this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2026
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[–] deranger@sh.itjust.works 35 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?

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 5 points 1 hour 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 10 points 1 hour 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 1 hour 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 57 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.

[–] finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 hour 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.

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

I will 100% kickstarter this.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 2 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 1 hour 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 50 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.

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

hahaha... I like that 😃

[–] artyom@piefed.social -2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 51 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 29 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 3 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 32 minutes ago

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