I remember I blogged about Laravel back in 2016 (time flies!), and reading them again, I am surprised that what I thought back in 2016 still applies today.

Today I am going to talk about some black magic I’ve encountered writing a test blog project. The bit that filling out the blog form and validating the data. Normally, when a form is posted to an URL, the controller validates the form data and throws validation exceptions if form is not validated, then the controller can redirect the browser back to the form along some error data to be displayed on the form. In Laravel, the redirecting back to the form is automatically done for you and somehow the view magically has the ‘errors’ variable in context.

We also know that Yellow NZ has a lot of connections with SMEs. It can utilise this advantage to venture into areas that actually help these SMEs to do their business, such as providing a platform for ecommerce, booking, trading etc etc, which ultimately creates an ecosystem that benefits both sides.

The graph below is the connection graph tethered on my phone on 3G Mobile Data, comparing to above, a lot less connection drops.

So what’s the new technology is about? You would have thought there is a database table with a simple SQL query like this:

select * from sales_record r1 left join sales_record r2 on r1.title_no = r2.title_no and r1.id < r2.id where datediff(r2.sales_date, r1.sales_date) < 30;

I did a quick calculation from https://www.energywise.govt.nz/tools/solar-calculator/, using all the standard attributes and costs, it worked out that I will save a HUGE(not) $1100 in 22 years, that is without any issues within 22 years. I don’t really think it’s worth installing right now, but if you are so concerned about the environment, it doesn’t hurt to go ahead I guess.

So what is the bottleneck for us to save money from? The solar panels seems they are reasonably efficient, so that shouldn’t be the problem. If it’s not the panels then must be the batteries! After some research on the batteries offered with the solar package, they don’t store enough energy to last the whole night, especially if you rely electricity for heating. Based on the following battery specs, the biggest one is 9kwh, if you use heatpump + fridge + hot shower + watch some TV + do some cooking, the battery will prob only last 3-4 hours.

I guess right now it’s not the best time (cost effective) to install solar panels, until there is a breakthrough/revolution on battery technology.

https://medium.freecodecamp.com/recognizing-traffic-lights-with-deep-learning-23dae23287cc#.k941su69v

https://hackernoon.com/how-it-feels-to-learn-javascript-in-2016-d3a717dd577f#.67qnsecr5

http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm

Looks like Energizer is a clear winner.