Newsletter Leaf Journal CXCVI 〜 Incumbent inbox
Newsletter Leaf Journal 196 discusses 8 new posts between The New Leaf Journal and Emu Café Social to go with 21 articles from around the web and other news updates about what readers have to look forward to in the last week of August.
Welcome to the 196th 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 administrator and editor of The New Leaf Journal, Nicholas A. Ferrell. Below, you will find our regular assortment of weekly news and links from The New Leaf Journal and its sister short-posting site, The Emu Café Social, and 21 links from around the world wide web.
Leaves from the week that was
I only published three articles since mailing Newsletter 195. However, there are a few drafts waiting in the wings, so this upcoming week should be more busy.
My first new article covered a fun new addition to The New Leaf Journal. You can now make search queries with boolean search operators. I personally find this feature useful. I am sure there has to be a couple of New Leaf Journal super-fans who can also make use of it.
Next, I published a new article (third this month) on presidential election statistics. This one covers instances when we have had consecutive U.S. presidential elections featuring an incumbent.
Finally, I offered my thoughts on full-text RSS and ATOM feeds, both from the perspective of someone who uses a feed reader and someone who runs websites which offer feeds.
Things were busier in terms of sheer number of posts over on The Emu Café Social. I covered something overheard on the street that was more articulate than the usual overheard fare. Next, I had some thoughts on Valve extending Steam OS support to non-Steam Deck handheld gaming computers. Then, writing from the perspective of a Persona video game series fan, I weighed in on an online debate on whether Persona 4 should receive a second remake. In a fun post for WordPress admins, I examined a list of the 20 most popular WordPress plugins and noted that I am only using two (or in the case of The New Leaf Journal alone, one). Finally, I wrote about finding my Ubuntu Touch-powered Nexus 7 tablet. Indeed, while my 2021 review of installing Ubuntu Touch still features often in our weekly top-five most-visited New Leaf Journal articles, I did not know where the tablet was for close to a year. New review coming? We shall see...
I would also like to point readers to the Activity Stream section of The Emu Café Social. This is for short microposts -- too short for The Emu Café Social proper. Here you can learn about exciting things such as my switching my Pixel 3a XL phone from LineageOS to DivestOS or my taking the milk out of the fridge and the sugar out of the cupboard before moving to put the sugar in the fridge. Heart-throbbing stuff.
Leaves from around the web
I got around to writing commentary for the new around the web items on my list that I did not have time to do last week, so you can expect a somewhat more up-to-date collection of links this week (granting I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 unread items in my feed reader...)
Posted an article last week one week too early...
Humongous diamond — 2,492 carats — dug up in Botswana
Brad Matthews for The Washington Times. August 22, 2024.
I'm annoyed that I used up my only prior diamond article in last week's newsletter.
Irreconcilable differences
The full inside story of how Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran – minute by minute
Elon Perry for The Jewish Chronicle. August 5, 2024.
Here is the definitive account of how Islamic Revolutionary Guard Officers secretly working for Israel placed a bomb in Ismail Haniyeh's hotel room in Tehran. The headline says "minute by minute" so this is the only account we'll need.
Haniyeh Was Killed by an F-35
Julian Spencer-Churchill and Alexandru Filip for RealClear Defense. August 21, 2024.
Alright, so maybe we don't agree whether it was a bomb set in the hotel room or a missile from an F-35, but we can at least agree that the New York Times story about a bomb being placed in the hotel room several weeks before it went boom is not a likely story.
My unsolicited headline critiques
Locals (deer) shut visitors out of Nara Park cool-down misting station
Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. August 15, 2024.
They should have used a less descriptive headline and let readers guess what happened from the beginning of the article.
‘Bumble fumble’: online dating apps struggle as people swear off swiping
Edward Helmore for The Guardian. August 17, 2024.
I would have gone with Bumble Humbled.
I answer headlines with questions
More than 2,300 pounds of meth is found hidden in celery at Georgia farmers market
Associated Press (via The Washington Times). August 13, 2024.
Was it organic?
What Taiwan Can Learn from Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive Against Russia
Michael Rubin for National Security Journal. August 15, 2024.
How to invade mainland China across their shared land border?
Things are cramped in Japan
Smallest hotel room in Tokyo? This cheap stay for two will turn friends into lovers
Oona McGee for SoraNews24. August 10, 2024.
A little tight even by cheap Japanese hotel standards.
Japanese mascot goes viral for attempting to ride train
Oona McGee for SoraNews24. August 13, 2024.
Ganbatte Prince Turn!
One-word commentary
Bacon and Corn Miso Soup ベーコンとコーンの味噌汁
Namiko Hirisawa Chen. June 30, 2024
Approved.
Uncovered Euripides fragments are ‘kind of a big deal’
Clay Bonnyman Evans for Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine. August 1, 2024.
Sorta.
Adding context
China’s Global Public Opinion War with the United States and the West - War on the Rocks
Heidi Holz for War on the Rocks. August 14, 2024.
Interesting and recommended piece, but I will note my ctrl + f search returned no results for useful idiot.
Legendary 4chan-user-made VN Katawa Shoujo is Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam with over 800 reviews only four days after launch
Amber V for Automation West. August 20, 2024.
I know a few other freeware visual novels that deserve some more publicity...
The video game industry, then and now
The Incredible Story Of Satellaview, Nintendo's Satellite Modem SNES Add-On
Jack Yarwood for Time Extension. December 30, 2023.
Perhaps the earliest significant foray into video game streaming -- Super Nintendo style.
Japan’s PC Gaming Market Doubles In Size In 3 Years – Kantan Games Inc. CEO Blog – From Tokyo, Japan
Serkan Toto for Kantan Games. November 6, 2022.
A good thing so long as it is taking a bite out of the depressing mobile game market.
Memories
Pokémon Community And Voice Acting Industry Pays Respect To Rachael Lillis
Liam Doolan for Nintendo Life. August 13, 2024.
A voice I and many others remember well.
Pilot Dr. Grip: A Comprehensive Guide
Stephanie for Jetpens. August 20, 2024.
I used these for a time in school about two decades ago. It looks like they have changed a bit. Maybe I need to investigate.
The business world takes no prisoners (or logic)
Retailers are selling Halloween decor extra early
Matty Merritt for Daily Brew. August 13, 2024.
Starting in June is serious stuff.
GoDaddy Is Flooring It to the Top of the S&P
Griffin Kelly for The Daily Upside. August 14, 2024.
Some things defy easy explanation.
Let's talk about India (or somehow confuse it with Pakistan...)
Crunchyroll is trying to turn India into a nation of anime lovers
Ananya Bhattacharya for Rest of World. August 15, 2024.
I hope Crunchyroll succeeds and more people from India search for things like "New Leaf Journal review of Crunchyroll anime"
Mayor Eric Adams quickly apologizes after confusing India with Pakistan during Indian Independence celebration in NYC
Craig McCarthy and David Propper for the New York Post. August 18, 2024.
The headline makes it sound like he said just said Pakistan instead of India once and not that he recounted a whole story about his good relationship with the Pakistani community in New York City.
Most-turned leaves of the Newsletter week
I use a privacy-friendly and entirely local tool called Koko Analytics to track page hits. In each issue of the newsletter, I list our five most-visited articles, according to Koko Analytics, for the one-week period beginning with Saturday and ending with Friday. Below, you will find the most-visited articles of 2024 Newsletter Week 34 (August 17 through 23). I will include 2024 and historic (which runs through the first week of 2021) ranking information for each article.
(1) An In-Depth Look at Norton Safe Search
N.A. Ferrell. October 18, 2022.
16 appearances and 3 top placements in 2024; 28 appearances and 8 top placements all time.
(2) Planning and Angel Next Door Season 2
N.A. Ferrell. November 5, 2023.
16 appearances and 9 top placements (all in 2024).
(3) Broken Optical Audio Cable Door “Fix”
N.A. Ferrell. September 16, 2023.
First appearance.
(4) A Sign of Affection - Anime Review
N.A. Ferrell. March 28, 2024.
2 appearances.
(5) Height differences in anime romances
N.A. Ferrell. March 22, 2023.
First appearance of 2024; 14 appearances and 7 top placements all time.
Analysis
We had our best week since the spring in terms of total page views, spurred by an increase in Google traffic (which may be related to an algorithm change on August 15). However, we saw a slight decrease in non-Google traffic (you can never have all the nice things) and Google visits do seem to tend to incline toward one-and-done types, but still a positive development.
My Norton Safe Search review returned to the top spot for the third time in 2024 and is solidifying its position as the best-performing article for the year as a whole that did not appear on page one of Hacker News (very specific qualification). Norton relegated our dominant article of recent months to second, although it actually had one of its best weeks in terms of total page views.
Articles 3-5 were interesting. My article on a hacky fix for a broken optical audio cable port (the fix still works!) made its first weekly top-five. The only surprise here is that it took so long -- it currently sits as our 13th most-visited article of 2024 and all 12 articles ahead of it, as well as the two articles immediately behind it, have made multiple weekly top-five appearances this year. Now note that I said "as well as the two articles immediately behind it" in the yearly ranking, because in three spots back we find last year's essay on height differences in anime romances, which made its first weekly top-five of 2024. Long-time newsletter readers may recall it was our strongest article last summer en route to notching seven first-place newsletter week finishes.
News leaf journal
I have a few article projects that I want to undertake and publish by the end of the month and a few drafts to hold us over while I work on those, so I hope to get those all done and online soon.
I made one additional very niche change to The New Leaf Journal. All of our posts now have Dublin Core author and copyright information. If you happen to use Zotero or a similar service or program which extracts citation information, this should work for you. I am trying to add better Item Type information (it is currently "Web Page"), but that remains a work in progress.
Finally, The New Leaf Journal has crashed a couple of times due to an issue that I believe implicates our Activity Pub set-up in conjunction with Cloudron, which I use to manage the server. All of the crashes have been short and I can resolve them by restarting the app. I am looking into it, but for the time being note that if you run into an error, everything will probably be up and running again not long after.
Taking leaf
Thank you as always for reading The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you are not already a regular reader, you can sign up for the weekly email, add the newsletter's RSS feed to your favorite reader, or simply check in on our newsletter archive page when you want something to read. See your options here.
August has been a good month for new articles and minor site improvements thus far. I think we will have a busy week ahead (no promises, but I am optimistic), so I hope you look forward to it.
Until August 31 (remember how to tell),
Cura ut valeas -- Nicholas A. Ferrell.