# Summary of IRC Log (January 30, 2011)

• Participants discussed mesh networks as alternatives to government-controlled internet, highlighting Ronja (10Mbit homebrew optical links) that could provide 2km communication range and would be difficult for governments to disrupt during internet shutdowns.

• ThomasEgi calculated that creating a resilient mesh network for Cairo would cost approximately 1-2 million euros (less than 50 cents per person), providing communication during government internet shutdowns like the one occurring in Egypt at that time.

• The group explored alternative living spaces outside traditional government control, including a proposal for building on underwater seamounts where some mountains reach as high as 10 meters below sea level, specifically mentioning Yermolenko Seamount.

• Lukas proposed that humans might adopt extremophile traits to better handle space habitation challenges like radiation, vacuum, and temperature extremes.

• Kanzure shared educational resources including "Adventures in Synthetic Biology" comic (http://mit.edu/endy/www/scraps/comic/AiSB.vol1.pdf) and announced an international biomolecular design competition (http://biomod.net/).

• The group discussed "gitduino," a git-based project similar to Thingiverse that would render 3D models from repositories without committing binary image data, representing an early approach to distributed hardware design.