• A critical cryptographic vulnerability in government-certified smartcards was disclosed, enabling easy forgery; the full technical report is available at http://smartfacts.cr.yp.to/smartfacts-20130916.pdf.

• Paperbot, an IRC bot that automatically downloads academic PDFs, strips NSA watermarks, and mirrors them, was discussed; its Python source (pdfparanoia) and an upcoming JavaScript rewrite were shared, along with an example mirrored paper at http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/paperbot/3065da076c985b8586bb6ebe52ddd711.txt.

• Participants debated the viability of JavaScript-based stacks for mobile and VOIP applications, citing projects like JsSIP (WebRTC in JS) and frameworks such as Cordova/PhoneGap, Appcelerator Titanium, and Pyjamas-desktop.

• A Python/JavaScript bridge for PhantomJS was demonstrated, with documentation available at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/phantomjs/r6j5s4UN3BQ.

• The channel discussed ongoing efforts to work with cellulose-producing Acetobacter bacteria, seeking contacts and identifying "Jonathan" as a prior collaborator.

• SPhericalMouse reported slow but ongoing progress on a "fluid robot" project, noting repeated starts and restarts.

• TED Talks were criticized as "marketing pitches" that distort scientific details; Paul Rothemund's DNA origami work was cited as an example where the raw 2009 interview transcript at http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/2009-09-15-paul-rothemund/ is more accurate than the TED version.

• DRACO (Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizer) was highlighted as a promising broad-spectrum antiviral therapy, covered by H+ Magazine.