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Surveillance videos the best reality shows Frank Cerabino / Palm Beach Post | July 12 2006 I don't know about you, but I love watching surveillance camera videos. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just the unpredictable nature of the enterprise. Or it could be just the feeling of surveillance itself — the idea that you are somehow looking down on the mundane in a kind of god-like perch. Video surveillance doesn't have to be only about national security and crime prevention. It can also be great entertainment. I first got interested in watching surveillance videos while visiting my aunt's apartment in New York City several years ago. One of the channels on her TV set was for a surveillance camera in her building's lobby. The camera was aimed to look down on the doorman and all the people who entered and left through the building. I found that it was more interesting to watch than anything else on television. Fortunately, we have lots of good surveillance cameras to view here in Palm Beach County. If you live in Boca Raton, you'll want to catch the surveillance camera installed at the city's South Beach oceanfront park. You can watch through your computer at evsboca.netfirms.com. You can stream video of the beach scene, or do a slideshow of the boardwalk area throughout the day, or even zoom in on an image of people at the shoreline. I suppose there may be a practical reason for doing this: to see if the beach is crowded, the condition of the surf, and whether it's sunny there. But I suspect a lot of people who have visited this Web site — more than a million page views, according to the counter — just come to look down on the people coming and going. Think of it as the lazy man's version of going to the beach. Interstate 95 has its own system of surveillance cameras. If you go to the Web site palmbeachcotraffic.org you'll find the Palm Beach County Interim Traffic Monitoring System. The system has surveillance cameras at most interstate intersections, and allows you to click to see, for example, how the traffic is flowing south of the Congress Avenue exit into Boca Raton. Surveillance cameras are also great when it comes to restaurants. The Shake Shack, a popular place to eat in Madison Square Park in New York City, has its own surveillance camera to allow patrons to get an idea on how long the line is. "Plan your time, check out the line," says the restaurant's Web site, at shakeshacknyc.com. What a great idea. I'm hoping this catches on. It would be great if some local restaurants got their own cameras. Perpetually jammed places like The Cheesecake Factory could use a viewable surveillance camera view of the waiting area. And it would be useful to get a view of the restaurants along Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach before venturing into the night with an appetite. Yes, I know there's something creepy to the Big Brother aspect of it all. But if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wrap this up and see what's going on at the beach. ---------------------------------------------------
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