4 ms·

If I were an Afghanistani/Iraqi/whoever planting IEDs/mines trying to defeat this, I'd make small bundles with explosives in them and sprinkle them in random ar

by nemo 13y ago

If I were an Afghanistani/Iraqi/whoever planting IEDs/mines trying to defeat this, I'd make small bundles with explosives in them and sprinkle them in random areas to create large enough numbers of false positives to make using this onerous. Still, this is a promising sounding tech. for detecting mines in past battlefields, ordnance, mercury and so on. Hope the idea is developed in a workable way.

jcr 13y ago
It seems you're limiting your perspective to recent conflicts. Mines and unexploded ordinance are a huge and long-standing problem across the globe. For example, it is still common for explosives from the first world war, a 100 years ago, to be found in Europe. Similar is true for nearly every other conflict in history. An interesting point the article did not mention is how some forms of munitions tend to release more identifiable gases as they slowly decay over time. This is one of the reasons why using trained dogs has been effective to locate mines. If they can get this laser and radar tech working effectively, it stands to reason this tech will be especially useful for finding and clearing old mine fields. Mines are a terrible problem, but tech like this has a chance of saving a lot of innocent lives.
- Wingman4l7 13y ago
  There's been a lot of success in using trained rats to detect landmines -- they're cheaper to care for / transport, quicker to train (IIRC), and too light to set off the mines. I've also read of more unusual / interesting detection techniques researched, like bees, and my personal favorite, the seeding by air of bioluminescent bacteria that feed off of said gases.
  - kroy 13y ago
    In case anyone is interested in reading more about mine-detecting rats, you can check out an organization called Apopo. They're pretty cool, and you can even adopt your own rat! http://www.apopo.org/en/ http://www.apopo.org/en/
michael_h 13y ago
If you plant a 'small bundle with explosives', then that isn't really a false positive, is it?
- bonzoesc 13y ago
  If you're looking for deadly munitions and you find just a scrap of raw explosive compound without any mechanism to explode it and make it deadly, that's a false positive.
  - sandfox 13y ago
    Why not just plant lots of explosive devices WITH a trigger mechanism... make the numbers game work for you :-)
    - bonzoesc 13y ago
      Unlike Call of Duty, you don't get points for killing in real life. Wasting an enemy's time and hurting their morale on a pointless task trying to detect and disarm explosive devices that don't exist might be more powerful than a single one that does. Making the enemy believe something is frequently more powerful than making them dead: http://www.psywarrior.com/dissemination.html http://www.psywarrior.com/dissemination.html

by nemo 13y ago

jcr 13y ago

It seems you're limiting your perspective to recent conflicts. Mines and unexploded ordinance are a huge and long-standing problem across the globe. For example, it is still common for explosives from the first world war, a 100 years ago, to be found in Europe. Similar is true for nearly every other conflict in history. An interesting point the article did not mention is how some forms of munitions tend to release more identifiable gases as they slowly decay over time. This is one of the reasons why using trained dogs has been effective to locate mines. If they can get this laser and radar tech working effectively, it stands to reason this tech will be especially useful for finding and clearing old mine fields. Mines are a terrible problem, but tech like this has a chance of saving a lot of innocent lives.

Wingman4l7 13y ago
There's been a lot of success in using trained rats to detect landmines -- they're cheaper to care for / transport, quicker to train (IIRC), and too light to set off the mines. I've also read of more unusual / interesting detection techniques researched, like bees, and my personal favorite, the seeding by air of bioluminescent bacteria that feed off of said gases.
- kroy 13y ago
  In case anyone is interested in reading more about mine-detecting rats, you can check out an organization called Apopo. They're pretty cool, and you can even adopt your own rat! http://www.apopo.org/en/ http://www.apopo.org/en/

michael_h 13y ago

If you plant a 'small bundle with explosives', then that isn't really a false positive, is it?

bonzoesc 13y ago
If you're looking for deadly munitions and you find just a scrap of raw explosive compound without any mechanism to explode it and make it deadly, that's a false positive.
- sandfox 13y ago
  Why not just plant lots of explosive devices WITH a trigger mechanism... make the numbers game work for you :-)
  - bonzoesc 13y ago
    Unlike Call of Duty, you don't get points for killing in real life. Wasting an enemy's time and hurting their morale on a pointless task trying to detect and disarm explosive devices that don't exist might be more powerful than a single one that does. Making the enemy believe something is frequently more powerful than making them dead: http://www.psywarrior.com/dissemination.html http://www.psywarrior.com/dissemination.html