GayManifold @gaymanifold@qoto.org

Wear your #seatbelt ! I didn't make this but I think it's great #design

Usually governments provide reliable information about for example diseases or catastrophes. If news organizations aren't proving reliable information about (some) current topics, one might argue that it doesn't provide reliable information about governmental issues like corruption in the government or how a government's actions is affecting its average citizens. In fact it's demonstrably true that most corporate news organizations dont provide reliable information about such governmental topics. It's sexier (more $$$) to talk about whatever some fringe Republican has said or what Drumpf is doing because there's drama there. There's not much drama in reporting about e.g. efficacy of certain homelessness prevention measures compared to other measures.

Whenever I try to #learn something that I come across about a current topic, I realize that it's very hard to come by reliable information. I'm not even talking about mis/disinformation. I'm talking about the fact that many #news organizations will put an "entertainment spin" to it. Instead of talking about the worrying rises in #flu and #covid rates, they'll tell you how this one hospital was on the brink of a collapse because of pediatric hospitalizations and how it managed not to do that...

The source to the previous figure is #cdc. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm

What we learned thru #covid is just as important thru #flu. Currently in the #us and #canada there are abnormally high rates of flu and deaths from flu.

@Billius27@mstdn.ca what's the explanation for it?

#Google : give me more data. Your credit cards your. Your royalty cards. We already got all your transactions from your Gmail emails but just make it easier for us.

@mv @Ferris_vball the burden is close to none on the audience. It's the burden of the presenter to know the audience and cater their talk to the knowledge and expertise of the audience. You can't give a spexialized seminar talk to a department colloquium. Nor I would say you can use the same graphs or slides for that talk. *Knowing your audience* is literally the first step of scientific communication.

@Ferris_vball I think it's mostly because of scientists' own ignorance or arrogance. Giving a good scientific talk is a skill. However you usually "pick up" this skill here and there and is generally assumed to known by students. In fact scientific communication is a scientific field of its own that needs to be thought to students so that at least people have an appreciation that giving a scientific talk takes more time and effort than putting few slides together. However, even in well meaning departments that mandate this kind of training or classes, it's usually seen as a formality and encumbrance by students and faculty. You wouldn't expect someone to be successful in your field without having learned the field. Yet scientific communication is treated similarly by scientists who have no formal training in it yet somehow "knows" how to give good talks.