Number 1:
On a local trash night a few friends and I discovered a air hockey table. Realistically who needs an air hockey table so we didn't pick it up. One of my friends was wise enough to go back and grab the AC fan off of it. I took the fan, splice a dimmer switch in, attached onto a caterer's style coffee box and ran a piece of channel out the other side. The results is a pretty decent laptop cooling stand. With the voltage cranked down the fan is quiet buts its large enough to move a fair bit of air under the laptop. Placing a re-freezable ice pack in the coffee box help the fan cool my laptop cpu 10 degrees celsius in both normal uses and under load while compiling.
Number 2:
My Check Engine Light came on while I was driving out of town over the break. I pulled into an Autozone (or Advanced) and had them read the code. It was p0065 which on my Subaru correlates to a malfunction in the "Valve assembly-air assist injector solenoid". After some googling I decided I could fix it myself. It was easy to get at, held on by two bolts and from what I read probably only required cleaning.
I disconnected the battery ground, unplugged the electrical connector to the solenoid, unbolted it and wiggled it free from its hoses. Blowing through both hoses demonstrated they were unobstructed. Finally I shot the valve with some carburetor cleaning spray and a whole bunch of nasty black deposits came out.
I hooked all back up and started the car and the CEL was off. I thought I would have to have my oil change mechanic clear it next time i went in but the battery was disconnected long enough for the memory on the ECU to reset. So far the thing hasn't thrown a code so I think the cleaning did the trick.
