PSA: I tried that 'universal' stove windshield hack with a car sunshade and it melted onto my Jetboil in under 5 minutes.

Everyone online said it was a perfect cheap fix, but the reflective coating basically welded itself to the pot, so now I'm looking for a real windscreen that can actually handle the heat, any solid suggestions under $30?

A weird trick for finding studs in a plaster wall actually worked

I was hanging some heavy shelves in my buddy's old house in Tacoma last month, and his walls are that solid plaster over lath. My stud finder was just buzzing all over the place, useless. I was about to start drilling a bunch of tiny test holes when I remembered something an old guy at the lumberyard told me years ago. He said to turn off the lights and shine a bright flashlight, like a work light, flat against the wall. The light casts shadows along the surface, and you can actually see the slight ridges and dips where the plaster keys into the lath strips, which run right to the studs. I tried it, and sure enough, I could trace faint vertical lines every 16 inches. Marked them with pencil, drilled, and hit solid wood first try. Has anyone else used this light trick, or do you have a better method for those nightmare plaster walls?

Tried a vinegar and steel wool stain on a pine dresser and it turned green

I mixed up a batch of the classic DIY ebonizing stain, one cup of white vinegar with a pad of 0000 steel wool soaked for two days. Slapped it on a sanded pine piece expecting a deep gray, but after it dried overnight the whole thing had this weird mossy green tint. I think the tannin content in that specific pine board was way lower than oak, so the chemical reaction went sideways. Anyone know a good fix to push the color back toward black without stripping it all off?

So I was at the Cahokia Mounds visitor center in Illinois and saw the weirdest little clay pot in a display case.

A guy at our library book club said we should only read classics now

We were picking our next book in the community room last Tuesday, and Mark argued that modern fiction is a waste of time compared to Dickens or Austen. I pushed back, saying new stories can be just as good and reflect our current world. Where do you stand on classics versus contemporary books for a club?

I finally gave in and tried the freezer trick on a stuck laptop hinge

Had a Dell Latitude come in with a hinge so seized it wouldn't budge. I always thought putting electronics in the freezer was a joke, but after 20 minutes of fighting with penetrating oil, I wrapped the whole bottom chassis in a bag and left it in my shop freezer for about an hour. Pulled it out, let it warm up for five minutes, and the hinge pin popped right out with a light tap from my punch. I was sure it would cause condensation issues, but it was bone dry. Anyone have a better method for this, or is cold really the way to go?

I just wasted $200 on a 'universal' laptop charger kit that fried a client's motherboard.

The cheap voltage regulator failed under load, so now I'm out the repair cost and have to explain why their machine is dead.