Around the World in 8.0 Mbps

Petra, Jordan

It used to be a rare, cool thing to find a great website on the Internet. Now, however, anybody with a connection can create a website; with so many persons creating websites, more and more great websites have surfaced. Like this one, for example.

But there are some that beg to be exploited.

One of my favourite is www.earthcam.com, a website that brings you views of public areas from all over the world. Today, I checked the surf in South Florida (it's flat), peeked through the columns of the city of Petra, Jordan (literally, a city in stone), stoked my romantic side (don't take that the wrong way) with a view of Paris blanketed beneath a thin sheet of snow, and virtually patronised one of the most famous pubs in Dublin (The Temple Bar).

The site allows you to access live camera views as well as archives; so you can see how good the waves were while you were visiting relatives in Boringtown, Nowhere; or watch a pedestrian (in)discretely pick his nose in Time Square. Additionally, EarthCam allows you control over some of the cameras, with zoom, volume and cam manoeuvrability functions.


The only real downside to EarthCam? Well, while you get a picture of all these exotic and enticing places around the world, you don't actually get the real picture: you're not there to see it yourself. So, if you're actually paying for your Internet connection, I advise you learn to hack the local Starbucks' feed and stash that money in a savings account. Let those dollars roll up, and get yourself a plane ticket, dude. Budhapest is so much cooler than it looks.