# Key Points from IRC Log

• Gene proposed using a 128x128 digital picture frame ($10) with maskless array gene synthesis to achieve 294 kbp of DNA synthesis at approximately $60 in chemicals, suggesting this as a cost-effective approach for DNA synthesis.

• Participants discussed OpenCASCADE, a 3D modeling library, and pythonOCC (Python bindings for OpenCASCADE), encountering compilation issues on Linux systems that appeared to be common among the few Linux users of this package.

• A paper on DNA arrays was shared (Singh-Gasson in Nature Biotechnology) detailing a method for synthesizing photolabile phosphoramidites using phosgene, which was noted as potentially dangerous but useful for DNA array synthesis.

• Participants expressed concern about President Obama's statement opposing human reproductive cloning in his stem cell speech: "we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction."

• The group discussed various technical resources including bibutils for bibliography management and a Wired wiki article on opening government data that one member was asked to contribute to.

• There was discussion about hardware requirements for a lab server, with recommendations for Intel SSDs, 16GB RAM, and dual Xeon or Shanghai processors.