this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2026
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[–] deranger@sh.itjust.works 31 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (2 children)

This is neat but also stupid. If a laser has enough power to fry a mosquito, it can also fry your retina.

Yes, I’m aware he added a safety system. That’s one layer of Swiss cheese in the safety system. It’ll work flawlessly until it doesn’t. How are potential reflections handled?

[–] MissesAutumnRains@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 56 minutes ago

Having lived in Florida, it's worth the risk.

[–] Carnelian@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Could run it similar to those disinfecting light bulbs (only when the room is not occupied)

[–] Badabinski@kbin.earth 4 points 51 minutes ago (2 children)

How do you ensure that the room is empty, 100% of the time? Those disinfecting light bulbs don't have the same level of risk as this laser system.

[–] Carnelian@lemmy.world 8 points 43 minutes ago (1 children)

Perhaps a second laser defense system can be installed to ensure people stay out of the original room?

[–] Badabinski@kbin.earth 4 points 42 minutes ago

I like the way you think. I think more of life's second-order problems should be solved with blinding lasers.

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 3 points 39 minutes ago

Have it spray tear gas first. But wait, then the laser won't be able to penetrate the cloud. Maybe we could add a quadcopter drone to clear a path to the mosquito for the laser to fire. But then we'll need a system so the drone doesn't run into a human choking on tear gas, and the drone can't see because of the limited visibility, could we use infrared sensors I wonder? /s

This is a stupid system. I love engineers, but they tend to uh... overengineer things like this.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 7 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I will 100% kickstarter this.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

I'd just stick screens on one's windows and maybe use DEET if you're really at the height of mosquito season in a bad area.

Like, this has a DSLR camera, a GPU constantly churning away, a laser...

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 2 points 59 minutes ago (1 children)

I was actually thinking about it for population control because it could be running almost constantly. And energy wise, I'm not really concerned. I'm on solar+batteries, and anything I can do to prevent juice going to HECO is worth it to me.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 1 points 32 minutes ago

If you want population control, just get some buckets and put some water and a mosquito dunk in them. The mosquitos will be attracted to the stagnant water but all the eggs will get eaten by bacteria.

[–] finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 58 minutes ago

Depending only on a second vision system as a safety interlock seems... foolhardy, to say the least. A laser strong enough to instantly fry a mosquito is likely also strong enough to instantly make you blind.

[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 2 points 1 hour ago

hahaha... I like that 😃

[–] artyom@piefed.social -2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 33 minutes ago) (2 children)

This is not novel. This has been done 100x in the past. It doesn't work.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 minutes ago

It worked insofar as it killed all the mosquitoes. Whether it'll end up burning his house down in the long run is still up for debate.

[–] thejml@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

But this time there's AI involved... so we can also boil the oceans!

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 1 points 14 minutes ago

There's AI and then there's AI. Unless you think the system is talking the mozzies to death, get a grip.