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
- Code.org President Steps Down Citing 'Upending' of CS By AI - 2026-02-21 14:35
- T2 Linux Restores XAA In Xorg, Making 2D Graphics Fast Again - 2026-02-21 13:35
- The Salvation Army Opens a Digital Thrift Store On Roblox - 2026-02-21 12:34
- Researchers Discover Ancient Bacteria Strain That Resists 10 Modern Antibiotics - 2026-02-21 11:34
- Is 'Brain Rot' Real? How Too Much Time Online Can Affect Your Mind. - 2026-02-21 10:34
hackaday
- Retrotechtacular: Bleeding-Edge Memory Devices of 1959 - 2026-02-21 12:00
- In Praise of the Proof of Concept - 2026-02-21 09:00
- Love Complex Automata? Don’t Miss The Archer - 2026-02-21 06:00
- MicroGPT Lets You Peek with Your Browser - 2026-02-21 03:00
- Electric Jeep With Modified Prius Hardware - 2026-02-21 00:00
neatorama
- Dorito, the Unbelievably Big-eyed Kitten - 2026-02-21 14:25
- Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Bar Soap - 2026-02-21 08:20
- Tony the Frog is an Escape Artist - 2026-02-20 20:37
- "Smart Underwear" Can Measure Human Farts - 2026-02-20 18:18
- This Purse Looks Like a Dumpling - 2026-02-20 10:51
NPR
- Mississippi health system shuts down clinics statewide after ransomware attack - 2026-02-21 14:52
- Blizzard conditions and high winds forecast for NYC, East coast - 2026-02-21 14:45
- Norway's Johannes Klæbo is new Winter Olympics king - 2026-02-21 14:42
- Vietnam Veterans sue to block proposed 'Independence Arch' near Arlington National Cemetery - 2026-02-21 13:27
- Trump to raise global tariffs to 15% - 2026-02-21 12:57
jacobin
- How to Build Pro-Worker Governance in Cleveland - 2026-02-21 06:43
- Cuba’s Revolution Always Had an Internationalist Spirit - 2026-02-21 05:49
- Israel’s Economy Has Problems, but It’s Not Collapsing Yet - 2026-02-21 04:44
- Survivor Has Become a Bleak Mirror of Modern Capitalism - 2026-02-21 03:46
- The Right’s Civilizational New World Order - 2026-02-21 02:46
africa is a country
- Atayese - 2026-02-20 17:30
- Bread or Messi? - 2026-02-20 05:45
- The roots of our storytelling - 2026-02-18 06:00
- Where have the Chapungu gone? - 2026-02-17 04:30
- Whose story gets to be heard? - 2026-02-16 05:00
404media
- At the World’s Largest General Science Meeting, Surviving Trump Is the Topic - 2026-02-21 08:00
- The U.S. Military Is Reviving Microbes from 40,000-Year-Old Ice - 2026-02-20 11:38
- Behind the Blog: Nothing to Hide Here - 2026-02-20 10:54
- Man Opposing Data Center Arrested for Speaking Slightly Too Long - 2026-02-19 13:23
- We Have Learned Nothing About Amplifying Morons - 2026-02-19 11:38
techdirt
- This Week In Techdirt History: February 15th – 21st - 2026-02-21 14:00
- Court Orders Slavery Exhibit At George Washington’s House Restored After Trump Admin Pulled It Down - 2026-02-20 21:39
- Open Letter To Tech Companies: Protect Your Users From Lawless DHS Subpoenas - 2026-02-20 17:47
- Trump Fires Court-Appointed US Attorney Hours After It Replaces His Illegally-Appointed Former Campaign Lawyer - 2026-02-20 15:45
- Bondi Bragged About Forcing Facebook To Censor Speech. Now FIRE Is Suing. - 2026-02-20 14:16
the register personal tech
- Ofcom's grumble-o-meter lights up for EE, TalkTalk, Vodafone - 2026-02-21 02:27
- Desktop tech sent to prison for an education on strange places to put tattoos - 2026-02-20 01:30
- OpenClaw is the most fun I've had with a computer in 50 years - 2026-02-19 01:34
- Qualcomm set to triumph in UK smartphone ‘patent tax’ case - 2026-02-18 00:09
- Gemini lies to user about health info, says it wanted to make him feel better - 2026-02-17 16:59
sciencedaily
- “Celtic curse” hotspots found in Scotland and Ireland with 1 in 54 at risk - 2026-02-21 08:38
- Scientists discover why high altitude protects against diabetes - 2026-02-21 07:43
- Ultramarathons may damage red blood cells and accelerate aging - 2026-02-21 06:59
- Scientists may have found the holy grail of quantum computing - 2026-02-21 06:10
- Generative AI analyzes medical data faster than human research teams - 2026-02-21 05:17
space.com
- NASA's Artemis 2 moon rocket has a new problem. 'This will almost assuredly impact the March launch window.' - 2026-02-21 11:11
- This Week In Space podcast: Episode 198 — A Dragonfly on Titan - 2026-02-21 09:14
- Canon PowerShot V1 review - 2026-02-21 09:00
- What's the point of a space station around the moon? - 2026-02-21 08:00
- Can you really survive on Mars? What science fiction gets wrong about off-world living - 2026-02-21 07:00
space news
- NASA preparing for Artemis 2 rollback to fix upper stage problem - 2026-02-21 10:22
- Bruno says he joined Blue Origin to work on ‘urgent’ national security projects - 2026-02-20 20:02
- Aalto plots Australia base to boost planned high-altitude pseudo satellite service - 2026-02-20 16:04
- NASA targeting March 6 for Artemis 2 launch - 2026-02-20 12:40
- Boeing to boost production of missile-tracking sensors for military satellites - 2026-02-20 07:00
phys.org
- A trillionth of a second: How lasers may sharpen next-gen cryo-ET microscopy - 2026-02-21 15:00
- Metamaterial image sensor keeps colors clear even under oblique light - 2026-02-21 15:00
- Antarctic drilling peers deep into ice shelf's past - 2026-02-21 14:30
- Water is bed bugs' kryptonite: The parasites avoid wet surfaces at all costs - 2026-02-21 14:30
- From pets to precision medicine: Study finds striking parallels in feline and human cancers - 2026-02-21 13:30
onion latest
- Potomac River Flooded With 240 Million Gallons Of Sewage - 2026-02-20 15:22
- Alysa Liu Uses Gold Medal To Gauge Ear - 2026-02-20 13:15
- Trump Suffers Setback Unrelated To Child Rape - 2026-02-20 12:53
- Aide Wearily Begins 5th Explanation Of Why Trump Can’t Pardon Prince Andrew - 2026-02-20 12:44
- Dad Urges Daughter To Show Off High School Spanish With Guy On Street Speaking Spanish - 2026-02-20 12:37
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