Coronavirus blues? Monterey Bay Aquarium live webcams offer wildlife diversion - The Mercury News

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Coronavirus blues? Monterey Bay Aquarium live webcams offer wildlife diversion - The Mercury News Posted: 17 Mar 2020 03:25 PM PDT Cooped up? Feeling anxious? Looking for a diversion for the kids? Or yourself? Until at least April 8, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is closed due to the coronavirus outbreak. But you can still visit its famed animals — from sea otters to sharks to hypnotic moon jellies — through 10 live webcams. And the online crowds are growing fast. "Our webcams are still streaming," said Julie Packard, executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, in a tweet on Saturday. "Until we reopen, you can check in on the sea otters, sway with the kelp forest, find tranquility with the jellies and look for wildlife out on Monterey Bay." The free webcams are available from 7 a.m.to 7 p.m. Pacific time, on the aquarium's Facebook page,  its Youtube channel or the aquarium's website, at www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/live-cams. The webcams feature the sea otter tank, kelp forest tank, bird aviary, penguins, open sea tank, jellyfish tanks and live views of Monterey Bay. Most of the aquarium's more than 500 staff members are working from home. But key employees are remaining at the Cannery Row landmark to maintain the building's operations and oversee the welfare of the animals. That includes security crews, workers who feed and care for the animals, and workers who maintain the tanks and other facilities. The sea otters, sharks, sea turtles, fish, birds and other wildlife at the aquarium cannot get the COVID-19 coronavirus, said Ken Peterson, an aquarium spokesman. They are still being fed on the same schedules as before. "The animals are doing great," Peterson said. "They are getting the same level of care as they were before. We're closed on Christmas day. So it's kind of like that for them now." In the middle of a typical day, about 120 people are watching the aquarium wildlife cameras online live at any one time. With the coronavirus outbreak and large numbers of workers and students riding it out at home, that number has gone up more than eight-fold in recent days, to more than 1,000, Peterson said. The Monterey Bay Aquarium isn't alone in offering wildlife webcams. Other Northern California institutions that do include the Oakland Zoo, which has webcams for elephants, bears and other wildlife, the California Academy of Sciences, which features its coral reef, penguin exhibit, and a live webcam on the Farallon Islands, and the Ventana Wilderness Society in Big Sur, which showcases condors in the wild. "We're grateful to have the opportunity to lift people's spirits," Peterson said. "We can't welcome them in our doors but we are still there for them." On Monday, fans of the webcams gushed on the aquarium's Facebook site. "Watching from upstate New York. Thank you for something to laugh about!!!" wrote Nancy Rouse as the sea otters rubbed their paws together. "Thanks for sharing this feed!" wrote Toshiko Eng. "Something we all can enjoy during our county-wide shelter-in-place! Takes the stress away!" "We need this with no baseball, theater, or other normal activities," wrote Stuart Endick on the moon jelly cam. "Wish the jelly cam had TP!"

10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Playing ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ - Forbes Posted: 20 Mar 2020 06:29 AM PDT Animal Crossing: New Horizons Credit: Nintendo It's here! The world has been thirsting for Animal Crossing: New Horizons for weeks now, calling out for a life of simple bug-catching on an idyllic island even as the one we all actually live in feels more dangerous by the day. But that's that and this is this: welcome to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a world where nothing really goes wrong except the occasional wasp attack. If you've just logged in, I've been here for af few weeks getting ready. Here are some tips to help you on your way in more or less random order. I'd recommend getting things together, playing a few days and then learning how to optimize things. Note that this is not a guide for old hands at Animal Crossing. This is for new players, of which I think we're going to have a gigantic number in the coming days. How to plant fruit trees: It can be a bit confusing to plant fruit trees, because you plant other trees by buying saplings from Timmy and Tommy and just plopping them in the ground. Fruit trees are a little more complicated, but not terribly so: you need to dig a hole in the ground with your shovel and plop a piece of fruit in. They take four days to grow. The big fish aren't always better: It's easy to think that you'd prefer to get big fish: big fish are better! But that's not always the case here. Sea Bass, for example, are some of the most common big fish that you find in the sea, but they're utter trash. Eventually you'll learn to take a pretty good guess at what fish is hiding under each silhouette, but start by just catching everything. Covet foreign fruits: Your island will come with one native fruit, which you will find in abundance on the island. But there are other fruits in the game that you can find either on friend's islands or on the islands that you fly to with Nook Miles tickets. These are the money fruits. They'll sell for a premium at the the shop, but don't sell them right away. Get some from elsewhere and plant them on your island for a reliable revenue stream. You can also sell your fruits and friend's stores for the same profit, so long as they have a different native fruit. Bugs and Fish for big bells: Once your town is adequately upgraded, you'll start getting visits from Flick and CJ, who will pay extra for bugs and fish, respectively. These days will be some of your best revenue streams in the game, so take advantage. If you're really trying to min/max this thing, you can save any exceptionally valuable creatures to sell on these days. Not everything is available right now: If you're trying to fill out your museum as quickly as possible, chill out. Not everything is available every month. If you want to actually complete your collections, you'll need to turn up for all four seasons and keep fishing, catching and digging. Don't worry too much about where to put things: You'll likely stress out about initial placement on all your stuff, which is only natural in a game like this. But know that eventually you'll be able to move anything on the island except the plaza, so don't worry too much about initial placement. Once your grand plan comes together you can shift things around. You can catch wasps and tarantulas: There are threats on this island: wasps and tarantulas that will attack you if you disturb their environments. The natural instinct is to run, but fight that instinct. You can catch them if your quick enough, and tarantulas in particular sell for a hefty price. You can take your DIY workbench with you: Normal logic says that you would plop your workbench down by your house and do your crafting there, but you don't have to. Just keep it in your inventory and throw it down when you need to make a tool and save yourself a trip. Always talk to Tom Nook: New Horizons is much more structured than previous entries in the series, and there's even a sort of haphazard plot going on here. But there will be times when you don't necessarily feel like your island is progressing, and it's at these times that you want to talk to Tom Nook. Ask him what to do, and he'll put you on the right path. Or his path at least. Spend Bells: If you're like me, you might prefer to hoard your bells for upgrades to home and infrastructure. But don't do this! Spend freely where you can, and you might be surprised at what it does for the island.

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