Hey! No, no voting ring. But I do submit a lot of ET stories, that's for sure. I only try to submit stuff that I think is new/interesting/pertinent.

I think two or three ads per page is pretty good. I have seen some tech sites with much more than that. (As you probably know, running a free site that makes money from ad revenue is pretty tough at the moment, and isn't getting any easier.)

Apologies if you find the stories lousy. I try my best to dig up interesting stuff. Obviously the quality of the reporting isn't as good as if a professional cryptographer/material scientist/engineer etc wrote it -- but... I do the best I can :)