Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXXXI 〜 Broomletter
The 231st edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal recaps the birthday week of The New Leaf Journal along with all of our newest articles and 21 links from around the web.
Welcome to the 231st 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 Filco Majestitouch v3 keyboard of the administrator/editor/writer of The New Leaf Journal and its short-form writing sister site, The Emu Café Social, Nicholas A. Ferrell. The big event last week was The New Leaf Journal's fifth birthday, but I also published several other articles and short posts. Below, we cover my new posts, links from around the web, and other news and notes.
Leaves from the week that was
I celebrated The New Leaf Journal's fifth birthday last Sunday with 50 Things I Learned in Five Years of NLJ Articles. As the title suggests, I noted 50 interesting things I learned while writing New Leaf Journal articles, all with reference to the original articles.
I published two photo posts last week. Portico Zebra on Cambridge Place in Clinton Hill is in fact about a zebra figure on a portico. A Solitary Tulip in Red Hook covers a single tulip, growing alone.
Diagnosing Fictional Characters was inspired by an interview with the renowned visual novel author, Ryushiki07 (he is best-known in the United States for writing Higurashi: When They Cry and Umineko: When They Cry). In the interview, he was asked about some readers speculating that one of his characters in Umineko: When They Cry had Asperger's syndrome. It had occurred to me while reading the novel (which I had done before reading the interview) that some people would speculate about that. This prompted my essay on diagnosing fictional characters (mainly cautioning against without good reason).
Finally, I published a rare sports news article in 2025 Cavaliers' Record Sweep of the Miami Heat. I had covered the Heat making the playoffs with an odd statistical profile on April 22. Having already written that article, I decided to cover the Heat losing by an NBA Playoff record combined 122 points in a quick four-game playoff exit.
I published two short posts on The Emu Café Social. In Things I Learned: LTK, I wrote about learning about the existence of what is allegedly a popular affiliate marketing/social media platform. In Waiting For a G3 Macintosh in 1998, I shared an excerpt from a 1998 blog post I stumbled upon while searching for a link to use in my NLJ tulip article, with reference to my 2024 article Power Macintosh G3 in Nana Anime. In my Activity Stream, I noted that I purchased a new water filtration pitcher (working well so far).
Leaves from around the web
I left you with a decent amount to read (especially with our birthday article). But fear not if you need more. I present 21 links from around the world wide web.
Requiescat in pace
World’s oldest person, Sister Inah Canabarro Lucas, dies at 116 / Catholic News Agency
Natalia Zimbrão for Catholic News Agency. May 1, 2025.
"Over the course of more than a century, she experienced numerous changes in the world and in the Church. The nun lived through two world wars and 10 popes. The year she was born, St. Pius X was pope."
World’s oldest nun is 115-year-old Brazilian
Nathália Queiroz for Catholic News Agency. March 20, 2024.
"When she was a child, one of her brothers told her mother that Inah could study at a convent in her town. Inah then asked: 'What are nuns?' Her mother answered that they were women who dedicated themselves to praying to God, to which she replied: 'I’m going to be a nun.'"
Sporting adaptability
Gregg Popovich Built the NBA’s Best Modern Defense. Then He Built One of Its Best Offenses.
Neil Paine. May 2, 2025.
A look back at the career of the NBA's all-time leader in games won as a Coach, Gregg Popovich.
Separating Skill From Results: An Analysis of QB Skill in the NFL
Robbie Marriage at Sports Passion Project. April 29, 2025.
This is a great statistical attempt to isolate quarterback skill (and a fun read for Peyton Manning fans).
Milestones
Open Document Format standard turns 20
Dan Robinson for The Register. May 3, 2025.
It's part of my New Leaf Journal workflow.
My phone's battery has been blogging for 7 years
Dries Buytaert. April 13, 2025.
Wow. Way to try to upstage The New Leaf Journal's fifth birthday.
Choo choo
Fed up with delays: Switzerland severs two train links with Germany
Chris Gattringer for Brussels Signal. May 2, 2025.
It is not often an article comes up that gives me a reason to share my 2021 From Planes to Trains in Switzerland post.
Most convenient hot spring in Japan? Might be this one that’s attached to a train station platform
Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. April 18, 2025.
This is one of those things I read as a resident of New York City and conclude that Japan is a very different place in certain ways.
Viral TikTok mocks NYC subway system in comparison to China
Emily Crane for the New York Post. April 29, 2025.
Nobody in China can see these surely remarkable works of art because TikTok is banned in China.
Cup 'o joe
Cup of coffee stirs Russian-language debate in Uzbekistan
Alexander Thompson for Eurasianet. April 21, 2025.
It's good to stir your coffee regardless of whether you ordered it in Russian or Uzbek.
Poor man’s coffee station, living by the sun
Raymond Hines at Along the Ray. November 3, 2024.
Good set-up, but I'd find a way to bring my Hario equipment.
Using the internet securely
CIA Website For Chinese Spies – Failing The Test
Sam Faddis for Center For Security Policy. May 2, 2025.
"In particular, given our track record with the Chinese, you do not ask a potential asset to trust the security of some website that anyone on the planet can access from anywhere. There has been voluminous reporting in the past about the number of Chinese assets we have lost, because our supposedly secure clandestine communications systems were compromised by the CCP and our assets’ identities revealed."
FBI warnings are true—fake file converters do push malware
Lawrence Abrams for Bleeping Computer. March 23, 2025.
Probably should not upload files to random websites and then unthinkingly download the new files -- yes.
New and old records
Army captain sets Guinness World Record for bomb suit run
Nicholas Slayton for Task & Purpose. April 26, 2025.
"The EOD gear is no joke. A full bomb suit weighs approximately 50 pounds."
Which NASCAR records could fall?
Neil Paine for NASCAR.com. April 10, 2025.
Some of the records not held by Richard Petty.
That's certainly a life choice
Illegal migrant accused of snatching Kristi Noem’s Gucci bag identified serial criminal
Joe Marino, Jennie Taer, and Ronny Reyes for the New York Post. April 27, 2025.
If you're going to get yourself deported, you may as well get yourself deported in style (here defined as stealing the Secretary of Homeland Security's style).
Ant smugglers arrested in Kenya as government warns of changing trafficking trends
Evelyne Musanshi for the Associated Press. April 15, 2025.
I wonder what kind of life experiences lead you to to settle on "traveling to Kenya to engage in international ant trafficking" as your next course of action.
I'm going to quibble
Pokémon Scarlet And Violet Is Getting A Free Performance Upgrade On Switch 2
Ollie Reynolds for Nintendo Life. April 2, 2025.
I'm not sure an "upgrade if you buy a $450 console and run it on that" is free. Let's say complementary for those who buy said $450 console.
Sinkhole on Old Fulton St. in Brooklyn Heights traps car
Mary Frost for Brooklyn Daily Eagle. April 28, 2025.
Old Fulton Street isn't in Brooklyn Heights. Adjacent to, yes. In, no. I reject that even if you draw it into Brooklyn Heights on a map.
Calling my own number for May
May Sky Visual Novel Posts
Nicholas A. Ferrell. September 21, 2024.
A collection of all of my articles about my favorite of the 31 al|together visual novels I reviewed, May Sky. As the name suggests, it is very May-themed. I recommend starting with my review, reading for yourself (it's free), and supplementing your reading with my four-part analysis (beginning with part one).
The Trees Leaf in May
Nicholas A. Ferrell. May 31, 2020.
“To shoot out leaves; produce foliage: as, the trees leaf in May.”
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 XVIII (April 26-May 2) along with their 2025 and historic (going back 2021) weekly ranking statistics.
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Examining Whether Defense Wins NBA Championships
Author/Date: N.A. Ferrell. July 9, 2024.
Ranking History: 16 appearances and 9 top placements in 2025; 20 appearances and 10 top placements overall. -
The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 - Statistics and Analysis
Author/Date: N.A. Ferrell. January 18, 2022.
Ranking History: 2 appearances in 2025; 57 appearances and 4 top placements overall. -
Broken Optical Audio Cable Door "Fix"
Author/Date: N.A. Ferrell. September 16, 2023.
Ranking History: 7 appearances in 2025; 21 appearances overall. -
How the Forget-Me-Not Flower Found Its Name
Author/Date: N.A. Ferrell. March 11, 2021.
Ranking History: 3 appearances in 2025; 8 appearances overall. -
An In-Depth Look at Norton Safe Search
Author/Date: N.A. Ferrell. October 18, 2022.
Ranking History: 9 appearances in 2025; 55 appearances and 18 top placements overall.
Analysis
We had an odd Newsletter Week 18 with last Saturday being our weakest day of 2025 but most of the rest of the week was in the average-to-above average range for 2025. While we ended up having a solid week on the whole, the top-five behind Examining Whether Defense Wins NBA Championships, which cruised to its third consecutive first-place finish, was pedestrian. While my NBA statistics article continues to run circles around the field in 2025, its performance suggests that next week's ranking could be more competitive if one of our many other articles steps up.
News leaf journal
While April 27 is the birthday of The New Leaf Journal, the project truly started in May 2020, so I suppose that I will have to publish some interesting articles in May to celebrate. I will be busy with my day job for the next week, but I have enough pending projects in the pipeline that we should be able to get May off to a quick start. You can also expect to find our full April 2025 review which will include our monthly and three-month most-visited article rankings.
Taking leaf
Thank you as always for reading The Newsletter Leaf Journal. 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.
Until May 10,
Cura ut valeas -- Nicholas A. Ferrell.