David Wong’s books are hilarious  (for example, This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It). He is an editor at Cracked.com which I also read for humor value. But I also read David Wong because he changes my perspective. Every year he posts a funny but pointed article on social worth that I wish I had read when I was 17. And in 2016, he explained the election in a way that made me “get it” a little.

He recently did it again with an article on non-stop outrage. I don’t watch the news, but I do watch creative stuff on youtube. I’m even trying to put a little back by making my own videos. One of the reasons I want to be a part of that creative community is precisely as an alternative to outrage driven memes.

Let me use some videos to illustrate. The media circus is like Dueling Carls (video reference). GGP Grey can explain why (seriously, watch this video). If you tune in, all you hear is the screaming panic. But that’s not “what the world is like these days.” The world like like lots of things. It is just as true that people are making $1 microscopes and $.50 centrifuges as it is that people are being cruel to one another.

So anyway, let’s make coffee and tune out the rage for a while.

Erossel has a DIY raman project I think is very nicely put together. I’m very impressed. There’s another DIY Raman project out there but it doesn’t seem as active. The idea is to focus a laser on a sample and collect the light that comes out. It’s a lot like fluorescence, but the mechanism is different.

I am trying to choose the laser for a new system. The commercial Renishaw instrument in my lab has a 785 nm laser. That means the detector has to operate between 790 nm and 1100 nm. Most inexpensive detectors can’t do that very well. Cheaper off-the-shelf spectrometers can be used to detect the Raman signal from a 532 nm laser.

I suspect that fluorescence interference will be a problem for 532 nm Raman of beer. Certainly, 470 nm gives a significant (visible) beer fluorescence. From this paper, Fluorescence Spectroscopy for Characterization and Differentiation of Beers, it seems like 532 nm might not be too bad relative to 475 nm but I’d be willing to bet that 633 is considerably better. At this point I’m hoping that 633 is a good compromise. Plus, 633 nm lasers are cheap.

I’m digging into a a review of the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction in microfluidic doplets. Inside the droplets, various labs lab saw micro-oscillators as the BZ reaction proceeded. What was even more cool was that the reaction communicated among the droplets. As one droplet would react, it would affect the timing of the neighboring systems. I’m impressed with the variety of methods by which people have looked at tehis system. I wonder if my acrylic microfluidics will have some advantages for this kind of reaction?

People are anxious about the economy and health. I wanted to just assert that based on my own experience, but I looked up a report on the subject. The APA says that people are stressed about the economy and healthcare. Surprised? Not really.

There are things we (and by ‘we’ I mean America) could do to help with the economy and healthcare. We could automate more tasks and use that surplus labor for caring for sick people. But what’s the mechanism for paying for that? Should we tax the robots and use that money to pay for the things we want to do? That seems to make sense… kind-of.

(Actually no, not when you put it like that)

And yet… I find myself convinced that taxing the robots is not a great idea. An article on CNBC talks about why that would hurt the economy and reduce our competitiveness. If we don’t move to robots, we will just end up buying goods from the countries who do. Reason makes a good comparison between a robot tax and protectionism.

The bottom line is that we want to get rid of those jobs. People working in factories are not addressing better problems. There’s an opportunity cost. People working in factories could be taking care of old folks or taking care of kids. Or being creative. Or whatever. Every hour doing repetitive labor is an hour lost to mankind.

So what is the mechanism to pay for people to do good things (like nursing, teaching, learning and caring)? I suggest that we create the money. Currency should be created to match robotic production capacity and spent into existence on the issues we care about like health, education, and more robotics research.

P.S. This kind of thing is totally outside my circle of influence and I shouldn’t waste time on it. But… you know… anxiety.

I want to make microfluidics out of acrylic. Acrylic is stiff, resistant to a reasonably wide range of chemicals, and transparent. That means we can do chemistry in it and see what’s happening inside.

Acrylic is reasonably easy to cut with a laser. A $400 laser cutter can be purchased on ebay that will do the job. You get what you pay for, to some extent. It takes some effort to find an optimal cutting power and speed that give reproducible results.

Once acrylic is cut, it needs to be bonded. I have tried glue, double stick adhesive, and solvent welding. All bonded the acrylic but each has significant drawbacks. Glue and solvents both tend to wick into the channels. Solvents also tend to “craze” the surface and make it too opaque. Double stick adhesive tape introduces a new polymer to the system and is hard to handle. For larger features, we have had some success.

Ultimately, the best method to bond acrylic is to apply heat and pressure over some time. Heat should be 140-150 degrees C.  That’s enough to soften but not melt the acrylic. Acrylic held in close contact for 10-15 min at this temperature will bond. Pressure should be few PSI (we’re working on measuring this precisely). Too much pressure and the channels will collapse. That is by far the most frequent cause of failure.

With the right parameters, a good bond can be obtained. A little superglue will bind a hollow needle into an access port. And voila: microfluidics. Now I need to use this to make droplets again.

Here are parts 1 2 3 and 4.