(Note: I am still in highschool, but I spent 6 weeks living on the cmu campus and taking courses there. I had the same computer access as a regular student, and brought my own Linux netbook.)

Carnegie Mellon fully supports Linux (in fact, a large percent of university-operated desktops run Red Hat), though the documentation for this support is a little lacking in a few areas. For example, they have a fairly complicated printing setup requiring special software in both Windows and Mac (technically not needed in Mac, but advisable). Since this system is using cups (iirc), no extra software (beyond the obvious) is required in Linux. However, finding the ip and such for the print server really required some digging, eventually taking me to user-provided documentation hosted by the School of Computer Science.

Overall, there is absolutely no problem with running Linux at cmu. However, non tech-savvy users may find themselves needing to seek help. Getting that help should hardly be a problem, considering they types of people who go there.

Of course, individual classes may have software requirements. However, you should just be able to use the public terminals all over campus for this. (I had to do this every now and then on lab reports since OpenOffice doesn't support y-error bars).

I'd actually be happier, since contacts give me vision problems. (I would need correcting glasses, of course)

Yes, you do ;) And yes, many colleges refuse to accept credit from AP classes. But that does not change the fact that they are useful courses, which very few people are going to find too easy.

The vast majority of American high schools offer a large number of AP classes (college level, standardized test at the end to prove to colleges that you learned your stuff), and many offer dual credit with local community colleges on advanced courses as well. I am a junior right now, and am currently taking half AP courses.

SOCKS server. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS

Just a few minutes ago I saw something like this on CNN. It claimed that Obama is encouraging people to refinance (and presumably would have offered to help me out with the process had I clicked on it).

Wine is not an emulator. Unless you run it in one or compile the Windows binaries for ARM, there is no way Wine will work on an ARM chip.

Interestingly, many people here use a much similar system to the App Store to install software on their computers. By that, I mean the package managers in our Linux and BSD installations. Like the App Store, these package managers make secure connections to trusted software repositories, allowing us to install software without worrying about malware. Unlike the App Store, if the software we want is not available from the repositories, we can use a different source. But we know the risk, so it is not a big deal. I see no reason why a similar approach cannot be used in mainstream phones. Provide a repository, but also provide a method for installing binaries from other sources. This second method can be plastered with warnings telling the user to be careful. Geeks will probably still be annoyed by the limits of this system, but there is really no reason geeks should be using a mainstream operating system at all, even on their phone (but that is a whole different issue).

So, basically what happened here is as follows:

1. New boss changed your job. Reasons may be stupid, but they are his own. Approximate workload and salary remained the same.
2. You really didn't like this new job, so much so that you felt the need to quit. Your reasons are your own.
3. You went whining to the government about how awful your situation was, and they gave you a lot of money. This money came from a great many people, some of whom were working their ass off to make it while you took a year off.

Sticking up for your ethics is great. But is it really necessary to both have your cake and eat someone else's?

(I realize this sounds like a personal attack-- it is not supposed to be. It is attack against the laws that allow it, not the people that use the laws. I probably would have done the same thing. Exploiting stupid laws simply makes the tax burden more bearable)

As a high school student, I can second this. My school has both a computer club and a 'computer design and repair' class which could make use of these.

I am a high school student. I love my Arch Linux box, I am involved i the high school computer club. I think tech is horribly underused at my school. With the computer club, I am making some efforts to get some Linux boxes out there, and I think they could really help the situation (many computers are simply too slow to run Windows). But please, do not try to force this issue at the state level. The result will be science labs unable to use expensive lab equipment just because it uses Windows-only drivers, SMART boards going to waste, ect. And the advantages will not be felt unless there is someone in the district who actually knows what they are doing. But if you want to get involved at the local level, go for it. My only advice is to try to get the computer club(s) involved as much as possible. They need something to do, and would be happy to built computers, set up servers, ect.

You definitely want to do this from the router. That way, no traffic can possibly slip past. As someone else said, Tomato will work. However, I have always found dd-wrt to be a more polished router distro. It has given me no problems. For best results, get a Linksys wrt line router to go with it.

Ordinary cell phones are the worst thing I can imagine being jammed. No cell phone = no 911 when people expect to have it.

The days when a record was worth $20 are long gone. Data reproduction is easy. Data is in virtually infinite supply, and therefore worth infinitely close to nothing. Meanwhile, music recording costs have dropped massively. Even without claiming any copyrights, the costs of recording an album should be easily paid with CD sales. The artists can easily get plenty of money off of live shows and merchandise sales.

Fluxbox here as well. I love the minimalism. Awesome is worth checking out as well, especially if you like key commands. Note that it is a tiling window manager.