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
- SpaceX Launches Two Falcon 9 Rockets just 38 Minutes Apart - 2026-08-16 02:34
- Copper's Surprising Melting Behavior Provides Insights for Future Fusion Power Plant Design - 2026-08-15 23:45
- X Open Sources Its Ranking and Filtering Algorithms - 2026-08-15 21:25
- Why Europe Keeps Being Pummeled by Heat Waves - 2026-08-15 18:34
- How Swarming Jellyfish Overran Three French Nuclear Power Reactors - 2026-08-15 17:34
hackaday
- Machine Learning COFFIES “Hears” Sunspots Before We Can See Them - 2026-08-16 00:00
- Turning Energy Drinks Into Rocket Fuel - 2026-08-15 21:00
- Peeling Fruit with the Power of Steam - 2026-08-15 18:00
- Scanning for Lifesigns with ESP32 and Raspberry Pi - 2026-08-15 15:00
- Radio Shack Toy Returns to Life - 2026-08-15 12:00
neatorama
- Charming, Creative, and Cute Cosplays from the 2026 SDCC - 2026-08-15 02:00
- Beat the Heat by Planning a Strange and Different Christmas Vacation - 2026-08-14 19:14
- LEGO Star Wars Mocks <i>The Mandalorian</i> in New TV Special - 2026-08-14 17:47
- The Legend Behind an Abandoned Town is Not Even a Legend - 2026-08-14 11:43
- The "Sloppy" World War II Uniforms of the US Military - 2026-08-13 19:23
NPR
- Are robotaxis finally here? - 2026-08-15 16:30
- State Department spokesperson on Iran war and U.S. visa revocations - 2026-08-15 16:20
- The Midwest braces for more heavy flooding, as Indiana seeks federal aid - 2026-08-15 15:04
- Families of USS Lincoln crew say Trump should be 'ashamed' of conditions on board - 2026-08-15 13:21
- Trump administration wants to allow companies to hack foreign cybercriminals - 2026-08-15 12:25
jacobin
- The Odyssey Is a Thrilling, Reactionary Lament - 2026-08-15 08:53
- Trump Gets Real About US Dominance of Latin America - 2026-08-15 08:20
- Karl Marx’s Vision of the Good Society - 2026-08-15 07:48
- Amazon Is Spending Big Against NYC’s Delivery Protection Act - 2026-08-14 13:48
- Colombia and Israel’s Cynical Disaster Diplomacy - 2026-08-14 10:49
404media
- Memories Mysteriously Survive After Brain Shutdown, And Scientists Don’t Know Why - 2026-08-15 05:00
- Behind the Blog: Endless Scam Parade - 2026-08-14 11:21
- Meta Patents AI Glasses to Use Facial Recognition to Identify People, Make Highlight Reels of Your Dinner Party - 2026-08-14 09:17
- Man Arrested in Texas For Cussing at a County Meeting - 2026-08-14 08:20
- Person Hides Prompt Injection in Legal Filing Telling AI to Side With Them - 2026-08-13 12:57
techdirt
- This Week In Techdirt History: August 9th – 15th - 2026-08-15 14:00
- Dev Kills Cloud Version Of Game On Switch, Offers Discount To Rebuy It For Switch 2 - 2026-08-14 21:39
- Pro Se Plaintiff Caught Hiding Prompt Injections In Court Filings; Responds By Hiding More - 2026-08-14 17:34
- Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Watermark My Words - 2026-08-14 15:02
- Trump Wants The DOJ To Go After Olympian David Hearn Again In Reflecting Pool Vandalism Case - 2026-08-14 13:09
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
- Scientists detect a surprising shift in human blood as CO2 rises - 2026-08-15 09:39
- When gut microbes run low on fiber, they may start eating you - 2026-08-15 09:30
- A 30-year-old fossil was hiding bones from a mysterious ancient sea monster - 2026-08-15 09:19
- Common food preservative linked to rising suicide deaths among young people - 2026-08-15 09:09
- A 60-year-old theory about ants, bees and wasps may be wrong - 2026-08-15 08:25
space.com
- New record! SpaceX launches 2 Falcon 9 rockets just 38 minutes apart - 2026-08-15 21:54
- On this day in space! Aug. 15, 1977: Mysterious 'Wow!' Signal boosts search for E.T. - 2026-08-15 09:00
- 'Lanterns': Who's who in HBO's Green Lantern show? - 2026-08-15 08:00
- This Week In Space podcast: Episode 223 — The Lunar Domain - 2026-08-15 07:08
- We think these Nikon binoculars are excellent for variable magnification on the go - 2026-08-15 04:00
space news
- Lunar orbiter among upcoming NASA CLPS task orders - 2026-08-15 18:49
- U.S. Space Force adds second surveillance sensor to Japanese constellation - 2026-08-14 17:26
- Wallops gears up for an increase in launches - 2026-08-14 17:02
- Spire and PlanetiQ win NOAA radio-occultation contracts - 2026-08-14 11:33
- Cheaper launch has moved the spacecraft bottleneck. Mass is out, surface area is in. - 2026-08-14 08:00
phys.org
- Nature has spent billions of years fighting bacteria. AI could help us learn its secrets - 2026-08-15 19:00
- How healthier farm animals can cut greenhouse gas emissions - 2026-08-15 15:40
- Exploring the moon will require rovers that can think for themselves - 2026-08-15 13:00
- Topical clove oil for canine sarcoptic mange promises faster, plant-based treatment - 2026-08-15 12:40
- Early-universe plasma may have stopped dark photons from heating cosmos - 2026-08-15 11:40
onion latest
- AOC Freezing Her Eggs - 2026-08-15 08:00
- Announcers Watch Angels-Royals Game In Total Silence - 2026-08-14 20:38
- Artist Profile: Phoebe Bridgers - 2026-08-14 08:00
- Former Bangladeshi Leader To Return From Exile Despite Death Sentence - 2026-08-14 08:00
- Ms. Taylor and the Mailman - 2026-08-14 08:00
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