[HN Gopher] Boeing uses potatoes to test wi-fi (2012)
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       Boeing uses potatoes to test wi-fi (2012)
        
       Author : m-hodges
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2025-06-28 17:36 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
        
       | milner_t wrote:
       | Potatoes and frozen chickens are used in various standardized
       | qualification tests for airplanes.
        
         | privatelypublic wrote:
         | Thought it was thawed chickens.
        
       | Scoundreller wrote:
       | [2012]
        
       | walterbell wrote:
       | _> Frederic Rosseneu of the European Potato Trade Association
       | Europatat said the organisation was  "looking forward to other
       | experiments in which spuds can help to make our lives more
       | convenient"._
       | 
       | Potato submarines!
        
       | arghwhat wrote:
       | The tricky part isn't getting signal strength in the cabin, it's
       | managing a cabin full of devices trying to talk using a
       | technology that only allows one radio to talk at any given time.
       | 
       | You need many very low power base stations at spaced out channels
       | to make this work. Nowadays WiFi 7 provides some nice anti-
       | congestion and channel optimization features as well, but back
       | then, one slow device was all it took to render wifi useless.
        
       | gmuslera wrote:
       | They need to be careful of not ending in another place in the
       | long Earth.
        
       | deathanatos wrote:
       | The last time I sat in a plane "with power and WiFi", the seat
       | outlet crashed1 when I plugged into it.
       | 
       | The time prior to that, the outlet had been so abused that the
       | plug just fell out of the socket.
       | 
       | The time prior to that, the plane did not have the advertised
       | features.
       | 
       | Perhaps the signal strength is great, but the actual problems I
       | as a passenger experience seem to be a bit divorced from the
       | potatoes here.
       | 
       | 1"You can crash an outlet?" I'm an SRE. I can do _anything._ Plug
       | plug into outlet, green light turns off. Wait like 5s, light
       | turns back on. 1s later, green light turns off. Loop. It 's a
       | crashloop, essentially. No power provided.
        
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       (page generated 2025-06-28 23:02 UTC)