April 22, 2023

Newsletter Leaf Journal CXXXII 〜 News & taxes 〜

The 132nd Newsletter Leaf Journal features our four newest articles, 12 links from around the web, and other news and notes.

Welcome to the 132nd edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, the official newsletter of the perennially virid online writing magazine, The New Leaf Journal. This newsletter comes to you as always from the waterproof keyboard of the editor of The New Leaf Journal, Nicholas A. Ferrell. This past week was a bit slow at The New Leaf Journal on account of my having to do my taxes, finishing a couple of work assignments, and having problems with my right wrist. Nevertheless, I did publish a few new articles, and this humble newsletter will come with your usual assortment of links from around the web and other news and notes.

Table of contents

1. New leaves from the week that was
2. Leaves from around the web
3. The Old Leaf Journal
4. Most-turned leaves of the newsletter week
5. News leaf journal
6. Notable leaf journal
7. Taking leaf

Leaves from the week that was

I published two regular articles since mailing the previous newsletter.

• On character and dark chocolate safety
  N.A. Ferrell. April 17, 2023.

  Justin of our Justin and Justina dialogue series offers his take on reports of lead and cadmium in dark chocolate.

• Syncing Umineko When They Cry With Syncthing
  N.A. Ferrell. April 21, 2023.

  I use Syncthing, a peer-to-peer syncing solution, to sync a visual novel with its save data between three computers.

I also published two short posts...

• Bunt home run glitch in Bases Loaded
  N.A. Ferrell. April 20, 2023.

  I share what I learned about an amusing glitch in a 1980s baseball game for the original Nintendo.

• ChatGPT vs Contract Cheating Writers
  N.A. Ferrell. April 21, 2023.

  I express my fervent hope that everyone loses.

Leaves from around the web

Back into my article sharing backlog...

• Work on Long Delayed Gowanus Canal Sewage Overflow Tanks to Finally Start
  Ethan Stark-Miller for Brownstoner. March 17, 2023.

  Brooklyn's beloved toxic waste biohazard does smell a bit less rank than it used to.

• Once a global conservation success story, New Zealand’s black robin in trouble again
  Eva Corlett for The Guardian. November 5, 2021.

  I was wondering about issues involving lack of genetic diversity while reading. They were addressed somewhat.

• Emily Brontë: This Year’s Coolest Superhero?
  Mark Judge for American Greatness. March 16, 2023.

  Not a specific take I expected to come across, but well-done.

• Europe’s Oldest Map Shows Tiny Bronze Age Kingdom
  Frank Jacobs for Atlas Obscura. March 17, 2023.

  It's not the geographical size of the kingdom that matters; but instead the size of the kingdom's adventures. (+10 to whoever gets the reference.)

• Wild cockatoos make their own cutlery sets
  Virginia Morell for Science. August 31, 2021.

  Call me when they re-invent the SPORK.

• Does the Soul Exist? Evidence Says ‘Yes’
  Robert Lanza for Psychology Today. December 21, 2011.

  Probably not the ordinary take in the webpages of Psychology Today. Interesting read.

• Algae Response / South Florida Water Management District
  South Florida Water Management District.

  Florida is usually more into exotic reptile stories, so a mass of algae encroaching on the coast like a slime monster from a horror movie is something different than the day-in, day-out stories (also troubling for toxic gas and smell reasons).

• United Arab Emirates: Personal Status Law for Non-Muslims Enters into Force
  George Saden for The Law Library of Congress. March 14, 2023.

  The parallel legal systems for Muslims and non-Muslims in the UAE is interesting.

• Random: Pikachu Was Originally Going To Talk Like Meowth In Pokémon Anime, Says Director
  Jim Norman for Nintendo Life. March 17, 2023.

  Nixing this was the correct decision.

• Pig-Pong: Feds funded experiment to teach hogs to play video game
  Stephen Dinan for The Washington Times. March 14, 2023.

  I vote for "$650,000 to a company that insisted it could come up with cheaper ways to grow mealworms on a large scale because it wants me to eat mealworms" as the most troubling abuse of my tax money.

• Coyote takes casual morning stroll through Queens
  Katherin Donlevy for the New York Post. March 9, 2023.

  And? What of it? Are we all at risk of having our faces plastered all over the fourth most-circulated newspaper in the United States for undertaking the audacious act of taking a morning stroll? Talk about a privacy invasion.

• Point, Shoot, and Forget
  Ernie Smith at Tedium. March 8, 2023.

  The history of disposable cameras. I did not forget though. This article brought back memories of trips to the zoo and aquarium of days gone by.

The Old Leaf Journal

Because I did not publish many words this week, let us find some long articles from the archive.

• Save the Date - Visual Novel Review
  N.A. Ferrell. March 14, 2023.

  To date my only review of a free original English visual novel (but it won't be the last).

• Reviewing Bob Dylan's "Shadow Kingdom" Stream
  Victor V. Gurbo. July 19, 2021.

  I heard through the grapevine that we can expect some more Dylan content in the near future.

• A Follow-Up Post on the Meaning of 'Blob Dylan'
  N.A. Ferrell. April 12, 2023.

  Musing about the Blob.

• Reviewing "Rashomon and Other Stories"
  N.A. Ferrell. March 6, 2021.

  Still my only proper book review, but we will fix that soon.

• A Turnip-Shaped Study of the Word "Napiform"
  N.A. Ferrell. August 21, 2021.

  I like my article title here.

• Defining What The New Leaf Journal Is
  Victor V. Gurbo. May 28, 2020.

  Still evergreen.

Most-turned leaves of the newsletter week

I list our most-read articles from the previous newsletter week (Friday to Saturday) in each edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal. These statistics come courtesy of Koko Analytics, our local, privacy friendly page-counting solution (see my review). Below, I present the 5 most-visited articles of the 16th newsletter week of 2023.

1. Tiki paralogue trick in Fire Emblem Engage (NAF: 2.3.23)
   2023 appearances: 11.
   Top placements: 10.
2. The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei (NAF: 3.14.21)
   2023 appearances: 16.
   Top placements: 5.
3. Peekier Search Engine Review (NAF: 2.26.22)
   2023 appearances: 9.
4. The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 - Statistics and Analysis (NAF: 1.18.22)
   2023 appearances: 13.
5. Installing Ubuntu Touch on a Google Nexus 7 (2013) (NAF: 7.5.21)
   2023 appearances: 10
   Top placements: 1.

Our five most-read articles of 2023 thus far made up our five most-read articles of the week. If you swap our third and fourth place articles, we would also have our current ranking for 2023 as a whole. The only notable point of the week is my Fire Emblem Engage article notching its 10th consecutive first-place ranking. In so doing, it ties Victor V. Gurbo's 2020 protective mask review for the second most first-place finishes since we began keeping track in the first week of January 2021 and, unsurprisingly, it becomes the second article to notch ten consecutive weekly first-place finishes.

News leaf journal

Other than making an unsuccessful attempt to remove Bing's blacklisting from our domain (which continues to depress our reach), I have nothing new to report this week. However, our site's third birthday approaches on April 27, so I will prepare something suitable for the occasion.

Notable leaf journal

I introduced our single page NLJ Feeds site last week. This site aggregates New Leaf Journal feeds and other related feeds into one place. So far it is working exactly as expected, updating three times per day. I may alter its appearance down the line, but that is not high on my priority list. I did learn you can also subscribe to the site as a single feed and add it to your feed reader: https://nafnlj.github.io/nljfeeds/feed.atom (you can consider this an alternative to subscribing to The New Leaf Journal and this newsletter individually).

Taking leaf

Thank you as always for reading and following The Newsletter Leaf Journal and The New Leaf Journal. If you are so inclined and have not done so already, you can subscribe to this Saturday newsletter via email or simply add its RSS feed to your favorite feed reader (I also syndicate the newsletter to The New Leaf Journal). See our options for following the newsletter and for following The New Leaf Journal.

Our next newsletter on April 29 will be the last of April and the first after The New Leaf Journal's third birthday. I look forward to having interesting new articles and other news and notes to share with you.

Until next week,

Cura ut valeas.