- Debate over whether major technological achievements (e.g., Apollo) are driven primarily by propaganda versus intrinsic motivation or rational problem-solving; participants argue that propaganda both selects the problem and mobilizes resources.  
- Discussion of definitions: “propaganda” is parsed as (1) a mechanism for injecting motivation into others and (2) its use against them, with some suggesting “motivation” or “determination” are more neutral terms when element (2) is absent.  
- MEMS fabrication needs voiced: delinquentme seeks a collaborator able to produce microbeads with 100–1,000 functional “heads”; kanzure notes community-college MEMS labs often have older but usable equipment and mentions access to FEI (electron-microscopy vendor).  
- Neuroprosthesis papers shared: kanzure links two Berger-group studies demonstrating restoration of cognitive and memory function in primate prefrontal cortex and hippocampus via task-specific neural firing modulation.  
- Liz Parrish/Bioviva gene-therapy talk posted (YouTube) on “Ending Ageing through Gene Therapy.”  
- Self-replicating machine schematics and “programmable polymerase” mentioned as desirable open-source biotech tools.  
- Hacker News timeline of sequenced organisms circulated as reference data.  
- Quick Linux shell-trick offered: prepend a directory containing a shim script to $PATH to transparently inject extra arguments into an unmodifiable program’s calls to “bar.”