- Yochai Benkler’s TED talk “Open-source economics” (http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/247) and his book “The Wealth of Networks” were highlighted as key resources for understanding how human sharing, not technical issues, drives intellectual-property debates.  
- Marshall Brain’s site (marshallbrain.com) was rediscovered as strongly pro-transhumanist and pro-robotics, with participants considering outreach to Brain to involve him in open-source hardware efforts.  
- Alex “Future” Bokov’s “Keep the Lights On” wiki (keepthelightson.net) was identified as an early attempt at a “civilization-in-a-box” manual; contact details were dug up and an email sent to Bokov, who was already known from Alcor meetups.  
- Discussion of Phreedom’s <$150/axis high-precision positioning project using piezo motors and interferometers for CNC, STM, AFM and DNA-assembly applications; magnetorheological polishing is proposed to cheaply finish the required optical surfaces.  
- Extensive debate on the film vs. novel “Starship Troopers”: the movie was framed as satirical WWII commentary, while the book was defended as a serious exploration of military life and civic virtue; Verhoeven admitted never finishing the novel.  
- Kevin Kelly’s work (kk.org) was recommended for tracking Gingery-machine and open-hardware threads; Kelly’s “How technology evolves” TED talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/19) was also linked.  
- Links collected to open-access manufacturing journals (Bentham Open), MIT OCW 2.008, howstuffismade.org (with labor-condition data), and the Mad Scientist wiki (communitywiki.org) as resources for DIY and open-industrial research.  
- Tardigrades (water bears) were noted for surviving −272 °C for minutes or −200 °C for days, prompting questions about long-term cryobiological limits.  
- Joshcryer argued that the SKDB self-replicating-machine project is “uncomputable” because element separation and IC fabrication require outside specialization; participants countered that the design must avoid “and then magic happens” steps.