One disadvantage that Bluehart lists of classic heat pumps is the need for a refrigerant fluid. But Bluehar uses helium internally; I wonder how often the helium would need to be replaced.
I thought that helium was in short supply. Would that make these things expensive? Also, I know they said it's quiet, but if the thing operates on a 60hz cycle, wouldn't that create a pervasive hum?
Yeah, I was also under the impression helium was in very short supply. The article doesn’t mention that, at all. But it does say the unit is quiet because it operates at a constant frequency, so they can use noise cancellation very effectively.
> According to her tests, her prototype successfully removed 95.52 percent of microplastics from the water and recycled 87.15 percent of the ferrofluid.
Does the remaining 13% of the ferrofluid end up in the filtered water or in the discarded microplastics? Or a mix? Ferrofluid doesn't sound like something I want to drink
Those results aren't nearly as good as a traditional reverse osmosis filter, and the system is far more complex and difficult to upkeep.
I wouldn't expect a high-school student to make something better. What's important for the project is to be able to test and document an experiment. I do expect a journalist to understand that performing well at a high-school science doesn't mean it's been scientifically evaluated, but maybe I'm just suffering from the Gell-Mann amnesia effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#%22Gell-Mann_...
This reminds me of the time a bunch of journalists thought a 13-year-old student had revolutionized solar panels, when he just misunderstood the relationship between voltage, current, and power: https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-13-year-olds-solar-power-b...
> The Rich Don't Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?
Many (most?) people who would phrase that question are themselves already among the rich. There's always someone richer to blame; and if you're the richest person in the world there's always the poor who aren't playing by the rules. You can always find an excuse to cheat.
The reason to play by the rules is because society and all individuals end up better if we do so. See the iterated prisoner's dilemma
I'm very glad that Ars allows me to subscribe so that I don't have to see the ads. Some sites don't allow the option to pay for their service but force the free-but-ad-filled option on everyone
I think the idea of an easy-to-service tractor (or other equipment) is much more appealing and important than that it have zero electronics. The article does not focus at all on the "zero electronics" angle, rather on the serviceability of the engine and tractor.
I guess the decision to put "zero electronics" in the title was made by some headline editor who thought it made for more clicks.
The idea of putting zero electronics was to appeal to those familiar with the many frustrated tractor owners who've got dog tired of POS revenue driven electronics being a necessary part of their more recent purchases. The title to them would indicate it was both not fly by wire as well as an absence of overly complicated control boxes being essential for the machine to work. Obviously the tractor has electrics which includes such things as lights, batteries, alternator and starter motor, and probably basic half century proven basic electronic components such that drives signals and instrumentation.
As a side note, there's not an adequate explanation for what P pumped injector means or its significance. [1]
Vacuum/pneumatic, analog electric, and hydraulic control systems exist and are able to accomplish control functions comparable to proprietary computer-controlled systems with varying degrees of efficiency, accuracy, and precision. The root cause of the situation is greedy corporations who don't want to produce long-lasting, quality products and a lack of appropriate and sensible government regulations to prevent them from exploiting planned obsolescence and price gouging parts and support.
Though I'm sure that in many instances a box of tricks that dies is because the 80c capacitor or 2 buck transistor was a few cents cheaper than a better longer life equivalent component, simply the lack of a good long lasting component at a cost effective price is the problem - in my tropical locale, the lack of market presence of a robust switch is a major headache for much of the fly by wire machinery that really needs a better switch when fixing the POS tin plated version that relies of being sealed for it's protection against the elements. Back at least to the 80s, they seemed to have a better regard for what electrochemical potentials of various metals to build robust switches that didn't rely entirely on being sealed ... for example though the old foot dimmers on cars would sometimes give minor trouble, for the most part they worked for a long time in a hostile environment without the need to oil and fuss over them.
Or spend 20 minutes to rewrite your Matlab as a Julia program, then get the dramatic speedup that Julia provides over Matlab and Python...
I abandoned Matlab for Julia 12+ years ago and find it such a better tool. It provides the hackability of Matlab with the power of a more powerful language
As with all things mathworks, migrating away from simulink to alternatives isn't an easy ride. Just having an alternative to Embedded Coder to generate code in another (safer) language proved just too much years ago...
The company cited in the article is [Bluehart](https://blueheartenergy.com/our-technology)
One disadvantage that Bluehart lists of classic heat pumps is the need for a refrigerant fluid. But Bluehar uses helium internally; I wonder how often the helium would need to be replaced.
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