- A lab member unveiled a “wayneron,” a self-optimizing, evolvable ribosome that exemplifies current synthetic-biology efforts to create programmable cellular machinery.  
- kanzure is developing two open-source brain-visualization tools: “brainsrv,” a network-daemon-driven 3-D viewer for gene-expression array data, and “Brain Conqueror,” a Perl/OpenGL/SDL application that streams Allen Brain Atlas datasets on demand to circumvent the institute’s closed-source “Brain Explorer.”  
- Participants decried the Allen Brain Atlas’s proprietary software and restrictive licensing, noting that its XML gene-expression data and Entrez IDs are freely available but the institute’s 501(c)(3) status does not extend to open-source code.  
- A cellular/molecular researcher asked for open-source tools to compute ligand–protein binding affinities (Ki values); kanzure pointed to his curated computational-biology resource list at http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Computational_biology.  
- The Singularity Institute requested a web-based JavaScript graphing application; kanzure proposed wrapping GNU Octave with an AJAX front-end and shared gnuplot-in-the-browser demos and Graphviz/Graph::Easy Perl modules as starting points.  
- Seldon_Plan reported post-VC-meeting progress: investors want a demo site, and the goal is to secure funding that can be distributed directly to independent researchers; kanzure demonstrated an early open-source micro-patronage widget at http://heybryan.org/projects/openpay/widget.php?projectID=1 as a potential funding mechanism.  
- Practical hardware hacks discussed include using discarded satellite dishes (≈12–15 dB gain) and “WokFi” cantennas for mile-plus Wi-Fi links, Freecycle.org and dumpster-diving for surplus CRT monitors, and work-arounds for MIT OpenCourseWare’s proprietary RealMedia video format.