Midweek Roundup: go it alone
16 hours ago
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Monday, July 13, 2026
Saturday, July 11, 2026
Icelandic hot dog vs Seattle dog?
Iceland Photography
One of RantWoman's summer amusements has been following Blanche, proclaimed World's worst photographer by Icelandair around Iceland.
Here at last Blanche has gotten to chomp on a famous Icelandic Hot Dog.
In a spirit of actual research, below the video, RantWoman presents comparison between the Seattle Dog and the Icelandic Hot dog.
Be advised, RantWoman admits to thinking the Seattle dog is not her first choice in hot dogs, but let's see why the Icelandic hot dog probably tops it.
All beef dog, caramelized onions, jalapenos
Sigh: RantWoman likes cream cheese but not really on hotdogs. RantWoman does like roasted onions and jalapenos, but horrors, has usually skipped the cream cheese in favor of sauerkraut and mustard. RantWoman definitely approves of buns toasted on the grill next to the vegetables.
Free range lamb, beef, pork in a natural casing with coriander, garlic and onions sounds delicious. Add Remoulade with pickles, capers, chervil.
Sounds yummy though definitely get real Icelandic hot dogs rather than ordinary polish sausages.
Monday, June 29, 2026
Blanche Day 3 and Elsewhere
Meanwhile the US tries to have a 250th birthday party. The "county fair" in Washington DC gets RAINED ON. GOOD THING for pride events all over everywhere else.
And a lot of the rest of Europe swelters.Adventures of RantWoman: 1000 excess death in France due to heat wave compared to last year
Guess which story RantWoman would rather pay attention to today.
Friday, June 26, 2026
Happy belate birthday #GrandpaSleepyhead.
RantWoman is a grown-up. RantWoman made the grown-up decision to watch this entire video. Sorry Dear Readers, though. If you want to experience the Kai Trump goes to her grandpa's birthday party at the White House, please click on the link your own selves.
I went to the UFC fight at the White House
Neither Grandpa farmer nor the Righteous Reverend Rant Grandad needed a UFC fight for their birthdays. They did not need to surround themselves with (fake) gold.
They did not turn any rose garden into concrete.
There is NO WAY that RantChildren would have been permitted to kick a soccer ball around outside the residential areas of the White House.
If anyone in the RantFamily had the opportunity to tour the white house and the Washington monument, maybe they would have made some effort to share interesting factoids. Not Kai.
Kai and her aunt Ivanka both do breathy blond frighteningly well. RantWoman has a very good friend who is blonde and perfectly capable of exploiting people's assumptions about blondness; this friend is also a doctor with multiple published scientific papers. Apparently there is no hope of expecting anything like that from the Trump family blondes.
But anyway, Happy belated birthday Mr. President. Sorry you fell asleep at your own party though.
Monday, June 15, 2026
Good Trouble on behalf of the Kennedy Center
Aside from the clear statements in this post, judges probably do not have a way to ruling about karma. RantWoman has just said from Day 1 of President #StableGenius assault on the Kennedy Center: #DonSnoreleone is messing with seriously bad karma. After 3 apparent assassination attemps, to RantWoman it seems like a REALLY DUMB idea to paste one's name on a landmark named for an assassinated president.
Friday, June 12, 2026
Be Bold. Watch some Lego Bricks videos
#FIFA #WorldCup2026 #CopaMundial #Lego #TeamMelli
Long ago RantWoman had a really good day at a surprise opportunity in Copenhagen to buy shoes that fit! RantWoman did other fun, but also foreshadowing things in Copenhagen. RantWoman, alas, did not make it to LegoLand. Now, though it's time for a shout out to Lego and to Denmark, and to all the teams trying to play soccer / football / futbol in spite of all the US realities RantWoman is embarrassed, appalled, disgusted, outraged... about.
RantWoman is not up on the latest Lego corporate position about use of their products in these videos. Frankly, considering all the grief President #StableGenius is giving Denmark and Greenland, RantWoman hopes the songs boost Lego sales.
Judging by astoundingly low counts of views and likes, RantWoman assumes algorithms are suppressing content. So BE BOLD readers. Watch Listen. Wish people would join the choir. Because the more people who watch the harder the content is to suppress, the less room there is for lies and BS.
RantWoman here posts from three Channels. Watch, Subscribe.Recommend ~/= agreement with every sentiment
From Reese Waters
And from Vlad Vexler
Sunday, June 7, 2026
Cat dramas and first world problems
First meet @SalmiTheCat, a tuxedo-clad drama queen. She needs more adoration and those who know here need also to hear occasionally from her non-biological sister Hilma. Take a look.
Next RantWoman's Youtube feed is full of testimonials about how cats and humans came to tolerate each other and coexist over 10,000 since the first settled agriculture.
Finally, the RantWoman department of #FirstWorldProblems is having trouble appreciating the following forms of overabundance.
1. Reminders by robocall, text, AND email of a medical appointment tomorrow. RantWoman is still recovering from a summer cold and would desperately like an option to call in and cancel the appointment.
2/ Said medical reminders and the Amazon deliveries grumbled about below all arrived while RantWoman was trying via Zoom to participate in the life of her faith community. #FirstWorld Problems indeed.
3. Two amzon orders, 3 deliveries and featuring many bags with just one item in them. Most of the bags are recyclabe brown paper but it's fine with RantWoman if for instance the fresh garlic arrives in the same bag as the frozen pizza or the fresh fruit arrives in the same bag with sealed dairy products.
4. Besides the overabundance of packagin, a further grumble. Only the toilet paper made it all the way to RantWoman's apartment in the arms of the Amazon driver. One delivery, a decntly packed but heavy got stasyed ABOVEthe mailboxes in the mail room. The bags in the other order got delivered by one of RantWoman's neighbors determined that they not get stolen from the mail room.
There. Now catch the late evening Compline service and try to soothe head wants to explode regligious references brought to us by the current Secretary of #WarCrimes.
Bless us oh loard while we wonder what forms of over abundance await tomorrow. In the meantime, LAUNDRY
Friday, June 5, 2026
Iceland Volcano vid of the week
Iceland #Seimicity #DataVisualization
RantWoman admits it: RantWoman is volcano nerd enough to find this video data snapshot in time interesting though a little bit tighter geographic specificity or pre-existing familiarity with Iceland geography would never be terrible.
Sometimes one just digests the data without speculating whether an eruption is imminent.
Kind of interesting also to think about how to present this information to someone who is blind, either in sound or some kind of tactile rendering. Both ideas are on edges of products being worked on....
Thursday, June 4, 2026
It's not too late to catch some of the Reykjavik Arts Festival 2026, May 30-June 14
Iceland
RantWoman has become adept enough at Instagram to find the @IcelandAir page and even to interact a little with the content.
1. Icelandair recently began flights from Newark (EWR) to Reykajavik. Even though RantWoman had to enlarge the screen, the presentation was dead simple, simple enough at least for RantWoman's bad eyes.
2. It is not too late to catch a little bit of the Reykjavik Arts festival. RantWoman learned of the festival from a cellist flying home to perform and from the following YouTube link.
Please enjoy the following links about culture, as in wool, and tourist approaches. And scroll all the way down for RantWoman ramblings about search engines an algorithms
A FUN video tour.
Audio tours of the oldest museum in Iceland available in multiple languages
For people who don't want to spend their whole trip hiking, try the aerial tour or a paragliding options
The Handknitting Association of Iceland!
The CitiCard
Oh wait. This happened in March and now there are links online.
Oh wait. This already happened too.
Now the RantWoman ramble:
RantWoman has mainly been "grazing," making viewing choices from what YouTube serves up. It has taken a long time for anything specifically related to music or theater or art or anything to do with the kind of festivals that make someplace a destination for many market segments. RantWoman will make a note to search more with an open calendar. RantWoman definitely would not mind links to graze without having to do queries herself. RantWoman has no idea how to feed algorithms to this end but DEFINITELY does not want Gemini trying to make things up. See rant below.
The other night when it was already too late even to be tempted to do sequential queries, RantWoman asked Google about music in Iceland. There was some mushy AI blather and a few links. RantWoman looked at a bit of Bjork's Wikipedia page. RantWoman is already getting SICK of Gemini volunteering to do her thinking for her! Enough said?
Tuesday, June 2, 2026
The World's biggest Instagram Cluck?
Iceland
First, a volcano vid from a while ago because RantWoman wants something visual
Hah! RantWoman figured that the Icelandair quest for the world's worst photographer will involve social media. If there is a subcategory in the World's Worst Photographer contest for world's biggest social media cluck, RantWoman would jump in with both feet, all10 thumbs, and an, um, unique visual experience.
RantWoman regularly gets lost on Facebook. RantWoman will save her full Dial-a-Tirade treatment about Instagram for another post. Luckily, partly because of someone pointing out a RantWoman appearance, RantWoman has been stumbling around Instagram lately more than average.
RantWoman has plenty of opportunity to see what Irrepressible Nephew is up to. Currently his stream runs heavily toward car mechanic topics and lines of cars parked long a highway next to perfectly lovely mountains. Enough said? Some of the cars ARE electric at least.
RantWoman discovered and went looking for a number of former contacts who clearly fled the Elon Musk onslaught on Twitter / X. Okayyyy, maybe spending more time on Instagram will pay off. MAYBE.
RantWoman also happened on posts about the 13 finalists for the World's Worst Photographer contest. RantWoman is not sure she has been able to Coax Instagram into showing her all the finalists, and RantWoman has no idea how even to vote beyond attempting to share some favorites that definitely make RantWoman laugh.
One of the examples gives RantWoman vertigo the same way anyone trying to do a Zoom call while walking (or HEAVEN FORFEND, driving) on a zoom call. And there is no audio explanation so NOPE. Too worst for RantWoman.
Some of the finalists definitely make RantWoman smile.
RantWoman loves the idea of a mom competing. RantWoman would love to imagine a trip for a whole family.
A guy from Australia boasts of being "reliably unreliable" and persistent as well.
A woman named Blanche has a really funny blurry photo and boasts of being Delusional
RantWoman grinned about a couple other finalists but is done trying to coax Instagram into revealing them again to refresh her memory.
Anyway, everyone definitely smiles better on camera than RantWoman does and if RantWoman can stumble on a hashtag will definitely to try to follow along with whoever scores the "World's Worst Photographer" crown.
Monday, June 1, 2026
Not the worst of 127,642 bad photographers? Disappointed? Relieved?
RantWoman is grinning about the following communication from IcelandAir:
| ||||
Friday, May 22, 2026
You say Goodbye. I say Hello. Singing Colbert out of Late Night.
#LateShow #StephenColbert
"We're Live, And We Sound Good Man" - Paul McCartney On The Beatles Playing The Ed Sullivan Show
The penultimate show
And before that.
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Tacoma Museum of Glass Low Vision Tour May 31, 10:30 am-1 pm.
RantWoman LOVES the Museum of Glass in Tacoma
Admission to Museum of Glass Tacoma
RantWoman definitely encourages readers to check out
Blind & Low Vision Tour
Sunday , May 31
10:30am–1pm
Free, with required pre-registration
Join Museum of Glass docents and learn about glassblowing and selected exhibition pieces as you visit the Museum’s Hot Shop and galleries.
MOG’s newest tour offering has been specifically designed to serve the Blind and Low Vision community. This tour includes a visit to the Hot Shop, docent-led gallery discussions of art pieces from current exhibitions Paul Stankard: Beauty Beyond Nature and Kids Design Glass with the use of tactile images, objects, and 3D prints made to replicate the shape and feel of glass art pieces, as well as a hands-on presentation in the Museum Store. Registration is limited to 20 participants.
It is our goal and aim to make the most inclusive and immersive experience possible for the Blind and Low Vision community.
To register, please contact Elisabeth Emerson at eemerson@museumofglass.org or 253.284.4713
Registration required by May 23.
Things RantWoman LOVES
RantWoman loves the building shape evocative of native american shapes.
RantWoman loves the walkway over I5 from the Sound Transit bus stop. The walkway is marked by large glass sculptures and then by display niches full of smaller sized works.
RantWoman loves the hot shop, the demonstration point for many glassblowing techniques. RantWoman is definitely thinking about what it would be like to put on a welder's mask, grab a stick full of very hot goo and get all creative.
RantWoman loves the display hallway where younger kids' work is displayed.
RantWoman loves the workshop shere visitors have the opportunity to experiment creating small pieces of their own. Full Disclosure Rant Woman as part of the panel of visually impaired people who weighed in to help shape the Low Vision tour. When we got to the workshop, museum staff was worried about whether people were afraid of getting cut handling small pieces of glass. Everyone on the panel said something along the lines of "The risk is worth it," though we also suggested laying out the glass pieces in single layers. RantWoman does not remember what she made on her tour but definitely enjoyed putting together some kind of glass mosaic.
An easy day trip from Seattle on the Sound Transit bus. After the tour, a couple simple dining options across Commerce st.
Sorry: RantWoman knows driving directions exist but is a big fan of public transit.
Monday, May 4, 2026
The Met Gala 2026 and more
#MetGala #MetGala2026
Actually attending the Met Gala is so far out of the realm of RantWoman's imagination that RantWoman is happy just to WAY overdo YouTube videos.
RantWoman is allowing herself to wonder why, due to timeing, this year's theme is not "May The Fourth be With You."
Anyway, a sampling of what YouTube served up. Don't watch them all of them at once.
tons of cool vocabulary
A whole 2:42 hours
Friday, May 1, 2026
Iceland vicariously
Iceland Iceland Iceland
Readers who just want reflections, geography, geological history and really cool sounding hikes, please enjoy the videos.
As with advice from multiple creators, don't overdo it. Watch something and come back.
RantWoman HAS OPINIONS on the other side.
Iceland: The Realm of Magic | Full Film | Explorer Albert
ICELAND AND SURREAL LANDSCAPES - Untouched Nature with a Cold, Captivating Beauty | Travel Video
Exploring Iceland’s Highlands: 7 Must-Visit Locations for Summer 2026
Iceland Highlands: Top 5 Places to Visit - YouTube
5 SECRET Locations in ICELAND | Guide to Iceland
The days are getting long in Seattle. The weather forecast promises temperatures in the 80's F, a temperature when many in Seattle begin to moan piteously about the heat.
The long days make RantWoman think some of a Eurail trip around Europe decades ago after a study abroad in the USSR before it devolved just to Russia. The Eurail trip was a low-budget, grad student let loose expedition.
RantWoman mostly slept on overnight trains, got off the train in a new city every day, walked the city for hours and then got on a train to go somewhere else. RantWoman chose routes intended to allow a decent night's sleep, without too many border crossings and their attendant need to fish out one's passport and then settle back to sleep. In a few cases, RantWoman visited the same city more than once and a couple times actually spent the night in a hostel to do laundry, drink good coffee, and rest.
RantWoman did not attempt too many museums, shopped in grocery stores away from the priciest tourist zones, ate well on a diet of good cheese, rye crisp, whatever fruit would hold up well, and Nutella.
RantWoman is thinking of all this because RantWoman is bus freak enough to contemplate an Iceland journey getting from one town to another on a bus and choosing towns where there are hiking trails close so that driving would not be necessary at all. This does not seem like a journey one should attempt alone, especially RantWoman. RantWoman can pass as a sighted person--until she can't. In all the videos RantWoman watches basically say "RESPECT NATURE. It can be unpredictable. But right now, with the world in turmoil and with Things to Work through close at hand, RantWoman definitely recommends staring into a volcano or two.
Thursday, April 30, 2026
Some Useful Iceland-themed YouTube channels
Iceland Iceland
Whether one is abstractly planning a trip to Iceland or just massaging the idea for the IcelandAir Bad Photographer contest, here are some YouTube channel suggestions, sometimes based on one example from the channel.
RantWoman is amused by a few points:
--All the videos with the word "Mistakes" in the title.
--Advice from everyone not to buy expensive bottled water and shopping at the regular grocery chains, not the big tourist-oriented store in Reykjavik. Also comments about using the city bus from the airport and saving money over lagoon prices by going to the many public pools.
--Very adamant safety culture: no speeding. No drunk driving. No stopping except in designated lookout points to take photos. Park only where authorized. No walkiing on hot lava. Avoid sneaker waves. Do not get too near all kinds of edges of things. TAKE WEATHER WARNINGS SERIOUSLY. Only 4x4 vehicles are allowed on the F roads, roads not on the ring road.
--Equally consistent culture about cleanliness: NO pooping out of doors. Shower completely nude before entering the various pools. Take shoes off when asked
--Contradictory advice about the Blue Lagoon, staying in Reykjavik...
Learn Icelandic in 10 minutes 🇮🇸 Essential Phrases for Tourists Visiting Iceland
or at least an introduction before checking out the next video
Stop Using Google Maps in Iceland. Use This Instead
Info about weather and alerts specific to Iceland.
Note: other videos say use Google Maps to check location of Air BnB
How to Explore Iceland Like a Local (Avoid These 5 Mistakes!)
Skip the Blue lagoon because there are other cool hot springs near by
Visiting Iceland Summer 2026: Travel Guide & Best Local Tips! 🇮🇸
Base in Reykjavik and do day trips
What NOT to Do When Traveling To Iceland | 15 Mistakes To Avoid!
Don't base in Reykjavik.
Waterproof gear
5 Proven Ways to Avoid Crowds in Iceland (Like a Local)
travel in winter
Hidden Gems of Iceland: Avoid the Crowds & See the REAL Iceland!
Iceland Travel Tips: 10 Things You Need to Know (From a Local) 🇮🇸
5 Mistakes You Make When You Arrive in Iceland
Car rental, the "Flybus, and PUBLIC TRANSIT. RantWoman loves public transit and does not care that it will take longer. Maybe the Flybus for the first day, but public transit at some point.
The Blue lagoon is on the way from Keplavik airport to downtown Reykjavik but ...
20 Things Tourists in Iceland Learn Too Late
Weather can be even more fearsome than RantWoman previously imagined.
20 Things Tourists in Iceland Learn Too Late
VERY limited public transportation outside Reykjavik. No trains. Only intercity buses. RantWoman is a bus / slow travel nerd and might really enjoy some travel by bus
3 Iceland Itinerary Mistakes That Will Cost You Days
Don't spend too much of your trip at Reykjavik at the beginning.
Don't rush the South Coast islands
The Westman(?) Islands and The PUFFINS.
What will make Ideland unique to Me?
Iceland Itinerary Mistakes 90% of People Don’t Know About
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
But, but, do blind people really do photography? Sure. Now take me to the volcanoes
 |
| Which details are not in the Alt text and / or should just be cropped |
Still a few days left to enter the IcelandAir "Really bad photographer" contest, and RantWoman is trying to demonstrate unique skills.
RantWoman again encourages everyone who might be intrigued or even just slightly interested to read the contest guidelines.
Really bad photographer | Icelandair US
Yep. Plenty of visually impaired and blind people are very interested in photography, both as a craft and as something essential for documenting realities of daily life that Need To Be Dealt with. Lots of people in the blindness community get very good at describing our wildly varying visual experiences. Readers who need some RantWoman perspective, please consider checking out the Death By Powerpoint topics.
But, But this adventure sounds like it might involve a lot of outdoor activity and Ambassador Thwack the Badly Behaved White Cane and Anger management consultant has a thing or two to say.
Thwack may have a thing or two to say but RantWoman is in charge. Would RantWoman pursue some sighted guide options? Will RantWoman rely on AI or call-in services? RantWoman will be interested to know what is available in Iceland. Plus, RantWoman wonders how much choice a person will have about where to visit....
RantWoman, do you actually know anyone in Iceland?
RantWoman does not know anyone in Iceland but does know a very wise accessibility hero originally from Iceland. RantWoman met this person a long time ago at the sort of mentoring event where people with different life timeliness and blindness experiences get together to network, share perspectives.
These days, RantWoman encounters this person from Iceland on the internet. He turns up in online demos of people using screen readers, text to speech tools that enable blind users to navigate around the Internet, or at least to do so better than without screen readers. One reality of screen reader use is the playback speed of the speech. RantWoman tends to fall asleep when listening too long to normal speed screen reader speech and runs her own screen reader quiite a bit faster. However, many blind people working in tech or finance can be found on the internet demonstrating screen reader speeds a lot faster than RantWoman.
Please note: a screen reader is not the only thing necessary for online accessibility: websites, apps, portals all need to be developed with some standard features to ensure that screen reader users can find and operate the same functions as other users, some of whom might have other accessibility concerns. The people and organizations who do this right are truly accessibility heroes.
The real reason RantWoman considers this acquaintance a hero: RantWoman's most recent Google search turned up a LinkedIn profile showing a job at a large financial services organization and lots of connections to other names widely recognized in the online accessibility world. These are the people who not only persist in their work in their own organizations but also insure that organizational websites work for the likes of RantWoman who just wants things to work so she can do other things sighted people take for granted, in this case including managing whatever earnings there will be for 10 days of work after one figures out what all expenses to take on to make the trip a success.
And for fun some erupting volcano videos for different perspective than the pacific coast subduction zone
25 million M3 of Magma on Hold by Grindavik - Earthquakes in South Iceland
Iceland Magma Is Primed, But When Will It Erupt? Geologist Analysis
Iceland: Fourth and strongest volcanic eruption in three months | DW News
Sunday, April 26, 2026
Bad photographer cred?
 |
| Again with the tree photo this time basically at the crack of dawn |
Still a few days left to enter the IcelandAir "Really bad photographer" contest, and RantWoman is trying to demonstrate quirky skills.
RantWoman again encourages everyone who might be intrigued or even just slightly interested to read the contest guidelines.
Really bad photographer | Icelandair US
The contest does not want anyone who has ever done professional photography. Do the following comments mean RantWoman might be over-qualified?
Part of the instructions ask for a one-minute video about a bad photography experience that still turned out well. There is also the part about other skills. One of RantWoman's skills is going on at length. Hence the multiple blog posts.
First Prize in the 4H photography category at the county fair: there were no other entries.
This happened decades ago at an age when RantWoman officially could see enough with glasses to maybe do decent photos. RantWoman remembers giving a speech about sewing. RantWoman may have entered some baked goods. But the blue ribbon went to an album of black and white photos. RantWoman has long since lost the actual album but remembers that it was in black and white. Some of the composition was less than perfect, though RantWoman also remembers at least one shot of one of the town mountains that she really liked
The fambly reunions:
RantMom, may she rest in peace, and her siblings had a tradition, after their kids were grown and everyone was on less tenuous financial footing. of getting together every couple years with at least a few at a time of the cousin generation. So there RantWoman was recently looking at photos ahead of RantMom's memorial. Quite a bit of the time, RantWoman found herself thinking "who are theese people and why can't anyone take decent photographs? RantWoman can tell that photographs of people standing with light behind them in front of various forms of scenery do not do justice either to the people or to the scenery. Does that observation already make her overqualified for the contest? The memories are FUN regardless.
The cat and the disposable camera.
While RantWoman was trying to land on her feet after her midlife vision-related DNA kicked in, RantWoman signed up for a workshop series called "Getting involved in your Neighborhood." Part of the project involved handing RantWoman a disposable camera with instructions to document one's surroundings. Very funny. RantWoman really could not even locate the camera viewfinder and took a few pictures just by framing the camera based on externam things she used to orient the camera. The Queen of Meow, RantWoman's cat overlord at the time liked to jump up onto the railing of the balcony across from RantWoman's apartment. To RantWoman's surprise, a couple of RantWoman's cat photos showed the Queen of Meow proudly strolling along the railing, oblivious to the 4-floor drop to the patio.
The incision at the bottom of RantWoman's neck.
Scroll forward a couple decades. Add a smartphone so theoretically RantWoman can better use her limited vision to frame the photos at least a little better. Oh, but wait: a new task. Recently RantWoman had a surgery related to a different strand of DNA lotto. The surgery involved a small incision at the base of RantWoman's neck, sealed up with surgical glue and steri strips. RantWoman lives alone and cannot really see into the mirror to monitor healing. RantWoman an also has a smart phone that attempts to tell her how to capture her face. RantWoman did not want to capture her face. RantWoman wanted to capture her incision as it healed. To do that RantWoman basically had to ignore the instructions offered. RantWoman probably would have been able to tell if she were developing a raging infection without photos. Luckily, RantWoman has a coupe people in her life willing to receive daily photos and comment on the evolving color palette. The doctor was impressed at the follow-up visit.
The daily tree motif
RantWoman's apartment looks out on a tree, actually more than one tree. RantWoman does daily tree photos more or less just for fun. RantWoman is not preoccupied about the quality, composition, contrast of the photos. RantWoman's task is to write alt text for the photos. Alt text is description used by screen reader users to describe content of photos. Nowadays, a lot of platforms have AI which automatically does a mediocre job. RantWoman's efforts are also possibly inadequate. Sometimes the descriptions include details like the building in the background or the plants growing on the window ledge or some observation about weather conditions. There is some dance of messing with AI, attempting to improve on AI, and meditation about how much description is just right for different situations. Does RantWoman just have weird ideas of fun?
Friday, April 24, 2026
Icelandair bad Photographer Contest
 |
| One of RantWoman's daily tree(s) photos |
There are only a few days left to enter the IcelandAir "Really bad photographer" contest.
RantWoman encourages everyone who might be intrigued or even just slightly interested to read the contest guidelines.
Really bad photographer | Icelandair US
The only small accessibility blip: Must be able to interact and choose one of 5 emojis to respond to one of the questions.
Need some tips?
Just be yourself, no script needed.
Share any other skills you have other than being bad at photography.
What excites you most about this opportunity?
Got a memorable photography fail? Tell us about it!
So there RantWoman was one night watching volcanic eruption videos, one of RantWoman's fave diversions from other horrors of the current timeline. There was a volcano erupting in Grundjavik for several days. The eruption was the kind of slow meltdown that opened wide features and crept closer and closer to a village until part of the village had to be evacuated.
That eruption has faded from RantWoman's media streams, but along with the eruption videos YouTube sent RantWoman several videos of things one might do while visiting Iceland. The videos featured a certain amount of rugged hiking, sometimes in rainstorms, as well as ordinary daylife activities such as going to the grocery store or swimming in a completely non-chlorinated geothermally heated pool.
The rugged hiking sometimes in pouring rain sounds like maybe not the biggest sell, but a possible trip to Iceland in June when days are longest still intrigues RantWoman enough to do a couple posts turning over the idea of entering the contest.
And why the tree motif? STAY TUNED.
Thursday, April 16, 2026
As long as its AI slopaganda anyway, WHY can't it be audio described too????
Is it okay to admit that the barrage of AI "slopaganda" related to the war in Iran are a bit of a guilty pleasure?
Some of the videos are so dead-on that RantWoman wonders where the authors are getting their cultural insights?
In some cases, RantWoman would be just fine with the content if it were not for the certainty that the content is coming from forces that probably do not have US interests at heart and are happily playing into multiple fractures in US society.
Never mind all that.
RantWoman has one simple question: as long as all the videos are all AI-generated anyway, can't SOMEONE add an audio description track for all the viewers who can't follow the frenzy and probably couldn't stand some of the imagery even if we could follow it?
Pretty please.
Here are a few examples just to fire up everyone's literary instincts and try to tackle the visual complexity.
Nice music. What is on screen?
RantWoman realizes that the audio experience is a little less frenetic if RantWoman listens at noraml speed than if she were to listen at her usual 1.5x
A collection of the Lego Iran War Movie bangers
At least some of the clips here have subtitles but RantWoman is thinking of Bad Bunny's halftime show and all the different rounds of cultural examination she has seen about it. Do some of these clips need that much cultural interpretation too? OR based on subtitles RantWoman manages to read, is it safe to just file it as dueling war propaganda in the same bucket as the Secretary of #WarCrimes praying?
TRUMP Blocked IRAN.. But Tankers KEEP COMING 🚨 - LEGO EDITION
Who did this one. Several comedy lines.
Iran Answers Trump’s Blockade With a LEGO Diss Track
US Blocked the Strait… Then Everything Went Wrong
The U S Blocked the Strait… Until This Happened
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