Idea

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Supporters Of The Idea

Where's the Fun?

a wise man once said "just for fun". where's your happy place in GNU/Linux/X/GNOME/KDE/... FOSS Land ?

ssweeny

vi vs emacs vs gEdit vs DOES IT REALLY F%@#ING MATTER

No

Derek, ssweeny

Is it actually hard to learn to program?

Is programming actually hard to learn, or is that a false stereotype. Personally feel that the latter is true.

Hessiess

Google Wave

does it really live up to the hype?

Derek

"Productivity" apps, books, methods, etc.

Do they work as advertised?

Open Source *actually* sexist, or is that a myth?

Would Linux benefit from more Closed Source applications?

e.g. would having photoshop on Linux help migration, rather than trying to migrate people to open apps on closed platforms first?

Jason.Cook599

Would huge investments in marketing/ads make more people switch to Open Source Software?

Derek

Is it too hard for people to switch to Linux?

Jason.Cook599

How do you find the 'best' suited Linux distro for you / your family?

Is putting your stuff on Google (Mail, Docs, etc.) dangerous? Would you do it?

Hessiess

Google vs. Apple vs. Microsoft - where is OSS spot?

What's the world like in 10 years? (technology wise)

Jason.Cook599, Derek, Hessiess

A 'typical' workday of yours?

Are games a prerequisite for a successful software platform, and why?

Alistair "B1ackcr0w" Munro

Jason.Cook599, Derek

Shotofjaq-on-ice

It's Shot of Jaq - On Ice skates!

Somebody who needs a lot better medication

Noob to Hacker

What was your first programming language? How would you suggest to someone that they learn programming?

jaimeAndresPato

B1ackcr0w, Derek, Hessiess

Open video

Is Theora the right thing or will h264 just win? Is Google developing another codec?

Marxjohnson, Jason.Cook599, Derek, Hessiess

HTML5

(similar to above, to broader) Will HTML5 revolutionise the web, or will it just produce another round of 90's-style browser wars with sites supporting the features/codecs/whatever for a particular browser? Which browser will come out on top?

Marxjohnson

sorin7486, Jason.Cook599, Derek

When losing your data is a good thing

Computers and the online lifestyle have put us in a situation where you can remember absolutely everything that ever happened to you... the people you know, the things you did and even the places you've been are all ever present just one click away. But is this a good thing ? Do you ever feel the need to let go of some of that and just allow yourself to forget ? And how do you decide when to do that ?

sorin7486

Derek

The Chinese Google Timeout 2

It's been a couple of weeks already and google.cn is still up and running, still uncensored. In the meantime the Chinese government isn't showing the strong hand everyone expected. Does this mean google called them on their bluff ?

sorin7486

More subtle internet censorship

The situation in Australia is that the federal government intends to implement a mandatory ISP-level blacklist of sites of information refused classification by the broadcasting commission but also other stuff, and it is unclear if this information will be public or that those blocked will get a right of reply or appeal.

Derek

Should the Linux community reconsider the Java platform (not language)?

The Java VM is now opensourced and runs many different languages which are popular in open source, such as Python and Ruby. Should, for example, Ubuntu reconsider supporting/promoting it as a development platform for their distribution in the same way that Python is supported?

Derek

Handling RSI (stop sniggering at the back)

With hours spent infront of the screen typing on the keyboard and clicking on the mouse, what techniques do you employ to prevent RSI (or handle it if you're already feeling the strain). What technology do you use? How do you arrange your workspace?

Hessiess

Killing the Planet

Are Planets detrimental to personal blogs, and/or to the projects they're associated with? Do people have the right to complain if the read stuff on a Planet that's nothing to do with (or even against) the project the Planet was set up for? Should we all jack Planets in and aggregate feeds ourselves, in our RSS clients?

Marxjohnson

Derek

Top 10 Android Aps out there

Just bought a new android phone, there are too many apps out there, I'd like a top 10 ones out there ye can recommend. Every day ones you could not live without, ones that are helpful out and about, or something just handy!

czajkowski

The Unthinkables!

There are some articles of faith in the Open Source world that seem to be accepted without question. A situation that probably isn't healthy. So is proprietry software always evil? Are Patents the work of the devil? If Open Source is so obviously the good and true way, why is it still the minority?

B1ackcr0w

Severed Fifth

A report/analysis on the success (or lack thereof) of Jono's Severed Fifth project.

Derek

Community-driven Art & Design

A meritocracy tends to be good at solving engineering problems, in which ideas & solutions can be empirically evaluated. But what about interface design, branding, artwork, and other aspects of a project that inhabit a far more fuzzy, subjective realm? Is Google's "design by brute-force" approach the only option sans a top-down artistic vision? What about smaller communities that can't test-drive every "shade of hyperlink-blue" on a bazillian users? Is effective bottom-up "design by community" even possible?

matro

sorin7486

Internationalization

As a rule, is the community-driven model of software development given to high quality translation and internationalization of it's applications? Large companies with lots of capital can afford to pay the best designers and translators to engineer their applications to fit a wide variety of cultures and languages, but with a community-driven model languages are only added as the community expands to include members which desire a translated interface and have the ability to perform the translation. Is translation-as-needed good enough, or do we need to re-think our design methods with internationalization in mind from the beginning?

Busby

Loosing our privacy.. good or bad ?

Now I know this is like the most discussed thing on the planet but I've been thinking and I'd like to take it a bit further: Regardless of what we do in the future the more telecommunications technology advances the less privacy we have. Whether it's street view or social networking or search engines, the easier it is for people to share information the harder it is to keep secrets. Think of a telepathic society where everybody can read everybody else's thoughts and you'll get where I'm going with this. So there's allot of concern about privacy but is it really a problem. I mean you could argue that it makes us honest if there's nowhere to hide. But at the same time judging people by their facebook account makes us shallow. Society and culture will draw the line in the end but where and how ?

sorin7486

The Bastard Operator From Hell

Valuable stereotype for the geek or negative influence today? Great fiction in El Reg or more of a history lesson of sysadmin lore?

Flattr.. revolution or lame fuzz ?

Flattr just did the first money calculation which ended in a few people getting more than €100. So is flattr.com the new game changer on the interwebs or just another addition on the long list of micro-payment failures ? And can we change from a culture of "I want everything for free" to one closer to "it's nice to reward cool stuff" ? ps: you guys really have to get a flattr button cuz I'll totally cake you ;)..

sorin7486

Give me my smartbook already !!!

I've been watching a lot of demos lately of ARM based devices and was especially impressed by the Tegra 2 ones. They're blazing fast, small and with incredible battery life. I think I heard someone say on one demo you can get 16 hours high def movie out of them. All around an amazing product but with one fatal flaw: it doesn't run windows. So the vendors are scratching their heads and trying all sort of crazy stuff like Windows CE or Android(= linux with phone interface disguise). The point is none of them have the courage to build a propper product around the existing linux distros and by building a product I mean more than strapping the thing on and pushing it out the door. My question is what do you guys think will happen and would you buy such a device if you could put a regular linux on it ?

sorin7486

What is a geek?

Not especially Linux-ish or opensourcey but I wondered how we could define a "geek" and what proportion of the population is made up of geeks.

Derek

sorin7486