- STEP/ISO-10303 geometry exchange was dissected: the standard defines a “spherical surface” as a primitive with no underlying B-rep or NURBS, forcing CAD implementers to special-case it; AP203/AP214 still lack parametric history, leaving SolidWorks’ proprietary .sldprt as the only widely used parametric format, while full STEP documentation and meeting minutes are mirrored at tc184-sc4.org.

- OpenNURBS’ open-source toolkit omits its mesh-generation code, so participants suggested convex-hull rendering tricks or OpenGL’s gluNewNurbsRenderer for tessellation; exact spherical NURBS construction was explored via Geometric Tools’ white-paper and Red Book Example 12-5, sparking debate on knot-vector multiplicity and Bernstein polynomials.

- A low-power, continuous audio-logging device was proposed: 16 GB flash, Nokia BP-4L 1500 mAh Li-ion cell (~US$5), and a 5 V USB supply with a simple diode drop to 4.2 V for safe Li-po charging; the ideal reference design would be a bare-bones recorder with stereo mic-in, micro-SD slot, and a mechanical on/off switch—no display, speaker, or AAA batteries.

- Mobile hacking hardware was compared: the Nokia N810 offers host-mode USB and a metal mount out-of-the-box, whereas the N900 adds a cellular modem and composite video but ships with a binary-only battery controller; both were evaluated for portable GPS/IRC use.

- Social-network epidemiology was floated as a feature: adding a “currently infectious” status flag to social sites so users can self-isolate before meetups, though participants warned that enforced social isolation could backfire.

- Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky is reportedly developing a “vaccine for stress,” flagged as a potentially major neuro-endocrine intervention.

- Fab@Home developers announced they will unveil a new fabrication file format claimed to surpass both STL and G-code the following day.

- Ben Goertzel recommended the book “Weak Links: The Universal Key to the Stability of Networks” as relevant to scaling human relationship management beyond 10 000 concurrent weak ties.