[nirui]

It's 2024, instead of riding our personal spaceships to habitat on Mars, we use Home Assistant software to alert us about incoming missile attacks.

War is the single most unproductive activity humans can do. Sure, maybe Putin has his rationale, but spiting on a cake is never how one can secure the cake for themself, because guess what, others can also spit on it and then the cake is ruined. A greater leader knows that the only way to really solve a problem is to do something that adds (instead of removes) value, sadly some leaders never care to learn it.

Rant aside, I want to ask a question: based on the article, it seemed that the system requires Telegram (thus Internet) and open source intel to work. Is it possible to make the system self-sustained? Is it physically possible to detect imminent attack based on soundwave/light signals? Because after the war started, Internet access maybe a difficult privilege.

[pjc50]

> Because after the war started, Internet access maybe a difficult privilege.

? The war is on and people are continuing to use the internet.

> Is it physically possible to detect imminent attack based on soundwave/light signals?

You cannot hear a hypersonic missile coming. Horizons prevent you seeing it. You need to listen to the AWACS https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/flying-with-nato-awacs-1.66194...

[egorfine]

> Is it physically possible to detect imminent attack

Yes. Air defense does this pretty consistently.

And then what? We (Ukrainians) have lost some components of the PATRIOT air defense system because we were out of interceptors. Imagine being an air defender on duty on the best hardware in the world, facing the missile incoming and being incapable of doing shit because you're empty because of... democracy. The very thing being protected right now from that specific missile.

[hcfman]

Nice to see people able to use tech to help reduce/manage their stress/trauma in such horrific situations.

Good point about telegram. As much local control as possible is desirable. Do the text to speech interfaces work offline with the chosen devices ? If so, I’ll likely have a play.

I have a project that might be able to help with your situation. A Raspberry Pi based sound localization system. It’s very accurate. Last weekend I localized an explosion (fireworks) to within 20m from the actual location with 4 recorders. two of which were 3km from each other.

Unlike most ARUs (autonomous recording units) which are based on microcontrollers and need post processing to determine an event start time, the Pi system could be used as the basis for a real time localization system as the system times is sub microsecond accurate.

With likely a small amount of new development and co-operation with your friends you could be alerted in real time when artillery or gunfire is getting close to you. Along with a map location of where it was fired from

My license forbids government use (attaching consequences to the small developer unfriendly cyber resilience act that is stealing from small developers and giving to rich ones) but personal civilian use is just fine.

https://github.com/hcfman/sbts-aru

(PS. I agree on with the sentiments of the above authors about war. It’s sad that our governments instead of putting everything into driving to peace are spending our future climate change defence money on destruction and they are gunning for it with an insane appetite)

[palata]

> War is the single most unproductive activity humans can do.

Let's wait a few decades and see the results of global warming, shall we?

[toenail]

Not sure what you're trying to say. Global warming is a human activity, global warming is unproductive, global warming is caused by one human activity, that activity is unproductive?

[palata]

Not sure if you are writing this in good faith or not, but let me assume you are:

The parent said "War is the single most unproductive activity humans can do", without giving much details about a metric (it is very productive if your business is to build weapons, but counter-productive if your business is to save lives).

But assuming that the metric was something along the lines of "doing good for society", then global warming is a lot more counter-productive than wars. Global warming and wars are the result of human activities (in case that was not clear).

So yeah, we would certainly save more human lives by keeping our wars (I mean, without nuking the whole planet) but working all together to reduce the impact of global warming. Meaning that IMHO, "war is NOT the single most unproductive activity humans can do". Not that it is good, quite obviously.

Does that answer your question?

[skjoldr]

Mobile operators have added microphones to 4G cell towers throughout Ukraine to triangulate suspicious sounds.

Starlinks provide decentralized access to the Internet both on the frontline and back in the rear. Together with batteries, solar panels, and petrol/natgas/diesel generators, they can be relied on to provide 24/7 Internet access for a while even if something happens to the ISPs. Lots of people now have them even though they are a bit expensive, and the Ukrainian government had also set up a network of locations where civilians can gather to warm up, charge their devices, and send messages over Starlink, in the worst-case scenario of a major infrastructure breakdown.

More broadly, it's harder than it seems to knock out both the entire backbone of the Ukrainian Internet network and the backbone of the mobile carriers, at once. It's easier to target the power stations. Even then, it is possible to get at least some power as long as the fossil fuel logistics are maintained. A 180W solar panel that costs around $100 can, in decent weather, provide enough power to charge a phone and power a Starlink. So power is a major problem, but it also has solutions.

[mcfedr]

Some of the telegram channels are government run, so it's not just open source intel

Of course it would be possible to detect these things yourself, you would just need an extensive radar network covering 600k km2 of Ukraine, and as much of Russia as you can. You'll need quite a variety of systems to detect both hypersonic missiles and slow low flying drones.

[afiodorov]

>spiting on a cake is never how one can secure the cake for themself,

Not sure the analogy holds, Putin got a slice for himself and spits on the rest.

> War is the single most unproductive activity humans can do.

This war is a conflict about values; conflicting sides think human lives are worth sacrificing for the values let alone economical output.

[shepherdjerred]

> War is the single most unproductive activity humans can do.

I think I totally disagree with this. So many inventions have been the result of war, even outside of WW2/the Cold War.

For example, what would Israel look like today if there was no threat of since its founding? I doubt it would be anywhere near as advanced as it is today.

War is terrible, and I'm not advocating for it, but I don't think you could necessarily say it's unproductive.

[exe34]

> War is the single most unproductive activity humans can do

https://science.howstuffworks.com/war-drive-technological-ad...

war leads to technological progress. peace leads to kerfuffles over pronouns.

[multjoy]

Directed with unerring accuracy by Moscow specifically to seed discord and division.

The idea that this the inevitable direction of peace ignores the fact that the rise of the so-called culture war is part of an asymmetric conflict.

[hnbad]

This is just the same old disproven "hard times lead to strong men, strong men lead to good times, good times lead to weak men, weak men lead to hard times" nonsense.

If you paid any attention to what the talking heads driving the culture war discourse in the US have openly said about what they have been doing, it's obvious that the "culture war" is about as much the fault of progressives as the Ukraine war is the fault of Ukraine. "DEI" and "wokism" is just the current designated battleground after drag queens, "CRT", "BLM" and masks/vaccines. The goal is to frame non-issues as apocalyptic imminent threats in order to create political momentum for otherwise unpopular politics of rolling back civil justice advancements (e.g. gay rights, reproductive rights, Black rights, women's rights).

War does not lead to technological progress. War accelerates technological progress. A majority of groundbreaking research happens outside the private sector and war economies usually see more direct state control of the economy and more state involvement in R&D, supported by heavy public spending. If you want to take a lesson from war driving technological progress, you could just do this in peace times.

It sounds like the peace time decadence is not kerfuffles over pronouns but entertaining a privatized economy concerned more with ROI for investors than contributing to a shared public effort.

[exe34]

> If you want to take a lesson from war driving technological progress, you could just do this in peace times.

that's exactly the point though. unless we're threatened with annihilation, or at least loss of access to valuable resources, we as humans don't seem very good at this kind of thing. we'd rather spend it on corruption, bullshit jobs, vanity projects, etc.

[nirui]

Not at all. I think you've confused the word "progression" with "desperation".

Killing is the most basic instinct of animals, a dog can do that if aggravated enough. In fact, a stupid strong dog can be much more violent than a smart strong dog. It's not anything advanced, really. So as war, which is just a form of mass killings.

Peace, on the other hand, is more advanced. It takes a lot effort, maneuver, calculations and compromise to make it happen.

Technological progress will happen (if not happen in a better way) without war, it could be driven by market, or people's wish etc.

War makes people desperate, so they wish to have something to keep them safe immediately, including methods/tools that makes them good at killing (formally called "Defense"). That's why we humans figured out how to build nuclear bombs BEFORE nuclear power stations.

There are also countless example on how wars halted progress. Do you know how many scientists lost their lives because of wars? How many regular people and their potentials gets destroyed because of wars? And how high the reparation could cost to repair what's lost the wars?

All and all, calling "war leads to progress" is a complete void-filled nonsensical bullshit. Kerfuffles, if keeps people safe to enjoy their lives, is way more productive than that.