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
- The UK Finally Starts Reforming Its 'Computer Misuse Act' - 2026-05-17 02:34
- Amazon Stops Supporting Pre-2013 Kindles Today. Some Owners Turn to Jailbreaking - 2026-05-16 22:34
- Some Datacenters Divert Power from Homes. Will It Drive Homeowners to Solar and Batteries? - 2026-05-16 20:34
- An Entire Wikipedia That's 100% AI Hallucinations - 2026-05-16 17:34
- How I Added an LLM-Based Grammar Checking + TeX Math Import To LibreOffice - 2026-05-16 16:34
hackaday
- Running Windows CE on the Nintendo 64 - 2026-05-17 03:00
- Your Browser Probably Lies to the Big Sites (Blame Chrome) - 2026-05-17 00:00
- Asimov is an Open Source Humanoid Robot For the Rest of Us - 2026-05-16 21:00
- After Stumbling From CVE to CVE Will Linux get a Kill Switch? - 2026-05-16 18:00
- 21st Century Punch Cards are 3D Printed and Read By OpenCV - 2026-05-16 15:00
neatorama
- The Horror of Prohibition's "Jake Leg" Epidemic - 2026-05-16 17:37
- Texas Wins Nationwide Bagel Competition - 2026-05-16 15:55
- <i>Star Wars</i> Secrets, Revealed from the Start - 2026-05-16 11:21
- Evidence that Neanderthals Practiced Dentistry, Successfully - 2026-05-16 11:16
- Embroidered Everyday Objects by Ulla-Stina Wikander - 2026-05-16 08:06
NPR
- One clinic tracks the heavy toll Trump's immigration crackdown takes on mental health - 2026-05-17 06:00
- The foreign fighters who helped topple Assad — and why China worries about them - 2026-05-17 04:02
- New burn bans and Trump's battle with immigration and DEI are impacting forest fires - 2026-05-17 04:00
- How a CEO and Trump donor is weaponizing tariffs against his rivals - 2026-05-17 04:00
- New York Magazine reviewing work of writer facing plagiarism allegations - 2026-05-16 23:23
jacobin
- Russia’s Antiwar Prisoners Are Outcasts in Their Own Land - 2026-05-16 11:52
- Why Capitalism’s Origins Matter - 2026-05-16 10:56
- Anyone Noting Israel’s Crimes Will Be Accused of “Blood Libel” - 2026-05-16 09:57
- We Need to Move Beyond Robot Doomerism - 2026-05-16 08:57
- Scotland Has No Escape Route From Britain’s Political Crisis - 2026-05-16 07:56
africa is a country
- How to build a just green future - 2026-05-15 07:41
- Who is an Arab? - 2026-05-14 14:53
- Now what? - 2026-05-13 10:38
- The price of survival - 2026-05-12 21:57
- Art under seige - 2026-05-12 09:10
404media
- Scientists Discover Strange New Crystal Formed by Nuclear Blast - 2026-05-16 08:00
- Tech Companies to Discuss Iran's Future During 'Private Conference' at Uber HQ - 2026-05-15 16:17
- ArXiv to Ban Researchers for a Year if They Submit AI Slop - 2026-05-15 10:52
- Behind the Blog: New Music and a Crash Out - 2026-05-15 10:19
- Mayo Clinic is Using AI to Listen to Emergency Room Visits - 2026-05-15 08:00
techdirt
- This Week In Techdirt History: May 10th – 16th - 2026-05-16 14:00
- Developer Promises To Keep Failed Online Game Servers Up: Art Deserves To Be Preserved - 2026-05-15 21:39
- Why The US Can’t Adopt Ukraine’s Innovative Approach To Unmanned Warfare Systems - 2026-05-15 17:24
- Let’s Help Children, Not Trial Lawyers - 2026-05-15 15:27
- Appeals Court Upholds Block Of ICE’s BS ‘Seven Day Notice’ Detention Center Inspection Policy - 2026-05-15 13:03
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
- Stunning 150-million-year-old stegosaur skull rewrites dinosaur evolution - 2026-05-17 01:38
- Lost 1,200-year-old manuscript contains the first English poem - 2026-05-17 01:22
- New study debunks the biggest fear about yo-yo dieting - 2026-05-17 01:02
- Scientists discover why some cancers survive chemotherapy - 2026-05-16 23:23
- Scientists warn that the world’s rivers are running out of oxygen - 2026-05-16 22:35
space.com
- Get $341 off the limited X edition of the Vaonis Vespera II at Walmart - 2026-05-16 13:00
- With the Vespera III and Vespera Pro 2, telescope-maker Vaonis unveils its sharpest optics yet - 2026-05-16 12:00
- This Week In Space podcast: Episode 210 — ESCAPADES at Mars - 2026-05-16 09:43
- New moon of May 2026 brings stunning views of the Milky Way, Venus and Mars - 2026-05-16 08:00
- NASA's Psyche spacecraft is flying to a metal asteroid. So, why did it just visit Mars? - 2026-05-16 07:00
space news
- NASA releases final RFP for Mars communications orbiter - 2026-05-16 17:33
- York Space defends growth strategy as SDA programs are reshaped - 2026-05-16 16:55
- Space Force awards Northrop Grumman $398 million satellite contract - 2026-05-16 09:40
- SpaceX launches CRS-34 cargo mission to ISS - 2026-05-15 18:27
- Starlink Mobile challengers back proposed telco-led D2D joint venture - 2026-05-15 17:06
phys.org
- AI guardians: Bridging digital innovation and sustainability for cleaner water - 2026-05-16 18:00
- Consumers willing to pay more for lobster harvested with ropeless technology, study finds - 2026-05-16 16:30
- Hidden small RNA in cholera bacterium helps determine whether it can infect humans - 2026-05-16 16:00
- How the world can avoid millions going hungry when supply chains collapse - 2026-05-16 14:30
- Humpback whale released after spectacular rescue effort found dead off Denmark - 2026-05-16 14:04
onion latest
- Senators Vote To Withhold Own Pay During Government Shutdowns - 2026-05-16 08:00
- Commencement Speaker Addresses Impenetrable Cloud Of Vape Smoke - 2026-05-16 08:00
- Study: Most Men Believe They Could Seduce Bear If Life Depended On It - 2026-05-15 14:40
- Study Finds Neanderthals Performed Dentistry - 2026-05-15 11:36
- Aaron Petrov - 2026-05-15 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