[Geysers] New OFVEC webcam

[Davis, Brian L.]

TSBryan at aol.com wrote:

> Webcams down basin. Relays of electronic info. Why? Good God, people,
> it's not that important.

I must agree. In fact, there would be far more solitude if they took out the webcam. And the visitor center. And the boardwalks. And the roads. And really, understanding geysers and allowing the public to experience them just isn't that important. ;)

I'm trying to point out that this is a case of a shared resource, that a *lot* of people have a *lot* of different uses for... and some of those uses have different requirements than others (as well as different impacts). There are folks on the other side of the world who use the webcams... well, because it's fun. The same reason, actually, that more fortunate folks go walking in the basins. There is also the observation that folks using the webcams have increased the knowledge of the operation of the geysers within range, for the Park, and the gazers, and in some cases for scientific study. The webcam has done this in an amazingly unobtrusive way (if you think folks might be watching you on the webcam, you're right... like conewalkers. And if you think folks wouldn't be watching you without the webcam, you're wrong much of the time - look at everybody with cameras, cellphones, etc.)

Regarding webcams, digital archiving of observations, or additional hidden monitors - do those really impact the experience that much? How many people even know which tree to look in to see the webcam, or what rock Ralph has a datalogger hidden under? On the flip side, these changes (and others that we've talked about) can drastically increase both the understanding & enjoyment for a lot of people - with very very low impact to the environment and the experiencing of it.

For those of us doing research (professional or otherwise) on geysers - these things would be fantastic.

--
Brian "wish there were geysers in Indiana" Davis
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