• A new “typeracer-for-math” prototype is being coded on-the-fly to provide speed-oriented mental-math drills, inspired by complaints that existing spaced-repetition systems (Anki, Mnemosyne) are too slow and that current web drills (math.ly) present problems like “arccotangent of –1.44” that are unsuitable for mental calculation.

• Channel members shared two equation-recognition tools—Detexify (detexify.kirelabs.org) for handwritten LaTeX symbols and VisionObjects’ web demo (webdemo.visionobjects.com/equation.html)—and discussed extending them to cover UTF-8 symbols for broader symbol lookup.

• A Ruby packaging issue in BioRuby was resolved: contributors clarified that gems must use absolute gem paths or File.dirname(__FILE__) tricks instead of relative “../lib/bio/db” paths, and agreed that the KEGGDB module should probably become its own separate gem.

• NanoEngineer’s Ubuntu chroot environment is being upgraded; jrayhawk created /root/nanoengineer-upgrade on the vserver, documented device-node creation limits, and recommended using tar --numeric-owner to preserve file ownership during extraction.

• A Pinterest-killer startup is under development in a Bangkok co-working space, featuring parallel SFW and adult image-sharing versions, with developers joking about the hazards of NSFW screen visibility in public cafés.

• A debate on post-scarcity “radical abundance” (enabled by convergent info-bio-nanotech) versus zero-sum market ideology emerged, including anecdotes of hostility from video-game-industry insiders who insist scarcity is necessary to fund large-scale creative projects.

• Deployment workflow for a client project was reduced to “git push heroku master” followed by “siege -n 100” for stress testing, after developers refused the client’s escalated demand for 100-concurrent-user load testing as unrealistic.

• davidad’s new venture was revealed to be named “nemaload, inc.”, a detail greeted with enthusiasm by the channel.

• A participant successfully 3-D-printed a personal copy of the board game Qwirkle, prompting brief reflection on the ethics and practicality of DIY fabrication for consumer products.