• The channel explored a distributed effort to compress and share the entire USPTO patent corpus (≈9 TB raw → ~50 GB gzipped) and to reverse-engineer patents into open design files via page-segmentation, statistical part-name extraction, and graph-theoretic reconstruction; participants noted that deliberate obfuscation in modern patents may require filtering by scientific citations.  

• A wish-list of open-science datasets was compiled for collective torrenting: matweb materials database, BioBricks, NCBI slices, full human genome, public 23andMe/DecodeMe genomes, Nature’s complete archive, and arXiv torrents (currently blocked by anti-crawl rules).  

• DIY fabrication topics included bamboo bicycle frames (reviving 1890s designs with modern hemp-epoxy), electrospinning 8 nm PMMA nanofibers in a dorm using acetone/DCM, and 96 % plant-based UV-cure resins.  

• Structural-mechanical modeling challenges were framed as the need for an ontology that can algorithmically specify geometry and kinetics when mating arbitrary parts (screws, plates, chemical reactants) so that CFD or other simulations can run automatically; the repository.designengineeringlab.org schema was critiqued and a git + ikiwiki + YAML metadata approach proposed.  

• Brain-interface links shared: Allen Institute spinal-cord atlas release, Nature paper on in-vitro corticogenesis showing implanted neurons build host-specific cortical circuits (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7211/full/nature07287.html), and open-source rTMS designs.  

• A cognitive-scaffolding stack was proposed: browser + plugins + wiki → intellectual augmentation → AI algorithms → heuristics/statistics/math, with OpenCog floated as the most promising unifying framework.