PC crash: back to a working state in 5 minutes!

For the last 15 years, both my hardware and system upgrades always evolved AROUND my work, and not the opposite! The overwhelming majority of configuration files, preferences and application shortcuts survive through both system software and hardware upgrades for decades... when you are running Linux.

Linux is never putting its foot in the door. Focus on your work, it even keeps your preferences and settings.

Yesterday night my motherboard died without warning (hopefully it is not my high end i7 CPU!). I had work in process to deliver, and some of it was not synchronized with my remote servers yet.
No biggie! I brought my 4-year old old Core2 duo Desktop back from the dust in the garage, I plugged my hard drives into it, and I booted.

Bang, back to work in 5 minutes in the exact same state. Linux is so useful and so efficient!

So why is it so easy to change your computer on Linux without impacting any of your own data and preferences?

Cooling 3D prints with an aquarium pump

3D printing cooled with an aquarium pump!
It works well and it cannot be quieter. The pump is bulky,
but the overall is a very compact hot end.
(the above was a preliminary experiment)

Interestingly, while this trick is not new, very few people seem to use it. For years I had an air pump on a shelf for this purpose. Only recently did I use it, and I really like it better than fan on the hot end.

The good thing is that aquarium pumps do build some pressure in order to pump air down into water. No regular radial or axial fan can do this, they only move air around. Do not get me wrong: regular fans works well, but the smaller the fan the noisier and the shorter its lifespan. And they are bulky anyhow and obstruct the view.

Actually, I printed almost years without fans attached to the hot end at all. Instead, I used a large, powerful and silent 120mm PC fan on the printer chassis. It blows a lot of air on the whole part, which is often even better, but it fails to cool down tiny towers or islands when the hot end never move aside (flowing air is very lazy and will not reach tortuous parts). Also, the big fan blows air only from one direction, which shows up on opposite sides.

So I still needed air again on the head....