- A hobbyist demonstrated a real-time surface-mapping CNC workflow by streaming XYZ coordinates from hacked GRBL firmware to a custom USB continuity-probe built with V-USB on an AVR, then generating compensatory G-code for machining uneven stock.  
- Participants dissected the low-speed USB stacks on 8-bit MCUs: V-USB on AVR versus Microchip’s PIC USB engine, noting strict 3.3 V PLL supply and the need to disable debugging to maintain timing.  
- Rethink Robotics’ $22 k dual-arm “Baxter” robot was hailed as an unexpectedly affordable platform for open robotics experimentation.  
- The Ohio Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in American Chemical Society v. Leadscope was analyzed as a cautionary tale: ACS lost a $26 million trade-secret suit despite failing to prove source-code copying.  
- University of Bristol research on the neural initiation of rhythmic locomotion was linked, prompting discussion of central pattern generators and their relevance to bio-inspired robotics.  
- NanoEngineer CAD was forked to GitHub (kanzure/nanoengineer) to address build issues on Ubuntu, add hardware-accelerated OpenGL instructions, and begin systematic refactoring of 200-line import blocks and GUI/backend coupling.  
- GRBL was extended to expose real-time step-count feedback via global position counters, enabling closed-loop CNC control and experiments with chirp-based acceleration and automatic microstep-to-full-step shifting.  
- The $20 k Gada Prize for open-source self-replicating 3-D printing (deadline 31 Dec 2012) was judged unlikely to be won; Humanity+ was criticized for mismanaging the competition and broader transhumanist outreach.  
- Grassroots alternatives to Humanity+—including diyhpluswiki (wiki.transhumani.com) and new Git-based research initiatives—were promoted as more productive venues for open transhumanist R&D.  
- A sensational Discovery News story claiming NASA had validated an Alcubierre warp drive was dismissed as un-peer-reviewed hype, underscoring the channel’s skepticism toward mainstream science journalism.