Live Stream from the Namib Desert

144 pointsposted 3 hours ago
by surprisetalk
(bookofjoe2.blogspot.com)

37 Comments

genmon

2 hours ago

Fellow fan of the Namid Desert waterhole here!

As it happens, I made this wrapper for it

https://waterhole.genmon.partykit.dev

This single-serving waterhole:

- makes the YouTube stream fill the browser for an Immersive Experience(TM)

- shows how many people are watching in real-time

- provides ephemeral chat with other people present

I know at least one team at an unnamed big tech co who would all have it open on their second screens for shared ambience + chat...

(If anybody from YouTube is reading, I have a ton of idea about how ambient live steams are the Next Big Thing and how to lean into that.)

basilikum

3 hours ago

The Namib is also home to this rather strange but extremely adapted plant: Welwitschia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welwitschia

reaperducer

3 hours ago

People tend to think that deserts are lifeless wastes to be readily exploited because who cares, right?

If you've ever actually lived in or explored a desert, you quickly learn that they are full of life. More than most urban landscapes.

seclorum_wien

2 hours ago

Can confirm, have ventured all over the deserts of my homeland, and every time I do, I am filled with awe at the temerity of life on the brink of hardship.

It is a spiritually rewarding activity to look out over a landscape, be still for a while, and notice the absolute abundance of life, as robust as ever.

Even in the dustiest Earth voids, there are colours and growth. It pays to look for it.

alexpotato

3 hours ago

I love that YouTube lets you jump back up to 12 hours on live streams so that you can see what happened recently/overnight etc.

seclorum_wien

2 hours ago

In my opinion this is one of the most productive uses of the Internet.

It can really help to have this running on some spare screen while trapped in the deep, deep depths of cubicle hell.

Even the wind is soothing.

Another great Namibian destination is the "Ocean Conservation Namibia" channel, where one can witness the rescue of ocean life (mostly mammals, i.e. seals) from the plastic trash of humanity.

https://www.youtube.com/@OceanConservationNamibia

This has been a constantly soothing device in my life for a few years. There is something so cathartic about seeing the little pups being chased down to have their bindings removed.

johnny_canuck

30 minutes ago

Does anyone know what type of camera the stream uses? Or recommendations of an outdoor camera/microphone that could accomplish the same thing? I'd love to do this sort of thing in our rural backyard

ch4s3

32 minutes ago

A barn like in Philly used to put this up on their TV at night if there wasn’t a game on and it was really popular. It was always cool to see large animals show up.

_def

26 minutes ago

How does this kind of watering hole work? It doesn't look like it's just a hole where rain ends up

burkaman

16 minutes ago

This one is artificial and is kept full by a solar-powered well system (according to the stream description).

Havoc

3 hours ago

This also works well for safari lodges. They worked out you can just put a pond there and elephants etc will come while guests are having breakfast. Reliably present fresh water in a dry area = animals

arkensaw

2 hours ago

how often does it rain there? I seem to have joined the feed just as a shower started

astral_drama

17 minutes ago

Same

It made me think of The Who - Love, Reign O’ Me.

  Only love can bring the rain
  That makes you yearn to the sky
  Only love can bring the rain
  That falls like tears from on high

nvahalik

2 hours ago

Same. What are the odds?

danielfalbo

an hour ago

Do you know when you look for a restaurant on google maps and you see a "Popular times" map of people density throughout the day + live updates like "Less busy than usual"? Would be fun to build such a thing for this

matthew-craig

an hour ago

Interestingly, I see that the watering hole is available on Google street view: 24°04'29.7"S 15°53'14.7"E

curiosity42

2 hours ago

Closest to a religious experience I could have had. Thanks!

tamimio

an hour ago

Speaking of Namib Desert, yesterday I was in a nature museum and saw the Namib beetle, the fog collector beetle!

https://imgur.com/a/UbIefte

I love nature, and I am seriously thinking of changing careers completely away from technology and getting into a nature-related field, or at least something to use my technology background but spend most of the day with animals and in nature. I just don't know the whats and hows of that change yet. I would definitely take a job even if it's not paying that much in that direction if I found one in a heartbeat!

dustrider

33 minutes ago

Fun thing about these beetles is they do their territory call by knocking their abdomen against rocks or hard surfaces making a distinct TokTok sound.

As kids we used to have great fun knocking rocks together around sunset to get them to call back. Kinda like beetle bird calls.

DyslexicAtheist

3 hours ago

awesome, would be nice to stream this to a screen on the wall in my home office ... even with low volume sound. project for the weekend :)

genmon

an hour ago

I have regularly done just that! a projector on a big wall, and a portal to the namib desert... 100% recommend

see my other post with the full-viewport waterhole, that was what I used to get rid of YouTube chrome.

forinti

an hour ago

How about time shifted so you are at the same time of day as the video? That would be nice.

bookofjoe

2 hours ago

I had exactly this thought looking at this camera's feed. Put it on a huge screen in a classroom BUT only turn it on as a reward. Otherwise no one would ever get anything done.

gfna

3 hours ago

We did this in a project where, due to reasons, we used a windowless, dull, claustrophobic meeting room for 6 months. Every now and then our daily was interrupted by the sight of an elephant on the screen

reaperducer

3 hours ago

would be nice to stream this to a screen on the wall in my home office

I once toured an elementary school in one country that was "twinned" with another elementary school in another country.

One of the classrooms (4th grade, maybe?) had one wall that was entirely a projection from a camera set up in a classroom of the other school. The other school had the opposite setup.

The effect was of one large classroom, though the projected one was naturally a little dimmer, fuzzier, and de-saturated. But I was told that even though there was no audio link between them, the children of the different classrooms got to know each other on sight, and formed social bonds.

nxor

2 hours ago

Less youtube is my next big thing. My screen time is too high.

fishstamp82

2 hours ago

I had this problem for a long time, the only thing that worked was installing an ad on that removes recommendations. The only thing I use youtube for today is intentionally following ASL (starcraft broodwar) in korea.

The ad-on makes the home screen completely white/empty, meaning I just get reminded constantly ohh, yeah I am not supposed to use youtube unless there is something particular I want to watch.

RobKohr

8 minutes ago

I use "Code Injector" extension which is available for firefox and chrome. You can add custom javascript and css to any page. I usually inspect the page, find the classes or ids of the elements I want to get rid of, and do a display:none on them.

darthcircuit

an hour ago

You can do this without addons. I turned off recommendations and history, so I get nothing in my feed and YouTube wont even give me a queue of shorts to scroll through. I have to be very intentional on YouTube now and it has cut my usage down a ton.

nullwarp

an hour ago

I have had this set for a while now and anytime I see someone elses youtube page I am horrified.

Probably the first setting I would recommend for anyone to enable.

Jhsto

an hour ago

Where you do this?

dj_gitmo

an hour ago

I'm in the exact same boat. I spend too much time on YT and only thing I really want it for is ASL. I'll probably try the plugin.