
Set a Rotating Picture of the Earth as Your Ubuntu Wallpaper - jfi
http://lifehacker.com/5556316/set-a-rotating-picture-of-the-earth-as-your-ubuntu-wallpaper
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njl
This is basically telling you to let somebody else run xplanet for you, then
download the results every four hours. Pining for my xearth root window of
yore, I wrote up how to run xplanet on your local machine, rendering out a
nice new version every few seconds. This makes your desktop a useful global
clock.

[http://www.njl.us/rotating-picture-of-the-earth-as-ubuntu-
wa...](http://www.njl.us/rotating-picture-of-the-earth-as-ubuntu-wallp)

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est
those clouds are real[1]. So it can be used to predict weather :)

> Watch the sun rise and set all over the world on this real-time, computer-
> generated illustration of the earth's patterns of sunlight and darkness. The
> clouds are updated every 3 hours with current weather satellite imagery.

Also it's possible to do this automatically in Windows 7 if there is some sort
of RSS[2]

[1]: <http://www.die.net/earth/>

[2]: [http://on10.net/blogs/sarahintampa/Get-a-Live-Updating-
Bing-...](http://on10.net/blogs/sarahintampa/Get-a-Live-Updating-Bing-
Wallpaper-Windows-7-Theme/)

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daleharvey
this is pretty nice

I am pining to be able to properly set a webpage as my background in ubuntu
and osx, but its proving annoying (needs to be interactive)

feels strange to be begging for a feature that was enabled in windows years
ago.

~~~
SkyMarshal
I tried that in Windows when they first implemented it, but didn't find it
very useful. I'm one of those that actually use my Desktop for stuff I want
quick access to (docs to read when I have time, docs I'm working on, etc.).
Having the icons obscure parts of the webpage just didn't work all that well.

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singular
Brilliant! It's exactly this kind of customisability that motivates me to use
linux.

~~~
roryokane
EarthDesk (<http://www.xericdesign.com/earthdesk.php>) does this same thing on
Mac and Windows.

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signa11
xearth or it's modern avatar xplanet has been around for quite sometime, and
they mostly do other astronomical objects besides earth...

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thwarted
xscreensaver can run any hack in the root window. Some work better than others
depending on how they update/draw on the screen.

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w33dkid
^^ ROFL

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metamemetics
desktop = solid color, 0 shortcuts beside recycle bin

