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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 25 declined, 2 accepted (27 total, 7.41% accepted)

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Education

Submission + - Early graduation for college et al?

hahafaha writes: "I am currently a high school student. My school offers a program by which students can graduate in three years rather than four, by essentially completing all the requirements. This is generally very difficult, because the school requires four years of math, science and English, but I am lucky enough to be in a position where I can easily do it by simply taking two English classes next year, for which I am already signed up (the way I am accomplishing this is by taking math a year ahead, and by taking two science courses this year). However, I am unsure how great of an idea it is in terms of admissions into college. How much would this harm my chances?

I think that academically, I am doing well. I am president of the Computer Club, participate in the math team, have good grades, etc. My dream is to get into MIT. But for any college/university, not just MIT, how much would early graduation hurt my chances? If I get great SAT scores, AP scores and GPA, would that outweigh the 5 (or so) less classes I take than everyone else? Note, also, that I am older than most others in my grade, so the whole age thing should not be a problem.

Does anyone in the Slashdot community have any experience with early graduation?"
Power

Submission + - Wisconsin Orders Gas Station to Raise Gas Prices

hahafaha writes: "Raj Bhandari, a gas station owner in Wisconsin, offered a 2 cents/gallon discount for gas to seniors, and 3 cents/gallon to those that supported youth sports. However, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture is threatening to penalize him for each discounted gallon, with the fine at a judge's discretion. According to the Department, he is violating Wisconsin's Unfair Sales Act, which requires stations to sell gas for about 9.2 percent more than the wholesale price."
Google

Submission + - Google Introduces Google TiSP

hahafaha writes: "Introducing Google TiSP! From the article:

Sick of paying for broadband that you have to, well, pay for?

Introducing Google TiSP (BETA), our new FREE in-home wireless broadband service. Sign up today and we'll send you your TiSP self-installation kit, which includes setup guide, fiber-optic cable, spindle, wireless router and installation CD.

TiSP in-home wireless broadband is:
  • Free, fast and highly reliable
  • Easy to install — takes just minutes
  • Vacuum-sealed to prevent water damage
"
Networking

Submission + - RIAA Legal Ruling Could Shut Down the Internet

hahafaha writes: "A story on Infowars summarized various RIAA court hearings, the most notable of which could ``shut down the Internet''.
RIAA's argument is that Miss Baker, a poor nursing student who lives in housing projects, should be prosecuted on the basis that "merely making files available on the internet is in and of itself a copyright infringement."


I know that this is very unlikely and dubious, but raises an interesting point. How far away are we from such an attack?"
Math

Submission + - WYSIWYG Latex GUI?

hahafaha writes: "My 75-year old grandfather is a mathematician. As such, his computing needs are pretty small. They are essentially limited to browsing the web, reading his (web)mail, and writing essays and mathematical articles.

For his 75th birthday, he got a new computer. It is a decent machine, with a 2.16GhZ processor, 256MB ram, and, of course, Windows XP. Given his limited use of computers, I think that installing Ubuntu and configuring it to look like Windows would be quite good. Not only will he be using Free Software, he will be protected from viruses, spyware, etc.

The one problem is the mathematical articles. He used to use Formula Editor, a component of Microsoft Office. On Linux, most people use LaTeX. I use it myself and think that it would be the best option for him. The one problem is that he does not want to have to learn the actual tags.

So, my question: Is there a program out there which allows WYSIWYG editing of LaTeX? There are many programs which automatically print the LaTeX tags when buttons are clicked, but are there any that actually display exactly what it will look like (so, when you click the bold button, you actually get bold text and not \bf{})? Ideally, it would keep track of the corresponding LaTeX code in the background, and then compiles it to DVI or PDF (quite similar to programs like Frontpage, really)."

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