Live Stream From the Namib Desert
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Namib Desert
A live stream from a waterhole in the Namib Desert has captivated the HN community, with users appreciating its soothing and educational value, while also discussing technical aspects and potential applications.
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Oct 17, 2025 at 8:23 AM EDT
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Oct 17, 2025 at 8:56 AM EDT
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Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namib#Etymology
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.
Is that true? What is your source for that?
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.
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.
see my other post with the full-viewport waterhole, that was what I used to get rid of YouTube chrome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_lick
We've since explored quite a bit of Southern Africa. The Namib desert is incomparably cool.
It made me think of The Who - Love, Reign O’er Me.
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.)
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.
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. :-)
When this thread is about a live stream showing wild animals and raw nature, your thought processes goes to advertisements?
I hope you're being incredibly sarcastic, otherwise... Just yuck.
Unless we're advertising for the majesty of nature, for whom there are no entities that would pay (big bucks at least).
Given how much ads on the web escalated in intensity though, I don’t think anyone would buy sponsor spots like that though.
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.
https://www.reddit.com/r/bravia/s/C3Kc1nHWq6
https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube
https://github.com/hauxir/macos-live-screensaver
Fyi the page is not rendering well for me on an iPhone Pro Max (latest iOS 26, Safari browser.) It's basically cut in half...
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.
Probably the first setting I would recommend for anyone to enable.
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!
As kids we used to have great fun knocking rocks together around sunset to get them to call back. Kinda like beetle bird calls.
Okaukuejo waterhole in Etosha National Park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeMUdOPFcXI (at the time of posting, a herd of elephants are enjoying the water)
Kalahari Desert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME0dPuBtzug
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?
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bookofjoe
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.
Sporadic archives here: https://web.archive.org/web/20020915000000*/bookofjoe.com
2) After Typepad gave notice, I explored various options (Ghost/Squarespace/WordPress/Wix/Medium/Substack/Blogger) but all but Blogger were too complicated for my TechnoDolt©®™ capabilities, thus I moved to Blogger in early September (https://bookofjoe2.blogspot.com/2025/09/im-shocked-not.html) and have become settled in there, now posting (as I did for years on Typepad) 3 times daily (8am/12noon/4pm) 7 days a week.
[1] https://gondwana-collection.com/accommodation/namib-desert-l...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydYDqZQpim8
And here is a live stream from southern Kenya:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsOU8JnEpNM
and a whole bunch of others:
https://greatplainsconservation.com/live-african-wildlife-we...
Here's the url: https://puntarella.party/@NamibDesertBot
https://github.com/hauxir/androidtv-live-screensaver
https://maps.app.goo.gl/1xod6tQmdjNPnsda8
Edit/warning - Wow the thunder is loud!
Soothing experience :)
There’s a solar well so I assume this is solar powered too but what about network?
Edit: I shouldn’t have used Google. ChatGPT had the answer in seconds https://gondwana-collection.com/waterhole-camera/faq
Solar power, wireless point to point network
I can spend hours watching them rescue seals.
https://github.com/hauxir/macos-live-screensaver
I am more interested in how all this is technically achieved.
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.