- A Kickstarter campaign was shared for an open-source Bussard (polywell) fusion reactor—the first of its kind on the platform—reviving interest in the late Robert Bussard’s low-cost fusion approach.  
- Discussion of the documentary “Transcendent Man” included a torrent magnet (hash 47E73DB0E484DF13D40A0460F400F1CE4772B9F1) and troubleshooting playback on older hardware, highlighting codec and GPU limitations.  
- A Caltech link to the Seesaw Compiler (http://www.dna.caltech.edu/SeesawCompiler/) was posted, pointing to software for designing DNA-based digital logic circuits.  
- The Vuzix STAR 1200 augmented-reality glasses were critiqued for bulky optics that block peripheral vision; participants lamented the continued absence of consumer-grade virtual retinal displays despite the technology existing since 1986.  
- A pointer to Matt Goodman’s Kinect-based 3-D mapping of Austin’s caves appeared (http://craneium.net), along with news that Goodman is moving into Langton Lab.  
- Extensive links and papers on low-intensity, low-frequency ultrasound neuromodulation were circulated, including Tyler et al.’s 2008 PLoS One paper and 2010 Nature Reviews Neurology article, covering 2 mm resolution transcranial stimulation and proposed cloud-based “MyBrainCloud” interfaces.  
- Side topics included the ModCon V body-modification conference in Latin America advertising on-site surgical suites for extreme procedures (subincision, trepanation, digit removal, etc.) and a brief statistics aside on why regression error is variance/2.