• AGI strategy debate: participants reject human-level emulation as a target, arguing instead for purpose-built “artificial scientists” that augment rather than replicate human cognition, drawing an analogy to aircraft design diverging from bird biology once the principle of lift was understood.

• Cryonics economics: a sustained argument claims that fixed annual storage costs (~$2 k/patient) will exhaust Alcor’s $100 k up-front trust within decades; counter-arguments invoke conservative endowment investing, insurance-style models, and the possibility of switching whole-body patients to neuropreservation if funds run low.

• Peripheral cognition question: several voices challenge the “brain is enough” premise for cryonics, citing dense gut innervation and spinal-cord injury cases to ask whether cognition or identity truly resides only in the brain.

• Hardware hacking in progress: detailed troubleshooting of two Focused-Ion-Beam (FIB) power supplies—replacing 63 V capacitors with 50 V parts, diagnosing blown fuses, and planning VARIAC bench tests—plus a technical sidebar on series-parallel capacitor arrays to double voltage rating and halve ESR.

• Open-source transportation milestone: OSVehicle, an open-source car platform, has been accepted into Y Combinator’s winter batch, signaling mainstream accelerator support for open-hardware mobility projects.

• DIY-bio outreach: a request for a donated Foldscope to record microorganism videos and build a local school curriculum illustrates grassroots dissemination of low-cost scientific tools.

• Historical cryonics note: James Bedford, the longest cryopreserved individual, reached 49 years in storage in 2016, providing a real-world longevity benchmark for the field.

• Electronics trivia: Taiyo-Yuden LMK105BJ104KV-F identified as the world’s most popular capacitor by Digi-Key stocking levels, with ESR ≈ 0.1 Ω at high frequency versus tens of ohms at sub-kHz, while aluminum electrolytics span 1 mΩ–2 kΩ ESR.