Another view on our expedition to Heard Island

An excellent video by my friend James Brooks about our 1997 expedition to Heard Island in the Antarctic.

This video draws an excellent parallel between our expedition and the first scientific expedition in 1947, 50 years before ours. It features some unique historic perspective and old film footage.

The video was made in broadcast quality, geared for commercial TV stations.

Another video about this expedition, geared for the radio amateur public can be viewed here.
If you are interested in expeditions to really remote locations all over the world, check out James' other videos.

Enjoy!

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Travel the world in just a minute

Rick Mereki -filmmaker and traveller traveled through 11 countries in 44 days and made this video which is both simple and complex at the same time..

Love it.

PS: 11 countries in 44 days, I did better than that back in 2000... Did not have a video camera, though :-)

Video discovered via So Bad So Good

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The crazy things people do: Have you ever heard of Heard Island?

Take a point somewhere in the middle between Africa and India, and then go South until you hit Antarctica... Somewhere there, lays a small island called Heard Island. "Property" of Australia, the island was settled by seal hunters a century ago.
So isolated that over thousands of years, several animals developed into unique species, not to be found anywhere else.

Dominated by an active volcano, and covered in black ash, Heard comes as inhospitable as any island comes.

That island was the destination of our 1997 expedition. And this is the video we made of that trip. Probably the trip which was also a turning point in my professional career, when I started to grasp what it took to manage a high performant team, under harsh circumstances....

The video is a rip from a VHS tape...

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The crazy things people do: My first Antarctic expedition

It feels like yesterday, but it was 20 years ago, almost to the date, when I left for my first Antarctic expedition. Our target was Peter I island, one of the most remote corners of the world's most remote continent.

It is still difficult to believe how we pulled off this expedition, challenged by logistical "mission impossible's". But we did.

Enjoy this video, even though it is a lower resolution rip from a VHS tape. The views, with this music in the background still gets the hair on my arms stand up :-)

Read more stories about this expedition on The Road.

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The crazy things people do: Howland Island

This must be the very first video I ever made, an all-analog tale from an expedition to Howland Islands, in the middle of the Pacific, back in 1993.

The video is a capture of the magical moments, with music which inspired me at that time.
Sit back, relax, and imagine how it feels like, to travel to the middle of no-where...

If you are interested, here is another video from the same expedition. Years ago, I also wrote a short story of my adventures on Howland Island.
For the handful of you reading Dutch, I also published the full story of my first expeditions.

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5 Broken Cameras

"5 Broken Cameras" is a film, shot almost entirely by a Palestinian farmer, Emad Burnat. Emad bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son. He registers life in the Occupied Territories, following his family through five years of village turmoil. Emad watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify, and lives are lost, through a cycle of five cameras. Each camera gets destroyed in a violent incident.

This is an extraordinary work, a deeply personal, first-hand account of the Palestinian resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements.

The footage was later given to Israeli co-director Guy Davidi to edit. The film was nominated for "Best Documentary Feature" in the 2013 Academy Awards. (More in this LA Times article)

Update (Feb 22):
Emad Burnat travelled to the US with his wife and son to attend the Oscar's ceremony. He was held up by US immigration on the account of "not having the right invitation", he was eventually released.
Reminded me of my own horror story with US immigration.

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Monsanto Go Away

As part of the Occupy Maui movement, The Human Revolution has a clear message for Monsanto.

More on Monsanto on The Road.

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Teased bull frog eats finger

An African bull frog is trying to catch ants on an smartphone screen. Kinda funny. Is even more funny when he takes revenge..

Discovered via AllTop

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Where the hell is Matt?

This is really sweet. 

From his website:

Matt is a 35-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. Matt achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he'd saved to wander around Asia until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is.

A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt an idea. They were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said "Hey, why don't you stand over there and do that dance. I'll record it." He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It's actually the only dance Matt does. He does it badly. Anyway, this turned out to be a very good idea.

A couple years later, someone found the video online and passed it to someone else, who passed it to someone else, and so on. Now Matt is quasi-famous as "That guy who dances on the internet. No, not that guy. The other one. No, not him either. I'll send you the link. It's funny."

The response to the first video brought Matt to the attention of the nice people at Stride gum. They asked Matt if he'd be interested in taking another trip around the world to make a new video. Matt asked if they'd be paying for it. They said yes. Matt thought this sounded like another very good idea.

In 2006, Matt took a 6 month trip through 39 countries on all 7 continents. In that time, he danced a great deal.

The second video made Matt even more quasi-famous. In fact, for a brief period in July, he was semi-famous.

Things settled down again, and then in 2007 Matt went back to Stride with another idea. He realized his bad dancing wasn't actually all that interesting, and that other people were much better at being bad at it. He showed them his inbox, which, as a result of his semi-famousness, was overflowing with emails from all over the planet. He told them he wanted to travel around the world one more time and invite the people who'd written him to come out and dance too.
The Stride people thought that sounded like yet another very good idea, so they let him do it.

And he did. And now it's done. And he hopes you like it.

Thanks for the link, Jan!

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Hans Rosling: The only way to stop population growth.. is to increase child survival rates.

... even if it sounds contradictory: Increasing child survival rates will stop population growth. With thanks to GB for the link!

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Video: Wear your seat belt

Amazing what emotional impact a good video clip can make, no? PS: Updated the post. Video fixed.

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Steve Jobs: Lessons on life

Steve Jobs (RIP) talking about his lessons on life, to young Stanford University graduates.

About dropping out to drop in at college, about the trust that one day the dots in your life will connect. About to love doing what you do. About not loosing the limited time you have on Earth, by living someone else's life.

Truly inspiring. Reminded me of Randy Pausch's Last Lecture.

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Dog and man: "I ate it all"

...because it is Saturday, something lighter.


Discovered via: @bethkanter

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The world at 1,000 frames per second

Today... because there is too much misery in the world, a post of beauty in small things.


Discovered via Laughing Squid

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How egoistic can people be?

A video showing two motorcyclists who got entangled on a busy highway in China... Nobody seemed very eager to help...

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Yeaah, It's a Party in the CIA

yeah, we’ve got our backups all over the world,
from Kazakhstan to Bombay;
payin’ the bribes like yeah, pluggin’ the leaks like yeah;
interrogating the scum of the earth,
we’ll break them by the break of day!

yeeeaaahhh, it’s a party in the CIA!

by Weird Al Yankovic

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Which countries are the happiest?

GOOD's World Database of Happiness has tracked down how happy people over the past 30 years.

Check out the interesting infographic on the state of happiness in the different countries, over the past years.

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Video: The Girl Effect

We have covered advocacy campaigns by nonprofit organisations in the past. Here is a very simple non-pretentious video by The Girl Effect.

Simple is powerful.

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How NOT to moor a yacht. Take 3

With the summer approaching, it is time to switch to another subject. Sailing.

"Master Steve", the instructor who guided me through most of my RYA theoretical qualifications, and brought me up to the level of a powerboat instructor, send me the video link above, shot in the British Virgin Islands by Wind In My Sails.

It is an ode to the "Credit Card Captains", those who have the financial means to charter a vessel, but have no freaking clue what sailing or navigating is all about.

In the past I wrote two similar stories about "Credit Card Captains", witnessed during our previous two trips to the BVI. One was from one from Anegada and an even worse case we witnessed in Virgin Gorda.

Of all the areas I have sailed so far, the BVI has the most dense population of "Credit Card Captains". Most of them, Americans who might never have sailed before, taking a yacht to sea, endangering others and themselves.

Oh well,.. Enjoy the video.

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Living in Italy - Part 18: Mobile phones

In Italy, talking on a mobile phone without an earpiece or microphone is punishable by law.

But I am not sure if the law actually has provisions if you talk on one phone, held in your right hand, while at the same time, you set the Email configuration of an other phone with your left hand.

While you are driving.

Let me correct that: While you are driving a bus full of people. In the middle of Rome.

I mean, after all, God gave men two hands, right? How else would you use the spare time in a traffic jam than calling up a helpdesk to configure the "Backke Barry" (sic) Email settings. Right?


Discovered via Repubblica, tipped by @GeoMmm

Read more in the Living in Italy series

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