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  6. <title type="text">Communications From Elsewhere</title>
  7. <subtitle type="text">Home of RJL20</subtitle>
  8.  
  9. <updated>2025-05-28T17:19:24Z</updated>
  10.  
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  16. <entry>
  17. <author>
  18. <name>Josh</name>
  19. <uri>http://www.elsewhere.org/</uri>
  20. </author>
  21.  
  22. <title type="html"><![CDATA[&#8220;Creative Nonfiction&#8221;]]></title>
  23. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/05/26/creative-nonfiction/" />
  24.  
  25. <id>https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/?p=3857</id>
  26. <updated>2025-05-28T17:19:24Z</updated>
  27. <published>2025-05-27T04:50:19Z</published>
  28. <category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="Reviews" /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="guns" /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="memoir" /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="nonfiction" /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="truth" />
  29. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[Or, in some cases, maybe just &#8220;lies&#8221;. I recently read RJ Young&#8217;s 2018 memoir Let It Bang: A Young Black Man&#8217;s Reluctant Odyssey Into Guns. I can&#8217;t recommend it. Pretty much all of the criticisms raised by Martha Southgate in her review of his next book, Requiem For The Massacre: A Black History on the &#8230; <a href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/05/26/creative-nonfiction/" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "&#8220;Creative Nonfiction&#8221;"</span></a>]]></summary>
  30.  
  31. <content type="html" xml:base="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/05/26/creative-nonfiction/"><![CDATA[
  32. <p>Or, in some cases, maybe just &#8220;lies&#8221;.</p>
  33.  
  34.  
  35.  
  36. <span id="more-3857"></span>
  37.  
  38.  
  39.  
  40. <p>I recently read RJ Young&#8217;s 2018 memoir <em>Let It Bang: A Young Black Man&#8217;s Reluctant Odyssey Into Guns</em>. I can&#8217;t recommend it. Pretty much all of the criticisms raised by Martha Southgate in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/books/review/tulsa-massacre-rj-young.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KU8.2VmG.ia24_sYGObna&amp;smid=url-share" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">her review of his next book</a>, <em>Requiem For The Massacre: A Black History on the Conflict, Hope, and Fallout of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre</em> apply to <em>Let It Bang</em> as well: long and poorly-connected digressions, inflated claims of what the book covers, lack of reflection on the meaning of the anecdotes recounted, shallow justification for the meanings he does ascribe, and so forth. I just didn&#8217;t think it was very well written, honestly.</p>
  41.  
  42.  
  43.  
  44. <p>But what I keep coming back to is the mistakes. Some could maybe be justified as fudging details to make for a better narrative, although it would be a stretch. For example, he claims that at the first gun show he went to with his father-in-law, in 2014, he saw people wearing MAGA and &#8220;Basket of Deplorables&#8221; merch. This is <em>emotionally </em>true—that&#8217;s the sort of thing you might expect to see at a gun show anywhere, maybe especially in Oklahoma—but it&#8217;s not something which could be <em>literally </em>true, because Clinton&#8217;s &#8220;basket of deplorables&#8221; remark didn&#8217;t happen until late 2016, and &#8220;Make America Great Again&#8221; also wasn&#8217;t a campaign slogan until 2016 (unless you count Ronald Reagan&#8217;s 1980 campaign, and I doubt there were a lot of people wearing 1980 campaign merch in 2014). He specifically says that this happened in 2014, though:</p>
  45.  
  46.  
  47.  
  48. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  49. <p>CHARLES AND I visited Wanenmacher’s show in November 2014, the year before the show turned sixty.</p>
  50. </blockquote>
  51.  
  52.  
  53.  
  54. <p>Wanenmacher&#8217;s did start in 1955, so 2014 isn&#8217;t a typo. He could have included an aside about seeing MAGA/deplorables merch at later shows, although I&#8217;m not sure that he went to any gun shows after 2016. But I&#8217;ll count this as just some creative, albeit clumsy, embellishment.</p>
  55.  
  56.  
  57.  
  58. <p>But other mistakes are just technically wrong in a way which betrays a lack of understanding of the subject. And given that the whole selling point of this book is that it&#8217;s the memoir of a Black man who became an NRA-certified pistol instructor as a way of getting closer to his father-in-law, passages which get wrong very basic details of pistols generally and his personal pistol in particular are concerning. For example:</p>
  59.  
  60.  
  61.  
  62. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  63. <p>We came to a vendor with a brand-new Glock 26 on display. “You want that one?” Charles asked. “I’ll buy it.” The Glock 26 is a subcompact, concealed-carry, nine-millimeter weapon affectionately known as the “Baby Glock.” It’s a pocket pistol specifically designed for self-defense. For that reason, the magazine holds just seven rounds, as opposed to the seventeen of other Glocks, and its grip is just long enough for an adult male to wrap three fingers around it.</p>
  64. </blockquote>
  65.  
  66.  
  67.  
  68. <p>Ok, so this is the first pistol he owns, and it&#8217;s the one he trains with for the next year. He should be very familiar with how it works. Here&#8217;s the thing, though: the magazine which comes with a Glock 26 holds ten rounds, not seven. Is it possible that there is an aftermarket magazine which only holds seven rounds? I suppose so, but if there is, I can&#8217;t find it. The Glock 43 comes with a six-round magazine, in case he&#8217;s mistaken about which model he owns, but it wasn&#8217;t available until mid-2015, and he&#8217;s already established that he got his at a show in November of 2014. </p>
  69.  
  70.  
  71.  
  72. <p>Is it important that he has this detail wrong? Well, he thinks that the magazine&#8217;s capacity is important enough that he mentions it a few more times:</p>
  73.  
  74.  
  75.  
  76. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  77. <p>AT THE HOUSE, Charles showed me how to load the magazine for my Glock 26. The magazine is miniature for this model, by Glock standards, with just room enough for seven rounds, but that is also the same number of rounds provided by the full-size Colt 1911. The small magazine is part of the genius of the “Baby Glock.”<br />[&#8230;]<br />I was surprised at how tough it was to load my gun’s magazine. As I popped each additional bullet into the magazine, the spring beneath it became harder to depress. After I’d loaded five rounds, I was having a hard time loading the sixth. Charles had to do it for me. But not without chiding me to “use those muscles of yours.” I saw this man, whose hands ached sometimes with arthritis, load the last two bullets without incident.</p>
  78. </blockquote>
  79.  
  80.  
  81.  
  82. <p>A little later:</p>
  83.  
  84.  
  85.  
  86. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  87. <p>I walked back to the truck, took the magazine out of the gun, and went about the business of trying to reload it. I managed to load only five shells. The sixth seemed impossible to maneuver, and I was perfectly frustrated. [&#8230;] I squeezed the trigger. But nothing happened.<br />[&#8230;]<br />He looked the gun over for just a few seconds. Then he smashed his palm into the magazine, snapping it into place, pulled back on the slide, ejecting a round, and then fired the gun three times. He handed it back to me, with the barrel facing away from us, and told me to shoot. I fired the last two rounds</p>
  88. </blockquote>
  89.  
  90.  
  91.  
  92. <p>Wait: ejecting one round, firing three rounds, and then firing two more makes six, not five. Ok, so maybe he&#8217;s just not good with counting. But here&#8217;s what makes me think that he&#8217;s making some part of this up entirely:</p>
  93.  
  94.  
  95.  
  96. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="960" height="720" src="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/image.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3858" srcset="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/image.png 960w, https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/image-300x225.png 300w, https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/image-768x576.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px" /></figure>
  97.  
  98.  
  99.  
  100. <p>That&#8217;s a Glock magazine. It has seven holes in it to show you how many cartridges are loaded. At a glance, if you&#8217;re not familiar with it, it would be reasonable to think that the magazine holds seven rounds. But it holds ten. The holes are numbered, starting at four. You have no indicator for the first three.</p>
  101.  
  102.  
  103.  
  104. <p>This is the kind of mistake that someone who has only ever seen a photo of a Glock 26 might make. I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s the kind of mistake that someone who trained to marksman proficiency with one and who claims to still own it, so it could easily be referenced while writing the book, would make.</p>
  105.  
  106.  
  107.  
  108. <p>And then there&#8217;s this:</p>
  109.  
  110.  
  111.  
  112. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  113. <p>[T]he Glock doesn’t have a safety. This means it does not have to remain in a cocked position to be ready to fire at a moment’s notice. At the time, the Colt 1911 was the most popular semiautomatic pistol. With this and other semiautomatics, accidental discharges were just a fact of life. Glocks are in this way like many revolvers; they don’t have a safety.<br />[&#8230;]<br />The Glock 17’s most significant advantage becomes obvious when a shooter switches from squeezing off a revolver to squeezing off a Glock, especially for repeated rounds. In many cases, the hammer of a revolver remains de-cocked, which means the first squeeze must be especially forceful, but subsequent ones less so. But the hammer remains cocked for another blast after the initial round is fired. With a revolver the shooter must remember to use less force for the following shots. [&#8230;] With a Glock, the trigger pressure remains the same, whether it’s the first shot, the second, or the seventeenth.</p>
  114. </blockquote>
  115.  
  116.  
  117.  
  118. <p>This is kind of incoherent, and very wrong. Whether a gun has a safety or not has nothing to do with whether it has to remain cocked in order to fire at a moment&#8217;s notice. What a safety is supposed to do is prevent the gun from being fired even if it is cocked, or in the case of a revolver, prevent it from firing if you slip while cocking the hammer or if you drop the gun and it lands on the un-cocked hammer. I don&#8217;t know enough about the Colt 1911 to know if it has an unusual number of accidental discharges, but if it does, it isn&#8217;t <em>because </em>it has a safety. That first paragraph makes no sense. And the second is just as bad.</p>
  119.  
  120.  
  121.  
  122. <p>To be fair, there do exist a few semi-automatic revolvers which re-cock on their own when fired, but my understanding is that they are pretty rare. There are plenty of semi-automatic pistols for which this is the case, though. What he&#8217;s talking about is &#8220;double-action&#8221; vs &#8220;single-action&#8221;. With double-action, pulling the trigger first cocks and then releases the hammer (or striker). With single-action, something else has to have first cocked it, and then the trigger fires it. Double, as you might expect, requires you to pull the trigger harder than single. Many semi-automatic pistols are double-action for the first shot and single-action for the second, meaning that &#8212; as he talks about &#8212; the first pull is heavier, but then the act of firing the gun automatically re-cocks the hammer for you, so your second and subsequent shots require less pressure on the trigger. But that&#8217;s nothing to do with revolvers. The Glock is double-action only: that is, it does not <s>automatically </s> fully re-cock when you fire it.</p>
  123.  
  124.  
  125.  
  126. <p>There&#8217;s also this:</p>
  127.  
  128.  
  129.  
  130. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  131. <p>I searched YouTube for cleaning tutorials. I found a middle-aged white dude who went by the alias hickok45 who was using a Glock 27 to demonstrate his cleaning technique. The first thing he did, the first thing that even I knew already we should all do, was demonstrate that the magazine was empty.</p>
  132. </blockquote>
  133.  
  134.  
  135.  
  136. <p>No, that&#8217;s not what he demonstrated. I went and watched that video, and what he demonstrates is what <em>I</em> know he should have done first, which is demonstrate that the gun was empty and safe, by removing the magazine from it and racking the slide a few times to eject anything left in the chamber. If the magazine had been loaded, putting it out of reach before cleaning the gun would be a great idea, but you don&#8217;t show that a gun is safe by demonstrating that the magazine is empty. You demonstrate that <em>the gun itself</em> is safe.</p>
  137.  
  138.  
  139.  
  140. <p>Is this kind of technical detail important? Well, I think it is, given that the whole arc of the book is that he overcomes his dislike of guns to become an NRA-certified pistol instructor in order to bond with/show up his father-in-law. I admit, I&#8217;ve never seen what the test for NRA certification is like, but if they will certify someone who doesn&#8217;t know what a safety is for, or the difference between a revolver and a semi-automatic, or how to demonstrate that a gun is safe for pete&#8217;s sake, their certification course is worthless. Dangerously so.</p>
  141.  
  142.  
  143.  
  144. <p>The point is, this is the kind of mistake which makes me wonder if <em>anything </em>in the book actually happened, or if this is some sort of <em>Million Little Pieces</em>-style <a href="https://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/features/its-ok-to-lie-in-memoir" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fabulation</a>. Does RJ Young know anything at all about guns or gun culture that he didn&#8217;t find on Wikipedia? I have no idea. I don&#8217;t know all that much about firearms, but it feels like I know more than he does. And if you take out those parts of the book, what you&#8217;re left with is a short memoir of a Black man whose Blackness is important to him, who married a White woman and felt betrayed when he found out that she thought of herself as White (after he yelled at her in frustration that he hates White people). That feels like maybe it would have been a more difficult book to sell.</p>
  145.  
  146.  
  147.  
  148. <p></p>
  149. ]]></content>
  150. <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/05/26/creative-nonfiction/#comments" thr:count="2" />
  151. <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/05/26/creative-nonfiction/feed/atom/" thr:count="2" />
  152. <thr:total>2</thr:total>
  153. </entry>
  154. <entry>
  155. <author>
  156. <name>Josh</name>
  157. <uri>http://www.elsewhere.org/</uri>
  158. </author>
  159.  
  160. <title type="html"><![CDATA[What I think is going on with Google and MS calendars:]]></title>
  161. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/03/14/recurring-meetings-google-vs-microsoft/" />
  162.  
  163. <id>https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/?p=3852</id>
  164. <updated>2025-03-15T05:41:57Z</updated>
  165. <published>2025-03-15T05:41:57Z</published>
  166. <category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="General" />
  167. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[(Something I wrote for work, although I&#8217;m not sure who I wrote it for, because this isn&#8217;t something I&#8217;m going to share with the people I support, and it&#8217;s not something any of my coworkers really need to know. Maybe it&#8217;s just to get it out of my system.) A person thinks of a recurring &#8230; <a href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/03/14/recurring-meetings-google-vs-microsoft/" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "What I think is going on with Google and MS calendars:"</span></a>]]></summary>
  168.  
  169. <content type="html" xml:base="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/03/14/recurring-meetings-google-vs-microsoft/"><![CDATA[
  170. <p>(Something I wrote for work, although I&#8217;m not sure who I wrote it for, because this isn&#8217;t something I&#8217;m going to share with the people I support, and it&#8217;s not something any of my coworkers really need to know. Maybe it&#8217;s just to get it out of my system.)</p>
  171.  
  172.  
  173.  
  174. <p>A person thinks of a recurring meeting as one thing, like “the weekly check-in meeting”, and if the time or location changes, or different people get invited, it’s the same meeting. If it’s in the conference room during the winter and out in the courtyard during the summer, that’s still the same meeting.&nbsp;</p>
  175.  
  176.  
  177.  
  178. <p>Calendaring systems <em>could</em> treat recurring meetings this way, but sometimes they don’t, and the way in which they don’t is different between Google and Microsoft. I’m just going to talk about Microsoft, because I’m not going to support recurring meetings in Google.&nbsp;</p>
  179.  
  180.  
  181.  
  182. <p>When you create a recurring meeting, it is given a unique identifier. You can also modify individual instances of that meeting to be at a different time, location, or have a different title or description, but as long as the UID stays the same, it’s part of the same meeting. (Instances of a recurring meeting which differ from the main series are given a “RECURRENCE-ID” which is used to identify that instance, but they keep the same UID and are still grouped with the recurring series.)&nbsp;</p>
  183.  
  184.  
  185.  
  186. <p>The standard also allows you to modify all future instances of a meeting from a given starting point, while keeping the same UID. It won’t let you specify a bounded range, but “this and future” is allowable. In the standard, if you make a “this and future” modification and then change the time of the main series, the modification is shifted by the same amount of time the main series was; it is <em>not</em> modified to match the main series. It maintains its distinct settings through its RECURRENCE-ID.&nbsp;</p>
  187.  
  188.  
  189.  
  190. <p>Microsoft apparently does not implement this part of the standard. I don’t know if Google does, but I suspect it does, and that this is one of the reasons that recurring Google events shared with Microsoft users get so messed up on the Microsoft side of things. I think that if a Google meeting sends a RECURRENCE-ID to a Microsoft user that a Microsoft calendar wouldn’t be able to create itself, Microsoft just ignores it. Or maybe it creates a duplicate meeting and now you have conflicting information about that meeting in Microsoft. </p>
  191.  
  192.  
  193.  
  194. <p>What Microsoft does if you want to edit “this and future” instances of a series is it edits the original series to end on the instance <em>before </em>the one you’re editing, and creates a whole new series, with a new UID, out of your modification. If you then cancel the original series, your modification doesn’t get canceled, because it’s no longer part of the same meeting.&nbsp;</p>
  195.  
  196.  
  197.  
  198. <p>If you are a Google user invited to a recurring meeting on a Microsoft calendar and someone changes anything about the meeting going forward, you will receive two calendar notifications. One updates the original meeting to end on the last meeting before the one with new info, and the other creates a new meeting series starting from the modified one. Yes, it may feel like you’re getting too much mail about meetings, but this is the only way it can work at all.&nbsp;</p>
  199. ]]></content>
  200. <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/03/14/recurring-meetings-google-vs-microsoft/#comments" thr:count="1" />
  201. <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/03/14/recurring-meetings-google-vs-microsoft/feed/atom/" thr:count="1" />
  202. <thr:total>1</thr:total>
  203. </entry>
  204. <entry>
  205. <author>
  206. <name>Josh</name>
  207. <uri>http://www.elsewhere.org/</uri>
  208. </author>
  209.  
  210. <title type="html"><![CDATA[Ramen Review: Buldak Artificial Spicy Chicken]]></title>
  211. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/14/ramen-review-buldak-artificial-spicy-chicken/" />
  212.  
  213. <id>https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/?p=3848</id>
  214. <updated>2025-01-14T23:57:31Z</updated>
  215. <published>2025-01-14T23:57:31Z</published>
  216. <category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="Ramen" /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="Reviews" />
  217. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[I&#8217;m not sure I could tell this one apart from the Paldo &#8220;Volcano Chicken&#8221; in a blind test, and since I don&#8217;t have them both in front of me to compare them now, I&#8217;m not sure what I can say to distinguish them from each other. They both have substantial and chewy noodles, they&#8217;re both &#8230; <a href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/14/ramen-review-buldak-artificial-spicy-chicken/" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "Ramen Review: Buldak Artificial Spicy Chicken"</span></a>]]></summary>
  218.  
  219. <content type="html" xml:base="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/14/ramen-review-buldak-artificial-spicy-chicken/"><![CDATA[
  220. <p>I&#8217;m not sure I could tell this one apart from the Paldo &#8220;<a href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/04/ramen-review-paldo-volcano-chicken-noodle/" data-type="post" data-id="3833">Volcano Chicken</a>&#8221; in a blind test, and since I don&#8217;t have them both in front of me to compare them now, I&#8217;m not sure what I can say to distinguish them from each other. They both have substantial and chewy noodles, they&#8217;re both prepared in the same way (remove all but 1/2 cup of water at the end and then stir-fry with the sauce packet), they both have sesame seeds and seaweed bits in their flake packet.</p>
  221.  
  222.  
  223.  
  224. <p>I think maybe Buldak is a little smokier and a little less sweet than the Paldo. It might also be just a little hotter &#8212; my scalp feels warm 1/3 of the way through the bowl, rather than at the end. They&#8217;re both delicious, and I&#8217;d be happy with either, but I think Buldak has a somewhat richer and more complex flavor, while Paldo is a little brighter. The Paldo might have had more thickening agents in the sauce; I think there was more liquid left in this bowl at the end of the noodles than there was with the Paldo. I probably shouldn&#8217;t have drunk it as dessert, and saved myself the sodium intake, but yum.</p>
  225.  
  226.  
  227.  
  228. <p>It actually has a little less sodium than all of the Shin flavors, which surprised me. It&#8217;s pretty high in saturated fat, though. I wonder if the thing to do is use the noodles from Shin Light with a sauce packet from this (conveniently available in bottled form at H-Mart, as well as in individual hot sauce packets, which is what I got) and keep the Shin soup base to use with Nissin noodles in a pinch.</p>
  229. ]]></content>
  230. <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/14/ramen-review-buldak-artificial-spicy-chicken/#comments" thr:count="0" />
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  232. <thr:total>0</thr:total>
  233. </entry>
  234. <entry>
  235. <author>
  236. <name>Josh</name>
  237. <uri>http://www.elsewhere.org/</uri>
  238. </author>
  239.  
  240. <title type="html"><![CDATA[Ramen Review: Shin  Red (Fiery Spicy Beef)]]></title>
  241. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/11/ramen-review-shin-red-fiery-spicy-beef/" />
  242.  
  243. <id>https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/?p=3844</id>
  244. <updated>2025-01-11T23:41:58Z</updated>
  245. <published>2025-01-11T23:41:58Z</published>
  246. <category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="Ramen" /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="Reviews" />
  247. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[To answer my question from the Shin Light review: yes, these noodles are more substantial. Are they worth the additional fat? I&#8217;m not sure. Maybe. An interesting thing about the Shin spicy flavors is that while I don&#8217;t think they&#8217;re particularly spicy in the mouth (although this one does actually have a bit of a &#8230; <a href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/11/ramen-review-shin-red-fiery-spicy-beef/" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "Ramen Review: Shin  Red (Fiery Spicy Beef)"</span></a>]]></summary>
  248.  
  249. <content type="html" xml:base="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/11/ramen-review-shin-red-fiery-spicy-beef/"><![CDATA[
  250. <p>To answer my question from the Shin Light review: yes, these noodles are more substantial. Are they worth the additional fat? I&#8217;m not sure. Maybe.</p>
  251.  
  252.  
  253.  
  254. <p>An interesting thing about the Shin spicy flavors is that while I don&#8217;t think they&#8217;re particularly spicy in the mouth (although this one does actually have a bit of a kick to it, and you don&#8217;t want to slurp it too vigorously into the back of your throat), they absolutely create a vaporized cloud of spiciness that wafts through the house, attacking indiscriminately. So, probably best to cook this with a range hood fan on, or the window open.</p>
  255.  
  256.  
  257.  
  258. <p>I&#8217;m not sure I could tell you whether any of the Shin broth was supposed to be chicken or beef flavor, or what. They all taste savory to me, but not identifiably so. This one comes with a packet of &#8220;flakes&#8221; which turn out to include some dehydrated bits of presumably beef, and maybe that&#8217;s what it&#8217;s named for. The flakes also include carrots, peas, mushrooms, and green onions, and I&#8217;m not sure this one has any seaweed in it like I think some others have.</p>
  259.  
  260.  
  261.  
  262. <p>I should have tasted the broth after cooking the noodles and then again after adding the second packet of powder, to see what the second packet was doing. Next time, maybe.</p>
  263.  
  264.  
  265.  
  266. <p>Overall thoughts: I don&#8217;t love the texture of the larger chunks of beef and mushroom in this. They&#8217;re not bad; I just think they could stand to be smaller. The spice level does build a bit more in this than in other Shin flavors. I think this is probably the hottest of the Shin varieties I&#8217;ve tried, and while I wouldn&#8217;t say it&#8217;s super hot, it&#8217;s got enough that I think it earns its &#8220;spicy&#8221; name. Good noodle texture, too.</p>
  267.  
  268.  
  269.  
  270. <p>I think I probably like this one a little more than original, but a little less than light.</p>
  271.  
  272.  
  273.  
  274. <p></p>
  275. ]]></content>
  276. <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/11/ramen-review-shin-red-fiery-spicy-beef/#comments" thr:count="0" />
  277. <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/11/ramen-review-shin-red-fiery-spicy-beef/feed/atom/" thr:count="0" />
  278. <thr:total>0</thr:total>
  279. </entry>
  280. <entry>
  281. <author>
  282. <name>Josh</name>
  283. <uri>http://www.elsewhere.org/</uri>
  284. </author>
  285.  
  286. <title type="html"><![CDATA[Ramen Review: Shin Light]]></title>
  287. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/08/ramen-review-shin-light/" />
  288.  
  289. <id>https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/?p=3840</id>
  290. <updated>2025-01-09T07:34:47Z</updated>
  291. <published>2025-01-09T07:34:47Z</published>
  292. <category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="General" /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="Ramen" /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="Reviews" />
  293. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[This one has air-dried noodles rather than fried, and claims 75% less fat and 25% fewer calories than regular Shin ramen. It comes with a packet of powdered soup base, a packet of freeze-dried vegetables (with a decent blend which includes some good mushroom chunks), and a packet of somewhat spicy oil. The noodles seem &#8230; <a href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/08/ramen-review-shin-light/" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "Ramen Review: Shin Light"</span></a>]]></summary>
  294.  
  295. <content type="html" xml:base="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/08/ramen-review-shin-light/"><![CDATA[
  296. <p>This one has air-dried noodles rather than fried, and claims 75% less fat and 25% fewer calories than regular Shin ramen. It comes with a packet of powdered soup base, a packet of freeze-dried vegetables (with a decent blend which includes some good mushroom chunks), and a packet of somewhat spicy oil.</p>
  297.  
  298.  
  299.  
  300. <p>The noodles seem thinner than what I&#8217;m remembering from other Shin ramen flavors, but I&#8217;ll have to make a bag of regular to compare them later. They hold up pretty well &#8212; not quite as full-bodied as I&#8217;d like, but definitely better than a Maruchan or Nissin noodle, say.</p>
  301.  
  302.  
  303.  
  304. <p>Flavor is great, and what I&#8217;d expect from a Shin ramen: savory, umami, maybe a tiny hint of seafood? (ingredients say it contains anchovy). The spicy oil isn&#8217;t particularly spicy but does leave a faint tingle on the lips after eating the whole bowl.</p>
  305.  
  306.  
  307.  
  308. <p>It does still have a ton of sodium &#8212; a little more than the original flavor but less than the black &#8212; so not something I probably want to eat super regularly. But it does indeed have way less fat, at 3.4g to the original&#8217;s 15g. </p>
  309.  
  310.  
  311.  
  312. <p>I think maybe between original, light, and black, this might be the one I&#8217;d go for. I&#8217;ll have to try the original and black again to refresh my memory and see if that&#8217;s the case.</p>
  313. ]]></content>
  314. <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/08/ramen-review-shin-light/#comments" thr:count="0" />
  315. <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/08/ramen-review-shin-light/feed/atom/" thr:count="0" />
  316. <thr:total>0</thr:total>
  317. </entry>
  318. <entry>
  319. <author>
  320. <name>Josh</name>
  321. <uri>http://www.elsewhere.org/</uri>
  322. </author>
  323.  
  324. <title type="html"><![CDATA[Ramen Review: Paldo Volcano Chicken Noodle]]></title>
  325. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/04/ramen-review-paldo-volcano-chicken-noodle/" />
  326.  
  327. <id>https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/?p=3833</id>
  328. <updated>2025-01-04T23:25:36Z</updated>
  329. <published>2025-01-04T23:24:52Z</published>
  330. <category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="Ramen" /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="Reviews" />
  331. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[I&#8217;m going to try a thing here for a while: ramen reviews. The H-Mart by work has a whole wall of ramen, and I&#8217;ve only tried two or three of them. That I can remember, anyway. I&#8217;m going to write some notes about each as I try them going forward, mostly so I can remember &#8230; <a href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/04/ramen-review-paldo-volcano-chicken-noodle/" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "Ramen Review: Paldo Volcano Chicken Noodle"</span></a>]]></summary>
  332.  
  333. <content type="html" xml:base="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/04/ramen-review-paldo-volcano-chicken-noodle/"><![CDATA[
  334. <p>I&#8217;m going to try a thing here for a while: ramen reviews. The H-Mart by work has a whole wall of ramen, and I&#8217;ve only tried two or three of them. That I can remember, anyway. I&#8217;m going to write some notes about each as I try them going forward, mostly so I can remember for myself what I liked and didn&#8217;t, but maybe it&#8217;ll be something others are interested in too. There are a bunch of other ramen review sites and subreddits, so it&#8217;s not like this is anything new. Just, this time it&#8217;s me.</p>
  335.  
  336.  
  337.  
  338. <p>So, first up: Paldo Volcano Chicken Noodle, which claims &#8220;That&#8217;s crazy hot!&#8221; on the package. I guess this is more properly ramyun, not ramen, but for the sake of convenience I&#8217;m calling everything ramen. This might not be the best one to start with, since I bought it yesterday and I see now that its &#8220;best-by&#8221; date is three and a half months ago. Eh. </p>
  339.  
  340.  
  341.  
  342. <p>This comes with a sauce paste packet and a packet of sesame seeds and seaweed flakes, both added at the end, after you&#8217;ve drained all but about half a cup of liquid from the noodles. The noodles themselves are fairly chewy and thick, and hold the sauce pretty well.</p>
  343.  
  344.  
  345.  
  346. <p>There&#8217;s a ton of sodium and sugar in the sauce, and while it is pretty spicy, it&#8217;s not the kind of heat that overpowers the flavor, which is a little smoky and sweet along with the savory chicken flavor. It&#8217;s a little reminiscent of a Kansas City style barbecue sauce, I think.</p>
  347.  
  348.  
  349.  
  350. <p>The heat has a little immediate back of the throat kick, but it takes a while to build in the mouth, and dissipates within a few minutes. I&#8217;m going to say that this one is less spicy than the Buldak 1x Spicy flavor, although that could be affected by it being 3+ months past its best-by date. By the end of the bowl I did have a slightly runny nose and my scalp felt a little warm, so it&#8217;s definitely spicy, but not painfully so.</p>
  351.  
  352.  
  353.  
  354. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" width="768" height="1024" src="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/signal-2025-01-04-145142_003-768x1024.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-3836" srcset="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/signal-2025-01-04-145142_003-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/signal-2025-01-04-145142_003-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/signal-2025-01-04-145142_003-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/signal-2025-01-04-145142_003.jpeg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px" /></figure>
  355.  
  356.  
  357.  
  358. <p>I think the color balance of this photo needs adjusting; it&#8217;s redder in person than it is on this screen.</p>
  359.  
  360.  
  361.  
  362. <p>Verdict: I think I like the Buldak spicy chicken a little more, but this is a solid pick. Spicy but not overwhelmingly so, salty but cut enough by sugar so it&#8217;s not like eating a spoonful of bouillon. Good flavor. I&#8217;d definitely eat it again. </p>
  363.  
  364.  
  365.  
  366. <p></p>
  367. ]]></content>
  368. <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/04/ramen-review-paldo-volcano-chicken-noodle/#comments" thr:count="0" />
  369. <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2025/01/04/ramen-review-paldo-volcano-chicken-noodle/feed/atom/" thr:count="0" />
  370. <thr:total>0</thr:total>
  371. </entry>
  372. <entry>
  373. <author>
  374. <name>Josh</name>
  375. <uri>http://www.elsewhere.org/</uri>
  376. </author>
  377.  
  378. <title type="html"><![CDATA[Masa para tamales]]></title>
  379. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/12/18/masa-para-tamales/" />
  380.  
  381. <id>https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/?p=3824</id>
  382. <updated>2023-12-19T01:53:14Z</updated>
  383. <published>2023-12-19T01:02:18Z</published>
  384. <category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="General" /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="External Brain" /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="recipe" />
  385. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[I&#8217;m writing it down this time, because every time I make tamales it takes me a while to recreate the proportions and method, and every time I have a few early batches which are gummy or sticky or what have you. This is basically the recipe from the bag of masa harina, which I should &#8230; <a href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/12/18/masa-para-tamales/" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "Masa para tamales"</span></a>]]></summary>
  386.  
  387. <content type="html" xml:base="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/12/18/masa-para-tamales/"><![CDATA[
  388. <p>I&#8217;m writing it down this time, because every time I make tamales it takes me a while to recreate the proportions and method, and every time I have a few early batches which are gummy or sticky or what have you. This is basically the recipe from the bag of masa harina, which I should have trusted instead of going to youtube to watch hours of home and professional cooks.</p>
  389.  
  390.  
  391.  
  392. <p>In the mixer with the flat paddle, put four cups of maseca for tamales, the Maseca brand in the brown bag with &#8220;Tamal&#8221; in big letters on it, not the white bag. This time I&#8217;m using three cups of the grind for tamales and one cup of the &#8220;nixtamasa&#8221; variety which is a finer grind (but not as fine as the one for tortillas) and which has some enzymes added to retain more of the corn flavor.</p>
  393.  
  394.  
  395.  
  396. <p>Prepare three and a half cups of chicken or vegetable broth with hot but not boiling water, and mix three of them at low speed into the masa harina in the bowl to reconstitute it. This shouldn&#8217;t take too long, maybe a minute. Once the dough is coming together a bit, scrape the paddle off, form the dough into a ball in the bowl, and let it sit for 10-15 minutes to continue hydrating.</p>
  397.  
  398.  
  399.  
  400. <p>Meanwhile, melt one cup of fat &#8212; preferably good lard, but Crisco shortening works, and I&#8217;m going to try avocado oil next to see if room temperature solidity makes a difference &#8212; on medium low heat in a small saucepan. Mix one tablespoon of baking powder and 1.5 to 2 teaspoons of salt in, and take off the heat to cool a bit.</p>
  401.  
  402.  
  403.  
  404. <p>When the dough is hydrated and the fat is still warm, switch to the dough hook on the mixer and incorporate the fat into the dough at low speed. Continue beating and scraping for 4-5 minutes.</p>
  405.  
  406.  
  407.  
  408. <p>Now you can slowly incorporate the rest of the broth, if the dough needs it. It should be loose but not sticky &#8212; if you slap it, your hand should come away pretty clean (if a bit oily), and it should slowly drop off a spoon, not run off it. This is where the videos are helpful to see the right consistency.</p>
  409.  
  410.  
  411.  
  412. <p>Now continue to make tamales as usual, with corn husks and fillings and steaming and such.</p>
  413.  
  414.  
  415.  
  416. <p>This should make enough dough for about three dozen tamales, so make two batches if you want to fill the big steamer. I don&#8217;t think the bowl of the mixer will fit a double batch, though. </p>
  417. ]]></content>
  418. <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/12/18/masa-para-tamales/#comments" thr:count="2" />
  419. <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/12/18/masa-para-tamales/feed/atom/" thr:count="2" />
  420. <thr:total>2</thr:total>
  421. </entry>
  422. <entry>
  423. <author>
  424. <name>Josh</name>
  425. <uri>http://www.elsewhere.org/</uri>
  426. </author>
  427.  
  428. <title type="html"><![CDATA[Summer reading programs, SPL vs KCLS]]></title>
  429. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/06/18/summer-reading-programs-spl-vs-kcls/" />
  430.  
  431. <id>https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/?p=3817</id>
  432. <updated>2023-06-18T22:55:31Z</updated>
  433. <published>2023-06-18T22:55:31Z</published>
  434. <category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="General" />
  435. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[It&#8217;s just about summer, which means that the libraries are doing their summer reading promotions. There&#8217;s an interesting difference between Seattle&#8217;s program and King County&#8217;s program, but there&#8217;s also an interesting difference between Seattle&#8217;s program this year and its program for the previous five years. Seattle does &#8220;Book Bingo&#8221;, with a bingo card with a &#8230; <a href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/06/18/summer-reading-programs-spl-vs-kcls/" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "Summer reading programs, SPL vs KCLS"</span></a>]]></summary>
  436.  
  437. <content type="html" xml:base="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/06/18/summer-reading-programs-spl-vs-kcls/"><![CDATA[
  438. <p>It&#8217;s just about summer, which means that the libraries are doing their summer reading promotions. There&#8217;s an interesting difference between Seattle&#8217;s program and King County&#8217;s program, but there&#8217;s also an interesting difference between Seattle&#8217;s program this year and its program for the previous five years.</p>
  439.  
  440.  
  441.  
  442. <span id="more-3817"></span>
  443.  
  444.  
  445.  
  446. <p>Seattle does &#8220;Book Bingo&#8221;, with a bingo card with a type of book to read in each square. In previous years they&#8217;ve had the same card and categories in both English and Spanish. This year they&#8217;ve got different cards for the two languages. English is a 5&#215;5 Bingo card and Spanish is a 4&#215;4 Loteria card, so clearly they can&#8217;t just translate the categories. Interestingly, though, the categories for the two languages are almost entirely different, with only three being represented in both languages.</p>
  447.  
  448.  
  449.  
  450. <p>Here&#8217;s the list of categories on the English card. Each category has one or more linked lists of recommendations, but none of the categories have explanations of why you might want to read a book from that category (italics indicate that it&#8217;s also in the Spanish list):</p>
  451.  
  452.  
  453.  
  454. <ul class="wp-block-list">
  455. <li>Joyful</li>
  456.  
  457.  
  458.  
  459. <li>Seattle Reads (past or present)</li>
  460.  
  461.  
  462.  
  463. <li><em>Local Author</em></li>
  464.  
  465.  
  466.  
  467. <li>Hip Hop</li>
  468.  
  469.  
  470.  
  471. <li>Includes a Recipe</li>
  472.  
  473.  
  474.  
  475. <li>Indigenous Author</li>
  476.  
  477.  
  478.  
  479. <li>Recommended by an Independent Bookseller</li>
  480.  
  481.  
  482.  
  483. <li><em>Translated</em></li>
  484.  
  485.  
  486.  
  487. <li>Sea Creatures</li>
  488.  
  489.  
  490.  
  491. <li>Trans or Nonbinary Author</li>
  492.  
  493.  
  494.  
  495. <li><em>Library Book List or Display</em></li>
  496.  
  497.  
  498.  
  499. <li>True Crime or Crime Fiction</li>
  500.  
  501.  
  502.  
  503. <li>FREE SPACE</li>
  504.  
  505.  
  506.  
  507. <li>A SAL Speaker (past or present)</li>
  508.  
  509.  
  510.  
  511. <li>Worker&#8217;s Rights</li>
  512.  
  513.  
  514.  
  515. <li>Debut Essays or Short Stories</li>
  516.  
  517.  
  518.  
  519. <li>Older Protagonist</li>
  520.  
  521.  
  522.  
  523. <li>Chosen by the Cover</li>
  524.  
  525.  
  526.  
  527. <li>BIPOC Poetry Collection</li>
  528.  
  529.  
  530.  
  531. <li>Manga or Graphic Novel</li>
  532.  
  533.  
  534.  
  535. <li>Read With a Friend</li>
  536.  
  537.  
  538.  
  539. <li>BIPOC or LGBTQIA+ Horror</li>
  540.  
  541.  
  542.  
  543. <li>Audiobook or E-book</li>
  544.  
  545.  
  546.  
  547. <li>Same Author, Different Genre #1</li>
  548.  
  549.  
  550.  
  551. <li>Same Author, Different Genre #2</li>
  552. </ul>
  553.  
  554.  
  555.  
  556. <p>And here&#8217;s the list of categories in Spanish (mostly translated by Google) with the descriptions or reasons for each category:</p>
  557.  
  558.  
  559.  
  560. <ul class="wp-block-list">
  561. <li><strong>A classic book :</strong> A list of the best classic novels published in Spanish in the 20th century and available in the library.</li>
  562.  
  563.  
  564.  
  565. <li><strong>Science Fiction :</strong> A list of science fiction books, old and new. Choose one that best suits your taste or discover a new author. Why not?</li>
  566.  
  567.  
  568.  
  569. <li><strong>Stories :</strong> The stories are easy to read, and many times they leave us thinking and trying to find a different ending. Here&#8217;s a very interesting collection.</li>
  570.  
  571.  
  572.  
  573. <li><strong>Award Winner :</strong> The authors of these novels have won an award for their writing. Maybe you&#8217;ll find an author you don&#8217;t know yet.</li>
  574.  
  575.  
  576.  
  577. <li><strong>A banned book :</strong> The hot topic right now, banning books. We already know that when something is forbidden to us, that is what we want to do. A list of books that have been banned in some states of the country.</li>
  578.  
  579.  
  580.  
  581. <li><strong>Recommended by library staff:</strong>&nbsp;A very easy box to fill out.&nbsp;Go to your nearest branch and ask your favorite librarian what books she would recommend for you to read this summer.</li>
  582.  
  583.  
  584.  
  585. <li><strong>Biographies :</strong> Biographies have their fans and sometimes we find people who don&#8217;t read biographies. Which side are you on? Perhaps some of the following biographies will be to your liking.</li>
  586.  
  587.  
  588.  
  589. <li><strong>A translated book :</strong> Who wouldn&#8217;t like to read in many languages? Sometimes a book gets lost in translation, but there are many great books in translation like the list below.</li>
  590.  
  591.  
  592.  
  593. <li><strong>A Latino author :</strong> A very easy box to fill in, who doesn&#8217;t know a Latino author? There is a lot to choose from, don&#8217;t you think, here is a summarized list.</li>
  594.  
  595.  
  596.  
  597. <li><strong>I have intended to read:</strong> There are many books that we would like to read, and sometimes with work and the commitments of daily life we ​​do not have time for that. Now it&#8217;s time to read that book you&#8217;ve been putting off for a long time. Good reading!</li>
  598.  
  599.  
  600.  
  601. <li><strong>Poetry</strong> : The poems of well-known and not so well-known authors. Poetry is a literary genre that many readers like; do you have a favorite poet?</li>
  602.  
  603.  
  604.  
  605. <li><strong>A children&#8217;s book :</strong> Children&#8217;s books are beautiful, especially if we read them to children. Do you remember the books you read as children? If you don&#8217;t remember some of them, here is a list of contemporary authors.</li>
  606.  
  607.  
  608.  
  609. <li><strong>Read outdoors:</strong>&nbsp;Summer is the time of year when we can read outdoors to our heart&#8217;s content, near the beach, in the patio of our houses, on the porch, etc.&nbsp;Or maybe on our vacations, enjoying the beautiful weather.</li>
  610.  
  611.  
  612.  
  613. <li><strong>Mystery :</strong> Good mystery books keep us on edge and fascinated until the very end. Here a mystery collection for you.</li>
  614.  
  615.  
  616.  
  617. <li><strong>Romance :</strong> Love stories are always welcome in bad times, like we have been going through. Let&#8217;s read a nice love story to lift our spirits. We deserve them!</li>
  618.  
  619.  
  620.  
  621. <li><strong>A local author :</strong> To finish our lottery, let&#8217;s include our local authors; they are few, but here they are.</li>
  622. </ul>
  623.  
  624.  
  625.  
  626. <p>I don&#8217;t know about you, but it seems to me that these two lists have different goals. English speakers don&#8217;t get Poetry, they get BIPOC Poetry. They don&#8217;t get Horror, they get LGBTQIA+ Horror. It&#8217;s not all like that, but it sure feels like the Seattle Public Library wants to encourage Spanish speakers to read broadly and English speakers to read broadly and for self-improvement. </p>
  627.  
  628.  
  629.  
  630. <p>And the prizes are different for the two, as well. English speakers who complete their card are entered to win gift certificates to bookstores and a subscription to the Seattle Arts and Lectures series. Spanish speakers are entered to win Safeway gift cards. Which, uh. </p>
  631.  
  632.  
  633.  
  634. <p>The King County Library System&#8217;s summer reading program, by contrast, has no categories at all. Read whatever you want for 20 minutes per day, or set your own reading goal. At the halfway point, you get a patch and your name on your library&#8217;s community board; when you complete it you get a journal and a sticker on your name on the board. And their summer reading recommendations are the kind of fun book you might read at the beach on vacation. You know, &#8220;summer reading&#8221;.</p>
  635.  
  636.  
  637.  
  638. <p>KCLS is encouraging people to read because reading qua reading is the goal. SPL wants you to read to better yourself. KCLS might get people who don&#8217;t read much to read more. I don&#8217;t see how SPL&#8217;s program can do anything but get people who are already readers to read, well, &#8220;better&#8221;.</p>
  639.  
  640.  
  641.  
  642. <p>I know which program sounds more fun to me.</p>
  643.  
  644.  
  645.  
  646. <p>(I should note that KCLS only has the one summer reading program, while SPL has different programs for adults and kids. The SPL one for kids also looks to be a pedagogical tool, though.)</p>
  647.  
  648.  
  649.  
  650. <p>Links: <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.spl.org/programs-and-services/authors-and-books/book-bingo" target="_blank">https://www.spl.org/programs-and-services/authors-and-books/book-bingo</a>, <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://kcls.org/summer/" target="_blank">https://kcls.org/summer/</a>, <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.spl.org/programs-and-services/learning/summer-of-learning/2023-summer-of-learning" target="_blank">https://www.spl.org/programs-and-services/learning/summer-of-learning/2023-summer-of-learning</a></p>
  651. ]]></content>
  652. </entry>
  653. <entry>
  654. <author>
  655. <name>Josh</name>
  656. <uri>http://www.elsewhere.org/</uri>
  657. </author>
  658.  
  659. <title type="html"><![CDATA[SharePoint, WTF Are You Doing?]]></title>
  660. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/03/14/sharepoint-wtf-are-you-doing/" />
  661.  
  662. <id>https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/?p=3809</id>
  663. <updated>2023-03-15T04:04:47Z</updated>
  664. <published>2023-03-15T03:19:11Z</published>
  665. <category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="Uhh..." /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="Technology" />
  666. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[Backgrond: I&#8217;m helping migrate a bunch of files from Google Drive into SharePoint, because the licensing of Google Workspace for Education changed and it&#8217;s probably not going to be feasible for us to continue using Google as our main email/calendar/storage solution at work. In the process of setting up a tool (rclone) to perform these &#8230; <a href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/03/14/sharepoint-wtf-are-you-doing/" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "SharePoint, WTF Are You Doing?"</span></a>]]></summary>
  667.  
  668. <content type="html" xml:base="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/03/14/sharepoint-wtf-are-you-doing/"><![CDATA[
  669. <p>Backgrond: I&#8217;m helping migrate a bunch of files from Google Drive into SharePoint, because the licensing of Google Workspace for Education changed and it&#8217;s probably not going to be feasible for us to continue using Google as our main email/calendar/storage solution at work. In the process of setting up a tool (<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://rclone.org/" target="_blank">rclone</a>) to perform these migrations, I found that some files weren&#8217;t being transferred properly, with the rclone complaining that they&#8217;d been corrupted in transit. Apparently this isn&#8217;t a new problem; there&#8217;s a <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://forum.rclone.org/t/onedrive-size-hash-differs/11869" target="_blank">support forum post</a> about it from 2019. The answer there was to use options in rclone to ignore the fact that the file has changed size in transit, and just trust that it&#8217;s doing the right thing.</p>
  670.  
  671.  
  672.  
  673. <span id="more-3809"></span>
  674.  
  675.  
  676.  
  677. <p>What&#8217;s new to me, and something I can&#8217;t find much other evidence of by searching for other people having the problem, is that SharePoint is actually making changes to the <em>content</em> of certain types of files. That support post said it was just happening to Office documents, and I&#8217;m seeing that, but I&#8217;m also seeing changes made to html, css, and jpeg files. And I can see what it&#8217;s changing in the html and css files.</p>
  678.  
  679.  
  680.  
  681. <p>Here&#8217;s a minimal html file I put together to test the issue:</p>
  682.  
  683.  
  684.  
  685. <pre class="wp-block-code"><code>&lt;!DOCTYPE html&gt;
  686. &lt;html&gt;
  687.  &lt;head&gt;
  688.    &lt;title&gt;Sample&lt;/title&gt;
  689.  &lt;/head&gt;
  690.  &lt;body&gt;
  691.    &lt;p&gt;Sample document.&lt;/p&gt;
  692.    &lt;img src="//protocolless.url/image.jpg" /&gt;
  693.    &lt;img src="https://protocolful.url/image.jpg" /&gt;
  694.  &lt;/body&gt;
  695. &lt;/html&gt;</code></pre>
  696.  
  697.  
  698.  
  699. <p>And here&#8217;s what it gets converted to when I upload it to SharePoint using rclone:</p>
  700.  
  701.  
  702.  
  703. <pre class="wp-block-code"><code>&lt;!DOCTYPE html&gt;
  704. &lt;html <span style="background:yellow;">xmlns:mso="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:msdt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882"</span>&gt;
  705.  &lt;head&gt;
  706.    &lt;title&gt;Sample&lt;/title&gt;
  707.  
  708. <span style="background:yellow;">&lt;!--&#91;if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;
  709. &lt;mso:CustomDocumentProperties&gt;
  710. &lt;/mso:CustomDocumentProperties&gt;
  711. &lt;/xml&gt;&lt;!&#91;endif]--&gt;</span>
  712. &lt;/head&gt;
  713.  &lt;body&gt;
  714.    &lt;p&gt;Sample document.&lt;/p&gt;
  715.    &lt;img src="<span style="background:yellow;">//uwnetid.sharepoint.com/</span>//protocolless.url/image.jpg" /&gt;
  716.    &lt;img src="https://protocolful.url/image.jpg" /&gt;
  717.  &lt;/body&gt;
  718. &lt;/html&gt;</code></pre>
  719.  
  720.  
  721.  
  722. <p>I could live with some of that, although I hate it. But that last line, where it added its own hostname? That&#8217;s just wrong. That is not the correct behavior. If I am using SharePoint to back up a site&#8217;s html and I restore from that, it&#8217;s going to break something. And it&#8217;s doing the same thing in css files.</p>
  723.  
  724.  
  725.  
  726. <p>I don&#8217;t know what it&#8217;s doing to jpegs &#8212; the one I tested had something changed in its exif metadata, but I don&#8217;t know exactly what. There&#8217;s a whole new directory added to the compressed contents of docx/xlsx files, probably to make it more compatible with the online editing features in Office 365.</p>
  727.  
  728.  
  729.  
  730. <p>It&#8217;s interesting to me that this doesn&#8217;t happen if I upload the files using the web interface of SharePoint or using the OneDrive desktop client. It only happens when I use rclone, which uses the OneDrive API. But if I use one of the non-corrupting methods to upload my sample file, confirm that it is uncorrupted, and then move that file to a different folder in the SharePoint site using just the web client (so rclone isn&#8217;t in the picture any more), it gets corrupted again. Differently. Only that last type of change is made, where it adds its own site name to a protocol-less URL.</p>
  731.  
  732.  
  733.  
  734. <p>And it doesn&#8217;t happen in my personal OneDrive storage space, which uses the same API, as far as I can tell, and which has the same SharePoint web interface when I open it in a browser. Rclone can upoad the sample file to <em>that</em> SharePoint site just fine. And moving it around within that site doesn&#8217;t corrupt it. But if I use the web interface to move it from my personal OneDrive to one of the Teams or Communications SharePoint sites, it gets modified.</p>
  735.  
  736.  
  737.  
  738. <p>WTAF is going on there? And how do I stop it? (And, a thought I just had: does the fact that SharePoint is potentially silently modifying files as they get uploaded or organized have any implications for forensic discovery?)</p>
  739. ]]></content>
  740. <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/03/14/sharepoint-wtf-are-you-doing/#comments" thr:count="1" />
  741. <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/03/14/sharepoint-wtf-are-you-doing/feed/atom/" thr:count="1" />
  742. <thr:total>1</thr:total>
  743. </entry>
  744. <entry>
  745. <author>
  746. <name>Josh</name>
  747. <uri>http://www.elsewhere.org/</uri>
  748. </author>
  749.  
  750. <title type="html"><![CDATA[#Squarch 2023, day 5: Fine Times at Our House]]></title>
  751. <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/03/05/squarch-2023-day-5-fine-times-at-our-house/" />
  752.  
  753. <id>https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/?p=3805</id>
  754. <updated>2023-03-06T07:55:15Z</updated>
  755. <published>2023-03-06T07:55:15Z</published>
  756. <category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="General" /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="fiddle tunes" /><category scheme="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal" term="Squarch" />
  757. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[Coming in just under the wire, a fiddle tune not really suitable for a square dance, since it&#8217;s crooked in a way that would put the emphasis on a different foot the second time through the first part. The mix here is terrible, but the point isn&#8217;t perfection, it&#8217;s doing something.]]></summary>
  758.  
  759. <content type="html" xml:base="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2023/03/05/squarch-2023-day-5-fine-times-at-our-house/"><![CDATA[
  760. <p>Coming in just under the wire, a fiddle tune not really suitable for a square dance, since it&#8217;s crooked in a way that would put the emphasis on a different foot the second time through the first part. </p>
  761.  
  762.  
  763.  
  764. <p>The mix here is terrible, but the point isn&#8217;t perfection, it&#8217;s doing something. </p>
  765.  
  766.  
  767.  
  768. <figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Squarch2305-Fine-Times-at-Our-House.mp3"></audio><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Fine Times at Our House</figcaption></figure>
  769. ]]></content>
  770. <link href="https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Squarch2305-Fine-Times-at-Our-House.mp3" rel="enclosure" length="3196766" type="audio/mpeg" />
  771. </entry>
  772. </feed>
  773.  

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