Again with the IcelandAir really bad photographer contest: some requirements!

A very sunny day

Really bad photographer | Icelandair US 

The basic gig: 10 days of travel all travel expenses paid with $50,000 to cover, as RantWoman understands it, gear and whatever one needs for a trip.

For more detail about the gig: 

This is who we're seeking:

• You must be able to take part in physical outdoor activities and adventures
• You must be comfortable hiking and navigating uneven terrain in spectacular landscapes

M'kayyy RantWoman has the impression there is plenty to do in Iceland for people with different levels of tolerance for physical activity, but um...

RantWoman has never had the body to, say, work as an underwear model. RantWoman has grey hair and arthritis that comes and goes. In other words, RantWoman is in a NOT QUITE senior citizen demographic that may or may not be the best fit for what is needed. But every time RantWoman hits something that might talk herself out of even applying, amother voice comes up and says just apply and see...

So to make this trip work, RantWoman might need to think about how to have a trainer or a massage practitioner on speed dial. RantWoman also imagines that well broken-in shoes will be a must.

The initial application does not mention anything like overnight camping. If that is on the agenda RantWoman is going to need some kind of solar powered battery to support a number of devices.

Spectacular landscapes sound glorious. RantWoman also has enough vision and has lived around enough mountains to be really interested in the task of writing good alt text or creating meaningful tactile representations of gorgeous views.

Another fun thing: RantWoman is poking around for some background. Simple well-behaved websites are making RantWoman SO happy.

Will RantWoman actually apply...or will RantWoman just go for more vicarious online experience...?

Stay tuned and in the meantime, check out the video and channel linked below.

ICELAND TRAVEL TIPS FOR 1ST TIMERS | 40+ Must-Knows Before Visiting + What NOT to Do!

Pickled Greenland shark for breakfast?

Window trees building clouds

Contest Reminder:  

Really bad photographer | Icelandair US

When RantWoman travels, RantWoman likes to immerse herself in local cuisine, culture, and history as well as geography. Consider the question, delivered to Gemini "what do people in Iceland eat for breakfast?" 

At home RantWoman cycles among homemade porridge of the week, cold pizza, and sometimes other leftovers, often with a banana or hard-boiled egg.

Thank you Gemini, sort of. Submitting the question in natural language is cool. Here are a couple snippets from the first screen of results.

Why you should be eating an Icelandic breakfast

(summary: the basic low-fat, high-fiber, high protein regimen recommended in many places.

I tried a traditional Icelandic breakfast, and it was nothing short of intense — especially when the fermented shark hit the table. From creamy skyr, fresh rye bread, and liver pâté, to the infamous hákarl (a national dish made from fermented Greenland shark), this meal is unlike any breakfast I’ve had before. It’s all part of the unique and bold food culture of Iceland. #IcelandFood #IcelandBreakfast #TraditionalIcelandicFood #Hákarl #Skyr | Strictly Dumpling | Facebook

Thank you Gemini? 

Porridge or muesli? Checks out.

Good yogurt? checks out.

Rye bread or rye crisp: RantWoman likes both fine.

Pickled Greenland shark? RantWoman likes pickled herring on flatbread but does not eat it very often. As for Greenland shark...? 

How I Learned to Eat Fermented Shark with Iceland ProCruises - Food, Wine & Travel

So definitely a bit more of a big deal than mere pickled herring. RantWoman is fascinated to learn more about Greenland sharks. RantWoman also hopes that pickled Greenland shark is not an every day menu item.

As for Gemini

1. RantWoman is still not sold on Gemini offering to "help" abut email.

2. RantWoman appreciates getting info from multiple platforms but is lazy about wanting to sign in or even to read user agreements for these same platforms, especially since one BIG driver of whether RantWoman is going to come back to a site or portal is how easy it is for RantWoman to use. This is probably a trial and error iterative process. Most of the time RantWoman can live with that except RantWoman tends to want info NOW and in easily digestible form.

But speaking of easily digestible, RantWoman will check out other meal customs another time.

Help Open a daycare in the SanLuis Valley of CO

This unabashed fundraiser post is halfway in memory of RantMom. RantMom ran licensed home day cares both in CO and for a shorter time in MT. RantWoman is just posting the fundraiser link rather than try anything fancy with visuals because RantWoman does not want technical imperfections to get in the way of the story.

Help Us Open the Doors for 150 Kids in Rural CO | ColoradoGives.org

The San Luis valley is east of where RantMom grew up and east of where the Rant Family lived, there are a couple family road trips to Alamosa to hang out with a music professor colleague of RantDad's. There used to be a zoo that had at least one resident camel. RantWoman remembers visiting during snowy weather and thinking about all the harsh climates where camels work.

There. Just check out the fundraiser and do it before May 1 if possible.

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

But, but RantWoman keeps talking about vision loss and accessibility mixed in with bad photography commentary.

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 Is On Fire

Iceland: Fourth and strongest volcanic eruption in three months | DW News

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.

Ai Ai Ai: Elon tripping over his own hubris.

In case RantWoman has not been sufficiently clear, RantWoman is a GIANT AI skeptic. RantWoman blesses the video below for addressing Elon Musk and Grok in particular. The video is a literary delight, a rant fully worthy of RantWoman's endorsement.

RantWoman has also remained on X, or as RantWoman is prone to say when not reverting to Twitter, Elon's sandbox. Recently someone has been dumping AI related curricula from several major universities. Also, a whole slew of articles has appeared about fatal flaws in various AI models. 

Theoretically, if RantWoman wanted to sound fully informed and use the jargon of the moment, she could read up. RantWoman is, though, going to take the chance that meaning can be generated with or without the most current jargon.

Basically, Elon's promise to rewrite the whole corpus of human knowledge sounds to RantWoman like hubris. RantWoman already once blurted out, in one of her X accounts, that Elon needs to STOP PEEING ON  HIS BRAND.  Perhaps if Elon would take the following commentary to heart and let the community of users do our thing, knowledge would get transformed without him needing to fall on his face tripping over his hubris.

With that as intro, please enjoy the following commentary.

Elon Musk just lost everyone

"Elon is the biggest welfare queen in history."

"...addict...with a bunch of baby mamas...."

And as a digression, DOGE staffer about "rooting out DEI"

Elon Musk's Orders BACKFIRE As Damning DOGE Staffer Video Goes Public

War is not healthy for children and other living things: reprise of the Gulf War

 

Hitting hospitals is a war crime.

Double taps are double war crime.

Hologram Weather Forecaster? According to Stephen Colbert

Georgia's Trees Are Exploding | The End Of Groundhog Day? | Year Of The ...

Talking with Docs on the New American Food Guide

Full disclosure 1: RantWoman has become quite a fan of Talking With Docs. These two canadian doctors clearly believe in science, have a great presentation style and leave RantWoman feeling both better informed and relaxed about many medical questions. Who could ask for more?

Full disclosure 2: Between the dangers of previously well controlled diseases roaring back because of vaccine hesitancy and other wacky recommendations from US supposed "health" authorities, RantWoman is predisposed to treat the new food guidelines with maybe instead ofa grain of salt, a whole tablespoon of salt. So RantWoman was interested to hear the Docs not pan the guidelines as severely as their source might indicate.

Anyway, enjoy.

The New American Food Guide: Docs Break It Down

The New American Food Guide: Doc Give It A Grade

Make America Great Again--FOR GERMS!

Trump SCREWS UP BAD as DISEASE SPREADS

The short version: FIGHT AUTHORITARIANISM get your babies vaccinated. Get advice from reliable sources. Reliable sources do NOT include either President #StableGenius or #BrainWormBob, the ghoul currently atop the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Via multiple posters on X, the WA state and West Coast Health Alliance about the Hepatitis B immunization for infants.

The West Coast Health Alliance (WCHA) strongly supports that hepatitis B vaccination continue to be routinely offered to all newborns, with the first dose of the vaccine given within 24 hours of birth for newborns weighing at least 2,000 grams (4 pounds, 7 ounces), followed by… pic.twitter.com/Re9qhqlmjP

— Washington State Department of Health (@WADeptHealth) December 6, 2025

Trump SCREWS Red States as DISEASE RAGES Out of Control

And more on HepB AND Measles

And SPEAKING OF the land of X / Twitter / Elon's sandbox: inexplicable reasons to carp about this strong recommendations:

A certain newspaper columnist from Spokane who takes offense at the phrase "Pregnant PEOPLE." 

What? Aren't women people??? RantWoman assumes in the case of this complainer that the issue is transgender people having babies. NOTHING about whether or not the person giving birth is transgender changes ANYTHING about the epidemiology or the dangers of Hepatitis B. NOTHING.

Then there are the voices who say that universal vaccination is a sop to the pharmaceutical industry because only people who test positive at the time of a baby's birth need to get their newborns vaccinated.

1. If a baby is being breastfed, the person doing the breastfeeding can acquire HepB while the baby is being breast fed.

2. RantWoman should go look for some numbers but RantWoman would expect to see that the money saved from cases of HepB that don't occur more than justifies the cost of universal vaccination.

Voyager 1 soon to be one light day away from earth

Somehow, no matter how exasperated RantWoman is getting about modern life, this craft travelling out into the universe beyond the reach of earth's sun, based on persistent technology and clever insightful engineering from 50 years ago fills RantWoman with hope and a sense of SOMETHING sustainable.

NEW RECORD! Voyager 1 Breaks the Cosmic Barrier: soon to be one light day away from earth

Ice Cream Putinism Trumpism, Fascism, Monarchism

True Confession: RantWoman was seduced into these essays by mention of ice cream. Long ago when RantWoman was a graduate student studying in Leningrad / St Petersburg, ice cream bought from street vendors on Nevsky Prospekt in downtown Leningrad / St. Petersburg was basically a major food group. And in some kind of dietary magic, RantWoman lost about 30 pounds on her study abroad trip.

Ice cream nostalgia should not be mistaken for strategy in the modern era of billionaires and onrushing AI.

The Lesson I Learnt in the USSR That Still Fools Millions

Trump Isn’t a Russian Agent. It’s Worse.

Hark: the voice of iceland and Atlantic ocean current cycles.

For everyone tired of many forms of politics and enchanted by more slowly evolving disasters.

“A Global Climate Disaster Is Coming… And Iceland Just Sounded the Alarm”

Daily 3I/ALPHA update.

The science is part of the story. So are all the angles framing the story

Comet Atlas Just Split in Two - Scientists Can't Explain Why

3I/Atlas Arrival Date Finally REVEALED

4 Space Telescopes Reveal 3I ATLAS Darkening – A MONSTROUS Red Flag?

3I/ATLAS Just Linked Up With Bizarre Structures, Defying Physics!

Something’s Not Right About 3I/ATLAS - Why Are They Afraid to Release New Data

"Don't take ANY pill not prescribed by a doctor."

Seattle Cartel Leaders ARRESTED — Grenades, Guns & Deadly Fentanyl Seize...

"This Crisis cannot be solved by enforcement alone."

That was fentanyl. Now meet carfentanyl.

Authorities in WA seize pills 100 times more potent than fentanyl

Look. RantWoman defends people's inalienable rights to be REALLY REALLY STUPID and violent and.... RantWoman just would strongly prefer they not do so and appreciates efforts to wipe out the scourge of drug trafficking,.

Mysteries of Interstellar visitors: tell me more

Some of the science is a little boring but the narrative is part of the whole experience

James Webb Telescope Just Detected Thrust From 3I/ATLAS… 

James Webb Telescope Just CONFIRMED 3I/ATLAS Is On a COLLISION Course With Mars!

3I/ATLAS Unleashed 9 Escorts — Scientists Stunned!

More 3I/Atlas Get Closer the More Terrifying It Is Becoming

3I/ATLAS Just Did Something Impossible Near Mars

Amy and Tim | Social Wisdom | Benjamin Moore

The 3i ATLAS Just Made A Move Nobody Saw Coming And Its Crazy!

100x Bigger Object Just Arrived—and It’s Targeting 3I/ATLAS

The ORIGINS of 3I/Atlas and SWAN Explained

The ORIGINS of 3I/Atlas and SWAN Explained

3I/ATLAS or 3I/ALPHA

What? Never trust the YouTube headlines of the morning? No little green men. No jumping on the TikTok rapture bandwagon? No crashing into Mars? No disappearance. Just low-key presentation of science.

There ARE ways to study and some telescopes will burn their lenses tuned for distance observation if they point at the sun.

Have I been reading 3iIALPHA wrong?

3I/ATLAS Interstellar Comet Update for September 22, 2025

The Closer 3I/ATLAS Is Getting to Mars, The More Alien It Looks | Science For Sleep

US NAVY Now Believe 3I/ATLAS Is Preparing for Arrival Earlier than Expected

NASA’s Shocking Report Reveals New Objects Multiplying Around 3I/ATLAS

NASA ON ALERT: Harvard Astronomers Warn: 3I/ATLAS Is on a Collision Course with Mars

Falcon 9 Just Tried to Intercept 3I/ATLAS… What Happened Next Terrified Mission Control

Not exactly 3I/ALPHA but

3I/Atlas: Crazy Swarm of Comets Approaching!

A Deadly Wave of Giant Comets Just Started Closing In on Earth… What Is Happening?

3I/ATLAS More news!

3I-ATLAS Is Now Doing Something Terrifying — Scientists Say the Unexpected

Michio Kaku: 9 Hidden Objects Discovered Escorting 3I/ATLAS Through Our Solar System!

3I/ATLAS Collision With Mars CONFIRMED — What NASA Saw Will Terrify You!

NASA on Alert: Unprecedented Comet Swarm Approaches - 3I/ATLAS Leads Four Object Formation

Is It A Comet or Alien Technology?

Neil DeGrasse Tyson says aliens are at the bottom of his list of interpretations. Good speculation should trigger more observation.

The FULL STORY of 3I/ATLAS | Everything You Need To Know

"the duty astronomer at an observatory in Chile and letting the global network know."

A lot of fun as the word spreads

Quantum AI Just Simulated 3I/ATLAS — And Confirmed Humanity’s Worst Fear

Just ask AI?

The Object That Will Change Your View of Space Forever

400x Brighter & 200x Bigger Comet Racing Toward 3I/ATLAS

Prepare for 3I/ATLAS! – Track and Image this unique Interstellar Visitor

Amateur astronomyh tips

As of an hour ago

3I/ATLAS Just Did Something Impossible Near Mars

Fascinating events one has no control over

3I/ATLAS is Beginning to Reveal What it Truly Is ☄️ The Countdown Begins...

This still looks like a natural phenomenon

"The comet was the technology?"

Falcon 9 Just Tried to Intercept 3I/ATLAS… What Happened Next Terrified Mission Control

Panic at Harvard & NASA: Secret Models Show 3I/ATLAS Could Slam Into Mars With No Warning

NASA on Alert: Quantum AI CONFIRMS 3I/ATLAS Is NOT Natural...

Scheduled maintenance cycle???? 3I/Atlas will cross paths with...

Can this BEeeee!

RantWoman apologizes for not summarizing in more detail. Think of the vids as a refreshing alternative to a lot of the rest of the news stream.

100x Bigger Mystery Object Entered Solar System, it's Aiming Straight fo...

4 Space Telescopes Just Caught 3I/ATLAS Turning To A HostileColor… USSF Is on Alert

James Webb Looked Into 3I/ATLAS And Found Something Unexpected

New Data Revealed 3I/Atlas Shifts It's Colour Between Dark Reddish to Green

A Swarm Is Following 3I/ATLAS Into our Solar System | Science For Sleep

3I/ATLAS Fired a Nuclear Pulse — Scientists Say It Was NOT Natural...