gong's  desk, 2002

frequently asked questions:
is this a commercial product? nope. just something i made in my spare time.
can i build my own? yes you can. or you can simply make a webpage with all the linked graphics.
i get a lot of broken links, why? the feeds aren't always reliable nor do they update at consistent intervals. sorry, that's just the nature of the beast.
can this be a screensaver? only as a standalone executable that can display the "live" graphics and refresh them at regular intervals.
can this work on a mac? i don't think so. but you can make a webpage that accomplishes much the same thing.
can you tell me the sources of all the graphics? yes. please click on the hyperlinks in the table below.
is the satellite imagery animated? yes. they are looped animations that are updated every hour or so.
what about MY city? why isn't boston included? i really didn't intend for this to be a any kind political statement. if i had my druthers, i'd put as many cities as i can find webcams for. and get another monitor to display them all. yeah, maybe i'll go do that. cool.
how do you get any work done? it's hard. it's better than television.
don't you have anything better to do in your spare time? like what?

how to do it on a PC:
- go to control panels->display
- go to the "web" tab
- enable web desktop
- open up an explorer browser
- right click on a .gif or .jpeg and you'll see a pull down menu
- select "set as desktop item"
- it should then appear on your desktop, and you can move it around and resize 

the premise for this was simple. i got bored of static desktop wallpapers and was futzing around with the web-enabled desktop, which windows has had since win95 (i think), but i never used it after diddling with those funny 3D clock demos they included. until now...

basically i scoured the web for every conceivable "live" or "real-time" information graphic i could find, and was happily amazed at the types of data that was out there. stock market data, meteorological data, live television feeds, astronomical feeds, and the items that took up most of my search...live webcams.

the grid i've finally settled on arrays the primary webcam feeds from left to right from cities located in roughly the same longitudinal corridor (and where i can, northern and southern hemispheres) on the globe arranged in geographically correct sequence.

viewing the worldview desktop at various times during the day is just fun as hell. you can see the way all these places look at exactly the same time. comparing each view to the corresponding earth-view is especially fun because you can easily map sunlight, shadow, and cloud cover. sometimes you can even see the actual cloud in the picture that the satellite image is showing!

ultimately, as my brother nam aptly put it, it's a "poor man's official james bond megalomaniacal super-villian world domination mission control video wall". 

or maybe it's just a neat way to look at the world's light, shadows, and chiaroscuro all at the same time. and those little people, cars, and clouds too.

ps - if you know of any great data links that aren't featured here, please send them my way!

  gong szeto, march 2002, brooklyn, ny  gong@formandcontent.net