- The group debated whether the verbnurbs CAD kernel should be rewritten in Python to follow cadquery’s design, while acknowledging the current JavaScript implementation is a barrier to adoption.  
- Participants concluded that no fully open-source Wi-Fi chip exists; Ubiquiti EdgeRouter-Lite + UniFi APs were cited as high-quality but proprietary alternatives, and links to the HackRF SDR Kickstarter and a 10-part DIY Wi-Fi-radio blog series were shared.  
- chris_99 ordered Anadigm FPAA chips for analog guitar pedals; fenn explained that FPAA circuits use switched-capacitor techniques and are limited to ~2 MHz bandwidth, while nmz787 noted Cypress PSoC devices integrate MCU + programmable analog blocks.  
- kanzure circulated a Raft consensus animation (thesecretlivesofdata.com/raft) and a method for automatic Docker-image deployment via webhooks; security links included a Rapid7 GNU Wget FTP-symlink vulnerability disclosure and Bitcoin Core PR #5161 to drop third-party IP-detection services.  
- Academic-publishing economics were dissected: authors pay to publish and again to read, publishers bundle secret pricing, and prestige incentives keep researchers in expensive closed journals despite open-access options like PLoS ONE.  
- Participants explored building a decentralized, resilient archive of paywalled papers, citing Aaron Swartz’s JSTOR bulk-download detection via MAC spoofing as a cautionary tale and emphasizing the need to avoid single points of failure and legal exposure.  
- Bitcoin’s hash-rate was observed to double every ~3 months, driven by an equilibrium where mining cost approaches 1 BTC per BTC generated, with growth tied to price and hardware $/hash efficiency.