• Microsoft Kinect was dissected as a low-cost 3-D sensor: its IR dot pattern could serve as structured-light for room scanning, motion-capture data could automate choreography, sports training and CAD ergonomics, and Adafruit’s $2 000 open bounty plus iFixit teardown were circulated for hardware hackers.  
• Participants proposed wireless haptic rings or anklets to give tactile feedback when avatars touch virtual objects, compensating for Kinect’s lack of finger tracking and one-second activation lag.  
• A “human enhancement index” was suggested to replace the Human Development Index, cataloguing sensory ranges, physical performance metrics and other augmentation-relevant data.  
• An n=1 self-experiment reported that ingesting ~4 Tbsp of butter improved simple-math reaction time by ~30 %, sparking jokes about nasal butter inhalants and cognitive airflow effects.  
• OpenSCAD was highlighted as a scriptable solid-modeling tool for DIY fabrication, with links to freesteel.co.uk, Martin Held’s pocketing book and Anders Wallin’s blog for automated CNC tool-path generation.  
• A Wired article on non-invasive ultrasound brain stimulation was shared, followed by a query about whether a DIY version exists and whether anyone has tested ultra-low-cost grad-student knockoffs on their own heads.  
• Debate over a $200 low-cost hardware challenge settled on excluding shipping costs from the cap to keep the focus on design rather than supply-chain gaming, while still discussing “lowest total cost wins” alternatives.  
• Fenn sketched a fully local RepRap future using scavenged plastic, glass Pasteur-pipette nozzles, ceramic robocasting and sugar or “water-glass” binders for sand-to-stone printing, with JayDugger1 citing Australian bacterial sand-solidification and Evil Mad Scientist candy printers as precedents.