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
- LZ Experiment Sees Surprising Result In Search For Dark Matter - 2026-09-01 22:30
- GoPro Says It's Moving Into Data Centers As Part of a $285 Million Merger - 2026-09-01 18:00
- Who Is John Ternus, the New Apple CEO? - 2026-09-01 17:00
- Anthropic's Claude Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1 Arrive With a 75% Cost Reduction For Fable Cache Reads - 2026-09-01 16:00
- Dyson Made a Camera-Equipped Toothbrush That Flosses For You - 2026-09-01 15:00
hackaday
- Haiku OS Releases Beta 6 - 2026-09-01 21:00
- Building An Airsoft Claymore Mine - 2026-09-01 18:00
- How Gold Plastic Syndrome is Killing Toys and Game Consoles - 2026-09-01 15:00
- Reactive Heat and Wind Come to VR, Thanks to Smart Plugs - 2026-09-01 13:30
- Hackaday Europe 2026: Playstation 4 to Psychometer - 2026-09-01 12:02
neatorama
- There Is a Rodney Dangerfield Board Game - 2026-09-01 15:09
- The Paradox of Schrödinger’s Gunslinger - 2026-09-01 12:59
- Be My Eyes Connects Blind People with Sighted Volunteers - 2026-09-01 12:34
- Can Food With a Little Mold Be Safe to Eat? - 2026-09-01 08:32
- Coin-Operated Elevators - 2026-09-01 07:53
NPR
- Incumbent Sen. Ed Markey wins Massachusetts' Democratic primary for US Senate - 2026-09-01 19:38
- North Carolina Rep. Chuck Edwards is formally censured over harassment allegations - 2026-09-01 17:18
- Congress averts a government shutdown ahead of the midterms - 2026-09-01 13:06
- ICE says it has enough body cameras now, after series of deadly shootings - 2026-09-01 12:52
- Beloved writer and environmentalist Wendell Berry has died at age 92 - 2026-09-01 08:52
jacobin
- Centrist Democrats Are Trying to Throw the Michigan Race - 2026-09-01 14:57
- The Dog Stars Is a Western in Postapocalyptic Drag - 2026-09-01 10:47
- The Scandal That Could Break the Latin American Far Right - 2026-09-01 10:03
- The Human Soul of the Fight to Control AI - 2026-09-01 09:10
- The Israel Lobby Is Out of Control - 2026-09-01 08:11
404media
- Oklahoma Tells City It Can't Charge $17,125.44 for a Records Request Related to Data Center Arrest - 2026-09-01 08:49
- This 'Digital Camouflage' Shirt Confuses AI-Powered Surveillance Cameras - 2026-09-01 08:27
- How Cyber Sleuths Tracked a Nigerian Scammer to His Doorstep - 2026-08-31 07:21
- Google's Calling Lake Ontario 'Lake America' Now - 2026-08-30 08:20
- Thousands of Interstellar Objects May Be Lurking in Our Solar System - 2026-08-29 05:00
techdirt
- Senators Call For RFK Jr.’s Resignation After More Emails Suggest He Lied In His Confirmation Hearings - 2026-09-01 22:08
- Monitor Makers Start Pummeling Owners With Annoying Ads, ‘Smart’ Spyware - 2026-09-01 17:18
- ICE, CBP Officers Prefer To Sexually Assault Children When Committing Crimes - 2026-09-01 15:24
- X Kills Nitter And Xcancel, The Last Ways To Read Tweets Without Elon Watching - 2026-09-01 13:06
- Daily Deal: The All-in-One Super-Sized Ethical Hacking Bundle - 2026-09-01 13:01
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
- Mindfulness may lower blood pressure in just 8 weeks - 2026-09-01 07:58
- Scientists discover why snake embryos twist into spirals - 2026-09-01 07:38
- Reaching 90 without dementia doesn’t mean you’re in the clear - 2026-09-01 07:09
- A massive plume deep beneath Africa is pulling the continent apart - 2026-09-01 05:41
- One of Earth’s driest places was just covered in snow - 2026-09-01 04:06
space.com
- Two astronauts replace ISS camera and docking aid on 6th-ever all-female spacewalk (video) - 2026-09-01 16:02
- Scientists trace 7 stages of a meteorite's life, from hurtling space rock to Earth's surface - 2026-09-01 16:00
- Nonprofit wants to launch 80,000-year mission to Alpha Centauri in 2029 (video) - 2026-09-01 15:00
- The 12 best sci-fi movies of the 2000s - 2026-09-01 14:00
- On this day in space! Sept. 1, 1979: NASA's Pioneer 11 probe becomes 1st spacecraft to visit Saturn - 2026-09-01 12:15
space news
- Commercial Space Federation (CSF) Welcomes Two New Associate Members - 2026-08-31 10:00
- Speed to Field Starts Below the Prime - 2026-08-31 08:30
- The electronics ‘under the hood’ of space networking - 2026-08-27 09:50
- LatConnect 60 and Phi Earth Partner to Connect Space and Soil - 2026-08-26 20:54
- RTX’s Blue Canyon Technologies introduces new spacecraft mission enabler - 2026-08-26 11:12
phys.org
- Scientists discover the key ingredients that make birdsong pretty - 2026-09-01 23:00
- Community-led systems may curb illegal dumping in Indonesia's rural tourism areas - 2026-09-01 22:00
- Children's picture books reflect changing attitudes to languages and can support revitalization - 2026-09-01 21:00
- Agentic AI accelerates search for crops that can harvest critical minerals - 2026-09-01 20:00
- Many space missions are searching for life beyond Earth, but are we prepared for the fallout if they succeed? - 2026-09-01 19:40
onion latest
- What To Know About Starbase, Louisiana - 2026-09-01 15:13
- AI Strategist Suggests Calling Data Centers ‘Computer Parties’ - 2026-09-01 10:33
- Novelist Was Clearly Betrayed By A Vampire In His Past - 2026-09-01 10:30
- Jets Hope To Sell More Merchandise With New ‘Philadelphia Eagles’–Themed Jerseys - 2026-09-01 08:00
- Activists Decry Meat Industry’s Practice Of Separating Calves From Their Cool Uncles - 2026-09-01 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