Testing software sucks. However, it is not the worst part of being a Software Engineer; that seat is taken by documentation.
Which is why a lot of open source software documentation is horrifically bad. This is an ongoing problem with Linux as most open source developers won’t pay technical writers to polish their documentation.
Oh, batteries. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. Then I saw some news on this field. Potatoes May Power The Batteries Of The Future article tells about a potato powered battery. It promises to be simple, sustainable, robust device can potentially provide an immediate inexpensive solution to electricity needs in parts of the world lacking electrical infrastructure. Researchers at the Hebrew University claimed that the boiled potato or other similarly treated vegetables could provide an immediate, environmental friendly and inexpensive solution to many of the low power energy needs in areas of the world lacking access to electrical infrastructure. The ability to produce and utilize low power electricity was demonstrated by LEDs powered by treated potato batteries.
Does this sound too good to be true? The fact is that is too good to be true. And this is not a true green power source. It is a fact that you can use potatoes and metal electrodes to make a working battery. The problem here is that the energy extracted from this battery actually doesn’t come from the potatoes, but from the corrosion of the electrodes. Yes, you can get energy even from an “Earth Battery”, but no, it ain’t free. If you replace the potato or soil with zinc chloride or acid you get a better working battery. These substances have better electrolytic properties.
So the original news article misses the point about where the power in batteries actually comes from, which is the difference in electric potential between the two metals used as electrodes. What you get is most propably a small a fraction of the energy that was necessary to produce the metal from ore. Not exactly an efficient way to store power, and a terribly stupid way to use expensive metals! And in addition to that the potato used on this experiement is just waste contaminated with metal.
So to get green energy would be better to use commercial rechargeable batteries and use actual real renewable energy such as hydro or wind to recharge them.
Power-line networking has been increasing in popularity at some areas but the success does not become without problem. Power line tech could crash aircraft and shut down the Archers article says that an extensive study commissioned by Ofcom concludes that power line networking could crash airplanes and block Radio 4 in UK. According to the study the problem isn’t just that power line networking (PLN) kit is getting more popular, but also that the frequency range used is expanding in order to drive up the data rate.
Existing PLN equipment operates between 2MHz and 30MHz, but the next generation of kit will run from there right up to 300MHz, which includes the FM radio band (87.5-108MHz) and various safety and communication systems. PLN system splatters its message across the whole wavelength, which gives great capacity at the cost of widespread interference. There is even a video that demonstrates Belkin’s Gigabit Powerline HD Starter Kit completely knocking out FM reception while files are transferred.
For comparison on frequencies used, the current ADSL 2+ system used frequencies up to to 2.2MHz. VDSL systems use higher frequencies (VDSL up to 12 MHz and VDSL2 stretches to 30MHz).
If you are interested in more details read the whole Ofcom The Likelihood and Extent of Radio Frequency Interference from In-Home PLT Devices study paper (145 pages). Besides interference issued this document describes how Instrument Landing System (ILS) (a radio based system for guiding aircraft down to land on a
chosen runway) works.
The manufacturers and PA Consulting reckon that technology will solve all these problems with a combination of smart-notching and power management. But those both cost money and capacity, so PA Consulting concludes that legislation will be necessary to ensure that happens.
