Whatever people do in China, it's almost none of the things punishable by law, so most of them may actually feel just as much free, as people in the USA or anywhere else in the world, even more free, if they actually believe, that the political and economical system in their country is better, than elsewhere.

But when we speak about people's freedom in a political sense, usually it means very distinct things like freedom of press, freedom of self-expression, freedom to hold meetings and such, which requires one to actually do something like that to 'test' their freedoms.

There is a difference between an individual's sense of the amount of freedom he has ("the silent mass" is mostly ignorant) and the actual status of general freedom in a state (i.e. the amount of limitations of certain freedoms to its population as a whole).

The difference is such, that when you just believe that you're free, while you aren't, you will be quickly disappointed by the reality. Continuing to believe that you're free (and act as if you were), while getting all the possible restraints and punishments from your oppressor, is a definite sign that you're crazy. When you are free and you *understand* what your freedom is (usually freedom is limited, there is no absolute freedom), if your freedom is continued, there is no reason for being disappointed in anything concerning it. You behave freely and there is no punishment for that.

When working with music on, I've found that whatever the style of music I listen to (from ambient to afrobeat to folk rock to heavy metal), it tends to put me into a trance-like state, where I am able to do good designing or a lot of routine coding work, or debugging, which makes me much more productive. But what I've also noticed is that every kind of music sets a different working rhythm, so different kinds of programming work need a different type of music for the best results.

Nice ambient, lounge, trance for example, tend to be somewhat good for designing and implementing new stuff, or cracking hard debugging issues (i.e. they stimulate abstract thinking and imagination). Hard rock, afrobeat, drum'n'bass make it easier doing some routine coding (I mean, coding which is routine) and simple routine debugging and testing, increasing your raw productivity.

I have also found, that just putting on big noise-cancelling headphones decreases the amount of effort needed to concentrate, while still allowing you to quickly respond to anyone asking you about anything. This is detrimental though, since closed earphones tend to make your ears more susceptible to catching cold, when you're using such headphones too much, something I have found out myself the hard way.

Naah... Been there, done that... Any other ideas?
--
I. V. Stalin

Same as squrrels, foxes, seagulls and occasionally bears?

Huh, where is math here? Same anecdotal evidence and inductive logic at best.

There are some very good games, where Germans actually have a lot of superiority in numbers and weapons. Example: "Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943".

That looks like it *will be* an Emacs clone pretty soon!

Is a peasant betraying his comrade to his enemy an innocent death? Is a bandit, making use of the chaos in the country you ware guerilla warfare and revolution to get as much as they can an innocent death? Or were the ones killed as Sierra Maestra's cooperators by Batista's government forces innocent deaths, for which Che is somehow responsible?..

I guess, it's a kind of "terrorism": the law firm is supposed to "learn" not to get affiliated with MAFIAA, or something like that.

Actually, it says that while support of Russian developers, stimulation of domestic software development and use of Free Software is a strategic benefit for Russian economics and it is a government priority, there will be no "National [Computer] Program Platform", because government officials believe it will not solve the problems of IT development in Russia.

So yes, there will be no Russian Windows alternative. And, really, I do agree with these Russian government officials -- there is no need for an official Operating System beyond having existing ones (Linux, BSD) to be properly supported by the government.

Hey, where can I sign up to open another "Performance Rights Agency" and collect royalties for any copyrighted material over there? =) Sounds like a great business plan: just go around collecting royalties and pay yourself a nice hefty salary. Pay a couple of cents for artists that happen to ask for a cut of those royalties. :)

What's so special about that PRC, that entitles them to do that on behalf on all artists? Why can't a man from the street start his own agency?..

Why not use Ext2? It's usable under Windows (there are 2 different drivers for Windows, that enable use of this filesystem), it's usable under Linux. It can easily be realized under other operating systems, if any of them happen to lack support. A nice gadget can have its firmware reloaded to use another filesystem instead of FAT. So, what's the problem?

BTW, I gotta say that, unfortunately, in some countries, copyright infringement IS a criminal offense.