Newsletter Leaf Journal CCIV 〜 Tired & Boo!
Issue 204 of The Newsletter Leaf Journal features links to new New Leaf Journal articles on Halloween in Japan, Victor V. Gurbo's new music, and more. You will also find 21 links from around the web and the usual assortment of news and notes.
Welcome to the 204th 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 and The Emu Café Social, Nicholas A. Ferrell. I have a good collection of our new posts to share this week along with 21 links from around the web and other news and notes. Without further ado, let us turn over a new newsletter.
Leaves from the week that was
I published five new articles since mailing Newsletter Leaf Journal 203.
I will lead with our two most recent articles because those are our showcase articles of the week.
I published a research article titled Halloween in Japan: Through English Sources on Thursday. Beginning last month, I started researching the growth of Halloween in Japan and curating quotes from the best freely available English-language sources in Zotero. This article is the end-product of that research, and readers will find that all of my sources are documented with links for reference and further reading.
One day earlier, my distinguished friend and New Leaf Journal colleague Victor V. Gurbo wrote about his two new home music recordings, released under the label Tired & Blue. He worked with his regular collaborator Mark Caserta as well as Michelle Siracusa to cover Mr. Blue and I'm So Tired. His article includes a write-up about the recording process, background information about the songs, and links to the two covers for your listening enjoyment. On our sister site, I wrote about how I used Archive Today to capture an Instagram post that Victor quoted from in his article (the Archive Today link is in Victor's article).
My final article of the previous week was a review of the 2006 anime series, Living for the Day After Tomorrow. In last week's newsletter, I explained that had I also written an article about how I first learned about and watched Living for the Day After Tomorrow on Anime Network on Demand (Time Warner Cable edition) back in 2010, but I withheld the post because it relied on an Internet Archive Wayback Machine link and the Internet Archive was offline due to a hacking incident. Fortunately, archived websites were back up and running not long after the newsletter, so I published Anime Network on Demand (TWC) Memories on Monday. I published an additional Living for the Day After Tomorrow post on our sister site about an ai ai gasa sighting in one of the show's later episodes. What is ai ai gasa? I covered that on The New Leaf Journal back on the eve of Valentine's Day.
In my first article of the week, I revisited my 2020 article about rescuing a trash can in Gowanus with a new photo post about my returning to the general area of my past heroism.
On October 15, I reviewed a visual novel called Ghost. This is arguably the most peculiar of the visual novels I have reviewed, and I say this as the person who reviewed Crimsoness. Ghost is a single HTML file with seven possible scenes and it takes about one minute to see both of its endings.
I also published three additional short posts at The Emu Café Social. First, I offered my thoughts on TikTok (which should be banned) vs "traditional" media. On October 16, I bookmarked an informative article referencing the dual nationality treaty between Russia and Tajikistan. I then shared my thoughts on Amazon's dream of AI shopping agents.
Leaves from around the web
My Japan-Halloween research article is an around the web piece in and of itself. But that is no excuse to deprive readers of our usual assortment of 21 links from around the web.
Thoughts on life in NYC
Bike Manufacturers Are Making Bikes Less Repairable
Charlie Sorrel for IFIXIT. October 14, 2024.
"I hope so." -Anonymous Newsletter Writer in Brooklyn
Dem ex-Gov. Paterson urges NY to stop ‘coddling’ juvenile criminals after brat pack attacked him: ‘It’s really annoying’
Carl Campanile for the New York Post. October 13, 2024.
That would be nice.
Behaving poorly in public
Prague bans nighttime pub crawls to deal with drunk and rowdy visitors
Karel Janicek for the Associated Press. October 18, 2024.
The complaints sound similar to many of the complaints I discussed in my Japan-Halloween article.
Foreign tourist angers locals for doing pull-ups on torii gate at shrine in Japan
SoraNews24. October 16, 2024.
They do that with construction sheds in New York City. However, I have only seen boys and men doing it, not women like what is being reported in this story. Must be an Instagram or TikTok (which should be banned) thing.
Let's turn this back to us
MTA bus driver knew something wasn’t right when he saw 5-year-old girl on NYC street on all alone — now he’s being called a hero
Isabel Keane for the New York Post. October 13, 2024.
I'm willing to go so far as to grant that this is almost as clutch as Victor V. Gurbo knowing something wasn't right when he saw a pigeon with twine tied around its feet -- his subsequent actions led some to call him a hero.
8 Ways of Connecting Your Wi-Fi Can't Deliver Ted Gioia at The Honest Broker. October 13, 2024.
He left off "reading The New Leaf Journal with a direct ethernet connection."
Walking From Manhattan to the Catskills on the ‘Long Path’ (archived)
Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times. September 12, 2024.
That does top my 22.6 mile walk to and from Forest Hills in May...
Obfuscating headline vs clear headline
Zimbabwe to compensate White farmers who lost land in seizures 20 years ago
Farai Mutsaka for the Associated Press (via The Washington Times). October 16, 2024.
You can tell they were struggling with the headline when they went with "lost land in seizures." Who did the seizing? The headline writer doesn't want you to know. Contrast with the next headline...
'Evil' super gang seizes four apartment complexes in major Texas city in new terrifying show of strength
Maryann Martinez for Daily Mail. October 16, 2024.
The seizing agent is clear here.
Speaking of articles about Zimbabwe with awkward headlines
Veteran White activist takes the reins in Zimbabwe's second-biggest city
Geoff Hill for The Washington Times. September 26, 2024.
Awkward headline in context but interesting article.
Rendered speechless by headline
NYC subway rider slashed, robbed of Jordans after refusing to join ‘East Ape Brick Squad’ street gang: sources
Joe Marino and Amanda Woods for the New York Post. October 15, 2024.
"East Ape Brick Squad"
Can buildings be racist? A CU Boulder architect explores
Yvaine Ye for CU Boulder Today. October 9, 2024.
(Blinks.)
News from Taiwan
Taiwan Needs To Start Taking Its Defense Seriously
Anthony J. Constantini for RealClear World. October 8, 2024.
You mean spending 2.5% of your large GDP on defense is somewhat lackluster when you are being threatened by a nuclear power with more than 1.4 billion people?
The Upside to Uncertainty on Taiwan: How to Avert Catastrophe at the World’s Most Dangerous Flash Point
James B. Steinberg for Foreign Affairs. October 16, 2024.
Interesting discussion of how we reached strategic ambiguity on the status of Taiwan.
War Thunder is collaborating with the Japan Air Self-Defense force’s erotic furry mascot
Verity Townsend for Automation West. October 15, 2024.
This does not have any direct connection to Taiwan but it is indirectly connected in that it pushes China's saber-rattling against Taiwan and the Philippines and North Korea being North Korea down the list of international security issues in the Pacific.
I leave it to readers to see what I am doing here
Images of Xi Jinping replacing Jesus in Chinese churches
Bill Gertz for The Washington Times. October 11, 2024.
Someone thinks highly of himself.
China’s Sentinel State
Dalia Parete and Minxin Pei for China Media Project. October 7, 2024.
Interesting but I'm concerned that entities outside of China will take notes.
Australia Moves Toward Draconian Anti-Free Speech Law
Jonathan Turley. September 14, 2024.
It's always who you least expect.
But TikTok still should be banned
How TikTok Live Became ‘A Strip Club Filled With 15-Year-Olds’ (archived)
Alexandra S. Levine for Forbes. April 27, 2022.
I know I'm the "ban TikTok yesterday no other superpower allows its main foreign adversary to run social experiments on its children" guy, but this report understates the "questionable parenting" factor in many cases.
Responding to the headlines
Just how rare is a rare-colored lobster? The answer could be under the shell
Patrick Whittle for September 7, 2024.
Looking under their shells will make them rarer.
Mud pies and clay pizzas: Eating dirt is the new online diet craze, despite health warnings
Sean Salai for The Washington Times. October 11, 2024.
Not sure it's despite health warnings...
Leaves from around the web
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 41 (October 12 through 18). I will include 2024 and historic (which runs through the first week of 2021) ranking information for each article.
1: Planning and Angel Next Door Season 2 (N.A. Ferrell. Nov. 5, 2023.)
22 appearances and 11 top placements in 2024 & overall.
2: An In-Depth Look at Norton Safe Search (N.A. Ferrell. Oct. 18, 2022.)
23 appearances and 6 top placements in 2024; 36 and 11 overall.
3: Installing Non-Listed Programs in PlayOnLinux (N.A. Ferrell. July 8, 2023.)
First appearance.
4: The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei (N.A. Ferrell. March 14, 2021.)
16 appearances and 6 top placements in 2024; 148 and 75 overall.
5: Recommended F-Droid FOSS Apps For Android-Based Devices (2021) (N.A. Ferrell. Nov. 27, 2021.)
28 appearances and 1 top placement in 2024; 85 and 9 overall.
We had a mostly conventional top-five this week led by Planning and Angel Next Door Seasion 2, which secured its 11th top placement this year. That ties the mark for the most single-year first-place finishes by an article not titled The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei (see the ranking in last week's newsletter). A guide I wrote last year on installing non-listed programs in PlayOnLinux made its top-five debut, but it is our 26th most-visited article of 2024 thus far, so its making a weekly top-five is not the biggest surprise of the year thus far.
News leaf journal
I had one minor issue this week involving the intersection of a WordPress plugin I use to disable plugins on a per-page basis, our IndieWeb-powered author box widgets, another plugin called Syndication Links, and our theme's built in page load speed functionality. Fortunately, I resolved the issue. I have a backlog of mostly-finished article drafts, so you should expect a decent number of new posts this upcoming week.
I do have one fun note to share. I reviewed a visual novel called The Dandelion Girl: Won't You Remember Me? on September 29. Specifically, I reviewed a 2016 re-master of a visual novel first released in 2010. In my review, I wrote that I had hoped to also look at the original Dandelion Girl but was unable to find it. Fortunately, a reader kindly emailed me with links to the download for the first Dandelion Girl visual novel (many thanks to the reader). You can expect a review and comparison in the near future. However, I plan to review at least one Halloween-themed visual novel before getting to The Dandelion Girl and one additional review project I have marked for November.
Taking leaf
Thank you as always for reading and following The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you enjoyed the newsletter and are not already a regular reader, you can sign up for our once-weekly email, add our newsletter's RSS feed to your favorite feed reader, or check in on our newsletter archive page at your leisure (see all the options).
I hope you enjoy our new articles and I look forward to sharing more posts with you next week.
Until October 26,
Cura ut valeas -- Nicholas A. Ferrell.