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.
![]()
slashdot
- California Colleges Test AI Partnerships. Critics Complain It's Risky and Wasteful - 2025-10-26 20:34
- GM Plans to Drop Apple CarPlay and Android Auto From All Its Cars - 2025-10-26 18:47
- Some US Electricity Prices are Rising -- But It's Not Just Data Centers - 2025-10-26 16:52
- Does Generative AI Threaten the Open Source Ecosystem? - 2025-10-26 15:34
- Can YouTube Replace 'Traditional' TV? - 2025-10-26 14:34
hackaday
- VFETs are (Almost) Solid State Tubes - 2025-10-26 21:00
- Hackaday Links: October 26, 2025 - 2025-10-26 18:00
- Examining the First Mechanical Calculator - 2025-10-26 15:00
- Making Math Less Stressful with a Python Super-Calculator - 2025-10-26 12:00
- Spreadsheets Apple ][ Style - 2025-10-26 09:00
neatorama
- The Historical and Cultural Importance of Scarecrows - 2025-10-26 18:44
- Watch the Weird Way Tardigrades Are Born - 2025-10-26 18:20
- Is This Woman Cosplaying as a Traffic Cone or the VLC Media Player? - 2025-10-26 11:40
- What Do You Know about the World War II Ball Turret Gunners? - 2025-10-26 07:57
- He's Going to Go as Van Gogh (and Wins Halloween) - 2025-10-25 08:07
NPR
- California euthanizes 4 gray wolves after 'unprecedented' surge in livestock kills - 2025-10-26 17:37
- German police bust an art forgery ring trying to sell fake Picasso, Rembrandt works - 2025-10-26 12:19
- US and China say trade deal drawing closer as Trump and Xi prepare for meeting - 2025-10-26 10:18
- Why the ACA needs young people — and the looming 'death spiral' for health insurance - 2025-10-26 10:08
- Suspects arrested over the theft of crown jewels from the Louvre museum in Paris - 2025-10-26 05:21
jacobin
- Shake Shack Is Restricting Its Customers’ Legal Rights - 2025-10-26 06:48
- W. E. B. Du Bois on Blowing Up the White House’s East Wing - 2025-10-26 05:48
- Palestinian Rights and Free Speech Rights Are Closely Linked - 2025-10-26 04:51
- ICE Will Use AI to Surveil Social Media - 2025-10-26 03:49
- The GOP Is Fine With You Getting Your Fingers Chopped Off - 2025-10-25 07:48
africa is a country
- An island nation, everywhere - 2025-10-24 04:34
- Hospitals versus stadiums - 2025-10-23 04:00
- Leapfrogging literacy? - 2025-10-22 04:00
- We must learn to sit in the dark together - 2025-10-21 09:00
- Entries, exits, permits - 2025-10-20 05:00
404media
- What Really Doomed Napoleon’s Army? Scientists Find New Clues in DNA - 2025-10-25 08:00
- AI Dataset for Detecting Nudity Contained Child Sexual Abuse Images - 2025-10-24 15:11
- a16z-Backed Startup Sells Thousands of ‘Synthetic Influencers’ to Manipulate Social Media as a Service - 2025-10-24 12:55
- Behind the Blog: Making Things for Humans - 2025-10-24 12:02
- DHS Tries To Unmask Ice Spotting Instagram Account by Claiming It Imports Merchandise - 2025-10-24 10:31
techdirt
- Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt - 2025-10-26 14:00
- This Week In Techdirt History: October 19th – 25th - 2025-10-25 14:45
- Cards Against Humanity, SpaceX Settle Lawsuit Over Misused Border Land Parcel - 2025-10-24 21:39
- Trump’s Tantrum Over Accurate Reagan Quotes Backfires: Millions Learn Reagan Opposed His Tariff Policy - 2025-10-24 17:39
- How Trump Is Building A Violent, Shadowy Federal Police Force - 2025-10-24 15:43
the register personal tech
- MPs urge government to stop Britain's phone theft wave through tech - 2025-10-25 03:26
- BBC probe finds AI chatbots mangle nearly half of news summaries - 2025-10-24 04:57
- Apple's ultra-thin iPhone flops as foldable iPad hits a crease - 2025-10-23 09:31
- Google nukes 3,000 YouTube videos that sowed malware disguised as cracked software - 2025-10-23 09:04
- UK competition cops brand Apple, Google with 'strategic market status' for mobile - 2025-10-22 09:11
sciencedaily
- Weight-loss drugs like Ozempic may also curb drug and alcohol addiction - 2025-10-26 12:14
- MIT physicists just found a way to see inside atoms - 2025-10-26 11:45
- Dinosaurs were thriving when the asteroid struck - 2025-10-26 10:05
- Living computers powered by mushrooms - 2025-10-26 09:59
- Hippos once roamed frozen Germany with mammoths - 2025-10-26 07:29
space.com
- How AI can improve storm surge forecasts to help save lives - 2025-10-26 11:00
- Space radiation can produce some organic molecules detected on icy moons - 2025-10-26 10:00
- WindFire LED flashlight review - 2025-10-26 10:00
- See Comet Lemmon cross paths with a cosmic serpent tonight - 2025-10-26 09:00
- Could we blast space debris out of harm's way with ion beams? - 2025-10-26 07:00
space news
- Astrobotic delays Griffin-1 lander mission to mid-2026 - 2025-10-26 09:22
- Kymeta to supply flat-panel satellite antennas to U.S. Army - 2025-10-26 08:06
- H3 launches first HTV-X cargo spacecraft - 2025-10-25 19:50
- Global Defense Satcom Commercial Service Revenues Positioned to Skyrocket Past $8.6 Billion by 2034 - 2025-10-24 11:48
- A soft power strategy to preserve non-sovereignty from Chinese land claims on the moon - 2025-10-24 08:00
phys.org
- White oak genome reveals genetic markers for climate adaptability and pest resistance - 2025-10-26 12:30
- Dark matter could color our view of the universe - 2025-10-26 09:30
- Why US activists are wearing inflatable frog costumes at protests against Trump - 2025-10-26 08:50
- How the Mayans were able to accurately predict solar eclipses for centuries - 2025-10-26 07:10
- Hurricane Melissa strengthens as it crawls toward Jamaica - 2025-10-26 06:30
onion latest
- ‘Welcome To Derry’ Viewer Can Tell Pennywise Got Work Done - 2025-10-26 16:00
- Trump Touts Productive Call With Putin About Ballroom Sconces - 2025-10-24 14:35
- ChatGPT Introduces New AI-Powered Web Browser - 2025-10-24 08:00
- Scary Outfit - 2025-10-24 08:00
- What To Know About Data Centers - 2025-10-24 08:00
changelogs
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