCKERS PROVIDE THAT CONTROL!!!

Ken rants against Internet users who do not experience the Internet in the fashion that would render maximum profits to Ars Technica, stopping just short of calling them thieves. It is obvious that he cares not one iota about users privacy concerns. No where does he indicate that Ars takes any steps to ensure that ads do not place tracking cookies and the such. All he does is cry about ad blockers depriving him of profits! Ken obviously cares not about users privacy issues as long as ad revenues flow.

He also displaying some ignorance of the subject on which he is pontificating. For example when he is discussing the radio and television advertising model he states "advertisers in those mediums are paying for potential to reach audiences, and not for results." I am sorry but no company spends money for "potential to reach audiences". All companies spend advertising money with the expectation of results i.e. more business. If a company spends money on a particular form of advertising and it does not produce results, they do not continue throwing money away. They go to a different form of advertising. Ken also states "They have complex models which tell them if X number are watching, Y will likely see the ad." This is true. Radio and television have complex models because they take into consideration those who do not respond to advertising.

When he states "they really have no true idea who sees what ad, and that's why it's a medium based on potential and not provable results" he is making an assertion which is false. While it is true the advertisers have no idea WHO is seeing the ad, they do know how many people are exposed it. Neilsen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_ratings and several other rating companies provide rating services for both local and national broadcasting entities. The advertising rate for advertising during a broadcast is determined by the historical rating a broadcast has obtained. The higher the rating the higher the ad rate. Everyone remember the millions paid for a 30 second ad during the Super Bowl. Ken says that because the advertiser does not know WHO viewed the ad, there are no provable results. If that were true, why would a company spend MILLIONS on a single ad if there were no provable results? That just makes no sense.

Now Ken also states "on the Internet everything is 100% trackable and is billed and sold as such." Here Ken is indicating that either the Ars Technica's advertising department is being dishonest, selling clients the idea that 100% of Ars visitors will click through to the client's site or that Ars is willing to conspire with their clients to place adware of some form on each visitor's computer. Combined with Ken's stressing the exaggerated importance of knowing WHO views an ad, my guess is the later, since that is the ONLY way for Ars to guarantee 100% of anything getting to a client. Why else would ad blockers cause him such heartburn.

Either way...now that I know this about Ars...I will never visit that site again without an ad blocker of some kind.

No, you are not being a jackass. It is far better to ask questions and be INFORMED than make assumptions that might not be true.

As an Extra class amateur radio operator licensee I can tell you that the FCC considers exposure to RF radiation a significant risk. To obtain an amateur radio license and to be granted greater privileges, tests are given and several questions pertain to safe exposure limits. While I would doubt that the antenna poses a hazard, for your own peace of mind there is some homework you must do, questions you must ask of the company that owns the antenna and possibly the FCC.

Is the antenna used for receiving, transmitting or both? Is the antenna directional? What kind of gain does the antenna exhibit? What does the energy distribution look like? Are you able to see a site evaluation? (the FCC might have that on record) Find out the name of the company that owns the antenna and ask these question.

Many systems use separate antennas for receiving and transmitting. Doing so allows the antenna to be optimized for the job. It is quite possible that the antenna in question is used purely for reception of the cell signals from another tower. In that case the antenna poses no risk what so ever.

If the antenna is used for transmission of microwave signals a whole new can of worms is opened and RF exposure must be considered. RF radiation exposure limits are divided into two categories, a controlled environment and an uncontrolled environment. Basically, these two categories refer to the exposure limits of people working with the equipment and the general public. Several things are considered when looking at RF exposure limits; antenna type, power delivered to the antenna and the effective power radiated. A highly directional antenna can direct the input wattage into a very narrow beam called a lobe, effectively amplifying the signal in that direction. So a signal of 200 watts can effectively become a signal of much higher strength depending upon the gain of the antenna. One of the advantages of this is that the signal to the sides of the main lobe is extremely weak. From a safety stand point, only something directly in the path of the lobe is being exposed to radiation.

Again, ask the questions I gave to you earlier of an electrical engineer working at the company owing the antenna. Make an appointment to meet at the site of the apartment. The FCC requires they keep detailed information available on their systems just for answering this type of issue.

Regards,
W2TKW

My only problem with the new Kindle models is the lack of an SD card slot. I have quite a lot of textbooks and references and can not fit enough of them on the internal storage of the Kindle.

As long as you write your own code and make your own graphics you should be allowed to create whatever you want. In this case, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" fits perfectly. Copying someone elses work also increases competition which is good for everyone, especially the gamers.

Aquatica is very clearly a flOw knock off, so Aquatica is plagiarism if and only if the author did not explain that flOw inspired him.

All these terms have very different meanings with very different real purposes, but all cover an aspect of "depriving the creator".

Plagiarism the closest to theft by far because plagiarism deprives the creator of the credit due for their creation. Plagiarism has no legal status for various sound reasons, like being only indirectly tied to compensation and not being abused by large corporations, but society tries to punish it indirectly nevertheless.

Copyright exists solely to prevent those who control distribution channels from distributing works without compensating the creators. Copyright is vastly further from theft than plagiarism since the creator has far less intrinsic right to distribution than to credit. Copyright has legal status because (a) the criteria is fairly well defined and (b) publishers will never reward authors otherwise. Btw, copyright is basically functioning correctly when shutting down commercial distribution channels like Napster and TPB who have no intention of compensating creators, but copyright is being grossly misused when attacking individual file sharers.

Patents exist solely to protect the investments of venture capitalists while creating new industries. Patents are by far the furthest IP device from "theft" since they protect venture capitalists not creators. Patents are more just a contract between society and the capitalist that says "If you fund this, then we'll grant you a monopoly for a few years." Clearly patents have also drifted extremely far from their original purpose, now functioning more as a "currency" between businesses.

I can distinguish it, but don't really care.

A good game is a good game regardless of who wrote it, or who came up with the original idea. The logo on the box is unimportant.