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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

This is a nice little firestarter.

I've had this idea many years ago and my solution to that problem was to use two or more lasers of lower power that all shoot at the same point in 3 dimensional space. If you guess wrong then at least you won't set your house on fire (or blind someone).

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The FAA might take objection too. Some places won't let you have lasers within a certain range of an airport. Also, what happens if the mosquito turret mistakes a 747 for a mosquito? Sounds like an effective way to blind pilots. Cool idea though, might be fun indoors if your house is fireproofed.

> Sounds like an effective way to blind pilots.

Don't pilots have protective windows?

No, they don't, and in helicopters they even have windows in the floor.

Protected against weather and sunlights but not against dumb kids with eBay lasers yet

Then why don't terrorists and angry people use this?

Because there had never been actual deaths to it?

It has caused career-ending eye damage though - e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/23/ba-pilots-eye-...

Angry/stupid people do.

What they don't seem to work out is that they're drawing a super clear line in the sky directly back to themselves, and police in choppers have colleagues on the ground who are very happy to show up and arrest the guy with the laser...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCCLbcC25Rs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaOhD2r-Y8c

I thought this was for indoors, outdoors mosquito is food for other animals. Also gotta be a sick 747 flying upside down.

The Boeing 707 famously did a barrel roll on its first public flight.

The problem with blinding pilots is actually reflections off clouds, which is not really intuitive.

oh, indeed it is not. Good thing I never put lasers outdoors.

The FAA has no power in Africa.

Even 1/4 watt is not something you want shined in your eye.

True, but 1 W to damage a mosquito is likely overkill.

I have a 1W laser. Aiming it at your hand and turning it on will immediately cause a painful burning sensation. I've never used it without goggles, but it will burn dang near anything you point it at.

The average laser pointer for a presentation, for reference, is less than .005 Watts (<5mW)

A laser used for CDR writing is already powerful enough. The big trick for mosquito hunting is to pulse a number of smaller lasers, briefly, synchronized and aiming for the same spot from different angles. That takes care of the fire and blinding damage but will still harm the much less solid mosquito.

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