alt Hacker NewsI’ve done this for a couple years now, cool to see it pop up here. I believe the scale is a touch larger; 3935 acres in 2025, plus a small amount outside the fence line.
On the technical side, we not only log but photograph everything, down to each clump of toilet paper. We check our progress by doing hundreds of tests identical to what the BLM does, both ahead and behind our main crew; bagging up any debris to be photographed on green screens where the pixels are counted to ensure we’re under the 2.29×10^-3 percent limit.
It’s a stupendous amount of walking, with no shade, a moop stick and a bucket. But it’s a hell of a feeling to be part of making sure we remain undefeated against an impossible task that the future of burning man depends on.
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That's really cool. Props.
> It’s a stupendous amount of walking, with no shade, a moop stick and a bucket
That does sound taxing. Is it volunteer or do people get paid?
Have you tried any computer vision for automatic categorisation? Happy to take a look into the data if helps.
I'm from a completely different country, never been to burning man, have no plans to visit, but I've been to other hacker camps and the most magical thing is being part of the build/clean up crews, because the 1 week camp is actually a 3 week experience. And those extra 2 weeks there is no bar, no lecture tent, no infrastructure, just you and a bunch of really fun people, in tents, in the wilderness, having a lot of cozy moments together.
Am I right to assume, that maybe this cleanup crew experiences something similar?