# Key Points from #hplusroadmap IRC Discussions

• Participants critiqued Upverter for allegedly exploiting open hardware principles to attract venture capital while maintaining closed-source practices, highlighting ethical tensions within the open hardware movement.

• Technical discussions covered PDF watermark removal techniques for academic papers, with users sharing methods involving pdftk, imagemagick, and Python scripts to decompress PDF object streams.

• Brain-computer interface research was examined, including memory interfaces developed by Deadwyler and Ted Berger, with specific interest in artificial hippocampus algorithms and alternative input channels like retinal tissue or tongue interfaces.

• Molecular biology conversations delved into RNA polymerase II, transcription factors, G-protein coupled receptors, and integral membrane proteins, with recommendations for self-education through textbooks and open courseware.

• Participants discussed lab automation technology as potentially more valuable than traditional academic credentials, with specific mentions of protein purification equipment like Fast Protein Liquid Chromatography (FPLC) versus analytical High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC).

• The group referenced the Orion's Arm collaborative world-building project that explores transhumanist themes across a 10,500-year future timeline, discussing artificial superintelligences like Keter and The Transcend.

• Career paths in regenerative medicine and genomics were explored, with mentions of bioprinting technology from companies like Organovo and work at Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) on real-time DNA sequencing from single polymerase molecules.