- A new online transhumanist magazine, “hplusmagazine,” is announced; participants debate whether its commercial tone and association with R.U. Sirius (Ken Goffman) and Second Life will help or hurt the movement’s credibility.  
- Emotiv EPOC EEG headset is highlighted after a Discovery Channel segment on building a “road-rage-proof” car with biofeedback and mind-control; UtopiahG1ML notes the kit can be trained for direct brain control and lists it (plus AmpedBikes, multitouch tables, and solar panels) as desired hardware.  
- Participants discuss the practicality of trade in a post-scarcity, open-manufacturing future: fenn and kanzure_ argue that locating production near raw materials can eliminate the need for trade, while ybit questions how to serve regions with limited local resources.  
- kanzure_ posts a NYT blog piece claiming that heavy Internet search use boosts brainpower and jokes that his 30,000 Google queries make him “brilliant.”  
- faceface shares bioDBnet (biodbnet.abcc.ncifcrf.gov) as a useful identifier-mapping database for bioinformatics work and reports progress ripping streaming genomics lectures from leadingstrand.cshl.edu.  
- xp_prg continues work on an AJAX interface for an unspecified open-biology project; kanzure_ offers E. coli images as placeholder graphics.  
- ybit reports effective cognitive enhancement after raising modafinil dose from 200–400 mg to 800 mg, calling the higher amount “about standard.”  
- fenn vents frustration with the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, claiming finalists are chosen via “good-old-boy” networking rather than merit, and sarcastically proposes starting the “fenn institute” to award friends.