With respect to the SkyPlayer service, I've used it quite a lot and it's actually pretty good - better than the actual Sky hardware in some respects e.g. a MUCH bigger movie library available genuinely on demand rather than with staggered starts like on the home platform. What's even more amazing is that Sky don't charge me any more to use this, it's all included in my existing subscription so it was a genuine bonus freebie when it appeared.(this does depend on your level of subscription though so not everyone will be this lucky). However, the crap part is that MS have chosen to make this a gold only service. So you can pay your sub to Sky that entitles you to use the service but unless you also give MS some cash, they won't let you play. Since I don't tend to do much online gaming, I usually get round this by creating a new account every month and MS helpfully give me a free month of Gold each time I do it - well they have up to this point anyhow.
Importantly, as far as I know, who your ISP is makes absolutely no difference to getting this service. Sky are a fairly big ISP these days so they could have maybe tried to manipulate here. I'm not sure where they would've stood legally in that respect - best guess is that they can't do that or probably they would have! The fact that the U.S. is already seeing blocks on content based on your ISP makes me VERY angry.
There is nothing, repeat nothing that you can't do with css and tableless layouts*. *using a standards-compliant browser. Fuck you IE6!
You're right about IE6 being a pain in the ass - IE7 also has it's moments but so far I've always found that CSS can be mad to work, it might have to be done differently (wrongly!?) but it can still be done. I just wouldn't even think about using a table anymore - unless, you know, I wanted a table.
You do understand the difference between giving information willingly and having it forced out of you?
Case 1
School: Can we have your mobile number in case of emergency?
Parent: Sure.
Case 2
School: Can we have your mobile number to include in a government database?
Parent: Ha ha ha ha - stop it, you're killing me.
Of course, like all of these databases, one cannot opt out. You gave the information for one purpose and now it's been hijacked for another. Gotta love the UK.
This database just seems to aggregate a subset of this data together for children in an easily searchable place... I don't think the government is creating and *new* information...
I think they are. Certainly a proportion of my child's health records seem to exist only in a little red book that we as parents keep. Health professionals seem to need to use these books as a primary source of information. Bizzare but true.
I'm also pretty sure that my personal mobile phone number is not stored with my child's details anywhere else either but they're apparently proposing to do that in this database. So now, if I want my child's school to be able to contact me quickly in an emergency, I'm allowing my mobile number to be stored by a government database. Since I've deliberately chosen to keep my number as private as possible, this really pisses me off.
Of course this is only a couple of things that immediately come to mind, I have no trouble believing that a closer examination would reveal all sorts of new information being stored.
After being caught out to some extent by AMD in the past, Intel has responded strongly and now has the better technology and this gap only looks as though it will increase since AMD can't raise a candle to Intel's R&D capability.
Sure, there's still some value to be had in certain AMD products, but to me, it's beginning to feel a bit niche - which is a shame. I can't see AMD being run into the ground as being good news for any of us (unless you hold a lot of Intel stock!)
Assuming I have the relative financial strengths of the two companies correct, the only question this leaves is why Intel would have decided to try and tie up these kinds of deals - surely they could have achieved the same effect without resorting to such draconian measures. Sure, getting this kind of agreement from the major system builders protects them from being squeezed on price because the system builders can't choose AMD instead but since they can afford to be squeezed whilst AMD can't, it seems to be a very bad strategic decision - or maybe somebody is now going to point out how I haven't understood the situation at all...
Without life, Biology itself would be impossible.