- Sub-$500 CNC kits are adequate only for wood; serious metal machining still requires the mass and rigidity of a converted Bridgeport mill.  
- FOSS-Asia 2015 in Phnom Penh was highlighted as a venue for open-source bio/AI talks, with confirmation that the city hosts an active hackerspace and a growing expat tech community.  
- paperbot, the IRC bot that mirrors paywalled PDFs, uses Zotero’s translation-server and community JavaScript translators to extract PDF URLs; a cleaner rewrite called papermonk employs event-stream pipelines for HTML parsing and acquisition.  
- The supply chain for non-open-access papers was hinted at: Library Genesis receives its content from paperbot, with Sci-Hub serving only as a fallback source.  
- Entry-level biology/chemistry jobs in San Diego were described as limited to dishwashing or buffer prep for associate-degree holders, while clean-room technician roles already require a BS.  
- Juno Therapeutics’ $120 M raise underscored investor enthusiasm for T-cell reprogramming; a 2010 H+ Magazine article by Derya Unutmaz was shared as a primer on adoptive immunotherapy and immune-system engineering.  
- The decade-old RoboPeak laser-projection keyboard remains limited to 10-key rollover and poor reliability; discussion pivoted to improving sensing algorithms rather than replicating the gimmick, with Fingerworks (now Apple) multi-touch surfaces cited as superior and still available on eBay.