Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXXVII 〜 Honey Lemon SRS
In issue 227 of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, I share links to more than 23,000 words of new NLJ articles along with 21 links from around the web and other fun news and notes.
Welcome to the 226th 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/editor/principal writer of The New Leaf Journal and its short-form writing sister publication, The Emu Café Social, Nicholas A. Ferrell. We ended March and started April with a bang -- it was one of the busier New Leaf Journal weeks in terms of pure word count. Below, you will find links to my new articles, 21 links from around the web, and other perennially virid news and notes.
Leaves from the week that was
After several weeks of below average output, I delivered a high word count from March 30 through April 4, publishing five articles (plus one article addendum) with a combined 23,144 words. How did I publish more than 23,000 words in five days while also holding down something resembling a day job? I will confess there was some cheating involved. I had drafted most of two articles and one article addendum accounting for 14-15 thousands words before the current week. But I still had to finish writing and editing those articles and formatting was a pain, so I will give myself credit.
My first article of the week was one of the longest articles in New Leaf Journal history, Worst NBA Playoff Teams By SRS (1984-2024). In plain English: The NBA Playoffs has consisted of 16 teams since the 1983-84 season. I used a specific statistic -- SRS -- to create a list of the worst teams to make the playoffs from 1984-2024. I then told the stories of those weak playoff teams which managed to unexpectedly make some noise in the postseason. My article originally included a 95-row table featuring all of the bad playoff teams which satisfied my SRS criterion. Unfortunately, the loading time for the article with its high word count and that chart was less than acceptable (that is putting it very mildly). Thus, I published Chart: Negative-SRS NBA Playoff Teams (84-24) as a Leaflet addendum to the main article.
My other big project of the week consisted of two articles about the anime adaptation of Honey Lemon Soda, which recently aired for 12 episodes from January 7 to March 27 of the current year. The first of the two articles I published is Honey Lemon Soda – Anime Review. As the title suggests, this is a review of the anime. But the first article I wrote, which was published second, is Honey Lemon Soda Anime Hair Color Analysis. There is a story here -- but I will save that for the Notable Leaf Journal section of this newsletter.
(PS: Adding alt text to 26 screen-shots for the two Honey Lemon Soda articles was more of a pain than curating them in the first place.)
I published an April Fools article titled Hip Green Smoothies For April Fools. Regular readers may correctly suspect that this is the newest entry in my long-running Justin and Justina dialogue series. I dare say it is a fun entry.
Finally, I continued my series of articles complaining about the abuse of like with a new post titled “Like Literally Like” – Unclear Thinking and Speaking. This article was prompted by something I overheard while walking on Saturday, April 29 (I referenced that walk in Newsletter 226).
Leaves from around the web
I am not sure how much time you will have to read non-New Leaf Journal articles after I gave you more than 23,000 words to work through. But tradition is tradition -- so I present 21 links from around the world wide web.
No thank you, I'm full
Tunisian restaurants embrace snails as affordable alternative to beef
Medhi El Arem for the Associated Press. April 4, 2025.
I see what they're doing by listing the nutritional facts but the answer is NO.
Want to eat ramen and sushi together? New restaurant in Tokyo makes culinary dreams come true
Oona McGee for SoraNews24. April 1, 2025.
I would be open to having food that is cooked along with my ramen.
I answer the headline
What Cat Name Should Northrop Grumman Give Its Fighter If It Wins The Navy's F/A-XX Competition?
Tyler Rogoway for The War Zone. March 27, 2025.
Why Don’t Players Use The Skyhook?
Nam Tran at The Old Man Game Newsletter. March 7, 2025.
Not all players are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
What Eric Adams’s Choice to Skip the Democratic Primary Means for Voters (archived)
Maya King for The New York Times. April 4, 2025.
It means voters cannot vote for him in the Democratic Primary.
Fun with large language models
Daily Tech News 30 March 2025
Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony. March 30, 2025.
Leading with important wisdom about large language models.
Persona and Shin Megami Tensei artist Kazuma Kaneko’s new game has a card generating AI trained on his own art
Amber V for Automation West. March 31, 2025.
I will concede that it is creative but creative is not coextensive with good idea.
Is generative AI art linked to gambling addiction? Japanese manga artist proposes interesting “gacha” theory
Bordie P for Automation West. April 2, 2025.
That's a good scorching hot take.
Xbox's New Gaming Copilot Wants To Be Your Ultimate AI-Powered Wingman
Alan Velasco for Hot Hardware. March 14, 2025.
You're alive, but are you truly living?
Whiskey-Drinking Rocker Transforms Into West Africa’s Most Dangerous al Qaeda Leader (archived)
Benoit Faucon and Michael M. Philips for The Wall Street Journal.
Now here's a musician leading a social change movement.
Inside Turkmenistan: What Self-Isolation Reveals About the Nation
Stephen M. Bland for The Times of Central Asia. June 28, 2024.
Learn about the great deeds of Turmkenistan's previous and first post-Soviet president, Saparmurat Niyazov.
Romania finds it has hundreds of soldiers working as mercenaries in DRC
Paddy Belton for Brussels Signal. April 4, 2025.
I knew that there were Romanian mercenaries fighting for the Democratic Republic of the Congo before surrendering and being sent home by Rwanda and M23. I did not know any of them were active duty soldiers taking paternity leave to surrender to Rwanda and M23.
A NATO divided against itself
Israel Craters Runway To Keep Turkey From Taking Over Syrian Airfield
Hoard Altman for The War Zone. April 2, 2025.
NATO member Turkey, having installed the former Al Qaeda guy in Syria and now looking for a return on investment, is frustrated that Israel has explosive objections to its return on investment.
Hungary Says It's Withdrawing From ICC Hours After Netanyahu Arrives For Visit With Orban
RFE/RL. April 8, 2025.
The glee and pageantry is what made this heartwarming.
Cool watches
This $80 wristwatch has an Atari 2600-inspired design, features 4 playable Atari games
Brad Linder for Liliputing. March 19, 2025.
It looks neat and I would classify no internet connectivity in this case as a feature.
A Brief History Of Calculator Watches
Al Williams for Hackaday. December 2, 2024.
There should be atomic calculator watches.
Luxury Watches: Dubai Sees Surge in Demand for Imports From Switzerland - Bloomberg (archived)
Alex Dooler and Alexander Sazonov for Bloomberg. March 23, 2025.
I want the oil rig watch. It is expensive. In related news, I am thinking about charging $1,000 per week for this newsletter.
Cheap stuff
Dollar Tree sells Family Dollar to private equity firms after 10 years of trying to find a fit
Michelle Chapman for AP (via The Washington Times). March 26, 2025.
Out: Dollar Tree. In: Billion Dollar Tree.
Why Are Micro Center Flash Drives So Slow?
Maya Posch for Hackaday. March 26, 2025.
A look at low-end flash drive hardware.
"Racecar" spelled backaward is "Racecar"
Initial D-inspired racing game JDM: Japanese Drift Master delayed; devs preparing new surprises
Carlos Zotomayor for Automation Wesb. March 12, 2025.
Your resident newsletter writer and Initial D fan is intrigued.
Banned: The full story behind Brabham's F1 'fan car'
Matt Somerfield and Giorgio Piola for Motorsport. October 7, 2020.
The best ideas just blow away.
Most-turned leaves of the newsletter week
I use a privacy-friendly and entirely local tool called Koko Analytics (see my 2022 review) 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 2025 Newsletter Week XIV (March 29-April 4) along with their 2025 and historic (going back 2021) weekly ranking statistics.
(1.) Bill's Secret Garden - A Pokémon Generation 1 Urban Legend
N.A. Ferrell. April 6, 2022.
2025 & Historic: First appearance and top placement.
(2.) Examining Whether Defense Wins NBA Championships
N.A. Ferrell. July 9, 2024.
2025: 12 appearances and 6 top placements.
Historic: 16 appearances and 7 top placements.
(3.) An In-Depth Look at Norton Safe Search
N.A. Ferrell. October 18, 2022.
2025: 8 appearances.
Historic: 54 appearances and 18 top placements.
(4.) Planning and Angel Next Door Season 2
N.A. Ferrell. November 5, 2023.
2025: 6 appearances.
Historic: 34 appearances and 11 top placements.
(5.) Installing Ubuntu Touch on a Google Nexus 7 (2013)
N.A. Ferrell. July 5, 2021.
2025: First appearance.
Historic: 98 appearances and 4 top placements.
Analysis
Our weekly top-five had a big surprise at the top, with my anecdote about a Pokémon urban legend I was told back in 1999 not only making its first weekly top five after being online for three years, but also debuting at number one. It surged to the top with two big days on March 30 and April 1. A combination of Koko Analytics, server logs, and some sleuthing led me to discover that the source of the views was a Tumblr post which was then re-shared. I suspect that the sharing was prompted by April Fools, but I would have thought that my article on an actual Pokémon April Fools joke would have been the more likely beneficiary. While I certainly did not have Bill's Secret Garden leading a weekly ranking on my bingo card, it is not the biggest surprise we have seen on these charts. It was the 67th most-visited article of 2024 and notched a 21st-place finish last August. It was also our 31st most-visited article in March, all without the benefit of being shared (it will almost certainly make our April top-24).
The rest of the top-five -- which was soft behind Bill and the distant second-place finisher, was comparatively unsurprising. One notable is my 2021 Ubuntu Touch installation post making its first weekly top-five of the year. It needs two more appearances to become the second article after The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei with 100 Newsletter Week top five appearances (Tsuki has 155).
News leaf journal
After having taken the time to review my server logs, I decided to impose new unilateral tariffs (i.e., robots.txt directives and firewall rules) against many AI web crawlers. To the extent some of them deliver traffic, it is not enough traffic to overcome the downsides (vacuuming my writing, abusing my server, etc). I am monitoring the situation to make sure it does not have a negative effect on our position in any of the traditional search engines.
I also changed how I link people to article collections. For example I had previously been using a preformatted block to link to my hair color collection hub (see between the second and third paragraphs in archived capture of one hair color article). I only recently noticed that the preformatted block does not work well on small screens (as if I actually test the site on my phone). I decided to switch to the details block, which invites readers to click to expand for more information. You can compare the archive link above to the live version of the same article to see the difference.
Notable leaf journal
There is a small backstory to my two new articles about the Honey Lemon Soda anime. The anime is based on an ongoing manga series (it seems to be popular) that started in 2015. I had not heard of it until I read a preview article about the then-upcoming anime in early 2024. The preview article led me to believe that the anime would be a a good subject for a hair color analysis article in the future (you notice these things when you regularly write such articles). I drafted much of what would have been a Honey Lemon Soda hair color preview article in summer 2024. For whatever reason, I did not get around to publishing it. I remembered the draft late in the year, but by that point we were close to the first episode of the new anime, so I decided to permanently shelf the preview article and instead see whether the anime lived up to my hair color expectations. Perhaps it was for the best -- it would have been a shame for a preview article to cannibalize my future analysis piece.
Taking leaf
Thank you as always for reading, and if you have not done so already, you can follow this newsletter by signing up for our weekly email, adding our RSS feed to your favorite feed reader, or checking in on our archive page.
While I cannot promise that I will have quite as many words to share next week, I look forward to continuing to whittle down my article to-do list as we move into April. The New Leaf Journal's fifth birthday comes on April 27, so I need to publish some articles worthy of the occasion.
Until April 12,
Cura ut valeas -- Nicholas A. Ferrell.