# Key Points from IRC Log (April 7, 2010)

• Several open hardware and electronics tools were discussed, including a 200MHz logic analyzer from Dangerous Prototypes (Bus Pirate) that was noted as superior to miniLA: http://dangerousprototypes.com/bus-pirate-manual/

• A user was working on converting STEP/IGES files to STL format using Python-OCC (OpenCascade wrapper), with discussion about the challenges of properly configuring tesselation parameters and binary output options.

• Discussion about creating an SKDB package for 80/20 T-slot aluminum extrusions, with challenges noted regarding the extraction of data from their 156MB product catalog which is difficult to scrape from their website.

• Open source bioinformatics was discussed, with suggestions that NCBI should switch to BitTorrent for genome distribution, and mention of the Google Summer of Code 2010 proposals for the Open Bioinformatics Foundation.

• A potential open hardware violation was noted on Evil Mad Scientist's forum, where someone claimed to be using open source hardware principles but wasn't actually sharing designs.

• A "snarkmark" punctuation symbol (~) was discussed as gaining traction for indicating sarcasm in text, with reference to a Wikipedia entry on this emerging usage.

• A large DIYbio poster was shared (http://designfiles.org/~bryan/images/diybio%20poster.png) with the suggestion that it could potentially double as a functional microfluidic circuit design.