- A participant expressed a wish for an implant that could forcibly initiate and maintain sleep at a programmed time, including customizable sleep-stage cycling.  
- Discussion followed on using low-cost, non-invasive methods—specifically 1 Hz auditory “ticking” pulses timed to deep-sleep EEG—to reinforce desired sleep stages, citing recent research.  
- Practical challenges were noted: affordable EEG-based sleep-stage detection, comfortable audio delivery without disturbing a bed partner, and the lack of inexpensive consumer hardware.  
- Gitter’s new native Matrix bridge was announced, expanding open-source chat interoperability (link: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/12/07/gitter-now-speaks-matrix).  
- lsneff shared progress on an open-hardware atomic-force-microscope (AFM) project, posting updates at https://charted.space/afm-updates.html; five 2-layer boards plus a stainless-steel stencil cost only USD 9 from a Chinese fab and arrived in ~14 days despite COVID delays.  
- Quick-turn PCB fabrication techniques were debated: single-sided layouts, minimizing vias, sponge-and-etchant etching in under a minute, versus the convenience of ultra-low-cost commercial services.  
- The group contrasted rapid home prototyping (useful for early, bug-prone iterations) with professional workflows that rely on expensive simulation suites whose component models are often incomplete or cumbersome.  
- A tongue-in-cheek orbital-mechanics question was posed: how to safely “catch” a chunk of lead launched by mass driver to a personal residence in the asteroid belt.