- The AD9850 DDS chip and its $5 eBay clones were discussed as inexpensive signal-generation hardware for open-source RF and bio-electronics projects.  
- Participants debated whether “basic research” must remain unplanned, citing Scott Johnson’s Myelin Repair Foundation model and arguing that outcome-directed, coordinated science can outperform traditional grant-driven approaches.  
- Recent memory-enhancement and Alzheimer’s studies (valproate in mouse models, DOI:10.1007/s10571-013-0012-y, DOI:10.1016/j.brainres.2013.06.024) and a pharmacogenomics paper (DOI:10.1038/clpt.2009.295) were shared via paperbot, illustrating the channel’s real-time literature pipeline.  
- Economic critiques of academic funding included Nature data showing only 1 % of overhead supports shared equipment, Austrian-school arguments about central-bank malinvestment inflating science costs, and historical examples such as the Human Genome Project vs. Venter’s cheaper shotgun sequencing.  
- A post-apocalyptic electronics thread weighed single-crystal vs. amorphous semiconductor fabrication, exploring Bridgman–Stockbarger, micro-pulling-down, and screen-printed techniques as routes to reboot transistors after civilizational collapse.  
- Bismuth-based “picostructures” were proposed as tunable materials for topological insulators, superconductors, and high-efficiency thermoelectrics, with references to recent bismuth halide and nanowire literature.  
- Open hardware tooling discussions covered wxPython CAD tabs (HeeksCAD, Inkscape, Cairo) for microfluidic design, SVG vs. PostScript for programmatic graphics, and the CERN open-data portal as a model for large-scale open science sharing.  
- Sci-Hub mirrors and LibGen DOI links were demonstrated live to bypass paywalls, alongside commentary on Sci-Hub’s donation-driven geoblocking and the broader ethics of open-access literature.  
- Security links circulated included KVM privilege-escalation (LWN 619332), Android ObjectInputStream flaw (CVE-2014-7911), MS14-068 Kerberos escalation, and a NoSuchCon 2014 talk on program synthesis in reverse engineering.  
- Jenkins CI workflows (Jenkins + pytest + tox) were recommended for a new Bitcoin-related service, supported by FOSDEM 2013 talks and the Architecture of Open Source Applications chapter on continuous integration.