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Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

m.good.is

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Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#141

Post by chernevik »

shadowfiend wrote: post #118
chernevik wrote: post #102

It is depressing to me that a community as smart as this is so congratulatory of such inch-deep stuff. Oooh, landmines! Design! Shiny! But a fast perusal of the comments shows that this approach is at best problematic. And a deeper reading of the comments suggests this might very well be a dangerous anti-pattern. People, you are some of the brightest and cleverest people walking the earth. And the earth has some nast…

“But you do his effort to help no favors by upvoting it to the moon because it looks cool. The informed and thoughtful critique in the comments DOES help, and a dialogue talking about the potential application of design to the problem would help still further.“ Upvotes give a post visibility. Visibility fosters discussion. Discussion yields information, critique, and dialogue. I'm uncertain as to why you're complaini…

It's a good point. Hard to distinguish upvotes for "cool!" vs "let's discuss".

I did think about about saying something about "upvote and comment" but 1) was already too long 2) wasn't sure that a sea of 300+ comments is an effective discussion.

Don't have a good answer for you.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#142

Post by chernevik »

nhangen wrote: post #115
chernevik wrote: post #102

It is depressing to me that a community as smart as this is so congratulatory of such inch-deep stuff. Oooh, landmines! Design! Shiny! But a fast perusal of the comments shows that this approach is at best problematic. And a deeper reading of the comments suggests this might very well be a dangerous anti-pattern. People, you are some of the brightest and cleverest people walking the earth. And the earth has some nast…

I like the idea because I was in Afghanistan for some time and saw humans in blue suits clearing them in that very same place. I would much prefer a device like this, shiny or not. Since when did we become so cynical that every effort must be criticized on execution rather than lauded on effort?

The comment thread suggests that this particular effort is potentially _harmful_ in its execution.

There are concerns it might create false security. And that it mightn't be very useful to current strategies, probably followed those blue-suit guys, that do lead to proper security. For example exploded mine shrapnel can confuse mine detection gear.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#143

Post by jackpirate »

jwcooper wrote: post #119
batgaijin wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people like ideas like this because the idea that USA is going to back down to some where-the-fuck-am-I place in northern Cambodia and Laos to remove the bombs we dropped is laughable: http://truth-out.org/news/item/3001:landmines-and-cluster-bo... You act cynical and as though you have a 'realist' point of view, but nowhere do you mention holding the countries that dropped these weapons accountable. Why don'…

It's fun to place all blame on the USA, isn't it? From the below link [1]: Mine clearance teams in Afghanistan report finding literally dozens of types of landmines, mainly from the ex-USSR, but also from Belgium, Italy, US and the UK. The most infamous mine used during the Soviet Union's occupation period was the so-called 'butterfly' mine. Helicopter crews dropped untold numbers (figures range into the millions) of…

Mine clearance teams in Afghanistan report finding literally dozens of types of landmines, mainly from the ex-USSR, but also from Belgium, Italy, US and the UK.

Grandparent was talking about Cambodia and Laos, not Afghanistan.

Also, cluster munitions are a much greater source of American unexploded ordinance (UXO) than mines. You'll find tons of American UXO in Afghanistan because of it. Each cluster has only a ~90% of detonating, and we dropped a but ton at the beginning of the war.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#144

Post by epo »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #126
Vivtek wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is this costs 40 € and can clear a couple of mines for that money. Afghanistan is not exactly rolling in cash, so any cheap improvement is a valuable addition to the toolbox - it provides a way for poor communities to do something while they're waiting for America to donate enough money to clean up their mess. My guess is that demining NGOs will be using something like this soon enough if it proves eff…

The mine roller looked to be made of three parts: the black core (expensive); the plastic plates (very cheap); and the bamboo poles (cheap as shit). Provided the weight came mostly from the core and the core never itself got blown up, I'd saw it can clear more than a couple of land mines for the money. Perhaps, a land mine per plastic plate, and if an NGO is paying for Afghani wages, you can roll that baby all day. B…

Regrettably the only "safe" place is the location where any mine actually exploded, couple of feet away, not so much.

The haphazard nature of the exploration is the big issue and using this would most likely give people a false sense of security. This is an interesting piece of lo-tech design created with the very best of intentions, but it is essentially useless and may even be harmful.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#145

Post by sosuke »

sgdesign wrote: post #31

Sorry for going completely off-topic, but I'm slightly annoyed at the overuse of adverbs like "hauntingly" and "wildly". "Hauntingly" might be tolerated here even if it is very hyperbolic, but "wildly low-cost"? What does that even mean?! Why can't the headline just be "Beautiful, Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines"? Oh, and another one that has been popping up a lot around here lately is "vanishingly" (I…

This title is feels like a product of the previous article "how to pick your titles using AdWords" it is just missing "1 cheap trick that an Afghan child came up with that makes demining companies furious"

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#146

Post by robotresearcher »

Cass wrote: post #55
robotresearcher wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A truly random path would be pretty good, since you approach perfect coverage with repeated runs. Alas, the wind direction is not random, particularly in this kind of environment. An interesting demining approach is to buy the local villagers lots of sheep and pen them in the areas of concern. Once in a while a sheep goes boom. Meanwhile: wool and baby sheep as a side effect.

How are people supposed to shear those sheep, or take care of them during lambing/when they're sick, or to feed or water them, if they can't actually enter the pen? It seems to me that sheep penned in a land mine field would either be useless, because you couldn't go near them, or worse than useless, because they'd be a temptation to enter the dangerous area.

The point is that these people have sheep and goats already for basic subsistence. They already use these dangerous fields. By buying them more animals instead of (or as well as) spending money on expensive technical demining kit, you increase the probability of mine clearance a bit, while making the person wealthier. Sheep reproduce and excess lambs can be sold, making the process sustainable.

Similarly, training locals in demining with donated basic equipment is also good, in the sense that these new experts can sell their services locally. The down side is that these brave people take extra risk.

Both the livestock and local training methods were used in Bosnia, which had a serious landmine problem recently.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#148

Post by nostromo »

Fun fact: the US Navy uses trained dolphins to locate mines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Navy_Marine_Mammal_Program... (No, they are not killed in the process.)

This got me thinking, could we train rats to locate landmines using their strong sense of smell? I googled, and it appears so. http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/13/world/americas/colombia-bomb-d...

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#149

Post by _djo_ »

T-hawk wrote: post #137
gabemart wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For instance, Mechem's sniffer dogs have displayed a 90% success rate on target filters, so statistically having three dogs per team perform cross-checking paths on the field should produce the 99.6% confidence level for the type of mines the dogs can detect. I know nothing at all about this area, but presumably this only works if the 10% failure rate is random rather than based on some quality of the undetected min…

More generally, that the chance of each dog X failing to detect each mine Y is independent. If it is independent, then you get the (1-P)^3 chance of failure, meaning 0.1% for all three failures if each dog has a 90% chance of succeeding. But of course that isn't true in reality. There will be properties of the mines (burial depth, ground cover, degree of leakage of sniffable explosive material) that affect its chance…

Correct, that's why in real world scenarios companies like Mechem will use a number of techniques. The link I posted earlier makes it clear that the UN considers a combination of techniques necessary to meet the required standard.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#150

Post by 3minus1 »

lambda wrote: post #120
cflee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out that the Dutch armed forces agree[1] that it's not so easy either: "The Mine Kafon has just been tested by the Dutch Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit, which has concluded that it is not suitable for mine clearance (which requires a more systematic approach), but at $50 each could be used as a cheap and safe way to identify dangerous areas that need demining." [1] http://australia.icbl.org/index_htm_files/Ma…

If you watch the video, that's all that this is claimed to do. The headline it was posted under on is.gd and here on HN claim it's for clearing mines; but at 2:50 he says "My ideal scenario would be to provide it for local people as a tool to cheaply survey this danger in their own environment." All this discussion is because of an over-enthusiastic headline, not what the tool is actually intended for.

I can't verify since I'm at work, but I'm pretty sure he talks about how a single roller can clear up to four mines. To me that implies this is meant as a tool for clearing the mines.
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