Why so Many ED Ads?

Why are there so many ads for medicines to treat ED? If that many people actually had the disease, we as a species would have died out long ago. I think, personally, that the drug companies are trying to push the pills to people who don't really need them. And it's getting on my nerves. I don't really want to hear how this pill has helped you. If I were a parent, I wouldn't want my children subjected to it, either. People who have a problem can talk to their doctors and buy your pills. People who don't shouldn't have to listen to you wave them around and say how great they are.

!!!

Why are people so dumb? Does anyone know? It would be great if you would all just be a bit nicer to each other, thanks. No more Cold War, please. It might be nice if you stopped invading random countries, killing random people, and generally making a nuisance of yourselves.

Please?

Quantum Computing Progress

The folks over at Ars note that some people have been making progress towards practical quantum computing. I still think that if this ever catches on, God is going to start complaining about lag.

I own an integer

I am now, according to the DMCA, the proud owner of the integer

83 00 FC D2 47 2F 80 96 D4 41 4A 23 43 DA A6 3F

Anyone else who distributes this number would be officially violating the DMCA (at least, that's what the AACS people would have you believe), as this number is an encryption key which could be used to decrypt a copyrighted work.

You can get yourself an integer, too.

HD DVD Master Key Found

Apparently the HD DVD master key was found a while ago. However, due to the well-thought-out decision by the MPAA to attempt to suppress the spread of the key, it is now spreading all over the place. Digg has been especially fulkl of stories about the key, but Digg admins are trying to suppress them as well. So much for unbiased news sites.
Anyway, nice work, MPAA. Suing customers, trying to assert ownership over numbers--I think you're doing a great job of being "the voice and advocate of the American motion picture, home video and television industries" (http://www.mpaa.org/AboutUs.asp). I especially like the part where you make people hate you.

ACT

I recently took the ACT test. In order to do this, I, unfortunately, had to deal with the ACT website, and the ACT corporation, which seems to want to charge you for everything they can.

I first had to figure out where to register for the test. So I went to the ACT for Students page. The thing immediately starts an annoying flash animation, with sound, thus distracting me from whatever it was I was doing in order to find the mute control. If you go to another part of the site and come back, the music starts again, and you have to mute it again.

So, I mute the Flash movie, and look around for the "Register" button. It turns out it's about halfway down the page, on the right side, and a lot smaller than everything else. To add to the confusion, right next to it is a form where you can choose a city and state and hit "Go", probably to find test centers. So what do I click?

I click the button, and I have to battle an annoying, multi-step registration process split across multiple pages. I've forgotten most of how the site was supposed to work, but I can tell you that it didn't work well.

I eventually get to the part where I get to select the optional components of my ACT experience. Do I want the Writing component? (Yes). That's extra. Do I want to see what questions I got wrong? (Yes). That's also extra. Do I feel like giving money to the people who made me go through all these hoops to register? (No). Too bad, you need to take this test to get into college!

After I filled all that out, the site tries to sell me test prep books. Isn't that a conflict of interest or something?

When I come back to their site later to study for the test, it's actually a lot easier. However, I do notice that the scores for the sample writing section essays seem to vary directly with the number of words written.

I eventually want (well, not want, but need) to take this test. So I go into the school gym, sit down, and do the thing. Afterwards, I have to write out and sign some sort of statement that I won't talk about questions ever as long as I live or something, which I find dubious legally because most people taking the test are minors who can't sign contracts anyway.

A couple weeks go by, and I sit down at my computer to see if I can't have a look at my scores. So I go on Google, look up the ACT, and go to the first result. This is, unfortunately, their corporate site, and I have to find the right link to click to get back to the annoying Flash sound page. I mute the thing, find the little link to "Scores" in the section menu bar, and then... I don't get a page where I can see my scores. Instead, it's some sort of page about when I'll get my scores. Not what I wanted. But I see a link labeled "See scores" in small text at the top of the nav bar, and follow that. That takes me to another page with a link that says that maybe, this time, I'll be able to see my scores. So I click ion that link, and it brings me to a page of text, with a completley different layout, and a "Continue" button. Getting annoyed by this point, I hit "Continue", and am prompted for, rather than the login information for the account that I was forced to set up when I registered, some sort of ID that the ACT corporation issued me (which, I think, was printed on my admission ticket), and my credit card information. Apparently, if I want to see my scores during the "Early Viewing Period," I must, in addition to going through five levels of pages and links reading "See Scores," pay them $8.00--which I am, by this time, in no mood to do. It doesn't help matters at all the dates which define the "Early Viewing Period" are not listed (as far as I could tell), and, as I later found when writing this post, the annoying Flash animation on the front page is actually an ad which tries to bother people into buying the Early Score Viewing Service by hinting that they don't really know how well they did.

I don't take kindly to being treated this way. Just because the ACT people control an important test doesn't mean that they can ignore website usability and try to guilt/annoy me into paying them money. I'm sorry, ACT Inc., but it was a displeasure doing business with you.

Who drank all the Joost?

I just got invited to the Joost beta (thanks, Katharine!) yesterday. So, I installed the software on my computer, started it up, created my account, and was greeted with a nice "you have been disconnected from the Joost network" message. So, I go on the FAQ and find out that the thing uses non-standard ports. Wasn't this thing made by the Skype people? I know they know how to get around NATs and firewalls with a p2p app, so why does Joost require certain ports?
I didn't really care that much about the ports, though, so I took my laptop down to where I had an unrestricted connection available, and tried again. It seemed to work, but almost every show would give me an error 121: "This program is not currently available," after watching it a while. I looked on the forum, and it seems this is a bug with the new v9.2. I tried downgrading to 9.1, but then I got the "you have been disconnected" message again.
The shows it has seem nice, although the channel catalog seems heavily balanced towards boxing and race cars. I like the National Geographic channel, and I tried to watch this cool show about the Secret Service, but then it 121'd on me and I couldn't finish it. Also, some of the channels are only available in Europe, or "Worldwide, except US and Canada," for reasons that I cannot fathom--probably having to do with legal Issues (with a capital I).
So, as soon as Joost gets the 9.2 error 121 bug fixed, it'll be pretty good.