Another Great Internet Moment

[Gene Savage]

I just had one of those amazing internet moments... you know the type: the first time you see Times Square live in your browser, the first time you hear a radio station from Finland, the first time you chat with a long-term buddy who's moved cross-country, the first time you get an e-mail reply from an author, researcher, or celebrity you've admired for years, the first time you realize your researching a topic on the internet is going to turn up multiple times more detail than you could have every hoped for...

I've been on the net for about 13 years, and I just had another one of those internet moments.

I was looking at EarthCam's top 25 most interesting webcams of 2007, and they were being mildly dull to mildly interesting.

Then I clicked on National Geographic's live cam from Botswana, Africa.

I go full-screen.

It's night, but they have a light on the camera. The crickets and other related night-creatures are going at it full-tilt. the camera is apparently on the bank of a... pond? A small body of water, anyway... and panning in and out and left and right. I feel like I'm getting about a 180 degree view of a REMOTE location in Africa and...

WAIT A MINUTE. Is that daylight on the horizon? It IS! The SUN is starting to come up!

I watch this "screen saver" of what to me is truly a foreign land for a sold 30 minutes, watching the horizon get lighter, watching the trees' reflections become clearer in the water, watching the water bugs begin working the area, the birds start appearing (one working its way across a log stretching out into the water), watch the grass, trees, and unknown plants wave in the breeze.

I am transplanted to the deepest parts of Africa, instantly, without having to get those annoying shots.


THIS is what the internet does best. All the spreadsheets e-mailed back and forth, all the LOLLS and emoticons, all the band fan sites... not nearly as cool as transporting me halfway around the globe and over the equator.

I just looked at cam again... the sun is starting to really come up, and the colors on the horizon are BEAUTIFUL reds, golds, and purples.. wow...

I doubt words do it justice, and I don't know that you'll have as incredible time as I did, but if you'd like to view the cam, here's the link:

Live Streaming video of African animals from Pete's Pond in Botswana
Moments like this are too few and far between... time to go on safari from the safety of your desktop.