- **Open-access frustration**: participants vented about IEEE paywalls and IBM’s choice to publish behind them, highlighting the ongoing tension between corporate research dissemination and open-science ideals.  
- **Paper-sharing pipeline**: the channel’s paperbot automatically mirrored requested IEEE articles to diyhpl.us/libgen, demonstrating a practical, semi-automated workaround for closed journals.  
- **Limor Fried spotlight**: Slashdot interview (http://features.slashdot.org/story/13/11/18/146223/interview-ask-limor-fried-about-open-source-hardware-and-adafruit) was circulated as a key reference on open-source hardware culture.  
- **David Wood identity surprise**: discussion revealed that the “London Futurists” transhumanist organizer David Wood is the same person who co-founded Symbian and is writing “Smartphones and Beyond,” underscoring overlap between mobile-tech history and futurist thought.  
- **Media round-up**: links shared included Ben Goertzel’s “Singularity or Bust” documentary, a Kickstarter for a “Posthuman” video series on transhumanism, and the newly-launched Alcor cryonics YouTube channel.