September 13, 2025

Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXLV 〜 Address authenticator

Issue 245 of The Newsletter Leaf Journal includes links to almost 10 new NLJ and ECS posts, 21 links from around the web, news about our local view solution, and other small updates.

Welcome to the 245th 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.

While I did not have a busy week, I do have some new posts to share along with our regular assortment of links from around the web. I also have some exciting site news with the implementation of our new privacy-friendly and local page counting solution. Let's get to it.

Leaves from the week that was

I published three new New Leaf Journal articles since mailing Newsletter 244. By the way, I also published a short Emu Café Social post praising myself for last week's newsletter title. But I digress.

I lead off with a look back -- my August 2025 month-in-review is hot off the presses and timely enough for the first time since our April review.

In Aegis Authenticator and Linux Authenticator, I described how I use Aegis Authenticator (Android) and Authenticator (Linux, via Flathub) to generate and manage TOTP passwords. While this particular combination only works for people running Android-based operating systems on mobile and Linux on computer, the concept may be applicable to other environments.

Shortly after mailing last week's newsletter, I published Jim Walden Suspends Campaign For NYC Mayor on ECS. I decided to cover this relatively inconsequential local (for me) news because I previously wrote an article about spotting Jim Walden's campaign car. These two articles came together to inform my third and final NLJ article of the week, Jim Walden's Connecticut Plates. An observation I made about Mr. Walden's campaign car back in July turned out to be relevant to understanding his ultimately unsuccessful attempt to have his name removed from the November ballot.

Returning to ECS, I published Pokémon Veterans, which was prompted by a quote looking back at the 1998-99 Pokémon phenomenon. Yesterday (being 9/12), I questioned whether Firefox has its priorities in order as it announces a shake for AI summary "feature" on iOS. I published two more serious posts on 9/11, the first covering teaching 9/11 in New York City and the second linking to a couple pieces on the the life of Charlie Kirk and on speaking on campuses in the wake of his being murdered on September 10.

There are two additional ECS posts, but I will save those for my weekly article ranking section.

Leaves from the week that was

If I you think I gave you enough to read this weekend, you should still read more. Allow me to offer at least 21 suggestions...

Bzzzzz...

Michigan State University trains dogs to protect honey bees
Mike Householder for AP. August 11, 2025.

"The Pollinator Performance Center’s wide range of projects includes developing a training program for dogs to use their sensitive noses to uncover a bacterial disease called American foulbrood that threatens honey bee larvae."

Thousands of 'robber bees' invade B.C. apiarist's shop in attempted honey heist
Lauren Vanderdeen for CBC. September 8, 2025.

They did not have a mens rea of intent to rob. They beelieved the aparist was sharing.

Don't do drugs

Hikers in New York tripping on mushrooms wrongly report friend as dead
Brad Matthews for The Washington Times. May 29, 2025.

You say that Tom isn't dead? That he's right there? Well... that's just your opinion, man.

Mike Tyson: I Used Fentanyl 'Quite A Few Times' ... During Boxing Career
TMZ. September 10, 2025.

They say cats have nine lives. They say Mike Tyson found an unlimited supply of 1-Up Mushrooms. I'm just telling you what they say.

Syria Is No Longer a Narco-State, But the Captagon Trade Rolls On
Ahmad Sharawi for FDD. September 3, 2025.

Syria is no longer a narco-state except for the narco-trafficking.

Albanian PM appoints world’s first AI-generated minister
Chris Nelson for Brussels Signal. September 12, 2025.

I don't think this is going to fix their drug trafficking problem.

New York Should Crack Down on Kratom
Ethan Gilden for City Journal. August 19, 2025.

Yes. But New York just finished letting a large number of brick and mortar pot dealers open up near schools, so baby steps to giant strides and all.

Question and answer

How to Detect AI-Generated Content
Ryan Law for Ahrefs Blog. August 11, 2025.

Look for the cases that don't exist or the case citations that have no relationship to any existing case.

Did the Texas Tribune Hallucinate About Judge Ho's Dissent?
Josh Blackman for The Volokh Conspiracy. August 20, 2025.

Texas Tribune reporters are the "people" on X who respond to everything by asking Grok if it's true.

Regionalism rocks

City Pride: The Making of Brooklyn Borough Hall
Suzanne Spellen for Brownstoner. February 5, 2025.

It's CITY Hall to me.

Learning to Herd the Goats in Riverside Park's Annual Goatham Initiative
Rosemary L. McGinn for West Side Rag. September 4, 2025.

I didn't know they herd goats in Manhattan. Yes, I live in Brooklyn -- but there's a river between us. I have enough to concern myself with in my own country.

Problem and solution

Meet the worst transit terrors on the loose in NYC
Joe Marino and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon for the New York Post. September 7, 2025.

"A cluster of 63 career criminals continues to wreak havoc in the city’s underground, racking up more than 5,000 busts between them — yet only five of them are currently behind bars, The Post has learned."

Of course we can arrest our way out of crime
Kitten. September 2, 2025.

Don't say I didn't deliver on the problem and solution header.

Scorching lukewarm takes

'It took a big hit for the studio': How dark and daring gamble The Black Cauldron became a notorious Disney flop
Barry Levitt for BBC. August 7, 2025.

I saw The Black Cauldron on VHS when I was a kid. I don't recall thinking it was bad. I was surprised when I learned later on (I recall I read about the underlying story years ago) that it was a commercial disaster.

I was wrong about robots.txt
Evengii Pendragon. July 10, 2025.

You should know what you're blocking before you block stuff in robots.txt, yes. I should also be more careful sometimes. You can see NLJ's robots.txt.

Seriously, Kaleido Star's Staff & Cast Want a New Anime, Too - Interest
Kerr Ikura-Gross for Anime News Network. April 4, 2025.

Kaleido Star is good in a "Saturday morning cartoon" sense but I recall having been content enough for all normal purposes when I finished the 51st and final episode.

Lose some, win some

Uganda becomes the number one coffee exporter in Africa
Tea & Coffee Trade Journal. June 26, 2025.

Move over, Ethiopia.

Ethiopia outfoxes Egypt over Nile waters with its mighty dam
Farouk Chothia and Yemane Nagish for BBC. September 6, 2025.

This probably has a vague 4th century BC precedent.

Quarterbacking

Stop Blaming Rex Grossman
Robbie Marriage at Sports Passion Project. April 7, 2025.

This was a fun read because I remember much of the commentary about Rex Grossman's very up and down 2006 season as quarterback of the Super Bowl runner-up Chicago Bears.

How does a QB 'layer' throws? Let a Hall of Famer explain
Matthew Collier at Purple Insider. August 13, 2025.

I could think of worse people to ask than the quarterback of The Greatest Show on Turf.

But back to me

Performative virtue-signaling has become a threat to higher ed
Forest Romm and Kevin Waldman for The Hill. August 12, 2025.

I recall my article on the death of Walter Williams.

Most-turned leaves of the newsletter weeks

I skipped our regular most-visited articles of the week in last week's newsletter for reasons I explained there. But that week is not unaccounted for. Below, I present the most-visited posts of Newsletter Weeks 37 (August 30-September 5) and 38 (September 6-12), along with yearly and historic stats for each post.

As I explained in last week's newsletter, I cobbled together a top-five most visited article ranking for August 30-September 5 from my Google Search Console and Bing/Yandex Webmaster stats. Those stats are limited because they track only clicks in those search engines and not events on my site, but I saw enough for a weekly ranking because a significant amount of our traffic comes from Google. Without further ado, I present the stats for Newsletter Week 37.

Newsletter Week 37 (August 30-September 5)

1. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 17, 2025.
   2025: 11 appearances and 6 top placements.

2. Amazon "Cargo Bikes" in Brooklyn
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 9, 2025.
   2025: 19 appearances and 7 top placements.

3. Dragonair Safari in Pokémon Yellow
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 5, 2023.
   2025: 13 appearances.
   Cumulative: 15 appearances.

4. The Story of Billy Possum, President Hoover’s Pet Opossum
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. November 30, 2021.
   2025: First appearance.
   Cumulative: 5 appearances and 1 top placement.

5. Height differences in anime romances
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 22, 2023.
   2025: 4 appearances.
   Cumulative: 19 appearances and 7 top placements.

Analysis

One reason I felt "good" about my cobbled-together top five for August 30-September 5 is because the ranking was consistent with recent results. So consistent in this case in fact that articles 1-3 and 5 ranked in the same positions in Week 37 as in Week 36. The only new entrant was my 2021 piece on President Herbert Hoover's White House opossum, which makes its first weekly top-five since late 2023. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search had a break-out in Google Search, lapping the field by margins we have not seen since Examining Whether Defense Wins NBA Championships lapped the field in February.

Newsletter Week 38 (September 6-12)

For the first time ever, this week's ranking statistics come courtesy of Statify an entirely local and privacy-friendly page counting solution for WordPress. I should say most of the stats come from Statify. I re-tested Koko Analytics for about three hours on a single day to see if Statify had a serious over-counting problem. To be sure, I think Statify has some over-counting issues, but I noticed enough similar behavior in Koko Analytics that I opted to stick with Statify for certain advantages I will discuss in a future NLJ article. I did discuss the switch and switch back on ECS. Taken as a whole, the Statify stats for individual posts are similar to what I had been seeing for Koko Analytics, so I feel good about the ranking.

1. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 17, 2025.
   2025: 12 appearances and 7 top placements.

2. Amazon "Cargo Bikes" in Brooklyn
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 9, 2025.
   2025: 20 appearances and 7 top placements.

3. Enabling Charging Optimization on GrapheneOS
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 12, 2025.
   2025: First appearance.

4. Aegis Authenticator and Linux Authenticator
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. September 8, 2025.
   2025: First appearance.

5. Reviewing FrogFind: A Search Engine For Vintage Computers
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 24, 2022.
   2025: First appearance.
   Cumulative: 2 appearances.

Analysis

Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search continued its dominant run, falling off slightly from the previous week but nevertheless leaving no doubt about the current top article. Amazon "Cargo Bikes" in Brooklyn slotted comfortably into second, becoming the second article to notch 20 overall placements this year. Spots 3-5 were all new to the 2025 ranking. Enabling Charging Optimization on GrapheneOS and Reviewing FrogFind: A Search Engine For Vintage Computers followed strong August showings (20th and 11th respectively) with their first weekly placements of the year. I had to dig into my archive to discover that FrogFind had one prior weekly ranking appearance last year in 2024 Newsletter Week 18. My first article from the current week slotted in fourth and looks like a promising prospect going forward.

We achieved one fun milestone this week. We have seen 43 articles appear in at least one weekly ranking in 2025. Just 42 articles made an appearance in all of 2024 and only 32 in 2023, so we have set a new record for weekly ranking diversity. One record that has not yet fallen is most articles to lead a weekly ranking. We have had 12 different articles lead at least one ranking in 2025, but 14 different articles led at least one ranking in both 2024 and 2023. Our top two in weeks 37 and 38 have had a stranglehold on the ranking all summer, but I think there are more than enough weeks left in 2025 for at least two new articles to lead a weekly ranking.

News leaf journal

I created a second "newsletter" which does nothing but send out a daily email with links to my new post. I am still testing it and have not yet "announced" it, but I will give Newsletter Leaf Journal readers the early reveal. You can see my Feedio profile page with sign-up options here. By default, you will receive one email on every day I publish here (a newsletter with updates from another newsletter) or on NLJ or ECS. I believe you can configure it to send emails for every individual post or configure it to send weekly emails instead of daily emails. Note again that the Feedio newsletter does not include original writing. It is simply a way to receive new post updates by email. I plan to introduce it in a full NLJ article in the near future.

Taking leaf

Thank you as always for reading The Newsletter Leaf Journal. 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.

I wish I could promise an exciting week of articles, but I received several work assignments with short deadlines yesterday (September 12) afternoon. But I will work on publishing at least a couple NLJ posts to go with short posts on ECS.

Until September 20,
Cura ut valeas.