- Google Research paper shared: “Learning Raw Waveforms for Speech Recognition” (Tara Sainath et al.) shows neural nets can be trained directly on raw audio waveforms instead of traditional mel-spectrum features, potentially simplifying ASR pipelines.  
- DIYhpluswiki updated with new Mimblewimble links and transcripts at diyhpl.us/diyhpluswiki/transcripts/mimblewimble-podcast/, expanding open-source coverage of the privacy-centric blockchain proposal.  
- Security alert circulated: disable short PGP key IDs in ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf to mitigate collision attacks that have been used to spoof Bitcoin binaries.  
- Discussion of crowdsourced self-experimentation: Aurelius_Home reports multiple individuals (including one in contact with Steve Perry) already self-dosing GDF-11 and other compounds; kanzure open to funding rigorous data collection if proposals are submitted.  
- Science paper linked: “Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome” (Hutchison et al., Science 353:6301, 819-825) describing the 531-kb “JCVI-syn3.0” cell with a “radically rewritten” genome, a milestone in synthetic biology.