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
- FSF Shares Update on 'LibrePhone' and New Automated Site Monitoring Tool - 2026-07-04 13:34
- AOL's Owner Bending Spoons Hits Wall Street with $1.7 billion IPO - 2026-07-04 12:34
- EchoStar's US Satellite Pay-TV Provider Dish DBS Files for Bankruptcy - 2026-07-04 11:34
- Decades-Old Bash Tricks Expose AI Coding Agents To Supply Chain Attacks - 2026-07-04 10:34
- What Is a Quantum Computer Good For? Absolutely Nothing - Yet - 2026-07-04 09:34
hackaday
- Time Never Moves Slowly With This Clock - 2026-07-04 12:00
- Yesterday’s Technology, Re-engineered Today - 2026-07-04 09:00
- Five Solar Air Heating Methods Tested - 2026-07-04 06:00
- Warp Point: a Web Ring for Gaming Sites Built for 2026 - 2026-07-04 03:00
- Building A Wireless Fingerprint Authorization Device - 2026-07-04 00:00
neatorama
- A New Game Recreates Real-Life CAPTCHA Miseries - 2026-07-04 11:16
- Which Animal Should Be the Symbol of the US? - 2026-07-04 08:15
- Expanding on the Story of US Independence, Warts and All - 2026-07-03 12:22
- The Tuba Museum Exists - 2026-07-03 11:17
- The Outsized Role of Irish Immigrants in the American Revolution - 2026-07-03 09:50
NPR
- Washington's July 4 parade is off. The fireworks are still on - 2026-07-04 11:42
- Move over Chutes & Ladders: Schisto & Ladders has educational value plus worms - 2026-07-04 10:51
- China's military promotes 2 new generals after anti-corruption purge thins ranks - 2026-07-04 09:07
- Opinion: America is still a work in progress - 2026-07-04 07:00
- 'Cautiously optimistic': Swing voters describe their view of America at 250 - 2026-07-04 04:00
jacobin
- In Defense of the Fourth of July - 2026-07-04 11:32
- The 250-Year Decline of American Exceptionalism - 2026-07-04 07:55
- Burn the Constitution Once Again - 2026-07-04 07:50
- Zohran Mamdani on the Promise of America - 2026-07-04 07:45
- The Founders’ Own Second Thoughts - 2026-07-04 07:40
404media
- SOLVED: The Case of the Missing Megalodon - 2026-07-04 05:00
- Behind the Blog: With Blogs Like These, Who Needs a Private Jet - 2026-07-03 05:00
- Companies Are Throttling Employees’ AI Use Because It’s Too Expensive - 2026-07-02 05:00
- Podcast: The AI Tokenpocalypse Is Here - 2026-07-01 15:40
- Scientists Asked AI to Impersonate 112 Public Figures. What Happened Next Is a ‘Dire’ Warning - 2026-07-01 13:00
techdirt
- This Week In Techdirt History: June 28th – July 4th - 2026-07-04 14:00
- Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Making The Best Of A Ban Situation - 2026-07-03 14:05
- The Nintendo/Palworld Patent Suit Appears To Be Heading For A Muted Conclusion - 2026-07-02 21:39
- Sotomayor Trashes SCOTUS Majority For Cherry-Picking Qualified Immunity Cases To Reverse - 2026-07-02 17:04
- T-Mobile Jacks Up Prices For Everybody, Ignores Years Of ‘Uncarrier’ Promises - 2026-07-02 15:05
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 make quantum time flow backward in stunning physics breakthrough - 2026-07-03 04:34
- The real cause of a common stroke may have been missed for decades - 2026-07-03 03:42
- A strange LIGO signal could reveal the missing link behind dark matter - 2026-07-02 22:56
- Scientists stunned as bumble bees solve a classic intelligence test - 2026-07-02 21:53
- Scientists discover a protein switch that burns fat and blocks new fat cells - 2026-07-02 19:22
space.com
- America 250: From 1776 to the moon and beyond (A Space.com series) - 2026-07-04 13:18
- This Week In Space podcast: Episode 217 — America in Space - 2026-07-04 11:26
- Human flight was still 7 years away in 1776. Now, we're headed back to the moon - 2026-07-04 09:00
- What did the night sky look like on the 1st Independence Day 250 years ago? - 2026-07-04 07:00
- 30 years on, "Independence Day" still proves the versatility of the original "The War of the Worlds" - 2026-07-04 06:00
space news
- GAO flags satellite costs, launch risks in Space Force portfolio - 2026-07-04 05:17
- Pegasus launches Swift reboost mission - 2026-07-03 15:55
- Chinese satellite manufacturer Hongqing raises $191 million - 2026-07-03 08:10
- Perovskite solar panel startup Verde Technologies shifts focus to space - 2026-07-02 14:27
- Isar Aerospace to launch German-built Planet imaging satellite - 2026-07-02 13:20
phys.org
- Ancient teeth from Siberia rewrite the plague's timeline, dating back to over 5,500 years ago - 2026-07-04 13:40
- Common nanostructures may explain shared photoproperties in two widespread dark materials - 2026-07-04 13:00
- BC and Alberta fall behind on fracking safety distances for residents - 2026-07-04 12:00
- Greenland meltwater adds to AMOC weakening, but updated model finds no tipping point in sight - 2026-07-04 12:00
- A rare dinosaur fossil from Antarctica is found tucked away in a drawer - 2026-07-04 11:00
onion latest
- Patriot Tears Up While Pretending Washington Monument Is His Penis - 2026-07-04 08:00
- Breaking: Salute The General! - 2026-07-04 08:00
- Nation Turns 250 Despite Presence Of Irish - 2026-07-04 08:00
- Founding Fathers Smile Down On America From Outer Space - 2026-07-04 08:00
- A Declaration Of Independence From The Rest Of The World - 2026-07-04 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