• Google’s 1 Gbps fiber-to-the-home pilot and Intel’s 48-core “Single-Chip Cloud Computer” prototype were highlighted as imminent enablers of personal-scale distributed super-computing and ultra-low-latency experimentation.  
• A New England Journal of Medicine paper on using fMRI to establish two-way communication with vegetative-state patients was circulated, illustrating the rapid maturation of non-invasive brain-state diagnostics for locked-in syndrome.  
• The Bitcoin white-paper (bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf) was introduced and dissected: participants debated whether its proof-of-work “one-CPU-one-vote” consensus is wasteful computation or a viable path to decentralized, censorship-resistant digital cash; an early 2010 exchange rate of ≈ $0.0038 USD per BTC was derived from estimated daily generation cost.  
• Practical DIY-science resources shared included a Wired video guide to setting up a home chemistry lab, a modern chemistry-set purchase link, citation-mapping tools for literature research, and low-cost prototyping parts such as nRF24L01 radio modules and AVR/Arduino microcontrollers.  
• Open-source hardware financing was discussed: the SKDB “advisor” system for selecting fabrication tools and materials reportedly secured undisclosed funding, while a $100/month Hacker Dojo membership was proposed as an affordable on-ramp to shared prototyping infrastructure.  
• Participants explored Bitcoin as a privacy layer atop PayPal—buy BTC via PayPal, transfer, then cash out—while critiquing PayPal’s arbitrary freezes, high fees, and custodial risk; alternative tokenized-dollar models that rely on cryptographic balance signing rather than mining were also sketched.  
• Marketing hype versus real robotics capability was illustrated by the debunking of Nike’s viral “robo-parkour” video as CGI, reinforcing skepticism toward sensationalist tech advertising.