April 29, 2023

Newsletter Leaf Journal CXXXIII 〜 New leaf cake 〜

The New Leaf Journal celebrated its third birthday on April 27, 2023. This newsletter links to our birthday celebration, our other new articles, and 12 articles from around the web. We also have some other interesting news and notes.

Welcome to the 133rd 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.

April 27 marked the third birthday of The New Leaf Journal. I made sure that we had plenty of new articles for our birthday week. Below, you will find links to our newest articles along with twelve links from around the web and other news and notes.

Table of contents

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

Leaves from the birthday week that was

I published five regular articles since mailing our previous newsletter.

• Brown hair and dress codes in Ippon Again!
  N.A. Ferrell. April 24.

  I have written about dress and grooming code problems for real-life Japanese students with naturally brown hair. I have written about hair color in anime. In this article on Ippon Again!, I bring both of these writing interests together with an analysis of a series which has addresses in a dress and grooming code context a Japanese student with naturally brown hair and a Japanese student who is dyeing her hair brown.

• The story of our Bing blacklisting
  N.A. Ferrell. April 25.

  Inspired by another webmaster sharing his Bing ban story, I went through our ongoing ban from the Bing Search Engine (our blacklisting has now gone over four months).

• Leveling up Yamada-kun at Lv999 to Linux
  N.A. Ferrell. April 26.

  The main protagonist of a new anime series is down in the dumps after her ex-boyfriend left her for another woman he met in an online video game that he had played with the protagonist. In this article, I address her other toxic relationship -- her relationship with the Windows operating system (this article is perhaps incidentally inspired by Microsoft Bing banning The New Leaf Journal).

• New Leaf Journal Third Birthday Reader
  N.A. Ferrell. April 27.

  For our third birthday, I listed our 36 most-visited articles from our first three years online and then offered two related article recommendations for each of our most popular posts.

• Duck on Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 5
  N.A. Ferrell. April 28.

  Exactly as advertised by the headline.

I also published six shorter Leaflets and Leaf Buds throughout the week.

• ChatGPT vs Contract Cheating Writers (I took the rare opportunity to quote Mr. Henry Kissinger on something he may or may not have said)
• So-called 'crazed man' selects target (Reporters are quick to call violent criminals who carefully choose vulnerable targets "crazed")
• Anime romantic comedy gimmicks... (An upcoming series starring... a girl who always forgets her glasses?)
• Black & Decker Recalls Sledgehammers (Loose handles)
• Nevada’s very old Bristlecone Pines (Musings on 5,000 year-old trees)
• A typo on Linux terminal shutdown timer (shutdown +00)

Leaves from around the web

There was plenty of online writing published around the internet during The New Leaf Journal's birthday week. However, we are not going to discuss that new writing. Instead have a long list of articles in my to-share backlog and many are from March. Let us see what I pull from the list...

• Spoken Latin Is Making a Comeback
  Elizabeth Djinis for Smithsonian Magazine. February 14, 2023.

  Whichever country speaks it best has dibs on "fourth Rome."

• How a War Over Eggs Marked the Early History of San Francisco
  Lizzie Stark for W.W. Norton & Company (via Literary Hub). March 29, 2023.

  The San Francisco sea bird egg rush (maybe we can draw a straight line from this to modern San Francisco).

• China’s Historic Preservation Challenges
  Ashley Gardini for JSTOR Daily. April 4, 2023.

  An interesting article well-described by its headline.

• Mayor Adams’ office set meeting with Avant Gardner, governor’s aide over liquor license
  Jon Campbell for Gothamist. March 29, 2023.

  I have not been to Bushwick since photographing BLOB DYLAN in January 2021. This does not inspire me to return.

• The Forgotten Women Aquanauts of the 1970s
  Amy Crawford for Atlas Obscura. March 24, 2023.

  "Of course, Szmant and her fellow aquanauts never set out to prevail in a submarine battle of the sexes. They were there for the scientific opportunities—and for the adventure. And although the Tektite project may be little remembered today, its impact on research, exploration and the history of women in science has been quietly profound."

• How John Glenn's $40 Camera Forced NASA to Rethink Space Missions
  Ross Harried for PetaPixel. March 23, 2023.

  (This does not explain our long absence from the Moon.)

• Five children rescued after getting lost in Staten Island sewers
  Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post. March 24, 2023.

  I do not recall ever having been tempted by the siren song of the New York City sewer system when I was a child.

• Tokyoids: The Aesthetics of Dismemberment in Japan
  François Blanciak at The MIT Press Reader. March 23, 2023.

  This article is about ARCHITECTURE guys. Sheesh.

• Benedict’s personal secretary searches for five cousins who are heirs of the late pontiff
  Almudena Martínez-Bordiú for Catholic News Agency. March 21, 2023.

  Everyone who has ever handled an estate nods in understanding.

• Animal Personalities Can Trip Up Science
  Elizabeth Preston for Knowable Magazine (via Smithsonian Magazine). March 21, 2023.

  Scientists projecting their own personality issues again.

• Shogun sweets? Trees said to be planted by first Tokugawa shogun still bear fruit used for sweets
  Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. March 8, 2023.

  The sweets are less expensive than I would have thought.

• Guidance for Industry: Letter to Manufacturers, Importers, and Distributors of Imported Candy and Candy Wrappers
  U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. June 13, 1995.

  1995 policy guidance on the use of lead-based printing inks on candy wrappers.

The Old Birthday Leaf Journal

My New Leaf Journal birthday article features 111 article links. Let us dig into the archive for six exciting links that did not appear in our birthday party.

• Seeing the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds from Columbia Street Waterfront District
  N.A. Ferrell. May 5, 2020.

  Photographs of an April 28, 2020 military flyover of New York City.

• A Second Look at the April New York City Flyover
  N.A. Ferrell. May 25, 2020.

  Re-touched photographs of the April 28, 2020 military flyover of New York City.

• The Hair Makes the (2D) Girl: Anime on the Ship of Theseus
  N.A. Ferrell. April 13, 2021.

  A philosophical exploration of anime hair (philosophical is the operative word there).

• Grafting a Bird’s Head Cane Handle Onto a Wooden Umbrella
  Victor V. Gurbo. June 8, 2021.

  It is raining as I write this newsletter.

• “Fradie-Cat” – A Children’s Poem by Clinton Scollard
  N.A. Ferrell. March 30, 2022.

  Sometimes I find articles I barely remember in our archives.

• Takaki’s Memories in 5 Centimeters Per Second
  N.A. Ferrell. May 2, 2022.

  An essay on one of the most aesthetic scenes in anime.

Most-turned leaves of the birthday 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 17th newsletter week of 2023.

1. Tiki paralogue trick in Fire Emblem Engage (NAF: 2.3.23)
   2023 appearances: 12.
   Top placements: 11.
2. Peekier Search Engine Review (NAF: 2.26.22)
   2023 appearances: 10.
3. The story of our Bing blacklisting (4.25.23)
   2023 appearances: NEW
4. The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei (NAF: 3.14.21)
   2023 appearances: 17.
   Top placements: 5.
5. The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 - Statistics and Analysis (NAF: 1.18.22)
   2023 appearances: 14.

We did not receive an avalanche of birthday visitors in what turned out to be a relatively slow, Bingless week. But we were able to make our week a little bit busier by talking about how Bing is banning us. My Bing ban post appears to have been shared somewhere on Twitter to modest success, with a strong first day propelling it to third on the week. Perhaps most notable (or alarming under the circumstances) was the tsuki ga kirei article having one of its worst weeks in terms of views in its now 105-week streak in the top-five. However, in terms of maintaining its streak, it chose a good week to have a downer, coming in at fourth without any drama. The last notable event of the week is my Fire Emblem Engage strategy post notching its 11th consecutive first-place finish. That segues into a bit of New Leaf Journal history...

News leaf journal

With 11 first-place weekly finishes, my Fire Emblem Engage strategy essay now stands alone in second place for the most top weekly ranks. My weekly ranking goes back to the first week of January 2021 (we did not have enough views in 2020 in general to make a weekly ranking project a worthwhile endeavor). Below, see the ten articles which have notched at least two first-place newsletter week finishes.

• [1] The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei (NAF: 3.14.21): 60
• [2] Tiki paralogue trick in Fire Emblem Engage (NAF: 2.3.23): 11
• [3] Reviewing the HALOmask and är Mask (VVG: 12.2.20): 10
• [4] Recommended F-Droid FOSS Apps For Android-Based Devices (2021) (11.28.21): 7
• [5T] Persona 4 Golden Digital Artbook Review (Steam) (NAF: 11.15.20): 6
• [5T] Cross-posting from Mastodon to Twitter (NAF: 4.18.22): 6
• [7T] RSS as a Facebook Alternative (NAF: 2.21.21): 5
• [7T] Review of /e/ – An Android Alternative For Mobile Phones (NAF: 11.21.21): 5
• [9] Stop Saying Bob Dylan Can’t Sing (VVG: 7.23.21): 3
• [10] An Early Review of Pixelfed – Instagram Alternative (NAF: 11.13.20): 2

The Tiki paralogue article's 11 first-place ranks in 12 full weeks online more than explain how it is already The New Leaf Journal's 18th most-read article. Its strong numbers are even more impressive than they would otherwise be in light of the ongoing Bing ban. The top two articles on our list, tsuki ga kirei (the obvious outlier) and Tiki have combined to take the top spot for 16 consecutive weeks. Interestingly, only two of the other eight articles on the list, my 2021 F-Droid app review and my /e/ OS review, have made a weekly top-five in 2023. I would not be surprised to see the Persona 4 Golden artbook and Pixelfed reviews notch a top-five at some point this year, but most of our multiple first-place finishes are no longer among our most-visited articles.

Notable leaf journal

This newsletter is already running a bit long, so I will use the Notable Leaf Journal to remind you that my special one-page GitHub New Leaf Journal feeds site is working as expected and is a great way to follow content from our broader network of projects.

Taking leaf

Thank you as always for taking the time to read The Newsletter Leaf Journal and The New Leaf Journal. If you have not done so already, consider signing up for this newsletter via email, adding its RSS feed to your favorite feed reader, or checking for the syndicated version on The New Leaf Journal on Mondays. See all of our newsletter options here.

While the Bing ban (and by extension, the DuckDuckGo ban) continue to be vexing, we brought our third year of New Leaf Journaling to a good close. I have many in-progress projects to start our fourth year, so I hope that you look forward to the varied content to come.

Until May,

Cura ut valeas.