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
- Researcher At Russian Plague Laboratory Dies of 'Unknown' Infection - 2026-10-04 20:51
- OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra Gets Frustrated Losing At StarCraft And Decides To Cheat Instead - 2026-10-04 19:51
- How Python Will Test Adding Rust Into CPython - 2026-10-04 16:37
- Radio Broadcasters Support America's 'AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act' - 2026-10-04 15:37
- Disney/Marvel's 'Avengers: Endgame' Beats 'Avatar' as Top-Grossing Film, 'Coyote vs Acme' #1 on Apple TV - 2026-10-04 14:37
hackaday
- Upgrading a Benchtop Laser for Megawatt Power - 2026-10-04 21:00
- Hackaday Links: October 3, 2026 - 2026-10-04 18:00
- Tearing Down a Heavy Oscilloscope - 2026-10-04 15:00
- AVR Laptop Pushes the Limits of 8-Bit - 2026-10-04 12:00
- Motion Control via Belt - 2026-10-04 09:00
neatorama
- The Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards Finalists for 2026 - 2026-10-02 20:10
- Hate, Fear, and Propaganda Are Behind the History of the Witch Hat - 2026-10-02 18:49
- Inventive Household Tools/Sculptures by Drought - 2026-10-02 12:53
- The Murky History of Alaska's Haunted Island - 2026-10-02 07:53
- 2026 Nikon Small World in Motion Winner Now Under Scrutiny - 2026-10-01 21:01
NPR
- Brazil's presidential race heads to Lula–Bolsonaro run-off as right gains ground - 2026-10-04 19:17
- Brazil votes, with Lula facing Bolsonaro's son - 2026-10-04 16:52
- Trump names national intelligence chief Jay Clayton as new AI czar - 2026-10-04 13:36
- Cornell president calls gang rape allegations 'deeply disturbing' - 2026-10-04 10:41
- U.S. Marine arrested for alleged murder of a woman in Okinawa, Japan - 2026-10-04 10:15
jacobin
- Getting Fired from Mother Jones Made Michael Moore - 2026-10-04 08:46
- Reckoning With the Failures of Tech Worker Organizing - 2026-10-04 08:00
- Trump’s Politically Driven Deportations Are Quietly Rising - 2026-10-04 07:30
- The West Is Only Helping Putin Consolidate Support - 2026-10-04 07:00
- Congress Must Investigate War Profiteers Once Again - 2026-10-03 08:46
404media
- Our Solar System Is Terminally Unstable and Will Be Completely Destroyed, Study Finds - 2026-10-03 06:00
- Federal Judge Rules a Flock Search Was ‘Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance’ and Unconstitutional - 2026-10-02 15:49
- Podcast: The FBI Was Hacked. We’ve Seen the Data - 2026-10-02 12:37
- Behind the Blog: Freaking Out - 2026-10-02 11:02
- 'Everything but censorship' - 2026-10-01 09:31
techdirt
- Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt - 2026-10-04 14:00
- This Week In Techdirt History: September 27th – October 3rd - 2026-10-03 14:00
- Koreans Left With Spoiled Food Due To Borked Samsung Firmware Update For ‘Smart’ Fridges - 2026-10-02 21:39
- US Human Rights Record Plummets From An Already Dismal Starting Point - 2026-10-02 17:05
- Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Going To The Ballot Bot - 2026-10-02 15:07
sciencedaily
- Easing constipation: A 20-minute walk can get your gut moving almost immediately - 2026-10-04 20:58
- A meteor hit Oklahoma 100 million years later than scientists thought - 2026-10-04 07:41
- Scientists find a surprising clue to why the universe’s expansion doesn’t add up - 2026-10-04 07:05
- A forgotten 30-year forest experiment just delivered a huge surprise - 2026-10-04 06:50
- Your gut bacteria may reveal how fast your brain is aging - 2026-10-04 06:28
space news
- World Space Week 2026 Celebrates the “Rocket Revolution” - 2026-10-01 10:06
- Rethinking risk with electronics for space - 2026-10-01 09:51
- LMT Group and Novaspace partner to develop strategy for 5G/6G satellite communications hub in Latvia - 2026-10-01 09:40
- China launches Guowang, Yaogan-40 satellites, sets up busy Q4 manifest - 2026-10-01 07:46
- Galileo Space Is Building Satellites That Turn Signals Into Answers in Orbit - 2026-09-30 19:24
phys.org
- Nature-strip gardens are a paradise for pollinators in your street - 2026-10-04 19:30
- A climate threat may lurk beneath Antarctica's last great unknown - 2026-10-04 18:00
- Nanoneedle arrays map RNA in fresh tissue without sequencing or amplification - 2026-10-04 16:00
- Informal businesses belong in entrepreneurial ecosystems, review argues - 2026-10-04 16:00
- Too many males to choose from can overwhelm female frogs—and change who gets to mate - 2026-10-04 15:20
onion latest
- Baby Painted Purple For Vikings Game - 2026-10-04 12:31
- Chump To Receive No Compensation For Rescuing Children From Fire - 2026-10-02 15:15
- ‘Digger’ Prosthetic Artist Recalls Grueling Process Of Having Tom Cruise Sit Still - 2026-10-02 08:00
- Unsupportive Parents Eat Crow After Son Makes It As Beetlejuice Impersonator - 2026-10-02 08:00
- Tips For Increasing Your Fiber Intake - 2026-10-02 08:00
changelogs
September 2026
2025-09-25 - removed space.com feed from the ticker links. Their site updated and the feed.xml is empty. Now their feeds link is a pointless flyout tab at the top of their page.
2026-09-14 - r&d - Posted Part 1 of the Sanyo S-540 worklog to the Speaker Design section.
2025-09-09 - removed Register Personal Tech feed from the ticker links. Played with fonts and layout, decided against the changes and rolled them back.
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