- A blog post titled “The $15 Genome through reduced reagents” (http://41j.com/blog/2020/12/the-15-genome-through-reduced-reagents/) was shared, describing an experimental protocol that drives the cost of whole-genome sequencing down to ~$15 via aggressive reagent minimization.

- Discussion of the Mill CPU architecture (millcomputing.com/wiki) highlighted its “belt” mechanism as a hardware realization of Static Single Assignment (SSA), but participants noted the project has produced no physical hardware since its 2003 inception and questioned its funding model.

- Participants criticized the Mill team’s warning against public speculation or suggestions about the architecture to avoid “patent problems,” framing it as evidence that both the patent system and venture-capital funding are dysfunctional for open hardware innovation.

- A brief debate on EU import-tax policy considered whether new levies on ultra-cheap Chinese goods would ultimately help or hurt small European businesses that currently cannot compete with subsidized shipping and rock-bottom prices.

- The channel revisited the classic privacy argument “if you have nothing to hide, you don’t need privacy,” with one member quipping that such reasoning is an easy way to get “side-channeled by time travelers,” prompting tongue-in-cheek discussion about the paradoxes of detecting time travelers who already know the outcome.