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
- Google Announces Gemma 4 Open AI Models, Switches To Apache 2.0 License - 2026-04-02 13:00
- Artemis II Astronauts Have 'Two Microsoft Outlooks' and Neither Work - 2026-04-02 12:00
- Nvidia Rolls Out Its Fix For PC Gaming's 'Compiling Shaders' Wait Times - 2026-04-02 11:00
- Steam On Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% In March - 2026-04-02 10:00
- Group Pushing Age Verification Requirements For AI Sneakily Backed By OpenAI - 2026-04-02 06:00
hackaday
- Sega Meganet: Online Gaming In 1990 - 2026-04-02 12:00
- Anything Can Be A Router, If You Try Hard Enough - 2026-04-02 10:30
- Ask Hackaday: How Much Compute is Enough? - 2026-04-02 09:00
- Pixel Camera Puts Lo-Fi Images In The Palm Of Your Hand - 2026-04-02 06:00
- Post-Failure Autopsy and Analysis of an LFP Battery - 2026-04-02 03:00
neatorama
- Wind Phones Help People Process Grief - 2026-04-02 08:28
- Electrically-Charged Crystals Win the 2026 Dance Your PhD Competition - 2026-04-02 04:41
- A Gallery of Cute Cats Who Got Themselves Into Tight Spots - 2026-04-01 20:22
- Geckos Have Superpowers Besides Selling You Insurance - 2026-04-01 12:16
- That Time Neil Armstrong Almost Died in Space During the Gemini 8 Mission - 2026-04-01 08:56
NPR
- EPA flags microplastics, pharmaceuticals as chemicals of concern in drinking water - 2026-04-02 13:15
- Attorney General Pam Bondi out at DOJ - 2026-04-02 12:35
- Ziggy Stardust and Hacky Sack: What life was like the last time we went to the moon - 2026-04-02 11:41
- 'Stay Alive,' about daily life in Nazi Berlin, shows how easy it is to just go along - 2026-04-02 08:31
- Trump makes case for Iran war. And, SCOTUS leans toward upholding birthright citizenship - 2026-04-02 06:31
jacobin
- The War on Iran Is More Expensive Than You Think - 2026-04-02 08:10
- Chapo’s Comic Book Is a Riveting Political Horror Show - 2026-04-02 07:34
- New Yorkers Want to Tax the Rich. Julie Menin Doesn’t Care. - 2026-04-02 06:38
- The Biggest US Meatpacking Strike in 40 Years Is Still On - 2026-04-02 04:50
- Dems Claim to Want a Hasan Piker — Then Try to Cancel Him - 2026-04-02 04:01
africa is a country
- In Guadalajara, we found joy - 2026-04-02 05:00
- À Guadalajara, nous avons trouvé la joie - 2026-04-02 04:59
- Being right at the wrong time - 2026-04-01 08:00
- Could expanding protected land undermine biodiversity? - 2026-03-31 17:30
- Where mining and conservation meet - 2026-03-31 17:30
404media
- Journalist Sues FAA Over Drone No Fly Zone Designed to Prevent Filming ICE - 2026-04-02 10:04
- Artemis II Astronauts Have ‘Two Microsoft Outlooks’ and Neither Work - 2026-04-02 09:50
- A Secure Chat App’s Encryption Is So Bad It Is ‘Meaningless’ - 2026-04-02 08:47
- Scientists Create Plant That Produces Ayahuasca, Shrooms, and Toad Psychedelics All At Once - 2026-04-01 13:00
- I Tried to Find the ‘Arousal Intelligence’ In An Animated, Augmented Reality Porn Star - 2026-04-01 08:10
techdirt
- Meta Caves To The MPAA Over Instagram’s Use Of ‘PG-13,’ Ending A Dispute That Was Silly From The Start - 2026-04-02 13:04
- Daily Deal: Opusonix Pro Subscription - 2026-04-02 12:59
- Trump’s Anti-Migrant Surge Is Now A Mudslide That’s Wiping Out What’s Left Of His DOJ - 2026-04-02 11:37
- WSJ: Lobbyists Easily Destroyed Any Semi-Serious Antitrust Enforcers Left In MAGA - 2026-04-02 07:32
- Federal Cyber Experts Thought Microsoft’s Cloud Was “A Pile Of Shit.” They Approved It Anyway. - 2026-04-01 22:14
the register personal tech
- We know what day it is but these Raspberry Pi price hikes are no joke - 2026-04-01 04:28
- Raspberry Pi leans into semiconductors as sales climb – especially in US and China - 2026-03-31 08:45
- Android keyboard ditches keys entirely, predicts what you mean - 2026-03-31 04:27
- UK fines Irish Apple outpost over sanctions-busting payments to Russian dev - 2026-03-30 10:09
- Google is to journalism what Vikings were to monks. Now their man will run the BBC - 2026-03-30 04:03
sciencedaily
- Eating more meat may lower Alzheimer’s risk for some people - 2026-04-02 08:49
- Breakthrough could protect the vision cells that let you see faces and colors - 2026-04-02 08:13
- Earth’s magnetic field went wild 600 million years ago and scientists finally know why - 2026-04-02 07:54
- Ancient bone dice reveal 12,000-year history of gambling in America - 2026-04-02 07:01
- This simple Japanese eating habit could help you live longer without dieting - 2026-04-02 06:03
space.com
- Watch comet C/2026 A1 plunge toward the sun online this week - 2026-04-02 13:00
- 'The universe shall quake in my shadow' — 'Masters of the Universe' looks like the summer's most metal movie - 2026-04-02 12:00
- 'Supergirl' goes full John Wick to save her dog Krypto in new trailer - 2026-04-02 11:00
- Stunning new James Webb Space Telescope images reveal 'hidden' stars being born - 2026-04-02 10:00
- NASA's Artemis 2 moon launch seen from space | Space photo of the day for April 2, 2026 - 2026-04-02 09:00
space news
- Pentagon awards Raytheon $45 million for GPS ground system as program future is reassessed - 2026-04-02 12:17
- Moog Technology Successfully Steers Artemis II Launch - 2026-04-02 09:55
- Carmel Ortiz on the evolving landscape of satellite communications - 2026-04-02 09:42
- Phantom Space buys thermal specialist to support orbital data center push - 2026-04-02 08:06
- Relativity, Hermeus, Astrion and Divergent executives join Fortastra C-suite - 2026-04-02 08:00
phys.org
- Rudeness may be rewarded—as a response to rudeness - 2026-04-02 13:20
- How the octopus uses its 'taste by touch' sensory system to feel out potential mates - 2026-04-02 13:00
- How mitochondria organize our 'second genome' - 2026-04-02 13:00
- Graphene 'nano-aquariums' capture atomic-resolution videos of gold atoms in solvents - 2026-04-02 13:00
- Spectacular fossil treasure trove pushes back origins of complex animals - 2026-04-02 13:00
onion latest
- Artemis II Mission Fails After Astronauts Miss Connection Rocket In Atlanta - 2026-04-02 13:32
- What To Know About ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ - 2026-04-02 11:02
- Jake Paul Hoping To Gain Respect Of Boxing Community With Fight Against World’s Tallest Man - 2026-04-02 08:00
- Mail Carrier Hurt To Learn Residents On His Route Have Been Receiving Electronic Mail - 2026-04-02 08:00
- Analysts Say Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Offers Best Shot At ‘Sex And The City’ Reboot Starring Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - 2026-04-02 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