September 23, 2023

Newsletter Leaf Journal CLIV 〜 Bases on newsletters 〜

The 154th edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal features links to our six newest articles, 12 links from around the web, and other news and notes about The New Leaf Journal.

Welcome to the 154th 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. While our short posts are on hiatus for the time being, I published six full articles since I last mailed you. You will find links to our new articles along with links from around the web and other news and notes below.

Leaves from the week that was

Six articles? Is this September 2020 instead of 2023? Let us see what is new...

• Broken Optical Audio Cable Door "Fix" (I think my sticky note fix is rather clever)
• On Barry Bonds' IBBs in 2006 and 2007 (One can infer why Barry Bonds was walked at an unprecedented rate as he posted unprecedented statistics from 2002-2004... but why did he continue to be walked at a historic clip in 2006 and 2007 when he was no longer a record-wrecking video game character?)
• Grace Coolidge on Intentional Walks (On the baseball opinions of former First Lady Grace Coolidge)
• Race-Ball: 19th Century Sport Review (Exactly as advertised, but I think I could have drawn more traffic if I left the context off the headline)
• Thirsty Goose in Brooklyn Bridge Part: Part 1 & Part 2 (Again as advertised -- I split it into two articles because I decided that a single article with eight thirsty goose photos would have been unnecessarily heavy)

Leaves from around the web

We are going from 9 links to 12 links this week not because I did not give you plenty of New Leaf Journal content to read, but instead because I added an unusual number of articles to my ever-growing around the web list.

• Eat Your Way Through the Idaho Potato Trail
  Sarah Kuta for Smithsonian Magazine. September 21, 2023.

  Idago.

• Tokyo’s newest crane game prize is prized pears from west Japan, and you’re guaranteed to win
  Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. September 8, 2023.

  I recommend winning the prize by losing the crane game.

• Akagi found off Midway, in first footage of Japanese aircraft carrier since 1942 sinking
  Brad Matthews for The Washington Times. September 19, 2023.

  Does not look battle-ready.

• Joseph 'Big Joey' Massino, ex-NY mob-boss-turned-rat, dead at 80
  Emily Crane for the New York Post. September 22, 2023.

  He saw the writing on the wall. For that, he lived out his final years in the freedom of witness protection instead of Federal prison.

• Take a Peek Inside the Candy Wrapper
  Darlene Lacey for Smithsonian Magazine. April 10, 2023.

  The article is written by the curator of the Candy Wrapper Museum. It sounds like she really got wrapped up in this project (I apologize but I had to).

• A Roman fortlet thought lost to time is rediscovered by Historic Environment Scotland
  Historic Environment Scotland. April 18, 2023.

  I hope Scotland keeps better track of its stuff going forward.

• Review: Canary Modoruba Cardboard Box Cutter
  Tina Koyama for The Well-Apportioned Desk. May 12, 2023.

  Was surprised when the reviewer noted that you can buy replacement blades.

• How to Hire a Pop Star for Your Private Party
  Evan Osmos for The New Yorker. May 29, 2023.

  This is one of the most soul-crushingly depressing things I have ever read. You think that it is as bleak as it is going to be. Then you keep reading.

• Are arcades safe for unaccompanied grade schoolers? Discussion arises in Japan
  Amber V for Automation West. June 7, 2023.

  I can see where issues could arise.

• Marshall Zhukov House Museum in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
  Atlas Obscura. June 15, 2023.

  Not quite Mongolia's golden age.

• Kyrgyzstan: One woman’s battle for matronymics achieves partial win
  Ayzirek Imanaliyeva for Eurasianet. July 5, 2023.

  In a ruling made public this week, the Constitutional Court decreed that citizens will be permitted to adopt their mother’s name to form a matronymic. The custom now is the one originally adopted from Russia, wherein children are given a patronymic – the name of their father – as a second name. The only problem is that they will have to wait until they come of age to benefit from the change in law.

• Why Ed-tech Startups Don't Scale
  Gianluca Segato. November 2022.

  There has to be room for someone to do better than big tech.

The Old Leaf Journal

Let's dig into our archives...

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

  My goose puddle report was only my second in-depth piece on a Brooklyn bird drinking from a puddle.

• Justin & Justina 〜 The Pitching Injury
  N.A. Ferrell. March 4, 2021.

  Our fictional dialogue duo tackled their fictional baseball memories (it is partially inspired by a true story).

• The Real Issue With Pro Sports Subsidies
  N.A. Ferrell. October 9, 2022.

  Wherein I question government assistance and tax breaks for Major League Baseball franchises.

• “Caught in a Shower” by Margaret E. Sangster
  N.A. Ferrell. September 13, 2021.

  A fine choice since it is raining as I type this.

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

  The goose probably would not have needed this umbrella even when it was still raining.

• An Optical Audio Cable Packaging Story
  N.A. Ferrell. October 10, 2020.

  This optical audio cable played a leading role in my first article of the past week.

Most-turned leaves of the week that was

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 38. (Note: All stats are for 2023 only.)

1. The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei (NAF. March 14, 2021)
   37 appearances. 13 top placements.
2. Persona 4 Golden Digital Artbook Review (Steam) (NAF. Nov 15, 2020)
   First appearance of 2023.
3. Installing Ubuntu Touch on a Google Nexus 7 (2013) (NAF. July 7, 2021)
   12 appearances. 1 top placement.
4. Peekier Search Engine Review (NAF. Feb 26, 2022).
   22 appearances. 3 top placements.
5. The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 - Statistics and Analysis (NAF. Jan 18, 2022)
   29 appearances. 1 top placement.

We had a middling week thanks in large part to unusually weak Google referral numbers (I am curious whether my accidentally approving a spam comment in the Guestbook might have played a role). We also continued the trend of our formerly best-performing articles doing relatively poorly but making up the deficit with more of our marginal articles receiving views. The strange week very nearly led to my 2020 Persona 4 Golden artbook review, a former fixture in our ranking (37 appearances and 6 top placements in 2021) notching its first top placement since June 2021 in making its first appearance since June 2022. However, for the fourth time in 2023, my tsuki ga kirei article came from behind on a Friday to take the weekly ranking honors.

This week saw the return of my Ubuntu Touch installation review to the rankings for the first time in 20 weeks. Just missing the ranking was my essay on hight differences in anime romances, which saw its 11-week run come to an end.

News leaf journal

I have no major news to report since I spent the last week writing articles instead of tweaking the site. I do plan to start trying more posts on our sister site, The Emu Café Social, now that one issue I had been having seems to have somehow resolved itself. As for The New Leaf Journal, I still plan to add categories and tags to Leaflet and Leaf Bud posts while re-evaluating how I will use them going forward. I will also catch up on syndicating newsletters (I think I am three behind at the moment).

Notable leaf journal

I took a stab at connecting my soundbar to my TV with HDMI Arc after I published my article on the optical audio cable fix. Unsurprisingly, I am running into the same issues (constantly losing connection) that I did when I tried it with the same TV and soundbar back in 2020. I may poke around a bit more to see if I can find a set-up that works, but it looks like optical audio with a sticky note fix remains my best sound solution.

Taking leaf

Thank you as always for reading and following The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you have not done so already, consider signing up for our weekly email or adding our newsletter's RSS feed to your favorite feed reader (see options). I also syndicate the newsletter to The New Leaf Journal a few days (or sometimes weeks) after mailing. You can follow The New Leaf Journal proper via RSS or ATOM here.

We had a prolific publishing week by our recent standards, and I look forward to keeping the interesting articles coming as we begin the last week of September. Maybe I will find a topic to break our September article curse. Our best-ranking September-published article in 2022 was... my long-outdated 2020 article on installing Peppermint OS on an old laptop (it came in at 50th place).

Until September 30,
Cura ut valeas.