- SKDB (the open-source “Standardized Knowledge Database”) is actively being refactored: commits show work on Lego brick geometry, YAML metadata, interface transforms, and splitting OCC-dependent code into its own module; a new transform attribute is being added to each Part to avoid duplicating coordinate math.  
- A heated technical debate between fenn and kanzure reveals the difficulty of correctly rotating 3-D Lego parts and drawing mating arrows; fenn insists on using the existing point_shape() routine while kanzure worries that interface points are not being updated after transformations.  
- kanzure posts a 2,500-entry index of biology protocols scraped from protocol-online.org and shares links to video protocols (JoVE) and Nature Protocols; UT and UB are noted to lack subscriptions to Current Protocols.  
- Discussion of new senses: genehacker wants an ultrasonic “rear distance sense” and an implanted ionizing-radiation (Geiger) sensor; kanzure suggests infrared vision as another candidate transhuman augmentation.  
- The LOW COST Act (H.R. 1464) is highlighted—U.S. legislation to fund open-source textbooks—along with Flat World Knowledge, a commercial open-textbook platform.  
- A MeSH 2009 browser link and a neuron-type YAML file (listing ~30 CNS cell classes) are offered as resources for computational neurobiology.  
- OCR quality for scanned books is debated: tesseract is judged “terrible for papers,” while alternatives such as gocr, ocrad, and ClaraOCR are mentioned; ybit proposes a workflow of image straightening + PDF concatenation instead.  
- File-sharing logistics are discussed: rsync is recommended for mirroring large local collections, git for code and annotated to-do files, and the trade-offs between RSS, Atom, and wget --mirror are weighed.  
- wrldpc2 requests comprehensive data on atherosclerotic plaques, hinting at their possible use as a “compression strategy for vital compounds.”  
- A RepRap forum thread on PCB autorouters is brought up as a cautionary tale for automatic design algorithms—fenn concedes that similar pitfalls await SKDB’s generative CAD tools.