August 5, 2023

Newsletter Leaf Journal CXLVII 〜 Just Newsletter 2023 〜

The 147th edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal features links to our 9 newest articles, links from around the web, and some things to look forward to in August.

Welcome to the 147th 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. After a slow two weeks of publishing, we returned to a normal publishing schedule last week. Below, we review our most recent posts, links from around the web, and other news and notes.

Leaves from the week that was

We published five new articles since mailing Newsletter 146.

• Basquiat Forgeries Made With Alarming Ease
  N.A. Ferrell. July 29, 2023.

  Wherein I ponder the implications of how easy it was for frauders to create convincing Basquiat forgeries.

• Anime Case Against Japan's Population Loss
  N.A. Ferrell. July 30, 2023.

  Our Justin and Justina dialogue duo returns. Justin questioned reports of Japan's population decline with his own unique logic.

• July 2023 at The New Leaf Journal
  N.A. Ferrell. July 31, 2023.

  Catch up with all of our July articles and see the most popular posts of July and of the May-July three-month period.

• The Last Nintendo Wii Games
  N.A. Ferrell. August 1, 2023.

  I read that the last Nintendo Wii game (note the Wii itself was released in 2007) was Just Dance 2020. Is this so? I investigated.

• "I could get like the keys and come back"
  N.A. Ferrell. August 4, 2023.

  Our overheard on the street series returns!

I published five short posts to go with our full articles.

• Leaving 'likes' from FreshRSS (Looking at a complicated method for turning likes in a self-hosted RSS reader into Webmentions)
• On Algorithmic Feeds and Owning Nothing (Against the algos)
• Aesthetic Bradford Torrey Cover (Cover included)
• 8BitDo Hall Effect Kit for N64 Controller (Can you finally play Mario Party as it was intended to be played?)
• How not to write a restaurant review (Deferring to staged Instagram photos)

Leaves from around the web

Let's see what's happening around the world wide web...

• Honeybee Drinking Fountain at Hitokotonushi Shrine
  Atlas Obscura. August 1, 2023.

  A little fountain for little bees (and wasps).

• This Dinosaur Had a 50-Foot-Long Neck, Scientists Say
  Will Sullivan for Smithsonian Magazine. March 17, 2023.

  "The researchers determined that the Mamenchisaurus’ neck was approximately 49.5 feet long, per a statement." (Rounding up I see...)

• Dinosaurs Were Evolutionary Copycats of These Long-Lost Look-Alikes
  Riley Black for Smithsonian Magazine. March 22, 2023.

  I need to consult The New Leaf Journal's Justin for a pre-dinosaur power ranking. (See referenced dialogue.)

• The surprising semi-secret ingredient in many Japanese convenience store rice balls: oil
  Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. April 2, 2023.

  While I do not think that the use of oil is surprising, the article goes in depth into the issue of oil in Japanese convenience store rice balls.

• Finally! Uber Helps Fund Two Battery Buy-Back Programs
  Julianne Cuba for Streetsblog NYC. April 11, 2023.

  Perhaps Uber can also fund teaching bike delivery guys about one-way streets and general traffic laws.

• How America's Beloved Meyer Lemon Caused a Mid-Century Citrus Panic
  Many Naglich at Atlas Obscura. April 12, 2023.

  When life gives you lemons, viruses take your lemons.

• Egypt: President Pardons Researcher after State Security Court Sentences Him to Imprisonment for Detailing Religious Discrimination
  George Sadek for the Law Library of Congress. July 21, 2023.

  "On July 19, 2023, Egypt’s Presidential Pardon Committee announced that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had issued a pardon to Patrick George Zaki, an Egyptian graduate student at Italy’s University of Bologna, one day after the Mansoura Emergency State Security Court had sentenced him to imprisonment for 'broadcasting false news about the internal conditions of the country that would disturb security and social peace.'"

• How to buy a dumb TV — and why you'd want to
  Brian Westover for Tom's Guide. December 9, 2022.

  This piece needs to be written because the TV manufacturers very much do not want you to buy a dumb TV.

• From LastPass to KeePass
  The Privacy Dad. June 21, 2023.

  I went from LastPass to Bitwarden to KeePass XC. I concur with Mr. Privacy Dad that KeePass XC is the best choice overall but that Bitwarden is the best choice for most people. In any event, don't use LastPass.

• Rubenerd: CNBC on why Starbucks failed in Australia
  Ruben Schade at Rubenerd. July 24, 2022.

  My thought when I saw the headline was that Australians must dislike burnt coffee. That turns out to be one of multiple reasons noted in the blog post.

• Underwater Hospital and Cemetery - Dry Tortugas National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
  National Park Service. May 1, 2023.

  Just off Key West.

• How to Celebrate the 175th Anniversary of the High Bridge, NYC's Oldest Span
  Duane Bailey Castro for Untapped New York. July 28, 2023.

  I walked across three Manhattan-Bronx bridges (in one day... see Old Leaf Journal below)... but not this one.

The Old Leaf Journal

Let's dig into our archive...

• The Ferris Wheel Off the Triborough Bridge
  N.A. Ferrell. August 28, 2022.

  My 2019 photo of a Ferris wheel just off the Triborough Bridge.

• The Steps on the Triborough Bridge
  N.A. Ferrell September 25, 2020.

  From the same walk as above...

• From the Bottom of the Heart -- VN Review
  N.A. Ferrell. August 22, 2021.

  My review of a very short free English translation of a 2008 Japanese visual novel. I enjoyed it enough to write a long analysis piece.

• At Summer's End vs A Dream of Summer
  N.A. Ferrell. December 11, 2022.

  Just reminding myself that I am late on publishing my At Summer's End visual novel review...

• Replacing The Great Suspender – Two Tracker-Free Suspender Forks
  N.A. Ferrell. August 4, 2021.

  I do not use either of The Great Suspender-replacement extensions anymore (in part because I primarily use Firefox), but I will suggest some Firefox alternatives in the future.

• The Pigeon in the Puddle
  N.A. Ferrell. September 2, 2020.

  Let no one say that this headline is misleading.

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 for 2023 newsletter week 31.

1. The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei (NAF, 3.14.21)
   30 appearances. 10th top placement.
2. Height differences in anime romances (NAF, 5.22.23)
   6 appearances. 4 top placements.
3. The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 – Statistics and Analysis (NAF, 1.18.22)
   22 appearances.
4. The Nice Boat 〜 A Look Back at the School Days Anime (NAF, 5.6.21)
   4 appearances.
5. Tiki paralogue trick in Fire Emblem Engage (NAF, 2.3.23)
   23 appearances. 11 top placements.

One week after my tsuki ga kirei article saw its two-year-plus streak of weekly top fives end, it returns to the ranking with its 10th first place finish of 2023 (and 65th overall), narrowly ending the four-week reign of my essay on height differences in anime romances, which settled for second. The tsuki ga kirei post also sealed its third consecutive year with at least 30 weekly top fives after notching 36 in 2021 and 52 in 2022. Spots three-through-five all returned from last week.

Newsletter week 31 was interesting in that it was one of our better weeks of the Bing-ban era in terms of page views, but hosted one of our weaker top fives. We have seen a trend in recent weeks where more articles receive visits but the top articles are generally weaker than normal. I am curious to see how things develop as we move into August.

News leaf journal

I posted two new collection posts during the week. See below...

• Collected Justin and Justina Dialogues
  Links to all (54-and-counting) Justin and Justina Dialogues, grouped into sets of 10 with brief descriptions attached to each link.
• Responses to Online Anime Questions

I am working on creating more collection posts to make it easier for people to find series of New Leaf Journal articles. The Justin and Justina one was a priority because we have published so many dialogues. I will gradually add a link to it in all of our Justin and Justina posts. The anime questions collection is largely prospective. I have a number of prompts saved and wanted a neat way to organize all of my responses in one place. There are a couple of posts in the initial collection.

Be sure to regularly check our Collections Hub for new additions to the Collections family.

Notable leaf journal

I came up with a few project ideas while working in various things during the last week.

• Review how to set up a Steam Big Picture or Retro Arch session in Fedora
• Review a free and open source Pokémon ROM randomizer

But my most exciting upcoming project...

Soon(ish)...

Taking leaf

Thank you as always for reading and following The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you have not done so already, you can sign up to receive our Saturday newsletter in your email inbox or subscribe to the newsletter via RSS. I also syndicate the newsletter to The New Leaf Journal. See our options for following the newsletter here and remember that we also offer many ways to follow the main New Leaf Journal (see NLJ feeds).

I look forward to sharing articles on a variety of subjects as we continue into August.

Until August 12,
Cura ut valeas.