July 12, 2025

Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXXXVI 〜 First championship in three weeks

The Newsletter Leaf Journal returns from a two-week hiatus for issue 236. This issue comes with six new article links from NLJ and ECS, 27 links from around the web, and notes for three NLJ weekly article rankings.

Welcome to the 235th edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, the official newsletter of the perennially virid online writing magazine, The New Leaf Journal and its short-form writing sister publication, The Emu Café Social. This newsletter comes to you as always from the administrator, editor, and writer of both publications, Nicholas A. Ferrell.

I missed two weeks of newsletters. I had too much work to do to send a newsletter two weeks ago and last week I decided to skip a newsletter because I had not published any new articles. But we are back on track this week with several new articles and news and notes to share.

Leaves from the weeks that were

I published several articles since mailing Newsletter 235.

Back on June 23, I published a photo-essay titled Putting Together Ikea’s DVÄRGTALL Figures. I dare say this is the first time I managed to put something together from Ikea. Do not tell anyone I just had to screw six legs into three wooden figures (whoops).

On July 6, I published NBA Championship Droughts. You can learn how the Sacramento Kings, which have never reached the NBA Finals (much less won a championship) as the Sacramento Kings, have the longest franchise championship drought, far surpassing the poor New York Knicks.

One day after my NBA championship survey, I published On Online Reader Expectations. This essay was prompted by an article about generic trends in travel list articles.

Finally, I continued the on article trend with On Forcing AI Where It Does Not Belong, wherein I offered some ideas for how to avoid dealing with unwanted AI features in apps and services.

I also published twice on The Emu Café Social. I offered my support for an upcoming feature in an AI-free application I use, LibreOffice Adding Markdown Support. I then explained my secret to ensuring that no one can ever read my WhatsApp messages in Google AI and WhatsApp.

Leaves from around the web

My backlog of Around the Web links is growing dangerously long after skipping the last two weeks of newsletters. Fortunately, you, my readers, are here to help me resolve this terrible circumstance. Enjoy 27 links from around the web instead of the usual 21!

Don't chicken out now

Why Is Everybody Knitting Chickens?
David Friedman for Ironic Sans. May 13, 2025.

Talk about a presumptuous headline. But I suddenly feel inadequate about not knitting chickens.

NYC teacher surprised with FLAG award and $25K check
Georgett Roberts and Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post.

This will cover the chicken feed.

Fast food moves

Kentucky Fried Chicken moving headquarters out of Kentucky
Brad Matthews for The Washington Times. February 18, 2025.

TFC has a nice ring.

Locals lament demolition of East New York White Castle, which was built on toxic land
Elijah Hurewitz-Ravitch for Gothamist. June 18, 2025.

I clicked the headline in my feed reader because as it appeared there, it was unclear whether we were talking about a White Castle franchise location or a local building called the white castle (it is the former).

For the record I wrote the quip for the first of the two links below this header in February

Iran ponders moving capital to southern coast as traffic, sinking persist
Vaughn Cockayne for The Washington Times. February 18, 2025.

Step one: Ask friends in Lebanon to recommend people to hire for the blueprints and building.

Iran’s Flying Monkeys
Tony Badran for Tablet Magazine. June 25, 2025.

Iran's problem was that the flying monkeys were also compromised by Mossad.

These headlines are good but let's make them better

Some Japanese elementary schools don’t let kids wear underwear during P.E., and parents are mad
Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. May 12, 2021.

I don't want to play vocab police but I think he meant to say the school administrators banning underwear in gym class are mad.

Ending America’s Student Visa Work Program Would Be a Huge Mistake
Connor O'Brien for City Journal. June 25, 2025.

I hate to quibble with the headline again. It is a fine headline but there is one small typo. He accidentally wrote be a huge mistake instead of long overdue.

Belated Independence Day-themed articles

This Forgotten Founding Father Hoped to 'Die Up to My Knees in Blood' in the Fight for American Independence. He Got His Wish
Eliza McGraw for Smithsonian. June 17, 2025.

"A few weeks earlier, Warren had made a prescient remark to a friend, declaring, 'These fellows say we won’t fight. By heavens, I hope I shall die up to my knees in blood.'"

Fourth of July fireworks in Brooklyn Bridge Park were a ‘total fiasco’
Mary Frost for Brooklyn Daily Eagle. July 7, 2025.

Good article but it missed the NYPD using detectives to block off streets to vehicular traffic.

Animal Crossing keeps crossing (but not the one the "kids" think)

Animal Crossing for the GameCube has been decompiled
Krista Noren at GBA Temp. June 16, 2025.

The original Animal Crossing is the best Animal Crossing

Making GameCube Keyboard Controller Work With Animal Crossing
John Elliot V for Hackaday. June 26, 2025.

This is a legitimate quality of life improvement. Composing letters in the original Animal Crossing is a pain.

Give Your Animal Crossing Villagers The Gift Of Linux
Tom Nardi for Hackaday. February 18, 2025.

Or I suppose the controller-keyboard from the previous link would be handy for Animal Crossing Linux. Note the Linux trick relies on the fact that the GameCube Animal Crossing allowed players to collect and play classic NES games in game.

The wonderful world of AI and copyrighted materials

AI firm “cut up and destroyed” millions of books
Roger Pearse. June 27, 2025.

I begrudgingly respect their complete disregard for good taste and optics.

AI web scrapers: a data point
Andrew Plotkin at Zarf Updates. June 4, 2025.

I had to blacklist the Scrapy user agent after it twice brought The New Leaf Journal down briefly in June, so I concur regarding the problem.

Ceasing my use of Creative Commons
Ruben Schade at Rubenerd. June 29, 2025.

I had not previously read about the new Creative Commons license policy for AI but I agree with Mr. Schade that it is subpar.

AI, Fair Use, and the Arsenal of Democracy
Rebecca Grant for RealClear Defense. July 7, 2025.

Surrender all your stuff to AI for DEMOCRACY is a scorching #Democracy take.

New stories bring back old memories

DHS Busts Mexican Boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Claims Link to Sinaloa Cartel
Ildefonso Ortiz and Brandon Darby for Breitbart. July 3, 2025.

I followed boxing closely during the brief period Mr. Chavez was a significant boxer (which was when he could miraculously make 160 pounds before blowing up to 185+ in just over 24 hours). I thought back to a four-part behind the scenes special HBO did on him before his unsuccessful bid for the Middleweight Championship against Sergio Martinez. Specifically, I remembered when his father wanted him to train when he emerged in the living room in the evening in tropical pink boxers eating Fruit Loops. (Surely unrelated, Mr. Chavez tested positive for marijuana in a pre-fight drug test.)

Mexican Boxing Legend Julio Cesar Chávez Defends Son Arrested by ICE: ‘He Is Not a Criminal’
Dylan Gwinn for Breitbart. July 9, 2025.

Dad isn't helping.

Chicken or egg, become lazy or already lazy?

ChatGPT's Impact On Our Brains According to an MIT Study
Andrew R. Cow for Time Magazine. June 17, 2025.

If ChatGPT makes people dumber, what happens to the LLMs that train off ChatGPT-generated articles?

Japanese government urging citizens to use generative AI more
Master Blaster for SoraNews24. July 11, 2025.

Out: Cool Japan. In: Mailing it In Japan.

Pope Leo XIV flags AI impact on kids' intellectual and spiritual development
Nicole Winfield for the Associated Press. June 20, 2025.

I may be going out on a limb but I'm guessing he's also a firm "no" on the brain chips.

Checking in on the Caucasus

Church-state feud in Armenia takes a detour to crazy town
Eurasianet. June 25, 2025.

I don't want to spoil it so I'll just say that this is a very restrained headline given the events in Crazy Town, Armenia.

Russia-Azerbaijan Tensions Escalate to Unprecedented Level
Vasif Huseynov for The Jamestown Foundation. July 7, 2025.

I'm just spit-balling but it seems like the Azerbaijani government is still a little bit peeved about the whole "Chechen soccer player shot down our passenger plane and the Russian government tried to cover it up by preventing the plane from making an emergency landing" and "Azerbaijanis get mysterious heart attacks in Russian custody" incidents. I'd suggest that being a Sputnik "reporter" in Azerbaijan may be a subpar life choice until the Azerbaijani government starts letting bygones be bygones.

Good essays you should read (no funny comments, however)

I'm Done With Social Media - Or: why I have a blog now.
Caroline Crampton. July 11, 2025.

I find most why I quit social media essays dull, but this one is excellent and well worth your time. I may have more to say about it in the future.

Small Sample Size: All Data Starts Here
Doug Glanville. June 10, 2025.

An excellent essay by former MLB outfielder Doug Glanville.

Whew, I'm not crazy

Seeing More Fireflies in New York City This Year? You’re Not Alone.
Kate Hogan and Rachel Kahn for The City. July 8, 2025.

I have. It's comforting to know that I'm not just seeing things.

Most-turned leaves of the newsletter week(s)

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.

We have three New Leaf Journal weekly article rankings to cover after I failed to mail the last two newsletters. I decided to handle each week in a separate subsection, beginning with three newsletter weeks ago...

Newsletter Week 27 (June 21-27)

1. Amazon "Cargo Bikes" in Brooklyn
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 9, 2025.
   9 appearances and 4 top placements.

2. Examining Whether Defense Wins NBA Championships
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 9, 2024.
   2025: 24 appearances and 10 top placements.
   Cumulative: 28 appearances and 11 top placements.

3. Misleading ARRIS Modem Login Instructions
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 12, 2024.
   2025 & Cumulative: 8 appearances and 1 top placement.

4. Victory Chimes Schooner in Brooklyn Bridge Park
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 5, 2024.
   2025 & Cumulative: 2 appearances and 1 top placement.

5. Domain-Specific Google News RSS Feeds
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 20, 2025.
   First appearance.

Analysis

Our overall visitor totals in Newsletter Week 27 were on par with the previous 4-5 weeks from when I was not publishing many articles. My article about the Amazon Cargo bikes returned to the top spot after a two week hiatus and took its fourth top placement in six weeks by a narrow margin over our most popular article of 2025 thus far. The week winners from Newsletter weeks 25 and 26 came in at third and fourth respectively. Fifth place featured a notable new entrant with my guide to using Google News RSS feeds to follow specific sites sneaking into the ranking in its first full week.

Newsletter Week 28 (June 28-July 4)

1. Amazon "Cargo Bikes" in Brooklyn
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 9, 2025.
   10 appearances and 5 top placements.

2. Misleading ARRIS Modem Login Instructions
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 12, 2024.
   2025 & Cumulative: 9 appearances and 1 top placement.

3. Victory Chimes Schooner in Brooklyn Bridge Park
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 5, 2024.
   2025 & Cumulative: 3 appearances and 1 top placement.

4. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 17, 2025.
   2 appearances.

5. RSS as a Facebook Alternative
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. February 21, 2021.
   2025: First appearance.
   Cumulative: 10 appearances and 5 top placements.

Analysis

The site performed slightly better in Newsletter Week 28 than in 27, notwithstanding my lack of new articles. The Cargo bikes returned to the top spot for the second week in a row and fifth week out of seven, followed by the two articles which had interrupted its run of top placements in second and third. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search made its second weekly ranking appearance after first making the list in April. In fifth place we had the unexpected return of RSS as a Facebook Alternative to our weekly ranking. Long-time New Leaf Journal readers may recall that this article helped put our small site on the map when it reached page one of Hacker News all the way back in March 2021. That led to its leading our very early weekly ranking for five consecutive weeks. It lost steam after the Hacker News glow wore off, but finished 2021 with nine weekly ranking appearances, five top placements, and the status as the run-away most-viewed article of the year (it is still our third most-viewed article of all time). After it made our 2021 Newsletter Week 20 ranking, it decided to take a four year hiatus, returning to our newsletter in 2025 Newsletter Week 28. It is nice to see it return to one of our rankings in a cameo appearance after it fell outside of our 81 most-visited articles in 2024.

Newsletter Week 29

1. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 17, 2025.
   3 appearances and 1 top placement.

2. Amazon "Cargo Bikes" in Brooklyn
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 9, 2025.
   11 appearances and 5 top placements.

3. How to Find Substack RSS Feeds and Other Notes
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 19, 2021.
   2025: First appearance.
   Cumulative: 32 appearances.

4. Misleading ARRIS Modem Login Instructions
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 12, 2024.
   2025 & Cumulative: 10 appearances and 1 top placement.

5. The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 – Statistics and Analysis
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 18, 2022.
   2025: 3 appearances.
   Cumulative: 58 appearances and 4 top placements.

Analysis

Our visitor numbers were notably up, returning to something close to our January-March averages. My article on Google Search's now defunct Pokémon catching minigame became the 11th first-place finisher of 2025, carrying the week surprisingly easily with its best performance yet. My Cargo Bikes essay had a better week than its two winning performances in weeks 27 and 28, but this time it was only good for second-place. But the real star of Newsletter Week 29 is another old ranking standby, How to Find Substack RSS Feeds and Other Notes. This article once notched 26 consecutive weekly ranking appearances from 2021-22, but it had not appeared in one since Newsletter Week 44 of 2023, although its solid 42nd place finish in our 2024 ranking shows that it has remained a decent performer. Last week, it not only returned to our ranking for the first time in well over a year, but it also did so with a visitor count that would have been good for first-place in the much weaker Newsletter Week 27. Its 32 weekly ranking appearances are the most of any article to have never led the ranking. I doubt it will remove itself from that category, but I suppose stranger things have happened.

Taking leaf

I will bring this Newsletter to a close here because it is already longer than it should be. While I will be busy next week, I have enough in-progress article drafts that you should expect new posts and a regularly scheduled newsletter next Saturday.

If you enjoyed this issue and 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 July 19,
Cura ut valeas -- Nicholas A. Ferrell.