Everyone can't live from advertising - someone must produce. Just think about it: everything is free and using advertising-based model. It is another bubble, people. Lots of buzz, little real value.

ligatures, number forms etc are not enough to take on TeX. Wake me up when it is possible to customize output routines for Word, when it's lexer is extensible and pluggable and when, most importantly, it has GLUE :)

(and please do not even touch formula entry and display in MS Word, may patience is really fragile on that topic)

Funny, I think intellectual work is rather different from any other kind of work. If only because there are lots of useful/interesting intellectual jobs no one wishes to pay for. In that sense, authorship is like entrepreneurship versus working for someone else - you take the risks, you profit (or waste your time).

Historically, innovation comes from top to bottom in Russia, not from roots to leaves. I am tired of all those silly government projects, when they see smth good in neighboring nations, and then decide to immediately develop "same thing, but of our own making". Or rather, allocate budget for this and consequently spend it together with their buddies.

Would they really wanted Russian OS, they would fix juridical system first, for judges to have real independence instead of being on government's pay, and for intelligent people to be valued in their own country. Coincidently, it may also convince educated and smart people not to migrate overseas.

I bought Half-Life back in Russia, never got time to try it though. Then I moved to UK, and got a minute and thought - heck, this is part of culture now, I need to try it! So I opened the box, installed Steam, cause it's a requirement. And then Steam told me that I can't use this game I bought because I bought it in Russia and now I am in UK!

So, I hate DRM, and believe I have the right to hate it. Because I actually lost money due to those ridiculous policies.

Also, it will be much easier to collect the information on entire earth population, thereabouts of everyone, habits, interests. Policing the world becomes much easier.

Is there a luddite party BTW?

> Maybe rocks are intelligent. How would we know? Has anybody thought to ask?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin