- The SKDB project (apt-get for fabrication) is being prototyped as a “matter compiler” layer that would let open-source hardware designs be fabricated automatically; the remaining hard problem is closing the self-replication loop so every part of a machine can be made by the machine itself.  
- Participants are pursuing two near-term self-replicator routes: a <$100 home-built STM and graphene-based piezoelectric actuators intended to reach electron-microscope precision within a year, and an unnamed macroscale machine that could bootstrap micron-scale assemblers.  
- Cognitive-augmentation discussion centers on open-source rTMS (OpenStim), real-time neurochemical feedback loops to maintain “the mode” during programming, and the long-term goal of architecting a recursively self-improving successor “brain.”  
- Henry Markram’s Blue-Brain cortical-column simulation is framed as a stepping-stone to whole-brain emulation; the group speculates on “perceptual ecology” as a way to grow new minicolumns and horizontally transfer cognitive modules like software packages.  
- Critique of mainstream medicine and engineering education: medical curricula reward rote memorization and discourage holistic approaches, while manufacturing textbooks treat factories as buildings rather than programmable processes rooted in cybernetics and systems engineering.  
- Memristors—HP’s newly announced passive circuit element—are highlighted as dense, low-power memory (100 Gb/cm²) and potential building blocks for neuromorphic or reconfigurable nano-circuits.  
- Erik Winfree’s Caltech lab is noted for DNA-tile self-assembly and error-correction work; one participant plans to approach Winfree about applying these ideas to self-assembled FPGA circuits.  
- The group laments the absence of open-source or collaborative themes in Kurzweil/Vinge futures and in Wikipedia’s transhumanism article, noting that self-replicators directly address socioeconomic-divide criticisms.