Newsletter Leaf Journal CXCI 〜 Defense wins newsletters
After a two-week hiatus, we return to our regularly scheduled newsletter with news from the last few weeks at The New Leaf Journal. links to 21 articles from around the web, and other things worth noting from around the web.
Welcome to the 191st 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 editor of The New Leaf Journal, Nicholas A. Ferrell. But one thing is different: I wrote previous newsletters on my waterproof Logitech K310 keyboard. While I still have that keyboard, this newsletter is coming from my new Filco Majestitouch 3 keyboard with Cherry MX silent red switches. Alas, there is no article about the Majestitouch yet, but there will be eventually.
Newsletter subscribers may have noticed that there were no newsletters the last two weeks. I did not have time to publish many articles, so I figured that time spent writing a newsletter with little to recap would be better spent working on articles so that I would have something to recap. We are back now. I will first cover all of our new articles published since Newsletter 190 (June 22) and then continue with our usual newsletter extras.
Leaves from the weeks that were
Our five newest articles...
- Retired Cow Parade Cow in Manhattan: A random cow statue on a (relatively) quiet Manhattan street is attention-grabbing.
- Inflatable Uncle Sam Rides a Rocket: This is the kind of over-the-top Independence Day decoration we need.
- Examining Whether Defense Wins NBA Championships: 51 years worth of statistics and charts are included.
- Traditional Search vs GenAI: I make the case for clearly distinguishing them.
- PSA: Sound! Euphonium Movies on Tubi TV: I watched the third and final (TV) season of the Sound! Euphonium anime, which concluded on June 30. Sound! Euphonium 3 will almost certainly feature in my year-end anime review article in December or January. In this article, I introduce the series and invite readers to catch up on Sound! Euphonium for the low price of free before I cover it around the end of the year.
But enough about us (for now):
Leaves from around the web
Let's check in on what's going on around the world wide web.
Berry good articles
Why blueberries aren't technically blue
Laura Baisas for Popular Science. February 8, 2024.
They're good. That's what's important.
Why America’s Berries Have Never Tasted So Good Ben Cohen for The Wall Street Journal (archived). July 5, 2024.
I just bought some of the sweet batch strawberries thanks to this article. Will report back.
Let's talk about how great we are
Why do people persecute city pigeons?
Zara Gorvett for BBC. June 21, 2024.
I think this is a great opportunity to remind you that The New Leaf Journal rescues city pigeons.
Leisure, Work, and the Writer’s Life
Michael De Sapio for The Imaginary Conservative. June 11, 2024.
I definitely spend all my leisure time thinking about new articles for you, the reader.
What Happened to People Magazine?
Anne Helen Peterson at Culture Study. June 19, 2024.
Unsurprisingly, the same thing has happened to most of the other magazines (but not our magazine).
More questions than answers
Oral-B bricking Alexa toothbrush is cautionary tale against buzzy tech
Scharon Harding for Ars Technica. June 5, 2024.
Before we get to the "cautionary tale"... the what now?
Wall built to trap Spartacus found
The History Blog. July 2, 2024.
But Spartacus?
Cause & effect
Missing Bats: How an obsession with strikeouts upended the balance of baseball
Andy McCullough for The Athletic. June 24, 2024.
Whyever are the pitchers suffering so many arm injuries these days?
Nine of the Ten Starting Pitchers with the Hardest Average Fastball in 2023 are currently on the Injured List With Arm Problems
Molly Knight for The Long Game. May 3, 2024.
Nothing to see here.
Cute girl in Atelier Resleriana gets chubby from eating pie
Amber V for Automation West. June 25, 2024.
This is the sort of attention to detail we need more of in video games.
News from World War II battlegrounds
What’s it like living with an unusual name in Japan? We talk with a super-rare Mr. Heianzan
Dale Roll for SoraNews24. March 22, 2024.
The difficulties of moving from Okanawa to the mainland (or main island[s]).
Peleliu: US Marine Corps rebuilds runway on site of ‘nightmare’ World War II battle
Brad Lendon for CNN. June 30, 2024.
What's old is new again.
Relevant to our new articles from the weeks that were
Missing Elgin Baylor Triple-Double Found
Mike Lynch for Sports Reference Blog. July 1, 2024.
You should be unsurprised to know this dates from before sufficient statistics were captured to measure pace, which was a key component of my NBA article in the previous section.
Bluebird of Happiness Statue in St. Augustine, Florida
Atlas Obscura. June 24, 2024.
But where's Liz? (My joke question will make sense if you read my new Sound! Euphonium article -- hint.)
Revisionist history
A Glimpse at the History of the Vice Presidency
Lowman S. Henry for The American Spectator. June 15, 2024.
"The what now?" -Most Vice Presidents
First is the Worst: Nintendo's Color TV Game 6 & 15
Nicole Express. November 26, 2023.
Convince the young people that the pong paddles were Mario and Wario.
Complete Hermes statue found in ancient sewer
The History Blog. July 6, 2024.
Alcibidaes strikes again.
35 18th c. glass bottles unearthed at Mount Vernon
The History Blog. June 15, 2024.
General Washington was as forgetful as he was honest.
Slow
Tokyo Xanadu eX+: Falcom’s forgotten gem
Pete Davison for MoeGamer. April 25, 2024.
It looks good. I have it. I should probably actually play it someday.
Intel is trucking a 916,000-pound 'Super Load' across Ohio to its new fab, spawning road closures over nine days Dallin Grimm for Tom's Hardware. June 12, 2024.
Big truck. Slow truck.
Concluding with a feel-good story
Meet the 'Echidnapus,' an Extinct Creature That Resembles Both the Echidna and Platypus of Today
Sarah Kuta for Smithsonian Magazine. June 13, 2024.
I approve.
Most-turned leaves of the newsletter weeks
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-hit counting solution. Of course, I skipped two newsletters -- so we have three weeks to catch up on. In order to simplify things, I will present one list with all of the articles that have appeared in the last three weekly top fives and their placements.
(Note: Newsletter Week 26 covered June 22-28, Week 27 covered June 29-July 5, and Week 28 covered July 6-12.)
- Planning and Angel Next Door Season 2 (NAF. November 5, 2023.)
1st in NLW 28, 27, and 26.
2024 & Historic Totals: 10 appearances and 5 top placements. - Recommended F-Droid FOSS Apps For Android-Based Devices (2021) (NAF. November 28, 2021.)
2nd in NLW 28 and 27; 4th in NLW 26.
2024 Totals: 21 appearances and 1 top placement.
Historic Totals: 78 appearances and 9 top placements. - The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei (NAF. March 14, 2021.)
3rd in NLW 28 and 4th in NLW 27.
2024 Totals: 8 appearances and 4 top placements.
Historic Totals: 140 appearances and 73 top placements. - Installing LineageOS on a 2013 Nexus 7 (Wi-Fi) (NAF. July 28, 2021.)
5th in NLW 28 and 3rd in NLW 27.
2024 Totals: 10 appearances.
Historic Totals: 11 appearances. - A Sign of Affection - Anime Review (NAF. Marh 28, 2024.)
3rd in NLW 26.
2024 Totals: 1 appearance. - Installing Ubuntu Touch on a Google Nexus 7 (2013) (NAF. July 5, 2021.)
4th in NLW 28 and 5th in NLW 27.
2024 Totals: 13 appearances and 2 top placements.
Historic Totals: 90 appearances and 4 top placements. - An In-Depth Look at Norton Safe Search (NAF. October 18, 2022.)
2nd in NLW 26.
2024 Totals: 14 appearances and 2 top placements.
Historic Totals: 26 appearances and 7 top placements. - The Last Nintendo Wii Games (NAF. August 1, 2023.)
5th in NLW 26.
2024 and Historic Totals: 3 appearances and 1 top placement.
Nine articles made at least one appearance in the three previous top fives. I found while deciding how to present them economically that these nine articles also happened to be the most-read articles of the last three weeks. Noting this, I decided to present the articles in order from most to least visited over the 21-day period covered by the last three newsletter week rankings.
My half-joking piece on having had the good foresight to review The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten swept all three weekly rankings -- NLW 26 and 27 were close while it won NLW 28 more comfortably. My actual review of The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten was close to making NLW 28, so perhaps we will see them both appear on the list in the same week. There were no major surprises in the last three weeks -- with the lists consisting of articles that have been performing well over the last month and change. I suppose one disappointing point from an attracting visitors perspective is that our lists continue to be dominated this year by 2021 articles, including three tech pieces that are, at this point, somewhat obsolete. I dare say this 2021 set is doing better (relatively) than it did in 2023. But I hope as I begin to publish more articles from my backlog and continue to improve our new manual related posts set up that we will see some more ranking diversity in the coming months.
News leaf journal
It should go without saying that I did not do much work on the site when I did not have time to publish articles. The only changes are that I am continuing to add manual related posts as I publish new pieces or when articles that I forgot about come to my attention. I have no major site change plans in the short term -- but I do hope to work on finishing projects in my backlog over the summer to set the site up for a good final quarter.
Notable leaf journal
I noted in the newsletter introduction that I bought a mechanical keyboard -- a full-size (with number pad) Filco Majestitouch 3. I did this for two reasons. Firstly, it was a good deal (just $100 in open box condition on Ebay). Secondly, while my waterproof keyboard still works well, the "E" key is depressed and I ended up typing "eeeeeeeeeeeeeee" at least 2-3 times per day when I rested my hand on the keyboard. I will still have uses for it, but the Majestitouch has taken over as my primary. I will probably write about my new keyboard somewhere in the August-October neighborhood.
I also purchased a new mousepad from Ikea and a new office chair from Staples. Will these be reviewed too? Time will tell...
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 for our weekly (usually, at least) email, add our newsletter's RSS feed to your favorite feed reader, or simply check in on our newsletter archive page when you want to catch up. See your options here.
I fell behind on articles and newsletters the last few weeks -- but two of my new articles were quite long, so I think we are getting back into the swing of things. I look forward to sharing our new work (and some fun links from around the web) next week.
Until July 20,
Cura ut vales -- Nicholas A. Ferrell.