Seems like YT is mostly focusing on the interaction between streamer and audience (which makes sense because streaming is big with young ppl rn).
I understand "ambient streams" to be more like a setting for a group chat or chat room, where you're interacting with friends or strangers only, there's no focus on a single creator/streamer. Like hanging out at an interesting location instead of a featureless room.
> I have a ton of idea about how ambient live streams are the Next Big Thing and how to lean into that.)
Are you me?
It's crazy that these giant screens spend most of their time as black rectangles when they could be windows to the world (with very tasteful/quiet/no-motion advertisements).
Happy to pitch to Netflix, Roku, or other streaming services and/or TV manufacturers. :-)
I think GP meant that the ambient content could be accompanied by a “tasteful” static sponsored message. Imagine a black stripe at the bottom that said “Sponsored by Home Chef”
Given how much ads on the web escalated in intensity though, I don’t think anyone would buy sponsor spots like that though.
We understood what the GP was thinking in terms of ads. The objection is that any form of advertisement, regardless of how tasteful it might be presented, is the polar opposite of the intended purpose of tranquil windows into nature.
People like these kinds of live streams because it offers a relaxing form of escapism. Dumping even a static ad only serves to add distraction from that atmosphere and thus undermines the very point of having the live stream open in the first place.
I think I agree with you tbh. Then again I go pretty far out of my way to not see ads, other than billboards and maybe those on the sides of buses and bus shelters! To me it’s worth paying not to have them. So I bet a screen would be no different for me.
My old Sony TV, just a cheap model, had a (custom for Sony) “Lofi Girl” ambient screensaver it would go into if you configured it to, with quiet music. It was one of my favorite features.
The elephants wandered off, and now a bunch of giraffes are drinking from the pond. Some of them even spread their legs wide to keep their feet from getting wet. Very relaxing to watch.
> Some of them even spread their legs wide to keep their feet from getting wet.
I always interpreted the spreadeagle pose of a drinking giraffe to be a way of bringing their head closer to the ground. Do they sometimes not do that?
The Mojave Desert has some of the most beautiful life (plants and animals both) that I've ever seen. I think the lack of a green canopy just misleads people - it looks like a sea of yellow-brown in a satellite image, and even in person, you have to look closely to see the life. But that just makes it more special IMO.
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.
They are empty places. The biomass per square area is a pittance compared to any other habitat. Water is life. Places with less water have less life. Not all places are equal.
This is only true if every piece of life requires the exact same amount of water. Which is false. Your argument easily falls down simply by noting that a river has less life than a rain forest.
A chicken farm has more biomass per square meter than just about anything else, but I wouldn’t advocate replacing the Mojave with a chicken farm. There is simply more to it than that.
The word "Namib" means "place where there is nothing" in Khoekhoegowab, spoken by the people who live right next to the desert and assuredly explored it.
Where are you getting the gloss? Wiktionary has a definition "wasteland", but also derives it etymologically from a verb meaning "walk". Is there an element that means "nothing"?
This reminds me of the dead sea, it's far from dead, there are life forms in it. It's called the dead sea in Arabic as well (maybe this is the source of the name? Don't quote me on this one)
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
My wife and I honeymooned in Botswana many years ago. On our first day in the bush we watched a pride of lions on a kill. Our driver radioed into camp, "fill up the water pans, the lions will be thirsty tonight." Sure enough, late that night the lions came in and drank at the water pan about five feet from the front of our tent. Mind-blowing experience to be lying in bed watching them right there.
We've since explored quite a bit of Southern Africa. The Namib desert is incomparably cool.
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.
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.
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!
Hey, thanks! Very kind of you. Full story re: bookofjoe blog:
1) I started it on Typepad in 2002 and it continued with multiple posts 365 days/year until September 30, 2025, when Typepad shut down after 30 days notice.
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.
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
The rainy season is during the summer (Northern Hemisphere's winter). Outside of those months it doesn't rain very often! I've spent two winters (June-August) in Namibia and can't recall much, if any rain. But now that we're approaching summer there, I imagine there's a little more rain. The Namib desert (which is a small percentage of Namibia, to be clear) is one of, if not the, driest deserts in the world.
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
Reminds me of Africam. Back in the day my kids were very young and we would check it out every morning to see if we could see animals live at the watering holes, probably back around 2005-2008 or so?
Hi, we’ve never met but I dig the energy you put into your work that I’ve seen (books, dart etc). An idea I’ve had, but not brought to fruition, is that of using SmallTalk to produce a document of some kind — that is, the result of the work would be a portable executable image that could be read and interacted with and so on :)
>It is powered by solar-panels and the data is sent via Wireless signal over 35km of dunes to the nearest service provider. Initially a live stream was sent to a website and changed to YouTube in June 2021. A microphone was installed in August 2021 to enhanced the experience watching the game. The camera was replaced in December 2021.
I am more interested in how all this is technically achieved.
The ibexes there had a "good time" just when I entered which makes me think. What if other animals can watch us have sex and we have no idea? Imagine whales on the other side of the world know it without us having a clue
Fascinating! Saw a porcupine at 0013, a fennecs at 0027 & 0257, joined by a springbok (thanks ChatGPT), sassy zebras at 0320 (you can see their social behavior!), a jackal at 0740,...
It’s run by a travel agency called Gondwana Collection. The watering hole is at the Namib Desert Lodge [1] so it’s not really remote, they just use whatever internet provides wifi for guests. The watering hole is set up to attract wild animals for the tourists to see so that’s often who runs them. The livestream is a cheap way for them to attract guests.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)