# Summary of #hplusroadmap IRC Log (Sept 10, 2009)

• Discussion of microfluidics manufacturing techniques, with a participant reporting that a facility had moved from using borosilicate glass plates to FR4 (a glass-reinforced epoxy laminate material) for microfluidic systems, and confirming grayscale capabilities.

• Several academic papers and patents were mentioned regarding microfluidics implementation on printed circuit boards (PCB), including "Microfluidic systems in PCB technology" and "Low cost piezo printhead based on microfluidics in printed circuit board."

• A conversation about SKDB (skill database) development occurred, with participants working on a graph synthesis module implementation in Python as an alternative to a .NET implementation.

• Participants discussed data representation formats, criticizing SysML/XML as overly complex compared to YAML for representing engineering knowledge, with one participant noting that "information is tokenized; knowledge is parsed."

• A link was shared to an article about bacteria engineered to produce chemicals needed for synthetic DNA and plastics production from sugar, with discussion about why bioplastics aren't more widespread.

• A reference was made to "Cybercrime is now larger than the international drug trade" with counterevidence from a UN report stating the illegal narcotics trade was worth over $400 billion annually as of 1998.