* Posts by Adam 10

116 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jun 2009

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Three to drop mobile smut shield

Adam 10
WTF?

Annoying filter

On a road trip, stuck in traffic I tried to find a few jokes to entertain my friends... kept on getting their filter... or as I call it, the "COME ON, BUY SOME PORN" screen. I rung customer services and all they did was try to sell me the porn. Still provided entertainment for my friends as I spent 30 mins getting more exasperated and shouting "I DON'T WANT ANY PORN, STOP TRYING TO SELL ME PORN!!!"

The "filter" is purely about revenue... if they were concerned with fragile young minds it wouldn't offer, and I quote, "red hot xxx lesbo action!" (their exclamation mark, not mine).

Icecrypt T2400 Freeview HD DVR

Adam 10

V+ box audio

Perhaps you have an earlier V+ box than I (mine's about 2 years old), but mine outputs audio over HDMI, and if you enable one of the settings in the menus then you can tell it to bitstream the audio which means you get Dolby Digital if it's being broadcast, 48KHz PCM stereo if not. Films and the latest "big" TV series are usually in 5.1 on the HD channels, but a lot of TV programmes come out in 2.0.

I seem to recall there is a setting on the V+ box for enabling the optical out whilst using HDMI video, try disabling that and seeing if your HDMI audio starts working?

Right, Freeview HD box. Why no iPlayer/4OD? I thought part of the whole Freeview+ spec involved catch-up internet services.

Femtocell experts create even tinier porta-base station

Adam 10

How long?!

So, how long do you expect people to stay on the line for while your system cycles through so many items?

With a Cisco IP phone set-up, I find that by the time the call has diverted to my mobile the caller has heard 3 rings anyway and gives up, without a missed call ever showing on either phone.

People thought I was just neglecting to call them back, so I disabled the call-forward.

UK tech retailers are rubbish

Adam 10
Thumb Up

Ah, Richer Sounds

This is the same Richer Sounds who used to proudly proclaim that they would never sell TVs, midi systems, portable audio or washing machines.

The same Richer Sounds who now sell all the above apart from washing machines... then went and acquired Empire Direct, the now-defunct online seller of washing machines.

Lol.

Amazon invites 5 terabyte mondo-files into the heavens

Adam 10

Home user?

Hmmm, I'm not sure this is intended for home users... Same as how corporation-grade video-conference set-up costs £30K but a webcam + Skype doesn't.

Any facility that requires back-up of single 5TB files may just be on the end of a big fat fibre full of internets.

Hands on with the new Apple MacBook Air

Adam 10
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Integrate 3G/4G FTW!!!

The computer I am typing this from is an ultralight HP with integrated 3G. SIM slot behind the battery, and it's away.

If you were to read the T&Cs of your mobile contract, you would find that tethering is against them (unless you have a specific contract with tethering in mind).

As I previously used a PCMCIA 3G card, I have to say that reception is far better with integrated 3G as they can put better aerials into the machine. Long gone are the days of reaching into my laptop case and pulling out the big aerial.

So, no integrate 3G = fail.

3 bigs self up as biggest 3G network

Adam 10
Unhappy

Question is...

Will I now be able to get a decent Three signal at home?

I live in a small town (10,000 people), which has just one Three mast. This wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that 3g cells "breathe in" when traffic is high. So, at peak times, those of us further from the mast lose all signal. 3am I can get 6-7mbps sustained downloads, 9pm I can't even send a text. They seem to have sized the mast so they only need one to cover the whole town from the centre, but the problem is this doesn't work with dynamically-sized cells.

Other than that I'm pretty happy with Three.

Western Digital gearing up to sell 3TB drives

Adam 10
Headmaster

Yawn: TB not TiB

Dave, I'm afraid I have to be a pedant here and correct your pedantry...

You must have missed the solution that was reached in the scientific and engineering (inc IT) community, many many years ago: tera- = 10^12. tebi- = 2^32 (the "bi" part covers the fact it is a base-2 abbreviation, ie "binary").

Some in the IT world refuse to acknowledge that tera is a base-10 prefix and continue to use it to represent the base-2 prefix "tebi", however as you don't seem to realise that "b" represents "bits" and "B" represents "bytes", I don't think you reside in the IT, scientific or engineering worlds.

3000000000000 bytes = 3.00TB = 2.73TiB

And a machine with 3Tb inside has 375GB inside (assuming 8-bit bytes)

Apple TV stripdown reveals mystery solder pads

Adam 10
Thumb Up

12? Try 10!

I just consulted a girl and they inform me that cyan is a sort of blue and magenta is a sort of purple.

New 'iPhoD' can 'adjust the speed of light by turning a knob'

Adam 10

Speed of light in a vacuum

Ah yes, we've all heard "The speed of light is constant and is approximately 3x10^8 ms^-1", but the important bit that sometimes gets missed out is "in a vacuum".

If you want to see a very cool effect caused by the difference in the speed of light between material A and material B, look up Cherenkov radiation on the net, especially for pictures!

Half of UK road users support usage-based road charging

Adam 10

Unlimited?

Will they be able to sell "unlimited" road usage as well (subject to Fair-Use policy of 10 miles/month, speeds UP TO 70mph, mean of 5mph, capacity may be reduced at peak times etc etc)

Meego goes 3D

Adam 10

Really?

I have an HTC Desire so am bought into Android, but I would hardly say that Apple and Google dominate the market. I still see far more people with Nokias and Sony Ericcsons, although I would agree that iPhones and Androids are far from rare now.

Virgin Media to warn malware-infected customers

Adam 10
Megaphone

A legitimate use?

Finally, a legitimate use for ISP snooping/sniffing? Couldn't they just block people from downloading the junk in the first place?

I wonder if this came out of the same brainstorming session as the "I'm using private browsing to buy a present for my wife" Windows 7 advert...

DfT 'unwittingly' bigged-up speed camera benefits

Adam 10
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@ Real Ale

Mr Real Ale. Whilst I agree with your user ID, I disagree with some of your arguments here.

Motorway barriers are generally placed (in my experience, at least) either side of the carriageways. The difference in lateral momentum between a blow-out at 70mph and a blow-out at 100mph is minor. The momentum of a car at 100mph is also significantly less than a 44-tonne truck travelling at a legal 56mph. Obviously, if they started putting barriers across the motorways then the difference in speed would become significant , mostly down to stopping distances though (at what distance should these lateral barriers be visible?)

Additionally, the engineered design-speed of motorways in the UK is, and always has been (since the very first miles were opened up over half a century ago) 100mph. That is why cars don't fly off the motorway at every corner, even though they are mostly driving at over 70mph.

The 70mph limit was chosen as this was about as fast as a typical car could go in the early 60s, with 50bhp, drum brakes and cross-ply tyres, and this would reduce the speed differential from the Aston Martins and Jags who were burning up and down at 150+ to a more manageable amount.

The problem of lift at high speeds exists with SOME cars, mostly due to poorly-designed cooling air flow (the MG TF, for instance, exhausts cooling air underneath the front subframe and thus tends to become nose-light at about 120mph but will still take UK motorway corners at 140mph albeit less confidently). However the earlier poster forgets the venturi effect that is also present at the low altitude of a car's underside, which tends to suck the car down on to the road surface, and also the downforce generated by other body components (the bonnet, and rear spoiler if present).

'Suspicious' Android wallpaper app nabs user data

Adam 10

Privilege system needs improvement

I have a Desire, and one of the things that struck me when I first installed an App was that the "this app needs access to the following" page was a good idea. This was followed a few seconds later by the thought "Why does this app need access to this? And that? And that thing?"

There should be at least an option to have checkboxes next to each item so you can say something like "Yes, I don't mind this using my GPS, Yes it can use wi-fi but No, I don't want it using mobile data.". I wonder how much data is consumed by apps that really don't need to download or upload data, but do because that is what the developer decided it should do (for whatever reason).

The other thing Android needs is an in-built task killer - multitasking is great but many human users feel uneasy with anything they can't "switch off" on request.

Our Vulture 1 aircraft begins to take shape

Adam 10
Thumb Up

But wait...

One of the visual demonstrations done by deep-sea explorers is to attach styrofoam cups to the outside of their capsules (manned and unmanned) and then show them once they return to the surface... Somewhat shrunken.

So, something must be happening to permanently shrink the cup under the increased pressure.

However, the worst-case reduced pressure is 0 bar (a change of -1 bar) whereas those deep-sea probes operate at lots and lots of bar.

Perhaps you should test with a makeshift vacuum chamber, or use open-celled foam instead?

RAC prof: Road charges can end the ripoff of motorists

Adam 10

In New Zealand...

In New Zealand they even stick 3rd party insurance onto the cost of petrol. Result? Very few hit-and-runs, because everybody automatically has insurance to cover any prangs they created. You can still be done for dangerous driving, so it's not carte blanche to play bumper cars on the public highway though...

As someone who drives a fuel efficient car a less-than-average distance each year, I welcome a sensible approach to road charging. Perhaps they could include some sort of tax on fuel, so people who use more of it pay more, and people who use less, pay less? Oh, they do that already do they?

Apple's iPhone 4 denial: insulting or ignorant?

Adam 10
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Really?

I've now had 7 3G phones in the last 9 years (some personal, some corporate) and have never experienced this problem. I have never, ever resorted to placing a phone down on a surface just to make a call.

These phones include 1-off LG, 4-off Nokia, 2-off HTC. Additionally, various family members and friends have also had a variety of phones (including earlier iPhones) and I've not heard any of them complain about this issue.

You're analogy is flawed: the Apple problem is indeed a physics problem, but in the same way that getting electrocuted off bare mains cables is a physics problem. How do we prevent electrocution from mains cable? The exact same way we do with mobile phone antennae. The antennae should be appropriately insulated, perhaps by a thin coating of colourless plastic, in order to ensure a user doesn't bridge the antennae when using the phone as a phone.

Adam 10
Jobs Horns

Not to mention

criterion (sing.), criteria (pl.)

invite (verb), invitation (noun)

one (indirect accusative), you (direct accusative)

E.g. "The criterion for receiving an invitation to my pedants' party is that one is a pedant"

NOT "The criteria for receiving an invite to my pedants' party is that you are a pedant".

Son of Transputer powers new Amiga box

Adam 10
Thumb Up

Atari OS?

What was the Atari's OS called again?

Ah yes. TOS, pronounced "toss", because that is what it is a pile of.

Hehe, old rivalries coming out of the woodwork. Now you are meant to say "Ah, but ST has a dedicated MIDI controller!", at which point I will extoll the virtues of the Fatter Agnus and the Denise chip.

Apple Mac Mini 2010

Adam 10
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Optical Media still got life in it...

The only people I've heard say "But why?" are those satisfied with iTunes. Sure, if you're happy with that, go for it. Some people are happy with 4:3 analogue TV in black and white, and the lack of image quality doesn't bother them.

But, movie lovers want to be immersed in their film. BD is the best medium currently available in the home, and the quality can't be matched even by the 12GB BD-Rips I've witnessed. It's good enough for casual viewing, but it's no good if you want to be immersed.

As 90% of Mac Minis (own guess) spend their life plugged into a TV in the living room, it seems a bad move to exclude the current standard that's achieved even by very cheap PCs. As a bluray movie generally runs to 25-30GB at the moment, it would be a step backward to expect people to download 30GB just to watch a film, at least with current internet speeds. You can't stream 30mbits/second when your connection tops out at 20, and if it needs to buffer for an hour first then it just doesn't count as streaming!

So, whilst optical media will one day seem a relic of a bygone age, that day isn't going to come in the life of the current line-up of Apple products.

So, Apple should get up-to-date and install bluray discs in their computers. When will they get round to implementing flash on the iPhone, btw?

Adam 10
Jobs Horns

The ONE negative?

I think you missed the other negative: no bluray.

Seriously Apple, bluray? Try it.

Oh wait, you can't sell bluray discs on iTunes, can you. Silly me.

Twitter on a ZX Spectrum

Adam 10
Thumb Up

School computers

Perhaps it is because the Archimedes isn't retro enough, but I suspect it's more down to it being a school computer than a home computer.

The few people I knew with BBCs and Archimedes were bought them "because it's an educational tool". Whereas people got a Spectrum, C64, Atari, Amiga etc "because it's awesome".

I never quite understood why Acorn used CBM's Amiga model numbering though...

I recently found all my old CDTV peripherals and CDPD discs.. can't find the actual unit though...

French judiciary makes transgender boob

Adam 10
Coat

Although...

He could just move to Brest...

I'll get me coat.

Adam 10
Coat

Car insurance

Think of the advantages though... I'll become a woman to get my cheap car insurance, then change back to a man before attempting a parallel park manoeuvre.

I'll then become a woman prior to any divorce proceedings my partner brings against me for unreasonable behaviour the first time Aunt Irma comes to visit me. That way I'll get a fair trial.

"I thought you said you were born in Iran!!!"

Adam 10
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But you pigeonhole

If you say that someone is either male or female, and that's that, then you are pigeonholing.

My point is that if you feel the lines of gender are indefinable, then you don't feel that being slotted into male or female is workable, or you don't feel it is important.

Legal gender does not serve to flatter, it serves to define you in a legal sense.

What someone does is up to them, however changing a legal definition of a key biological attribute to satisfy the desires of a very very very small portion of society is ridiculous.

It's nothing like your "save the confusion" idea. Do you understand the difference between gender and sexual orientation? Does your birth certificate or passport have a box for "sexual orientation"? I find your remarks are confusing. Please save the confusion, henry.

Adam 10
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It doesn't irk me

Red hal: Someone's life choice doesn't irk me. It is not my place to say what someone can or can't have sliced off or implanted. I couldn't care less. However, legal documentation does not exist to flatter someone's psyche nor to make them feel happy or good about themselves. It exists (in theory, at least), to reflect real, verifiable facts.

Looking at my passport, there is a piece of information "Place of birth". Should I be allowed to change this to somewhere I feel better reflects my lifestyle now?

On documentation that requires my eye colour, should I put in my genetically pre-determined eye colour or the colour of my contact lenses?

I am shorter and heavier than I would like to be. Should I start telling people I'm 6'6" and built like The Rock? I am a tall buff guy in a less tall fat guy's body.

Human rights violations being attributed to the accurate recording of key information appears to be a common confusion nowadays!

Adam 10

simple solution...

If I have under surgically attached, tell everyone I'm now to be known as Daisy and walk around saying "moo", does that make me a cow? Does it mean a butcher is now allowed to sell my meat? No? So, why not maintain the definition of gender as being that with which you are born, regardless of chromosome disorders or sex change ops? If it makes you happy, have the op. But human sexuality is too complex to pigeonhole 'trans' people into one box. Save the confusion, it's only a tick box on a passport and a passport won't convince people you are a woman.

Adobe declares 'LOVE' for Apple

Adam 10
Jobs Horns

Irony?

Wait... Apple complain that Flash is a closed system?

Is this the same Apple that forbids people from installing their operating systems on hardware that wasn't bought from them?* The same Apple that forbids people from developing software for their hardware unless they pay the Apple tax?

The same Apple that has the cheek to charge actual money for a service pack that basically just allows the user to gain access to the 64-bit hardware that they have already paid for?

* I have no desire to use OSX, but with the whole "bound purchase" ruling situations that have been applied to MS, I don't see how it can be legal.

iPad talks to external hard drive? Yes it can

Adam 10
Jobs Horns

Apple Innovation, no doubt *yawn*

It will be interesting to see if Apple sells this as a "new" "innovative" feature, bearing in mind that my 40GB Sony Vaio personal media player could do this out of the box back in 2005...

Back when 2GB memory sticks were over £100 it was quite handy to be able to dump all the holiday snaps and vids onto a pocket-sized 40GB hard-drive out in the middle of nowhere, and have plenty of music to go with it.

Exam board deletes C and PHP from CompSci A-levels

Adam 10
Headmaster

Learn new languages?

As a Physics grad my programming knowledge is limited to C++, VB and 68K Assembler...

Glad to see that they are taking a proactive step to ensure pupils are taught more about the theory and methodology behind computer science, but is it reasonable to expect teachers to just learn new languages?

You wouldn't say to an English teacher "Right, we need you to teach German from September. English and German are from the same family of languages and have similar structure so you're basically 50% there already!"

Apple promises fanbois iPad WiFi fix

Adam 10
FAIL

Apple just works?!

I was in a photoshop a year back, in line behind a woman who was shouting at the photoshop guy because her photos weren't ready. The reason? The disc she supplied didn't work. After he had explained this to her about 10 times she finally relented and rung her husband, and had a conversation including the phrases "Well it worked fine when I burned it this morning" and "No, it's nothing to do with us using a Mac".

I've noticed Apple hasn't used the "it just works" motto in quite some time now. Presumably the ASA banned them from using it.

Cameron aims to bring LibDems into government

Adam 10

Brown? Highly regarded?

"For Brown - if he resigns his long term reputation could well be highly regarded."... I don't think there is an danger he will ever be highly regarded.

Brown is even more hated than Thatcher was, the only reason Labour didn't field another candidate is that selecting a new leader so close to a General Election is liable to doom one's party to failure.

Many regard Thatcher as a good PM, however I've never heard anyone say the same of Brown. In fact I don't think anyone's ever really regarded him as PM...

UK polling stations turn away 'hundreds' of voters

Adam 10
Megaphone

Will it affect the result?

Looking at the constituencies where this occurred, those who've declared a winner have declared it with a sizeable majority (so a few hundred voters wouldn't have changed the outcome), and those who are yet to are very safe seats...

So, whilst it's an unforgivable farce and unbelievably blow against the people, I doubt it will affect the outcome.

I'd like to know their official justification of segregating the "students" and the "residents" in Sheffield Hallam though... Surely this is forbidden? And what happens if you are a "resident" who studies in Sheffield? I understand that a sizeable proportion of students at Sheff. Hallam are from Sheffield...

'Beauty with antimatter bottom' created out of pure energy

Adam 10

Not that simple

I like the torch/warehouse analogy, but it's not just a matter of being able to see what's very far away. What the scientists allude to here is that we can't see everything that's right here, around us.

There is some stuff that we know is around us because it interacts very sparingly with the stuff we can see (neutrinos through a tank of cleaning fluid, for instance). However, there is a lot of stuff out there that we THINK exists, but we're not sure because we haven't yet figured out how it would interract (if at all) with the stuff that we can see.

Adam 10

+1

I agree. The problem with being an honest physicist and saying "This is a theory" is that many hear this statement as "Even I have doubt in this, and I'm the scientist who came up with it!!!" before using it as an argument in the next anti-evolution conversation they have.

Namely "Aha, even SCIENTISTS doubt evolution really happened!".

YouTube dishes up online movie rentals - at a price

Adam 10
Happy

Sound quality

Virgin On-Demand, iPlayer and 4OD showed the world that high-quality VOD can be achieved over regular home broadband connections, and YouTube now has various HD options that give much better video quality than a lot of the webcammed, downloaded, reuploaded, redownloaded, ripped off and then reposted videos that are so often seen on YouTube.

Most people geeky enough to watch movies over the internet through a PC will have some form of surround-sound system now, and a Dolby Digital 5.1 stream would be more than possible alongside HD video.

So, what about it Google?

British Gas signs Voda so meters can snitch direct

Adam 10
Thumb Up

Industry standard

By publishing this standard, they're hoping other suppliers will adopt the standard.... Switching would be much as it is now, you wouldn't need another meter. Also, there would doubtless be a "legacy" sort of meter so a man could come and read it (if nothing else to check every few years that it's not been hacked somehow).

I'm surprised it's not Transco developing this seeing as they are the gas/leccy distributor are they not?

I wonder if they've specified the standard to accomodate feeding back to the grid (renewables, eh) or the addition of a water meter.

Heathrow security man cops perv scanner eyeful

Adam 10
WTF?

Hypocrite?

Wait, so she's happy to view other people going through it, but isn't happy for someone to see her going through it...

If the people operating these machines and looking at the pictures everyday believe it is an infringement of privacy, then that says a lot.

If BAA believes the scanners are not a privacy infringment then the colleague should be disciplined for his improper comment, nothing more. If they believe that the colleague did something more, then BAA should reassess the system and either invest in more intelligent filters or scrap it.

'Go veggie to save the planet' UN, EU plans debunked

Adam 10

Sir Paul went to the EU?

As one who has just returned from 3 days in Paris with a vegetarian, and various other trips to the continent in the past, I can safely say that telling a European to become a vegetarian is like telling them that English will become the only language of the EU...

Western vegetarianism seems to be the preserve of the English-speaking countries... not surprising, with our cultural ties to India and commonly-held views on how lovely our cuddly fluffy animals are.

Amazon brews Kindleware for Apple's iPad

Adam 10
Thumb Down

Oi!

I'm an annoying marketing guy who drives a sports car in winter with the top down, and I would never buy this... I think you'll find it is irritating students, groovy hipsters and meeja types who will take the first bite of this particular Apple. With their braying laughs and pig faeces intellects of course.

But I guarantee that 99% of iPad users will insist on showing it off like they invented the effing thing, just like iPhone users did when iPhones were new. So I share your sentiment and will also turn their iPads into an iSuppository.

Man could face prison over six second 'extreme porn' clip

Adam 10
WTF?

Lock down your computers!!!

I made the mistake of letting a friend go on my PC during a barbecue. Hearing a scream I ran back into the living room to find him watching a video of a dog and a woman, with my party guests sat around looking somewhat disturbed.

So, it seems that I could potentially be sent to prison for the actions of an R-tard who came to my house and drank too much...

I think I'll be reinstating the "Party" user account with fully-nannied internet and access only to the music folder! (although for some reason that doesn't allow one to read wikipedia articles about John Lennon or the Beatles... presumably as the powers-that-be in the US thought of them as a bad influence 40 years ago!)

Sony launches 'WiiMote for PS3'

Adam 10

Or...

You could just go and play a round of golf, if you want that sort of accuracy...

Top exorcist says Satan at work in Vatican

Adam 10

Being Human

Was he inspired after the last few episodes of "Being Human"?

That ritual seemed to work rather well.

(Where's the icon for the men with sticks, the men with rope and the men with black black feathers on their black black wings?)

Pistol fired on Olympic honour campaign for Turing

Adam 10
Unhappy

I would agree except...

We already have the Alan Turing award, and have done for nearly 50 years! As he is noted for his computing/crypto advances first, homosexuality second and running ability third, I think that the current Turing Award is the most relevant!

As to Brown not pardoning him... I think it would have been a sticky situation for him to pardon Turing as it is giving legitimacy to the fact that homosexuality used to be a crime, which would no doubt enrage certain people more than to let that aspect lie.

Not to mention, is it possible to pardon someone of a crime that they committed, regardless of how ridiculous the crime appears 60 years on?

NY chef offers mam cheese canapes

Adam 10
Thumb Up

Gelato?

Surely you mean "ice-cream", or is the Italian word more familiar to New Yorkers than the English? (I'm thinking zucchini vs courgette, for starters)

It doesn't exist until they can show us pictures though...

Put me down for a chocolate shake.

Google goes cycling

Adam 10
Happy

Streetview trike?

BBC News reported this being used around various British monuments ages ago... surely El Reg hasn't been beaten to the punch on a Google Streetview-related article has it?

Cisco 'forever changes internet' with... a router

Adam 10
Thumb Up

I use it!

I must have used video calling at least 6 times in the last 4 years! :-P

A typical video call goes like this:

Person says "Hey, does that make video calls then?"

I say "Yes. Would you like to see?"

I then ring one of the 3 or 4 other people I know with a videophone, we wave sheepishly at each other for a minute, then say goodbye.

Of course, with the ubiquity of videoconferencing at work I don't think it's a novelty anymore and haven't had to make such a call for a good couple of years.

I get 90 inclusive video-call minutes a month and never use them...

Microsoft rejiggers EU browser ballot after complaints

Adam 10
Thumb Up

Finally!

Finally, someone who can explain valid reasons for this without resorting to angry fanboi-isms!

I use Internet Exploiter because I find that has the best compatibility with the web (not with the web STANDARDS... I'm talking about ACTUAL web sites that exist on the web).

Beeb deletes iPlayer app from iPhone

Adam 10
FAIL

illegal?

Much as I despise DRM's purpose to stop me consuming my media how I wish, and noted that it is usually ineffective as it can be circumvented, I have to ask...

How is DRM illegal?

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