- Participants questioned the practicality of geographically-bound “self-sufficiency” projects, arguing that real-world specialization and trade arise because different locations excel at different activities, and debated whether on-site plastic production from algae is worth the labor compared to simply ordering supplies.  
- A large trove of open technical documents on cloning was shared, including complete SCNT lab protocols, a rhesus-monkey enucleation video, Dolly-related bibliographies, and a 1970 paper demonstrating revival of electrical activity in cat brains after seven years of frozen storage.  
- Current cloning was judged to have poor viability due to shortened telomeres and high failure rates, while artificial wombs were said to lack reliable nutrient-delivery and hormonal-support systems; Japanese “rubber womb” experiments and ectogenesis literature were cited as the state of the art.  
- The social taboo around human cloning was attributed to ethical debates over “souls” and rights, with a half-serious proposal to enlist anti-abortion activists to fund artificial-womb research as a way to “rescue” unwanted fetuses.  
- Homebuilt aircraft economics were reviewed: Long-EZ and Vari-EZ designs still hold fuel-efficiency records using converted VW air-cooled engines, yet even composite construction remains expensive despite simple structures.  
- Electric-vehicle power-train analysis compared lead-acid, LiFePO₄, NiCd, and supercapacitors; supercaps’ high self-discharge (30 % in 10 h) was noted, but they excel for dragster bursts or regenerative braking, with calculations showing 14 × 100 F, 2.7 V caps could briefly supply ~8 kW to an e-bike.  
- Battery-care best practices were discussed: leaving a laptop plugged in with the battery installed keeps it at float voltage and accelerates electrolyte loss, so removing the pack when on AC is advised; DIY refurbishing of an iBook with 18650 Li-ion cells ordered from eBay was described.  
- Entropy-driven DNA computing was highlighted via a link to David Yu Zhang’s 2007 Entropy paper on engineering DNA-catalyzed reaction networks from the Winfree lab, and a BioBarCamp idea proposed using leftover ATP after PCR as a gel-free indicator of successful amplification.