First, it's not necessary to heat the entire house, especially if you're worried about making your fuel last as long as possible. Heat a room and keep everyone there unless they NEED to be somewhere else. Second, burning 50 tons of banknotes saves a lot more than 50 tons of trees, considering most of a tree's weight is water. It also saves the energy of drying said wood (even if that energy would be solar, laying the wood out to dry on its own), and the cost of fuel to move it from the forest to the lumber yard to the homes (the fuel to ship the banknotes is going to be used no matter WHERE they are going, though there may be a difference in exactly how much).

Saying this is going to have minimal impact on freezing poor people is probably true, but it ISN'T GOING TO HURT, and it has small but positive effects elsewhere.

This is known by the Law of Committees: "None of us is as dumb as all of us."

Chinese law is: In a dispute between a Chinese company and a foreign company, the Chinese company is almost always right.

What? I've been digitally modeling LEGO for a couple years now... it's called Minecraft. Oddly enough, there is now an actual Minecraft LEGO set in the works. At least the mapping should be fairly straightforward, but I wonder if it comes with Endermen that tear your lawn apart when you're not watching.

And the trade-off for this was that the film could be seen in every city simultaneously, at far less cost than moving a vaudeville troupe. Also, it allowed for things to be done that simply can't be done in a live setting. The art itself improved. The number of people seeing that art increased. Overall, it was a net positive. Just because there is damage to one sector does not mean that progress should be held back, else we would have banned cars and light bulbs for buggy whip and candle makers.

Yep, the only thing lacking about a Sansa with Rockbox is the tiny screen. While it has been given decent photo and video capabilities by the firmware, the display is about the size of a large postage stamp. I put packing tape over the display to catch the scratches it would otherwise take, and it has held up nicely for years. I've only had to change the tape once.

And I too have all the music on my Sansa duplicated on my phone. The loads are identical (I just made two 16 GB SDHC cards and popped them in). My MP3 player has my ringtones, for simplicity's sake. The problem is that I have a phone with no jack -- it only plays over Bluetooth. This doesn't work so well with my car stereo -- although the stereo is much more recent than the car, it has just an audio jack and no Bluetooth or MP3 capabilities. They have started to diverge slightly, as I fill up the 1 GB I left empty on each. In the case of the phone, this is photos and videos. In the case of the MP3 player, it's voice recordings. It'll display photos and even video, but the screen is so tiny as to render this pointless.

When I put Rockbox on my Sansa, I noticed (or rather, completely failed to notice) no change in the battery life one way or the other. The only difference is that it actually gives me a percentage now, rather than just a simple bar graph.

I have a Sandisk Sansa that I picked up, with docking station and speakers AND a wallet style case, for $35. Once I got it home, I found out why it was so cheap. The 2 GB MicroSD was the max it could take, and when I'd play the songs in a folder, it played them ALPHABETICALLY BY NAME. Not by filename like you might expect (I could deal with that, I use very descriptive filenames), but by the TITLE of the song! Searching for a solution to this bizarre issue, I was pointed at Rockbox. Finding that there was no other fix, I decided to give Rockbox a shot. What I ended up with was COMPLETELY different from what I started with! It now supports MicroSDHC (I have a 16 in it now but it'll take a 32), plays files in a logical order, and has an interface much like a phone or tiny laptop. It even has games! Also, it has a "party mode" where files chosen are added to the end of the queue rather than overriding the current selection.

As a n00b to ham radio, and only a Technician Class (don't even have my callsign yet, just tested today), I look forward to doing some DXing in the 6 meter band. The preferred band for international DX is usually 20 meters, but solar storms that actually hit us tend to push the maximum usable frequency for skywave propagation upward in frequency (downward in wavelength). I've been hearing of people making 2000 mile contacts at 6 meters with 5 watts in the conditions from the last flare. Since I'm not licensed for the HF bands (I may soon go for the upgrade to General Class but I still won't have any HF gear), but DO currently have the ability to operate in the 6 meter band, I will have to wait for the right moment to try to reach out and QSL someone.