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Comment Re: AI is almost never the limiting factor (Score 1) 185

And then technology just froze. No sensor components got cheaper. Computer vision stopped, as a field. Multimodal AI didnâ(TM)t get invented. Robotic hand technology development stopped. Robotic planning and error recovery did not progress. Time just froze, after McDonalds ended its robotic program.

Comment Re:Build fireproof structures, this is not difficu (Score 4, Informative) 77

It's quite practical to build completely fireproof homes. Some Californians do, which proves the rest can do that too.

Californian's are only at the beginning of their experience with eucalyptus trees, which are native to Australia. You're quite right, it's possible to build bushfire ( I think the US calls them wildfires) resistant homes. In Australia there are specific assessment and building requirements for a home likely to be affected by fire called BAL and I think you also have to get a planning permit

I had the experience of my neighborhood having a bushfire go through it. I realized how few people know just how terrifying the situation is when they asked "can't you just put it out with a garden hose?".
Not quite, the flames were 4-6 stories high, when it hit my neighborhood 18 houses burned down in about as many minutes. Generally a bush fire will have embers fly a few kilometres ahead of it, which is where you can try to stop it. The really bad ones create their own weather which looks like a firestorm and the worst ones creates a fire tornado, which is basically a small tornado throwing the stuff burning in it around.

This fire was stopped from getting my house by an empty block of land and a chopper hitting it with 10 tons of water. High BAL houses survived next to houses that were burning and have things like sprinkler systems on the roof that extinguish embers. However even if your house doesn't burn, the heat melts curtains to the glass, paint peels off interior walls.

You have no idea it's coming sometimes, we got about 5 minutes notice to evacuate, people literally escaped their homes with what they were wearing. I prepare my house for bushfires by cutting back the garden and we have go bags with clothes and important documents. I still have more to do though.

Fortunately there wasn't a loss of human life, lots of people pets panicked, ran before their owners could grab them and died - few people saw that coming. My poor neighbor, came home from breakfast with his wife to see his house on fire, they lost everything. My neighborhood is a ghost town now, people I've know for a long time just gone and it's a special kind of fucked to watch their houses being taken away in a skip bin.

If this thing helps even a little, I'd use it.

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