Are webcams still a thing?
The recent post in the Wikipedia community about the Trojan Room coffee pot got me thinking: are there any interesting webcams still running on the web? If so, do you have any favorites?
Aside from my local ski area I didn't think I could name a single webcam still running.
There are many, especially on weather stations and some City outlooks. There are also some on mountains.
Oh and the one from NASA that steams to YouTube.
If you're talking about the ISS earthcam I'm pretty sure that's been dead for years at this point unless they revived it and I haven't heard about it
I used to love watching it
USGS maintains some cool ones, and has a youtube page for when something rare happens at Mauna Kea or wherever.
Scripps Institute has a bunch. The underwater camera at their pier in La Jolla, CA, is pretty active.
Oh man, the Scripps cams are making me want a beach vacation. It's been too long since I've been to the ocean.
The real trick is to move to a high cost of living area where you’re super near but can hardly afford to make it there as often as you’d like.
I follow a couple where I have ties to, like the hawks that nest on top my hometown government building. But the only one I have no personal ties to yet I still go back to is the Miami Zoo flamingo cam.
https://www.earthcam.com/usa/florida/miami/flamingo/?cam=flamingo
Something about flamingoes just makes my day a fraction of a percent better.
Cities usually have a few on touristic monuments
Sure. I know like 5 in my city. One ontop of the main fire station, i think another one filming the inner city, several at a lake (which is a local recreation area). Someone used to capture his garden with a few trees and mostly the sky and clouds. And we used to have a bunch pointing at the traffic on the Autobahn, so you could watch traffic and brace for the ordeal before driving off to work. But they took the live feed down when the Russia/Ukraine war started. And of course ski resorts have them. You can turn on the TV and watch those ski resort webcams at like 6am on TV. Usually accompanied by some super annoying hillbilly music. 😆
so you could watch traffic and brace for the ordeal before driving off to work.
I forgot about traffic cameras. My region's highway department has webcams along the major mountain passes. This was good reminder; I will need to check them in a few weeks before I drive through the mountains!
You can turn on the TV and watch those ski resort webcams at like 5am or 6am on TV
This would actually be better than most of my local broadcast TV.
This would actually be better than most of my local broadcast TV.
Oh, well. It's certainly better than the following program. I believe it's followed by the news and then some documentaries about nature and places around the world. The other channels go downhill fast. Some "breakfast" TV show with some poor souls who have to get up early to do some meaningless happy talking, recipes and maybe invite someone who once met a celebrity... Followed by a re-run of yesterday's local news and other random stuff that's cheap or still in the VHS deck... Idk. I suppose it's meant for some 95yo bedridden grandmas who can't escape. I believe no sane person with working limbs would turn on any broadcast TV in the morning.
This is a slick 3D map of Tokyo weather and trains where you can view a variety of webcams. https://minitokyo3d.com/
Tehachapi Loop is another cool train cam with a train ascending in a loop to gain elevation in a short distance. https://www.youtube.com/live/OqCFMmob8Q8
It's not active right now, but The Fish Doorbell is a fun one in the spring/summer
That's a great idea! I'll have to bookmark this for later.
I've not got any confirmed links to hand, but I know there are loads of wildlife webcams out there, ranging from cats in shelters waiting to be adopted, to rescued animals in rehabilitation, to birds of prey in their natural habitat, and everything in between.
There are also webcams pointed at volcanos, and others broadcasting from random locations all over the world (weather cams, security cams, and so on), so you can get glimpses in to everyday life.
Friends of Big Bear Valley has one with bald eagles that's pretty spectacular sometimes. https://www.friendsofbigbearvalley.org/eagles/
Monterey Bay Aquarium has some too. I like the sea otters and African penguins.
Security cameras and baby monitors are basically glorified webcams with cloud storage.