A VPS is rented space on hardware in the same way you rent an apartment. You don't own the hardware, but that doesn't mean the host can break into your box whenever he wants. Maybe the contract asserts they have that right (you would be an idiot to contract with them). Use Linode (arguably the best VPS provider in the industry): http://linode.com/ (I am not affiliated with Linode.)

here is that the affront to our freedoms here enables the Chinese to squash those advocating Chinese freedom.

I have music CDs that are over 10 years old still working perfectly.

Who would think to use Electromagnetic energy to transfer information! Maybe the new WiFi will use light so we can get these faster speeds.

Ya but it's also self-correcting!

I believe it will depend on how Germany decides to censor their traffic. Usually the U.S.A. only decides to use economic sanctions when censorship is being used for I(negative) political purposes. The government generally doesn't care about conservative censorship. It is rather unfortunate the Internet is becoming less free with each passing year.

... because this is an example of how censorship (of the Internet) can have dramatic effects on rebellion, revolution, and government? Nerds everywhere should be closely watching.

I was very disappointed Lua was not included. It is one of the most popular scripting languages for embedding in applications, especially Games. People forget that a scripting language is primarily for extending the functionality of an application. Also, while Python and Ruby can be hacked for this purpose, they are very poor choices for scripting languages and should probably _not_ be included in the list.