ultrascience labs
This brand makes the thing which a consumer is satisfied with. - engrish.com
lab notes
Research articles and blog posts, some of it evergreen. Included archived blog posts restored from previous website incarnations.
r & d
Work logs for past and present hobby projects. Case mods, electronics, models, woodworking, vintage audio.
linkroll
A cultivated collection of link to sites of all types. Currently working on a linkroll and directories section - a linkroll of linkrolls.
current news
RSS headlines. Sources are subject to change. I try to use sources that are relatively resource light, and produce feed XML docs that aren't ridiculously boated. As usual, tread carefully in the comments sections, for example slashdot is a good source for headlines, but the comment section is full of Libertarians.
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slashdot
- Group of Teen Hikers Relied on Google Maps. It Was a Disaster. - 2026-08-02 12:34
- Does Eating Less Protein Produce Healthier Aging and Metabolism? - 2026-08-02 11:34
- In a First, 'Super-Earth' Planet Shows It Could Have an Atmosphere - 2026-08-02 10:34
- Linux Desktop Market Share Surpasses 10% in North America - 2026-08-02 09:04
- Are Return-to-Office Mandates Killing Workers' Trust in Workplaces? - 2026-08-02 06:34
hackaday
- Turning Fruits Into Ethylene and Ethane Refrigerant - 2026-08-02 12:00
- A KVM Without the V (Or the M) - 2026-08-02 09:00
- Architectural LED Install Shows How To Do It With Style - 2026-08-02 06:00
- The Seven Sensors and Breakout Boards to Avoid in a Product - 2026-08-02 03:00
- UV Printer? 3D Printer? HeyGears says “Why Not Both”? - 2026-08-02 00:00
neatorama
- Twin Sisters Marry Twin Brothers at Wedding Conducted by Priests Who Are Twin Brothers - 2026-08-01 13:16
- Two Surprising Songs That Sound Great Together - 2026-08-01 12:58
- Global Brands and the Pitfalls of Cultural Misunderstandings - 2026-07-31 19:33
- Can Anyone Finish the Impossible Bike Obstacle Course? - 2026-07-31 12:00
- The Bizarre Medieval Practice of Uterine Exorcism - 2026-07-31 08:08
NPR
- Thousands of people under evacuation order from wildfires in Spokane, Wash. - 2026-08-02 08:35
- A teen was killed at a Seattle protest. New video evidence shows what really happened - 2026-08-02 07:00
- Why is the rate of premature births so high in this community? - 2026-08-02 06:03
- What Cyclospora does inside the gut and how it gets there - 2026-08-02 04:00
- We asked a first grader to interview his hero: A bird scientist - 2026-08-02 04:00
jacobin
- The Blue Collar Brigade Has the Right Messengers - 2026-08-02 08:00
- Mahmoud Khalil Is Suing the Trump Administration - 2026-08-02 07:30
- The New Spider-Man Is Pure Fun - 2026-08-01 09:44
- The Cuban Revolution Was a Revolution in Art and Culture - 2026-08-01 07:48
- Pakistani-Ruled Kashmir Is Facing a Brutal State Crackdown - 2026-07-31 09:10
404media
- We Need to Quarantine Aliens on the Moon, Scientists Propose - 2026-08-01 05:00
- Behind the Blog: Silent Retreat - 2026-07-31 11:24
- Google Earth’s New AI Lets Anyone Fabricate Completely Bullshit Satellite Images - 2026-07-31 11:03
- YouTube Bans Popular ASMR Artists, Accusing Them of Making 'Sexually Gratifying' Content - 2026-07-31 09:25
- Company Offering Printed Books to Train AI Stops After 404 Media Coverage - 2026-07-31 09:04
techdirt
- This Week In Techdirt History: July 26th – August 1st - 2026-08-01 14:00
- RFK Jr., Who Is Definitely Not Checked Out Of His Job, To Host A Cooking Show - 2026-07-31 21:39
- What Ukraine’s Battlefield Openness Can Teach Washington About AI Access - 2026-07-31 17:14
- Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Zuck Starts Throwing His Weights Around - 2026-07-31 15:12
- Federal Judges Chastise Trump’s Justice Department For “Unlawful,” “Unethical” And “Unseemly” Conduct - 2026-07-31 13:12
the register personal tech
- Classic ASCII game NetHack debuts version 5.0 just 11 years after last major release - 2026-05-05 01:32
- Bad news for OpenClaw stans: Apple’s Mac Mini now starts at $799 - 2026-05-04 16:46
- Ask.com, former home of search butler Jeeves, closes just as conversational search comes back - 2026-05-04 00:13
- Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone - 2026-05-01 10:24
- That old phone in the kitchen drawer could save an industry - 2026-05-01 09:16
sciencedaily
- NASA’s Curiosity rover finds a mysterious honeycomb landscape on Mars - 2026-08-01 08:47
- Tiny black holes may be secretly exploding stars across the Milky Way - 2026-08-01 08:33
- Ant brains reveal how evolution turned hunger into parenting - 2026-08-01 08:01
- Tiny aerosol particles could supercharge tropical storm clouds - 2026-08-01 07:47
- Eating one avocado a day may lower heart disease risk - 2026-08-01 07:35
space.com
- Gears of War: E-Day: Release date, platforms & everything else we know about Marcus Fenix's return - 2026-08-02 11:00
- On this day in space! Aug. 2, 1971: Apollo 15 makes 1st-ever televised liftoff from the moon - 2026-08-02 09:00
- Double digits! Air-launched 'Talon A' hypersonic vehicle notches big flight milestone - 2026-08-02 09:00
- From Hardspace to Clearspace: How space salvage games compare to real debris removal - 2026-08-02 07:00
- Rocket issue delays 1st orbital rocket launch from the UK - 2026-08-02 05:00
space news
- U.S. Air Force expands Blue Origin rocket cargo contract - 2026-08-02 07:03
- Space Force awards K2 Space $22.9 million for laser communications demonstration - 2026-08-01 15:28
- China launches secretive TJS-27 pair, orbits next-gen Tianlian relay sat - 2026-08-01 08:38
- Sending repurposed Mars rover to the moon could cost more than $1 billion - 2026-07-31 15:53
- Spain commits up to $2.3 billion for national military communications for IRIS² - 2026-07-31 10:57
phys.org
- Webb reveals warped structure in nearby TW Hydrae's protoplanetary disk - 2026-08-02 12:20
- Supergene solves evolutionary puzzle of mirror-image flowers - 2026-08-02 12:00
- Why some nitrogen-processing enzymes are more efficient than others - 2026-08-02 11:00
- Laid to rest with care: Ancient infants, perhaps twins, found in 1,200-year-old latrine - 2026-08-02 10:20
- AI use mirrors student schedules in study of 77,000 online learners - 2026-08-02 09:20
onion latest
- Schools Deploy Pepper Spray Drones To Combat Shootings - 2026-08-01 08:00
- RFK Jr. Cooking Show Features Easy Weeknight Meals Using Ingredients Already In Own Body - 2026-07-31 13:31
- Chicagoans Over 25 Urged To Shelter In Place Until Lollapalooza Over - 2026-07-31 12:32
- Jared Leto Denies Sexual Assault Allegations Will Affect Career - 2026-07-31 12:21
- Iran War Enters 6th Justification - 2026-07-31 12:20
changelogs
April 2026
2025-04-03 - linkroll - added more links.
December 2025
2025-12-22 - r & d - Infrastructure worklogs updated in shop rehab redux
November 2025
2025-11-09 - updated the ticker links to open in new tabs.
2025-11-07 - updated yellow to version 0.9.16
July 2025
2025-07-15 - linkroll - added links to the esoterica, linkrolls, design inspiration, and woodworking sections.
March 2025
2025-03-10 - r&d - Added the "rei & asuka" entry under r&d -> case mods -> legacy case mods. I also realized that I also got my Dragon case work log entered but forgot to update the change log to document it. So check that out too, I guess.
February 2025
2025-02-26 - Spent a few days messing around with the site layout. Went crazy with the icons and integrated them into the nav areas of the site. I created new layouts to generate dynamic icon-based navigation. I also pushed the "about" sections to the bottom of their respective sections.
2025-02-20 - linkroll - Alphabetized the linkroll categories. Working on putting together a linkroll/directory category.
December 2024
2024-12-20 - lab notes - Taking advantage of the new lab notes blog format and manually importing content from the previous iterations of the site. I've imported both Greymatter versions of the blog (thanks to the Internet Archive) and I'm working through the Drupal blog posts pulled from the backups I restored in October. I'm including comment text inline with the post content - click "read more" under any of the older blog posts to see them. I should also note that since these restored posts are over 15 years old many of the links are dead. I'm linking to Internet Archive pages contemporary to the date of the blog post in question where needed and when possible.
November 2024
2024-11-18 - linkroll - Adding more links new categories over the last several days. A bit of styling on the headers to improve readability.
2024-11-02 - Updated the styling for the ultrascience_efc theme used on the lab notes pages.
2024-11-02 - lab notes - adjusting content sorting. Lab notes is now in a blog format, using tags to sort blog entries and logn form research articles.
2024-11-01 - linkroll - Added new links
2024-11-01 - Added ticker feeds
October 2024
2024-10-31 - Working on the front page layout. Rolling latest changes into the changelogs. Still messing with the ticker feeds.
2024-10-30 - Updated Datenstrom Yellow to version 0.9, installed ticker extension for displaying RSS feed content. Currently just dumping it on the bottom of the homepage. I also installed the blog extension. I'm also considering other structural changes to the site.
2024-10-22 - lab notes - new article "A Site Recovery 15 years in the making" created to track archived site recovery work. Article is live, but very under construction
2024-10-22 - Been working on recovering the circa 2005 version of the site from my old backups. At the time it was using Drupal 4.7 running on a typical LAMP stack. Recovery work will be logged in a new lab notes article.
2024-10-04 - homepage - added icons, refreshed intro copy, cleaned up changelogs
September 2024
2024-09-16 - r & d - Whitewings worklogs updated under paper airplanes
2024-09-16 - lab notes - Updated the "whitewings" lab notes entry in the "models, hobbytronics & programming" notebook. Added links for model and manual scans. Updated the History of Jet Fighters and Volume 1 worklogs to include a list of models with assembly and flight reviews. Work will be ongoing there as I build and fly models.
2024-09-09 - r&d - Started work on the "Whitewings - History of Jet Fighters 1992" worklog under the r & d section
August 2024
2024-08-01 - August was offline work
July 2024
2024-07-15 - r&d - Started work on the "Whitewings - Excellent Paper Airplanes Volume 1 1980" worklog under the r & d section
2024-07-01 - lab notes - Created the "whitewings" lab notes entry in the "models, hobbytronics & programming" notebook
April 2024
2024-04-17- homepage - Continuing updates - all experimental. Added a current research section as a kind of "now" page.
2024-04-16 - lab notes -New article published "why we are still using 88x31 buttons"
2024-04-04 - homepage - Cleaning up changelogs and latest changes on homepage, added intro copy.
2024-04-04 - linkroll - Added a "categories" list.
2024-04-04 - homepage - Adding icons and images for interest.
2024-04-01 - r&d - Completed the "mdportal elite" entry under r&d -> case mods -> legacy case mods
March 2024
- r&d - Started with restoring my 'ancient' case mod project logs and updating them for the new site.
Updated theming for the R&D section of the site.
2024-03-06 - lab notes - New article published "windows xp running on a vm"
2024-03-01 - lab notes - New article published "searching for search"
February 2024
2024-2-30 - linkroll - Added new category papercraft
2024-2-23 - linkroll - Added links to tools and resources I've been using to build this site.
2024-2-23 - Applied font sub-setting to drastically reduce font download size, played with header font styling.
2024-2-3 - Updated blue theme colors for the landing page and played with background images and styling in general.
January 2024
2024-1-28 - linkroll - Added more links to the.
2024-1-26 - Working on categories/layout for the linkroll.
current research
Web
Thanks to my restored backups and the Internet Archive, I was able to pull in the blog content from my pre 2010 Greymatter and Drupal versions of the site in the lab notes. Content is tagged with "greymatter" and "drupal" as appropriate. Old comments are included. I'm still working on old project logs.
Hardware
Workshop reorganization has continued through the fall and into winter. But along the way I've knocked out a few projects and made headway on others. Details coming.
Papercraft/Models
Paper airplanes made for some fun summer and fall flying, but wet and cold winter weather has settled in so I've been spending time on the model railroad layout. It's a mixed-gauge two-level layout consisting of HO and HOn30. The main HOn30 in-town streetcar loop track has been laid and wired, and I've laid track on the HO portion. Details coming.
Infrastructure
Shop re-org and updates continue. I still need to document the work so I can keep track of it in the future - if only I had a website for tracking projects...
about
Welcome to the labs. Back in the early 2000s I was playing with case mods and website design and I set up this domain as a homepage to share my projects and sandbox to play with various development tools and styles.
I dropped it after several years, but lately I've wanted a place to record and share my old and new project work again. So I re-registered the site and dusted off my old data files.
system status
Generator: Datenstrom Yellow version 0.9.16