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Boeing Uses 20,000 Lbs. of Potatoes To Check Aircraft Wireless Network Signals
coondoggie writes "Boeing calls it Project SPUDS — or rather, Synthetic Personnel Using Dielectric Substitution — that is, using sacks of potatoes perched on aircraft seats to test the effectiveness of wireless signals in an airliner cabin. Boeing said it was researching an advanced way to test wireless signals in airplanes and needed a way to effectively simulate 200-300 people sitting in seats throughout the aircraft."
The weight is not important. Sacks of potatoes can form a mostly human shape, and I suppose have a more or less similar water concentration? (emphasis on more or less)
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Tatters, no. Taters, perhaps.
Irony? Yea, it's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron!
Even for tests, they're probably not yet allowed to have those 200-300 people in seats, using wifi, while the plane is aloft.
Yeah, that's pretty much the joke. Thanks for re-stating it.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Numbers found by a brief search indicate ~60% (anywhere from 45% to 75% depending on age and obesity) for a human body, and ~80% for a potato. So you could probably get away with a potato sack smaller than a human, but it's a decent approximation either way.