Commercial Radio and Commercial TV suffer from the same things: crap scheduling, a lot of crap content with few gems buried among said crap (e.g. the occasional song that plays during "The Morning Zo0!!!11!111" on the radio, or conversely, television jammed to the gills with lame sitcoms and reality shows with the occasional "oh shit that was cool!" show wedged in there)... things like that.
They both suffer from being packed to the rafters with commercials.
Now, not all of either industry is like that - for instance, 94.7 FM (in Portland, OR) doesn't do morning "shows" at all - they play music all morning, with a couple of blurbs for "The Jon Stewart Minute" and a short 5-minute episode detailing how an alternative-type band or singer's career came and went. The closest they come to any kind of thing is what they call "The 8 at 8", where they play 8 songs in a row with a common theme... sometimes lame, but sometimes pretty inventive. They keep the commercials to a minimum (less than most, anyway), and even in the evenings on weekdays, the most you see that isn't straight-up music playing is a two-hour-long program of techno/alternative/industrial mixes by local DJ's (most of which aren't half bad).
Rattled on too long there... sorry. Now by contrast, broadcast commercial TV networks suck as a rule, but occasionally something decent shows on it. Their problem isn't the media format or technical means of delivery - it's the way the medium is being strangled for every last drop of revenue it has, and to the detriment of the folks watching it. I'm not even really talking show content here, which also suffers greatly from this. As a producer, if you've only got 36 minutes to tell a story (or at least some of it) in a full 60-minute slot --not counting time spent on intro and credits-- you tend to drop subtleties and intricacies in a hurry - as a result the show quickly becomes crap unless carefully constructed).
Little wonder that people are drifting away from television in general, truth be told...
How would you feel if you made a product so bad that no one would steal it?
I could always ask Microsoft, I guess. Their answer seems to be a simultaneous slackening of WGA lock-out behavior with a grand marketing announcement as to how well their anti-piracy efforts are going (50-some-odd-percent, was it?). Not exactly sure how to translate that for the TV industry, though...
Sandboxing. It's not a big deal if the administrator knows what he is doing, but in all those small offices where end users have internet access, it has it's uses.
I know that and you know that, but the beancounters and the CxO crowd aren't going to see the justification as easily, esp. when their answer is going to be "well just keep using XP and firewall the thing" (or some similarly spine-shivering reply). However, the crux of what I was pointing at involves response phrases that are somewhat more intelligent, like: "well why not just re-work the [Custom] app? If we're gonna take a performance hit anyway, we may as well port it or re-write it. This time let's use one of those operating systems that won't stick us in this situation five years from now." I know, I know - while I'm dreaming I'd like a pony; but more and more, CxO types are starting to figure this out, and even though most of them would have a hard time telling you what the acronym "GPL" stands for, they do know the phrase "Open Source" very well...
This bodes not well for MSFT, and if their big answer is "well run this virtual environment here, and...", then they're gonna get bit, hard, because suddenly they're going to have to compete with running the thing in VMWare under Linux, Parallels under OSX Server, or what-have-you.
I agree with what you've written to almost perfectly... and it reinforces what I'd written originally. My thanks for the insight that you've added to the whole deal, because it provides a lot of reasons as to why.
Perhaps "duct tape" was a bit unsuitable as a term, as you have rightfully pointed out that they really did modify a lot of what the internals do. Problem is, this has resulted in huge costs in MSFT's equivalents of both userland and kernelspace (forgot offhand which terms they use, but they do make the same rough distinctions between user and system spaces). I mentioned that these changes cost Vista in terms of efficiency and runtime cycles. You have aptly pointed out why it's costing so much, and I thank you.
I do disagree a bit with one part. You mentioned that a lot of it has to do with how app writers have written their software... without getting too messy with details, I disagree a bit because 'C:\Program Files' should have been ceded to the 3rd-party app writers by Microsoft a long time ago, and they could have been fine by retreating to \Windows without losing much. But, that's not the only reason programs are busted in Vista, and the app writers are/were only trying to adapt to the environment they were in. While a lot of apps are obviously bone-headed in structure and execution, one cannot expect discipline from them if the environment they're in has none either.
I think MSFT tried to have it both ways in Vista - they wanted to enforce some sort of app-level distinction for security reasons, but at the same time wanted to accommodate existing apps. Thing is, you can't have it both ways and hope to have it remain secure. A/V products were the biggest PITA when it came to this... The likes of Symantec and McAfee were screaming for blood when they discovered that (at first) Vista wasn't going to let them get any hooks in at Ring0... like they were used to getting for at least a decade now. Then MSFT stupidly relented and let them in anyway, trying to pull off a balancing act that resulted in a bigger mess than if they simply told the two corps to bugger off, or leave it open for world+dog through a few select APIs. That's just one public example among probably hundreds, if not thousands of compromises they made, each one cutting efficiency and usability by just that much more.
IMHO, Apple did it right - they left a sandboxed emulation ("Classic") mode for legacy apps, and told everyone flat-out that with OSX, 'Homey don't play dat' - and relented very little (I think Carbon was pretty much the only concession they made out of that). I think that's what someone else in here was thinking of when they wrote about running VirtualPC as part of Vista.
To be fair, MSFT doesn't have the same luxuries Apple had because they knew that, say, Adobe or other large app makers (individually or as a whole) would simply say that they're going OSX from now on... and app support is pretty much the only technical merit Windows has left (albeit a slowly eroding one). It would be mitigated somewhat by Windows' market penetration, but home and business purchasing cycles aren't exactly in Microsoft's favor anymore. It only gets messy from there. (Apple had the same risks, if not greater, and the move to OSX was a ballsy one on their part... but they were better able to pull it off because of their support for the transition, how they sold 'Classic', and they showed how any speed differences under Classic would be negligible at most. I don't think MSFT could pull that off as easily).
They've had a year to clean things up a bit, tweak down the cruft, add a workable legacy emulation mode for pre-Vista apps (they have one already still lounging about for the old 16-bit apps FFS), and in general do what Apple was forced to do between OSX 10.0 and 10.1 - crash-program the bugs and fix the uglier messes.
But all in all, it still boils down to bad architecture, and bad execution of same, which I can safely assume we both agree on.
Why are you glad ? If your prediction is right, you took the pain too early, too much.
On the home front, maybe - but at work? Not necessarily... compare the typical MCSE salary with the typical *nix admin salary. (I do quite well in that comparison, IMHO).
By the time world+dog starts scrambling for *nix admins (it's already begun), I'll be (well, I pretty much already am) in the right position to take maximum advantage of it.
Come to think of it... even on the home front, OSX is BSD *nix under-the-hood, and I've been able to make it do some really cool things that most Mac users don't even know about. I mean, for instance: how often can you rightfully claim full NFS connectivity in a home network, obviating the need for the (slower) Windows sharing, or big hard disks jammed into every computer? And that's only the tip of a really big and geek-colored iceberg.:)
Re: VirtualPC: So, err... why should I , as a business user, have to run a Windows emulation suite inside of Windows just to get my app running, when I can eschew that and simply run the older OS on bare metal (suitably walled-in security-wise, of course)? Alternately, I cna just whomp out a VM and run that if it's on the server (though that'll depend on how Microsoft's latest server iteration does when that comes out).
FWIW, Windows does have legacy modules already in place for 16-bit apps (WoW, I believe it's called), and could have just as easily made something similar to run NT/Win2k/XP apps atop Vista (and better still, 32-bit apps inside a 64-bit environment), all without anyone noticing it.
Problem is no one at Microsoft in interested in doing this.
Bingo - MSFT would rather you spend the dough. Welcome to the upgrade treadmill.
Err, only if it's enabled by the computer's owner. That's the big diff... the XO DRM is a user option (like Lo-Jack for laptops), while WGA/DRM is a vendor's option (and is always on whether you like it or not, unless you use EULA-violating tools to disable it).
So conceptually you have a point, but practically you're way off base.
I'm thinking that folks Out There(tm) are going to start realizing that you simply cannot make a flawed architecture run any better by adding more duct tape to it.
I'm actually not trolling, but if anything, stating the obvious. Windows NT's setup was a good-enough architecture back when "the company LAN" was just a bunch of computers strung together on a hub or in a ring. The Internet changed that, and just as it almost left Microsoft behind back in 1995 at the apps level, it's almost about to leave them behind right now at the OS level. It's becoming apparent that the thing simply cannot keep up with what's required.
If SP1 actually improved speed and performance, as well as add a better legacy/compatibility mode, they might have been able to eke by without people (outside of/. and the Mac community) questioning it.
Not anymore.
I think we're going to start seeing the decline of Microsoft. It won't crash overnight, but I suspect that, barring a miracle on their part, things will only start falling from here for them. Between Macs at home and Linux at the server room, MSFT's market share loss will be slow at first, then start accelerating. It'll take about a decade, but by then Microsoft's OS will be about as popular as Amiga's was in 1998-2000 (roughly), but will perhaps a larger base of holdouts, depending on developer mindshare and markets.
I've never really said that (at least and meant it) before... now it's moved from being a personal guesstimation to becoming my professional opinion.
While this is all hind-sight now, handling such people requires a bit of forethought.
Of course, if you were a semi-BOFH, you would've promptly done some looking, then claim with alacrity that his account was breached by a third party (w/o naming the secretary), and that the lock-out was a safety measure. Then get the alarms going and report it as a security incident... this hands off the problem to the IT manager (hey, he's getting paid the big bucks to deal with crap like that). Eventually the problem gets (naturally) tracked to the secretary (who can no longer credibly claim that you did it, what with all the other uppity-ups getting involved and the log analysis/forensics that go with that), and it has the added benefit of being completely true. As a plus, they can't come back at you because when it comes to IT security, everyone knows that paranoia is a Good Thing(tm).
(a true full-on BOFH would've had the secretary meet with an 'unfortunate accident' involving either high voltage or a fall from a high place).
Scott Polar Station (DevNull): Today, Researchers have discovered the remains of what appears to be a long-sought-after ancient creature. Labelled Minix Tannenbaumis, or just "Minix" this creature is thought to be the direct descendant of the modern-day Penguin (Linux Sapiens Sapiens).
Researchers have still to uncover this creature's habitat, but they did find the petrified parts of a corpse belonging to a rather large creature, which is referred to more commonly by its Latin name, Nix Quintis, as well as remains of another animal known as Distriae Berkeleyus; the latter was known to have been wiped out approximately sixteen million years ago due to the Netcraft epidemics, which gives us a rough idea as to how old Minix is.
A lean predator, Minix was known to be a vicious and somewhat egotistical creature, prone to fits of foaming anger and long diatribes, with which it used as a means to kill its prey.
While we do not yet know the full extent of Minix, it is well studied by previously found fragments, and today's discovery should present a far clearer picture in the years to come as it reveals its secrets.
Meanwhile, paradoxically, no trace has yet to be found of the species known as Bloatasaurus, or Vista Microsoftae. A large, slow-moving creature, this dinosaur was well known to have been a common victim of predatory attacks, and yet very few have been found. Archaeologist Steve Ballmer is heading the team searching for Bloatasaurus, though his peers still doubt his claims that "They're everywhere! It was the most popular friggin' beast alive!" Whether this creature actually existed still remains in doubt among some.
Depends on the files... if they're loaded to the gills with macros (name an accounting spreadsheet that isn't, and I'll show you a really small company)? OOo still pukes on certain files loaded to the eyeballs with really funky VBS macros... sucks but true. Also illustrates why closed formats suck.:)
Not so sure about that one... After all, MS Office does have ODF plugins, and the MSFT sales droid could easily counter with some variation of "well, we have freely available plugins for that in (insert new MS Office version here). Now about all those old.doc and.xls files you have laying around... whatcha gonna open those with?"
Also, one of the benefits of all that FUD that Microsoft has churned out or paid for is that they can use it as reference material to the clueless PHB(s) that purchase (directly or by influence) the software.
The trick is to get the truth out in ways that can be measured on-the-spot, and help the PHB pose questions that the MSFT sales-droid can't simply FUD his or her way out of. For instance, set up a Linux server, or set up an OpenOffice installation... test the crap out of it in parallel with the equivalent MS product, total up and categorize all costs, then present those to the PHB(s) as a proof-positive defense.
Of course, that won't stop the sales droid from low-balling the price as a last resort, but at least this way you've given the PHB(s) something to think about...
I think the only major complaint would come from "42nd Street Station", a little mini-mall just off Sandy Blvd that would probably have to change their name!
I don't even live in Portland and I am against this kind of tomfoolery. I can imagine that Portland is like my city, which is not unlike any American city in this regard...
Trust me... Portland is like no other American city (or any other human settlement for that matter) on the planet.
True, true... and let us not forget that recent construction only adds to the fun.
(...and yet my wife still looks at me funny when I say that I really don't feel like going down there for anything... maybe I'll make her drive it next time).
I don't know of a single ISP who ever wants to be held legally (and financially) liable for what their users do.
More or less, they do act in that role (the DMCA guarantees most of it), and will happily hide behind the title the nanosecond they get hit with a lawsuit for something one of their users had done.
While you are correct in that they cannot carry the full weight and title (there are differing classes of it, IIRC) - they do have a little that they can hide behind as immunity in any legal proceeding against their users' actions.
Let's get you ISP's to voluntarily revoke what little common carrier legal protections you have, all in the name of protecting our revenue from a dying business model! Wouldn't that be great!?
I hope AT&T doesn't mind getting dragged into pretty much every lawsuit involving one of their customers that comes down the pike now... "what do you mean you're not responsible for the child porn coming out of one of your client's computers!? You filter content now, don't you...?"
(I know, loopholes and such, but at least (IMHO only) the precedent and mechanisms to claim AT&T responsible for all their users' content is now in place. If they filter inbound, they can filter outbound. If they filter movies, they can filter pr0n. If they filter by discrete packet, they should (at least according to a plaintiff in such a lawsuit) be now collaterally responsible for the flow of data through their network.
So wait, Microsoft is actually encouraging more choice in the marketplace? And of course its taken as a negative. I sure love slashdot.
This reaction is easy to grok: the choice is between two closed/proprietary and patented-all-to-Hell formats.... the result is that consumers either get the Scylla format (HD-DVD), or the Charybdis format (Blu-Ray).
Either way you'll be paying through the nose. Some 'choice'...
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Commercial Radio and Commercial TV suffer from the same things: crap scheduling, a lot of crap content with few gems buried among said crap (e.g. the occasional song that plays during "The Morning Zo0!!!11!111" on the radio, or conversely, television jammed to the gills with lame sitcoms and reality shows with the occasional "oh shit that was cool!" show wedged in there)... things like that.
They both suffer from being packed to the rafters with commercials.
Now, not all of either industry is like that - for instance, 94.7 FM (in Portland, OR) doesn't do morning "shows" at all - they play music all morning, with a couple of blurbs for "The Jon Stewart Minute" and a short 5-minute episode detailing how an alternative-type band or singer's career came and went. The closest they come to any kind of thing is what they call "The 8 at 8", where they play 8 songs in a row with a common theme... sometimes lame, but sometimes pretty inventive. They keep the commercials to a minimum (less than most, anyway), and even in the evenings on weekdays, the most you see that isn't straight-up music playing is a two-hour-long program of techno/alternative/industrial mixes by local DJ's (most of which aren't half bad).
Rattled on too long there... sorry. Now by contrast, broadcast commercial TV networks suck as a rule, but occasionally something decent shows on it. Their problem isn't the media format or technical means of delivery - it's the way the medium is being strangled for every last drop of revenue it has, and to the detriment of the folks watching it. I'm not even really talking show content here, which also suffers greatly from this. As a producer, if you've only got 36 minutes to tell a story (or at least some of it) in a full 60-minute slot --not counting time spent on intro and credits-- you tend to drop subtleties and intricacies in a hurry - as a result the show quickly becomes crap unless carefully constructed).
Little wonder that people are drifting away from television in general, truth be told...
I could always ask Microsoft, I guess. Their answer seems to be a simultaneous slackening of WGA lock-out behavior with a grand marketing announcement as to how well their anti-piracy efforts are going (50-some-odd-percent, was it?). Not exactly sure how to translate that for the TV industry, though...
I know that and you know that, but the beancounters and the CxO crowd aren't going to see the justification as easily, esp. when their answer is going to be "well just keep using XP and firewall the thing" (or some similarly spine-shivering reply). However, the crux of what I was pointing at involves response phrases that are somewhat more intelligent, like: "well why not just re-work the [Custom] app? If we're gonna take a performance hit anyway, we may as well port it or re-write it. This time let's use one of those operating systems that won't stick us in this situation five years from now." I know, I know - while I'm dreaming I'd like a pony; but more and more, CxO types are starting to figure this out, and even though most of them would have a hard time telling you what the acronym "GPL" stands for, they do know the phrase "Open Source" very well...
This bodes not well for MSFT, and if their big answer is "well run this virtual environment here, and...", then they're gonna get bit, hard, because suddenly they're going to have to compete with running the thing in VMWare under Linux, Parallels under OSX Server, or what-have-you.
Perhaps "duct tape" was a bit unsuitable as a term, as you have rightfully pointed out that they really did modify a lot of what the internals do. Problem is, this has resulted in huge costs in MSFT's equivalents of both userland and kernelspace (forgot offhand which terms they use, but they do make the same rough distinctions between user and system spaces). I mentioned that these changes cost Vista in terms of efficiency and runtime cycles. You have aptly pointed out why it's costing so much, and I thank you.
I do disagree a bit with one part. You mentioned that a lot of it has to do with how app writers have written their software... without getting too messy with details, I disagree a bit because 'C:\Program Files' should have been ceded to the 3rd-party app writers by Microsoft a long time ago, and they could have been fine by retreating to \Windows without losing much. But, that's not the only reason programs are busted in Vista, and the app writers are/were only trying to adapt to the environment they were in. While a lot of apps are obviously bone-headed in structure and execution, one cannot expect discipline from them if the environment they're in has none either.
I think MSFT tried to have it both ways in Vista - they wanted to enforce some sort of app-level distinction for security reasons, but at the same time wanted to accommodate existing apps. Thing is, you can't have it both ways and hope to have it remain secure. A/V products were the biggest PITA when it came to this... The likes of Symantec and McAfee were screaming for blood when they discovered that (at first) Vista wasn't going to let them get any hooks in at Ring0... like they were used to getting for at least a decade now. Then MSFT stupidly relented and let them in anyway, trying to pull off a balancing act that resulted in a bigger mess than if they simply told the two corps to bugger off, or leave it open for world+dog through a few select APIs. That's just one public example among probably hundreds, if not thousands of compromises they made, each one cutting efficiency and usability by just that much more.
IMHO, Apple did it right - they left a sandboxed emulation ("Classic") mode for legacy apps, and told everyone flat-out that with OSX, 'Homey don't play dat' - and relented very little (I think Carbon was pretty much the only concession they made out of that). I think that's what someone else in here was thinking of when they wrote about running VirtualPC as part of Vista.
To be fair, MSFT doesn't have the same luxuries Apple had because they knew that, say, Adobe or other large app makers (individually or as a whole) would simply say that they're going OSX from now on... and app support is pretty much the only technical merit Windows has left (albeit a slowly eroding one). It would be mitigated somewhat by Windows' market penetration, but home and business purchasing cycles aren't exactly in Microsoft's favor anymore. It only gets messy from there. (Apple had the same risks, if not greater, and the move to OSX was a ballsy one on their part... but they were better able to pull it off because of their support for the transition, how they sold 'Classic', and they showed how any speed differences under Classic would be negligible at most. I don't think MSFT could pull that off as easily).
They've had a year to clean things up a bit, tweak down the cruft, add a workable legacy emulation mode for pre-Vista apps (they have one already still lounging about for the old 16-bit apps FFS), and in general do what Apple was forced to do between OSX 10.0 and 10.1 - crash-program the bugs and fix the uglier messes.
But all in all, it still boils down to bad architecture, and bad execution of same, which I can safely assume we both agree on.
SELinux and AppArmor are good point
Why are you glad ? If your prediction is right, you took the pain too early, too much.
On the home front, maybe - but at work? Not necessarily... compare the typical MCSE salary with the typical *nix admin salary. (I do quite well in that comparison, IMHO).
By the time world+dog starts scrambling for *nix admins (it's already begun), I'll be (well, I pretty much already am) in the right position to take maximum advantage of it.
Come to think of it... even on the home front, OSX is BSD *nix under-the-hood, and I've been able to make it do some really cool things that most Mac users don't even know about. I mean, for instance: how often can you rightfully claim full NFS connectivity in a home network, obviating the need for the (slower) Windows sharing, or big hard disks jammed into every computer? And that's only the tip of a really big and geek-colored iceberg. :)
FWIW, Windows does have legacy modules already in place for 16-bit apps (WoW, I believe it's called), and could have just as easily made something similar to run NT/Win2k/XP apps atop Vista (and better still, 32-bit apps inside a 64-bit environment), all without anyone noticing it.
Problem is no one at Microsoft in interested in doing this.Bingo - MSFT would rather you spend the dough. Welcome to the upgrade treadmill.
So conceptually you have a point, but practically you're way off base.
I'm actually not trolling, but if anything, stating the obvious. Windows NT's setup was a good-enough architecture back when "the company LAN" was just a bunch of computers strung together on a hub or in a ring. The Internet changed that, and just as it almost left Microsoft behind back in 1995 at the apps level, it's almost about to leave them behind right now at the OS level. It's becoming apparent that the thing simply cannot keep up with what's required.
If SP1 actually improved speed and performance, as well as add a better legacy/compatibility mode, they might have been able to eke by without people (outside of /. and the Mac community) questioning it.
Not anymore.
I think we're going to start seeing the decline of Microsoft. It won't crash overnight, but I suspect that, barring a miracle on their part, things will only start falling from here for them. Between Macs at home and Linux at the server room, MSFT's market share loss will be slow at first, then start accelerating. It'll take about a decade, but by then Microsoft's OS will be about as popular as Amiga's was in 1998-2000 (roughly), but will perhaps a larger base of holdouts, depending on developer mindshare and markets.
I've never really said that (at least and meant it) before... now it's moved from being a personal guesstimation to becoming my professional opinion.
Glad I went full *nix a long time ago...
Of course, if you were a semi-BOFH, you would've promptly done some looking, then claim with alacrity that his account was breached by a third party (w/o naming the secretary), and that the lock-out was a safety measure. Then get the alarms going and report it as a security incident... this hands off the problem to the IT manager (hey, he's getting paid the big bucks to deal with crap like that). Eventually the problem gets (naturally) tracked to the secretary (who can no longer credibly claim that you did it, what with all the other uppity-ups getting involved and the log analysis/forensics that go with that), and it has the added benefit of being completely true. As a plus, they can't come back at you because when it comes to IT security, everyone knows that paranoia is a Good Thing(tm).
(a true full-on BOFH would've had the secretary meet with an 'unfortunate accident' involving either high voltage or a fall from a high place).
If my car wasn't fritzed, I'd be at my day job right now. /P
Researchers have still to uncover this creature's habitat, but they did find the petrified parts of a corpse belonging to a rather large creature, which is referred to more commonly by its Latin name, Nix Quintis, as well as remains of another animal known as Distriae Berkeleyus; the latter was known to have been wiped out approximately sixteen million years ago due to the Netcraft epidemics, which gives us a rough idea as to how old Minix is.
A lean predator, Minix was known to be a vicious and somewhat egotistical creature, prone to fits of foaming anger and long diatribes, with which it used as a means to kill its prey.
While we do not yet know the full extent of Minix, it is well studied by previously found fragments, and today's discovery should present a far clearer picture in the years to come as it reveals its secrets.
Meanwhile, paradoxically, no trace has yet to be found of the species known as Bloatasaurus, or Vista Microsoftae. A large, slow-moving creature, this dinosaur was well known to have been a common victim of predatory attacks, and yet very few have been found. Archaeologist Steve Ballmer is heading the team searching for Bloatasaurus, though his peers still doubt his claims that "They're everywhere! It was the most popular friggin' beast alive!" Whether this creature actually existed still remains in doubt among some.
Also, one of the benefits of all that FUD that Microsoft has churned out or paid for is that they can use it as reference material to the clueless PHB(s) that purchase (directly or by influence) the software.
The trick is to get the truth out in ways that can be measured on-the-spot, and help the PHB pose questions that the MSFT sales-droid can't simply FUD his or her way out of. For instance, set up a Linux server, or set up an OpenOffice installation... test the crap out of it in parallel with the equivalent MS product, total up and categorize all costs, then present those to the PHB(s) as a proof-positive defense.
Of course, that won't stop the sales droid from low-balling the price as a last resort, but at least this way you've given the PHB(s) something to think about...
True, but Portland, OR does have a thriving marine port, and the largest ship repair facility on the US West Coast.
(it all comes up the Columbia River...)
Cripes, man! That's the I-Ching for 42nd in Portland? Stop by there at 8am on a weeksday sometime... that's not prophesy, it's observation!
Err, why would they have to? ;)
Trust me... Portland is like no other American city (or any other human settlement for that matter) on the planet.
It's kinda charming that way :)
Scared yet? You should be.
Microsoft and Seattle can have their stinkin' Starbucks, Grunge, and Pike Street Market. We got Voodoo Doughnuts and Saturday Market, bitches... >:)
(...and yet my wife still looks at me funny when I say that I really don't feel like going down there for anything... maybe I'll make her drive it next time).
Oh, you mean in CA... (yeah, yeah: "eh?")
I don't know of a single ISP who ever wants to be held legally (and financially) liable for what their users do.
More or less, they do act in that role (the DMCA guarantees most of it), and will happily hide behind the title the nanosecond they get hit with a lawsuit for something one of their users had done.
While you are correct in that they cannot carry the full weight and title (there are differing classes of it, IIRC) - they do have a little that they can hide behind as immunity in any legal proceeding against their users' actions.
I hope AT&T doesn't mind getting dragged into pretty much every lawsuit involving one of their customers that comes down the pike now... "what do you mean you're not responsible for the child porn coming out of one of your client's computers!? You filter content now, don't you...?"
(I know, loopholes and such, but at least (IMHO only) the precedent and mechanisms to claim AT&T responsible for all their users' content is now in place. If they filter inbound, they can filter outbound. If they filter movies, they can filter pr0n. If they filter by discrete packet, they should (at least according to a plaintiff in such a lawsuit) be now collaterally responsible for the flow of data through their network.
This reaction is easy to grok: the choice is between two closed/proprietary and patented-all-to-Hell formats.... the result is that consumers either get the Scylla format (HD-DVD), or the Charybdis format (Blu-Ray).
Either way you'll be paying through the nose. Some 'choice'...