Merry Christmas

https://newslit.org/

Before you go on, an article in the May 8 & May 22 issue of Science News ran with a cover "Awash in Deception:  How science can help us avoid being duped by misinformation."  In the lead article titled: "The Battle Against Fake News," Alexandra Witze presents five suggestions on how to debunk bad information.  They come from the News Literacy Project (see the above link).

How to Debunk:

1.  Arm yourself with media literacy skills, at sites such as the News Literacy Project (newslit.org), to better understand how to spot hoax videos and stories.

2.  Don't stigmatize people for holding inaccurate beliefs.  Show empathy and respect, or you're more likely to alienate your audience than successfully share accurate information.

3.  Translate complicated but true ideas into simple messages that are easy to grasp.  Videos, graphics and other visual aids can help.

4.  When possible, once you provide a factual alternative to the misinformation, explain the underlying fallacies (such as cherry- picking information, a common tactic of climate change deniers.

5.  Mobilize when you see misinformation being shared on social media as soon as possible. If you see something, say something.

"Misinformation is any information that is incorrect, whether due to error or fake news.  

"Disinformation is deliberately intended to deceive."

"Propaganda is disinformation with a political agenda."

Sander van der Linden
Social Psychologist
University of Cambridge

Source:  Science News/May 8, 2021 & May 22, 2021

My trip to South Georgia Island and Antarctica was a gift both literally and figuratively. I had the opportunity to go because I was invited by a friend that didn’t feel comfortable traveling under the conditions required for going on a cruise in the Southern Ocean.

I visited a place that was so distant a possible destination that it wasn’t even on my bucket list. The chances of going there were slim to none. Thank goodness of having even the slimmest of possibilities, because the slim was just enough to give me the opportunity of a lifetime to travel to a mystical, magical, real place.

Now, it’s time to take advantage of this gift and share it with those of you for whom my travels offer a window to the untraveled and largely unexperienced world since March 2019 when the Coronavirus led to a global pandemic known simply as COVID-19.

The idea of blogging about Antarctic travel really hadn’t occurred to me until I was on the plane from Miami to Buenos Aires. The possibility of having the technology available to make it a reality didn’t happen until we got on the ship in Ushuaia, Argentina, the Gateway to Tierra del Fuego National Park and the greater region known as Patagonia.

Internet access on a ship cruising some of the world’s remotest waters to it’s most remote continent was a challenge and it was far from free. $50 for 500MB and $90 for a gigabyte of the precious ethereal property made me think seriously about whether this was financially feasible for a three week period. How far would a gigabyte of data go? I had never really faced the finiteness of access to the Internet before.

We had been granted our first 300MB of data free, but I quickly found out how quickly one can burn through that ceiling by leaving one’s wifi on even after leaving the internet and turning off your phone, tablet or computer.

I decided to first send out text only posts. Andy, new friend from the cruise, convinced me to try sending out at least one photo per post at lower pixellation. I still burning through data at a somewhat (for my budget) alarming rate. What else could I do? Well, duh, how about typing the text offline and then copying and pasting it onto my blog site? It took me a week or so to figure that out. I guess that solution worked as I used a total of 2.5GB of data for the three weeks on the ship. I had just enough for the las blog post and a few important email messages.

Bottom line is that getting this blog out turned out to be a link to the outside world, anywhere in the world beyond the homes and communities of many of my readers. It was a chance to take a trip through words and photos to places that had been made inaccessible to most by pandemic travel restrictions.

The cost of the shipboard data was trivial in retrospect as I heard and continue to hear about how much you appreciated reading about my distant exploits and getting a visual taste of the experience. The late evenings sitting in the ship Library composing and sending “singingcyclistmusings” was time and energy that I am now delighted to call my gift to all of you. A chance to allow the gift that was given to me to keep on giving as you all share it within your networks and communities.

I was very chincey (sp) in my sharing of photographs during the trip due to the data limitations on the ship. I have assembled a few into a first draft presentation for you to see. It is in the form of a link to a Google folder. I hope you are able to see it and enjoy it. It’s been wonderful hearing from you and if you are one of the many folks that read it and didn’t reply, I have equal hopes that you got as much enjoyment from the writings as I got in publishing them. I have more photos and a trip slide presentation if you’d like to see more and get the trip in story form. Send me a personal email.

Enjoy!