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
- Ultra-Processed Foods Should Be Treated More Like Cigarettes Than Food, Study Says - 2026-02-03 15:30
- NASA Delays Artemis II To March - 2026-02-03 14:00
- Google Plots Big Expansion in India as US Restricts Visas - 2026-02-03 13:02
- 'Vibe Coding Kills Open Source' - 2026-02-03 12:01
- YouTube Kills Background Playback on Third-Party Mobile Browsers - 2026-02-03 11:00
hackaday
- Rewinding a Car Alternator for 240 Volt - 2026-02-03 15:00
- Ysgrifennu Côd yn Gymraeg (Writing Code in Welsh) - 2026-02-03 13:30
- The Surprising Hackability Of A Knock-Off Chinese Toy Camera - 2026-02-03 12:00
- The Graph Theory of Circuit Sculptures - 2026-02-03 10:30
- After 30 Years, Virtual Boy Gets its Chance to Shine - 2026-02-03 09:00
neatorama
- Slave Leia/Sally and Jabba the Oogie - 2026-02-03 14:29
- The Clever Way K-Pop Makes Two Languages Cool - 2026-02-03 14:26
- The Last Soldier of the French and Indian War May Also Be the Oldest Photo Subject - 2026-02-03 11:36
- Rare Disease Keeps Cat From Growing - 2026-02-03 11:30
- The Smithsonian Guide to Celebrating America's 250th Anniversary - 2026-02-02 16:59
NPR
- Disney names Josh D'Amaro as its new CEO - 2026-02-03 15:36
- Syria, once home to a large Jewish community, takes steps to return property to Jews - 2026-02-03 14:11
- NASA delays the launch of Artemis II lunar mission by at least a month - 2026-02-03 14:03
- The U.K. investigates its ex-ambassador to the U.S. over alleged leaks to Epstein - 2026-02-03 13:50
- What we know about Savannah Guthrie's missing mother - 2026-02-03 12:25
jacobin
- Trump’s SEC May Tee Up a Repeat of the 2008 Financial Crisis - 2026-02-03 10:33
- Fifty Years Ago, the Supreme Court Said Money Is Speech - 2026-02-03 09:30
- Minneapolis City Councilor Robin Wonsley on Fighting ICE - 2026-02-03 07:58
- What New York Tenants Are Building Beyond the Courtroom - 2026-02-03 05:19
- Single-Payer Champion Abdul El-Sayed Is Running for Senate - 2026-02-03 03:52
africa is a country
- Repression by other means - 2026-02-03 04:30
- Who gets to tell the history of Mau Mau? - 2026-02-02 05:45
- What Kwame Nkrumah knew about profit shifting - 2026-01-30 18:00
- Labor without boundaries - 2026-01-29 06:00
- When charity poses for a Grammy - 2026-01-28 06:00
404media
- Hackers and Trolls Target Wave of ICE Spotting Apps - 2026-02-03 09:33
- Wedding Photo Booth Company Exposes Customers’ Drunken Photos - 2026-02-03 08:00
- DOJ Released Unredacted Nude Images in Epstein Files - 2026-02-02 09:39
- Our Zine About ICE Surveillance Is Here - 2026-02-02 09:02
- Privacy Telecom ‘Cape’ Introduces ‘Disappearing Call Logs’ That Delete Every 24 Hours - 2026-02-02 08:00
techdirt
- Techdirt Podcast Episode 442: Does AI Remove Or Provide User Agency? - 2026-02-03 15:30
- ICE Director Says Officers Are Now Allowed To Make Arrests Without Warrants - 2026-02-03 14:23
- Turns Out They Didn’t Really Want You To Bring Your Whole Self To Work - 2026-02-03 12:55
- Daily Deal: The Complete Raspberry Pi And Alexa A-Z Bundle - 2026-02-03 12:50
- MN Police Chief Intervenes To Free A US Citizen Arrested By Federal Officers - 2026-02-03 11:28
the register personal tech
- HP CEO prints final page after six years, moves to PayPal - 2026-02-03 07:54
- X marks the raid: French cops swoop on Musk's Paris ops - 2026-02-03 07:09
- Let them eat Pi: RAM shortage bumps Raspberry prices as much as $60 - 2026-02-02 16:26
- US TikTok service restored after cloud 'that doesn't go down' went down - 2026-02-02 07:03
- Microsoft's Sinofsky saw Surface fail coming – then hit up Epstein for advice on exit - 2026-02-02 05:30
sciencedaily
- New catalyst turns carbon dioxide into clean fuel source - 2026-02-03 05:08
- Scientists just mapped the hidden structure holding the Universe together - 2026-02-03 02:48
- This brain discovery is forcing scientists to rethink how memory works - 2026-02-03 01:17
- Even remote Pacific fish are full of microplastics - 2026-02-03 01:02
- Scientists discover protein that could heal leaky gut and ease depression - 2026-02-02 10:37
space.com
- NASA's Perseverance Mars rover completes its 1st drive planned by AI - 2026-02-03 16:00
- SpaceX grounds its Falcon 9 rocket after a problem with its upper stage. Will the Crew-12 astronaut mission be affected? - 2026-02-03 14:37
- 'It's insightful, it's informative.' Neil deGrasse Tyson on his 5-hour backyard audio chat with William Shatner (interview) - 2026-02-03 14:00
- 'Yes Bueno!': The new Kinder Bueno Super Bowl LX ad is sweet sci-fi goodness (video) - 2026-02-03 13:00
- March full moon 2025: When, where and how to see the Worm Moon - 2026-02-03 12:00
space news
- Flight heritage? It isn’t what you think - 2026-02-03 08:00
- SpaceX pauses Falcon 9 launches after upper stage anomaly - 2026-02-03 06:29
- Artemis 2 slips to March - 2026-02-03 05:43
- SpaceX acquires xAI in bid to develop orbital data centers - 2026-02-02 16:39
- At Blue Origin, Hegseth escalates criticism of legacy defense procurement - 2026-02-02 16:29
phys.org
- New framework maps seven pillars for judging research trustworthiness - 2026-02-03 16:40
- One-of-a-kind 'plasma tunnel' recreates extreme conditions spacecraft face upon reentry - 2026-02-03 16:10
- Under snowpacks, microbes drive a winter-to-spring nitrogen pulse, study finds - 2026-02-03 15:40
- Global plastics treaty negotiations: Success is still possible, researchers argue - 2026-02-03 15:29
- Agave or bust! Mexican long-nosed bats head farther north in search of sweet nectar - 2026-02-03 15:20
onion latest
- Conservatives Boycott All Forms Of Entertainment - 2026-02-03 08:51
- Mia Cutler and Xavier Carrasco - 2026-02-03 08:00
- The Beginning Of The End - 2026-02-03 08:00
- New Manning Begins Budding From Archie’s Back - 2026-02-03 08:00
- Funeral Canceled Due To Runaway Corpse - 2026-02-03 08:00
changelogs
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