#1, Hoffman is both the discoverer and inventor of LSD. He added some extra chemical groups to Lysergic Acid (which does occur in nature), but he also discovered the vision inducing aspects of LSD-25.

Neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD require HDCP for high resolution output. They can downscale or refuse to play without HDCP, but studios don't currently use that option.

I'm pretty sure that if you want to connect a display digitally to Bluray, HDDVD or the AppleTV, it requires HDCP. It you want to connect your display via an analog connection, you can use component video. The dell monitor apparently supports neither.

I suppose it could be worse-- imagine if OSX 10.5 was laden with "tilt" bits, ala Windows Vista.

The headline reads Apple TV DRM makes iTunes rentals incompatible with many TVs, but the Dell 2005 2005FPW is not a TV. It's a monitor (with S-video and composite ports, for some unknown reason).

Suppose you had a standalone DVD player in 2004, and were shopping for a widescreen display to show movies on. In 2004, the number of standalone dvd players that could use unencrypted DVI ports or VGA ports could be counted on one hand. Most had encryption. Most had component video.

The AppleTV is no exception. It encrypts its HDMI port. It has component outputs.

And if you bought a HDTV in 2004, you could get something that used those interfaces. No, it wouldn't have been dirt cheap, like the Dell. It might have been larger than what you really needed. But it would have worked.