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
- Tech Firms Aren't Just Encouraging Their Workers To Use AI. They're Enforcing It. - 2026-02-25 16:30
- Americans Are Destroying Flock Surveillance Cameras - 2026-02-25 15:00
- Xbox Co-founder Says Microsoft is Quietly Sunsetting the Platform - 2026-02-25 14:01
- Hacker Used Anthropic's Claude To Steal Sensitive Mexican Data - 2026-02-25 13:00
- DVD Sales Decline Slows Sharply as Gen Z Discovers the Appeal of Physical Media - 2026-02-25 12:00
hackaday
- Random Number Generator Uses Camera Noise - 2026-02-25 15:00
- Stop Ironing 3D Prints - 2026-02-25 13:30
- Building An Interactive Climbing Wall - 2026-02-25 12:00
- Control Your Smart Home With Trek-Inspired Comm Badge - 2026-02-25 10:30
- What One-Winged Squids Can Teach The Airship Renaissance - 2026-02-25 09:00
neatorama
- What Made the Lubbock Lights Exceptional Among UFOs - 2026-02-25 10:06
- French Design Meets Sustainability in L'Oeuf Electrique - 2026-02-25 09:09
- What Hypnosis is Really About - 2026-02-24 18:59
- Scientists Discover Fossilized Anus - 2026-02-24 11:44
- Despite the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo Did Not Consider Himself a Painter - 2026-02-24 09:54
NPR
- Decades after being blocked from the Little League World Series, a Black team is honored - 2026-02-25 17:08
- Supreme Court appears split in tax foreclosure case - 2026-02-25 17:05
- Top House Dem wants Justice Department to explain missing Trump-related Epstein files - 2026-02-25 16:00
- ICE won't be at polling places this year, a Trump DHS official promises - 2026-02-25 15:38
- Cuba says it killed 4 people aboard a Florida-registered speedboat who fired on soldiers - 2026-02-25 15:30
jacobin
- Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die Is the Burned-Out End of Something - 2026-02-25 08:41
- Kathy Hochul Is Failing on Climate - 2026-02-25 07:32
- Cuba Is Not Alone - 2026-02-25 06:47
- Pay Close Attention to Trump’s Affordability Rhetoric - 2026-02-25 05:14
- Beating Trump Requires a Stronger Populist Agenda From Dems - 2026-02-25 04:03
africa is a country
- Remember AFCON? - 2026-02-25 04:00
- We, the illegals of France - 2026-02-24 03:30
- Betraying Abuja’s green soul - 2026-02-23 06:00
- Atayese - 2026-02-20 17:30
- Bread or Messi? - 2026-02-20 05:45
404media
- Amazon Change Means Wishlists Might Expose Your Address - 2026-02-25 14:08
- Podcast: Ring Is Just Getting Started - 2026-02-25 09:19
- FBI Got Grok to Hand Over Prompts Used to Create Nonconsensual Porn - 2026-02-25 09:16
- What’s the Point of School When AI Can Do Your Homework? - 2026-02-25 08:41
- This App Warns You if Someone Is Wearing Smart Glasses Nearby - 2026-02-24 09:40
techdirt
- Hackers Expose The Massive Surveillance Stack Hiding Inside Your “Age Verification” Check - 2026-02-25 17:18
- Techdirt Podcast Episode 445: The Vision For The Decentralized Internet - 2026-02-25 15:30
- Administration Says DHS Can Demand Social Media Info From Legal Immigrants And US Citizens - 2026-02-25 14:12
- Tech Companies Shouldn’t Be Bullied Into Doing Surveillance - 2026-02-25 12:55
- Daily Deal: CyberTraining 365 Online Academy - 2026-02-25 12:51
the register personal tech
- Hardly anybody bought Samsung's last smartphones for AI. It hopes this year's models change that - 2026-02-25 12:00
- Firefox 148 adds master switch for browser bot bother - 2026-02-25 09:31
- Recycling biz reckons AI features are destroying smartphone resale values - 2026-02-25 05:22
- HP says memory’s contribution to PC costs just doubled to 35 percent - 2026-02-24 22:29
- 'Merica-made Mac Minis marked for manufacturing - 2026-02-24 13:26
sciencedaily
- Just two days of oatmeal cut bad cholesterol by 10% - 2026-02-25 10:37
- New drug target discovered for devastating “brain on fire” disease - 2026-02-25 10:08
- A giant weak spot in Earth’s magnetic field is now half the size of Europe - 2026-02-25 09:45
- NASA study finds ancient life could survive 50 million years in Martian ice - 2026-02-25 08:13
- A simple chemical tweak could supercharge quantum computers - 2026-02-25 05:43
space.com
- Antigravity A1 drone review - 2026-02-25 15:01
- Black holes! Supernovas! Merging galaxies! Oh my! Largest radio survey of the cosmos ever reveals 13.7 million powerful cosmic objects and events - 2026-02-25 15:00
- 'Invincible' Season 4: Release date, plot, and everything we know - 2026-02-25 14:00
- NASA reveals the astronaut who required 1st medical evacuation from the International Space Station - 2026-02-25 12:32
- What to expect during each phase of the 'blood moon' total lunar eclipse on March 3 - 2026-02-25 12:00
space news
- Seraphim closes second early-stage space fund above $100 million target - 2026-02-25 18:01
- Golden Dome to require unprecedented coordination between U.S. combatant commands - 2026-02-25 15:19
- Valve malfunction blamed for failure of Indian satellite to raise its orbit - 2026-02-25 11:45
- The future of astronomy is both on Earth and in space - 2026-02-25 08:00
- In space traffic coordination, the biggest challenge may be coordination - 2026-02-25 05:28
phys.org
- Opinion: Surviving the extreme temperatures of the climate crisis calls for a revolution in home and building design - 2026-02-25 18:10
- Children who are not friends connect better through play when given a goal, study shows - 2026-02-25 18:10
- Apollo moon rocks reveal lunar magnetic field was briefly stronger than Earth's - 2026-02-25 18:00
- Boat traffic alters marine megafauna behavior, stress and population trends, global analysis finds - 2026-02-25 17:40
- Lab tests investigate how house fire emissions differ from forest fires - 2026-02-25 17:20
onion latest
- Grandson Of Reese’s Cup Inventor Blasts Hershey’s Recipe Change - 2026-02-25 12:29
- ‘Michael’ Director Reveals Biopic Will Fully Confront Allegations Against Kevin Spacey - 2026-02-25 12:10
- Local Dad Really Banking On Sports To Instill Core Values In Children - 2026-02-25 11:07
- Mexican Cartel Leader Killing Unleashes Wave Of Violence - 2026-02-25 11:01
- Bodybuilder Films Self Eating Chicken To Make Sure Form Correct - 2026-02-25 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