webcamS blog

The supreme court laid down a ruling that the hardass sheriff from Arizona can’t broadcast webcams from his jail. I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand there may be privacy issues for the inmates, on the other there may be saftey issues (protection of inmates through increased capability to detect criminal behavior within the prison walls).

Our prison systems are dispicable by any human standards of decency and put the US right up there as human rights violators. It is commonly accepted that the main punishment of going to jail is not incarceration itself, but gang rape, beatings, abuse & torture, exposure to drug trade and crime inside, getting diseases from rape, etc… And what do we do to stop it? Not much really, not yet.

Anyways, what’s up with this wanting to broadcast webcams from prison? My guess, and hopefully, it’s merely a deterrent issue. As posted in a previous entry, placing webcams in prisons to assist gaurds in monitoring criminal behavior of the criminals while they are incarcerated could be of great assistance in eliminating the human rights violoations and torture that occur in those institutions daily.

Apparently the prisoner’s rights groups fought to get these cams turned off and won. Maybe it was a privacy issue, but personally I’d think they’d want the safety issue of encouraging webcam coverage of every square inch of the facilities they are housed in.

I think the majority of the American population would be shocked to find out how many non-violent prisoners are housed with violent offenders and the type of abuse and torture they endure. You say ’so what’ until it’s a family member of yours… I know someone that works in the system, and the stories they tell would make even the most stoic person nauseous.

Anyways, this is a way morbid topic, the full article is listed on our webcam news archive page.

It’s worth a read I guess.

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Ok, this is another of my favorites as having lived in Santa Monica (neighboring city) I spent a good few memorable nights cruising around & partying at Venice Beach at night, and during the day. Unfortunately today it’s gang ridden so hanging out there at night is not recommended. HOWEVER, during the day it’s awesome to visit. There are tons of street vendors, sword swallowers, limbo dancers, hotties rollerblading in bikinis, and a wide variety of freaks, foreigners and people in general. Venice Beach is the type of place you go for the day, shop, buy some incense, eat a veggie burger, take some pics, get your palm read, watch a few shows and definitely people watch.

Anyways, here’s a screen cap of the Venice Beach Livecam at night:

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Well, this post actually makes me a little sad. A good friend called yesterday to tell me that they’re selling their business and moving to Costa Rica with their significant other to start a new life and a surf camp/resort.

After living in California for years, chasing the tail for money to live payday to payday in this overpriced piece of heaven, they finally had enough. I don’t blame them, the culture of the US has grown more and more about war and prisons and over inflated prices in an uneccessary rat race. In a few years when the wife and I have our grad degrees completed and training done, we may consider a move outside of the US as well.

Anyways, our good friend will be missed dearly… Here’s to wishing them a safe and prosperous journey…

So, today’s post is obviously going to be a live beachcam / surfcam from Costa Rica. The only one I could find that worked was at sufline.com from Playa Esterillos:

Also, they had a little surf report section that sounded like not a bad day on the water if you don’t mind the rainy conditions…

Well that’s all for now…

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Ok, I know I’m supposed to add another webcam today, which I will try to get done, but the first thing I read on wired.com’s page this morning is that the Supreme Court was crazy enough to decided the file-swap software companies can be sued for copyright infringement, etc…

Ok, how lame is that? That’d be like saying the makers of VCR’s could be sued for you taping the Monday Night Football game! It’s the INDIVIDUAL’s actions that make a crime a crime. The same arguement goes for guns, it’s not Colt’s fault if YOU commit a crime with their product.

What’s happening in America today? We’re loosing our civil liberties in the name of security and now individual responsibility apparently is not the prime consideration in legal cases :/

Don’t get me started on the civil liberties issues and loss of freedoms as of late, I’ll save that rant for another day but seriously, who spiked the Justice’s coffee last week. That decision is just….WOW. I normally support and understand their decisions but this one is over the top. Oh, and NO I’m not a fan of p2p for illegal means, I only have used it to either spread an ebook I had written to other interested parties or to find other articles on related topics. I’ve also found some different webcam clips on there before, but mostly just spam

Anyways, iTunes has made buying songs so insanely cheap, that downloading music illegally is just a waste of time, esp with all the viruses being spread on those things…

Ok, here’s the link to the news article I read on wired this morning that covers the topic on the p2p (peer to peer) decision.

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I decided to take another break from the addition of beach cams. Today I’m listing an old, and yes, inactive personal webcam. The jennicam was the first super popular personal webcam online. Jennicam got notice even by David Letterman & several other news shows back in the 90s.

There’s a great article by the BBC that I’ve listed on the personal webcams page. Here’s an exerp from it that lists this personal webcam phenomenon quite well: “Started in 1996 by 20-year-old Jennifer Ringley, then a student in Pennsylvania, US, Jennicam was billed as an “experiment”. Ms Ringley rigged up a camera to the computer in her college dorm and broadcast, live and unedited, her life over the web.

The site attracted massive interest, at one point drawing 100 million hits a week, according to its creator. Was it art, a charter for stalkers, a setback for feminism - or all three?” - BBC.uk - 1 January, 2004

Here’s a screencap of the infamous jennicam (personal webcam)

If you know of any other personal webcams that are noteworthy or just plain interesting, please drop me a line and I’d be glad to review and list it here.

That’s all for now…type-atcha-later…

Today’s addition to the live beach cam page is from South Padre Island, Texas. This is supposed to be a great vacation spot in Texas and also home of some of the wildest Spring Break action from what I’ve heard. Anyways, the cam is pretty nice and is hosted by earthcam.com.

Here’s a screen cap of it, and the direct link to the cam is given on our beach cam page.

That’s all for now…type-atcha-later…

Well folks, one of the last free open communities online for chatting and playing around on webcam has closed ’some’ of it’s doors.

Yahoo bowed to pressure from advertisers and a law suit in regards to some VERY disturbing chat rooms. The topics were so disgusting I won’t post them here, but the jist of it was in relationship to young people getting together with adults for inappropriate behavior And that’s putting it very mildly.

I’m not shocked that they eventually got sued for this problem, as it’s been a plague to their chat portal for years, but what I am shocked about is that they didn’t merely use a word/phrase filter list to ban all users from creating rooms with those horrid titles and topics. Also, last time I checked yahoo made a few bucks, why couldn’t they simply hire or outsource a few posisitions to moderate their rooms? It sure could use it even now.

Although the obvious chat spam is annoying yahoo chat and their webcams are really one of the nicest out there, if you use a program (3rd party yahoo chat client) you can simply put all the ‘ chat bots ‘ on ignore and it allows you to find other like minded adults to chat with about all sorts of topics from racey to business to religion.

The regular rooms are harder to find people in, as the spam is a little nuts, but they are still useful. I’m guessing a flock of chatters will leave yahoo now and find other places to go like paltalk.com etc…

If any of you know of other good chat portals, please drop a comment on this post, I’d love to go check them out and do an honest review.

Well that’s all for today’s update, take care and…

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Today’s live streaming webcam is coming from Honolulu’s Waikiki Beach.

It’s not a very great shot of the beach beach, but it seems pretty active with foot traffic from tourists and locals. Tommorow I’ll try to dig up a nicer beach webcam stream.

I’ve never been to Hawaii but I hear it’s amazing. I’ll try to dig up another island beach cam later today for tommorow’s update.

Enjoy and type-atcha-later…

Finally a good live streaming webcam for free! Found one from the amazing city of San Diego. It takes a minute or two to load, but it’s worth the wait. It’s a great site and an awesome city/region. One of the few places in California, other than where I live, that I’d consider living for any extended period of time.

The people in SD are laid back, there is some great business to be done down there, and a lot of top educational institutions. Back in a previous life I actually wanted to go to med school down there and end up studying at the Salk Institute. Ok, enough about that…Here’s the screen cap of their webcam.

Well that’s all for now…

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Ok, today is finally the first day of summer and I’m adding another live beach cam. This one is also going to be high on my list of favorite live webcams as it’s my favorite local beach. I actually used to live about 2 minutes up the street from where this webcam is located in Shell Beach. It’s one of the best kept secrets in California. Almost no crowds, decent cost of living (still outrageous) compared to LA and SF…

This one is also one of the featured cams at surfline.com. They have free views of static cams, but you have to get a login to see the streaming versions. Kinda a drag but really some nice locations up, and if you’re a surfer I think the login is worth it to view your local surf spot before showing up to see glassy waters

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Ok, that’s all for now folks…

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