Newsletter Leaf Journal CCLII 〜 Dinogourd OS
Welcome November with Newsletter Leaf Journal 252. This edition features links to two new NLJ articles on birds and PalmOS re-implementations, links from ECS on web browsers and political journalism SNAFUs, 21 links from around the web, and other news and notes from the week that was.
Welcome to the 251st 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 only published a couple of new NLJ articles, I was fairly busy over at The Emu Café Social, so taken together we have a decent amount of ground to cover this first day of November.
Leaves from the week that was
I published two new NLJ articles since mailing Newsletter 251.
My first article, The Birds are Dinosaurs: NLJ Article Rewrite, is the rare example of an Around the Web link and quip prospect for this newsletter being re-purposed into a full article. I read an interesting post on birds being the descendants of dinosaurs. A quote from that post describing the connection in a dramatic way made me think of some of my own bird articles. I tried re-writing some of my own bird sentences to see how it worked. Readers may also enjoy links to my prior bird posts, including a few from the early days of The New Leaf Journal.
For Halloween, I publisted Building and Running PumpkinOS. PumpkinOS is a ground-up re-implementation of PalmOS. I demonstrate how to build and run it on Linux and look at the core apps. I will have more to write about PumpkinOS and at least one PalmOS game, so readers need not despair about this being a very introductory look at Pumpkin.
Things were busier at The Emu Café Social. I led the week with an idea for a new website tracking Chromium derivatives, which was inspired by a joke I read on Hacker News. The browser theme continued with Resource: Disabling AI Features in Firefox and Firefox “Privacy-Focused Direct Results” PSA, with the latter of which being shared on Hacker News. I also wrote about Google Chrome going HTTPS-only by default in 2026. Finally, we rounded out the week with posts on political antisemitism and the the Times of London's Fake de Blasio Quote.
Leaves from around the web
With my week's worth of work being covered, let us turn to cover 21 links from around the world wide web.
Switch 2 Pokémon Reviews
Pokémon Legends Z-A Is The Creepiest Entry Yet, Not In A Good Way
Ollie Reynolds for Nintendo Life. October 22, 2025.
I haven't played Legends Z-A but I can imagine how a bunch of stationary dead-eyed NPCs may negatively affect a game's sense of immersion. That works better in the Game Boy format.
I Played Pokémon Legends: Z-A
Takafumi at Please no Hate. November 1, 2025.
I appreciated the very detailed look at Z-A's photography system.
Sporting prodigies
Analysis: Is Connor Zilisch NASCAR’s greatest prospect ever?
Neil Paine for NASCAR.com. October 30, 2025.
That level of domination of the second-tier circuit is pretty impressive for a 19 year old.
NBA: Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren Are Warping The Center Position (HT Neil Paine)
Nathan Grubel at No Ceilings. October 28, 2025.
While some will read this and appreciate Messrs. Wembanyama and Holmgren, I thought about Roy Hibbert and the decline and fall of a former center paradigm.
Making connections no one else sees
It’s All About China
Lee Smith for Tablet Magazine. October 30, 2025.
Everything is connected.
Mongolia: Endangered horses back from the brink
Joanna Lillis for Eurasianet. October 30, 2025.
Beijing, Moscow, and Baghdad look up with alarm.
Free as in free?
Fake ‘freebie’ posts lose Polish farmer 150 tonnes of potatoes
Krzysztof Mularczyk for Brussels Signal. October 14, 2025.
I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that people saw a ton of potatoes at a farm and posted on social media that they were free. They're potatoes, not birds.
Japanese indie hit Pico Park: Classic Edition accidentally becomes permanently free on Steam
Carlos "Zoto" Zotomayor. October 8, 2025.
Consider this accidental(?) story a PSA: I added it to my Steam library where it now sits with many other unplayed games in my Steam library.
Halloween leftovers
Extra Ordinary Comic 769
Li Chen at Extra Ordinary. October 8, 2025.
I laughed when I got to the fourth panel.
NYC Halloween display has Godzilla-sized momma pigeon perched in West Village walkup
Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post. October 29, 2025.
The little pigeon models are also very well done.
Key oversights
India Proposes Tough Labeling Requirements for AI Content
John Hayward for The Washington Free Beacon. October 22, 2025.
I suspect this offer will not be applicable to Indians posing as nationals of other countries while posting political slop for foreign consumption.
Longtime top Brooklyn party leader Frank Seddio running 'con' jobs, abusing court system: suit
Paul Senzamici for the New York Post. October 31, 2025.
Disappointed the Post forgot to note that Frank Seddio, a man of integrity if there has ever been one, is the current Chairman of the New York City Board of Elections.
Checking in on the Ivies
Harvard Quietly Trained Members of Chinese ‘Paramilitary Organization’—After the US Sanctioned It Over Uyghur Genocide
Jessica Costescu for The Washington Free Beacon. April 28, 2025.
That's bad but I'm selfishly just hoping none of them work at bio labs.
'I Was Just Sobbing in Bed': Harvard Students Distraught as School Says It Gives Out Too Many As
Jessica Schwalb for The Washington Free Beacon. October 30, 2025.
One would think that Harvard students are smart enough to understand that grade inflation is a bigger threat to job prospects than the occasional C. I wouldn't think that though. Not in 2025.
America’s Non-Ivy Elite
Andy Smarick for City Journal. November 20, 2024.
"The path to leadership in most states runs through key in-state universities, which are typically public but sometimes private."
Questionable aesthetics
How Gaming Rigs Grew Up to Become Battle Stations
Victoria Rose for Vice. September 2, 2020.
The gamer aesthetic is lacking in aesthetics.
Can This Controversial Brutalist Fountain in San Francisco Be Saved From Demolition?
Ella Feldman for Smithsonian Magazine. October 16, 2025.
I guess if you could turn it into a playground if you painted it.
I apologize in advance
An Existential Guide to: Making Friends
The Shadowed Archive. September 27, 2025.
If you can't follow the guide, it's because you're a little maxed out on existentialism.
These 'Pirate Lizards' Thrive With Three Legs
Sara Hashemi for Smithsonian Magazine. October 21, 2025.
For whatever it's worth I think a three-legged pirate would be more unusual than a three-legged lizard.
News you can reuse
Ways To Reuse Old Planners (HT The Well Apportioned Desk)
Laura at Inky Imaginings. October 16, 2025.
Something to do with those planners you planned to use but never did.
This blog is running on a recycled Google Pixel 5
Dom Corriveau. August 29, 2025.
I respect the phone server but I will stick with a cheap VPS.
Most-turned leaves of the newsletter week
In each edition of the newsletter, I share our five most-visited articles of the week. This week's list comes courtesy of Statify, an entirely local and cookieless page visit counting solution for WordPress. Below, you will find the five most-visited articles of 2025 Newsletter Week XLV (October 25-31) with their 2025 and historic (dating back to 2021) weekly ranking information.
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Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search
Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 17, 2025.
2025: 19 appearances and 13 top placements. -
Amazon "Cargo Bikes" in Brooklyn
Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 9, 2025.
2025: 27 appearances and 8 top placements. -
Kazuya’s Hair Color in Rent-A-Girlfriend
Nicholas A. Ferrell. August 9, 2025.
2025: First appearance. -
Dragonair Safari in Pokémon Yellow
Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 5, 2023.
2025: 14 appearances.
Cumulative: 16 appearances. -
Japanese Environment in PoL, Lutris, and Bottles
Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 16, 2022.
2025: First appearance.
Cumulative: 2 appearances.
Analysis
Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search continues its dominant run atop the weekly ranking, and its 13 top-placements now match the total of the 2024 weekly winner leader, An In-Depth Look at Norton Safe Search. With that being said, its view totals the last two weeks have been in the normal excellent tier instead of some of the more striking numbers it was posting in late August and early-to-mid September, so it would not be too surprising to see it more seriously challenged in November.
This week's ranking featured two articles making their 2025 debuts, bringing us to 49 articles with at least one weekly placement in 2025. First was my most recent anime hair color study, Kazuya’s Hair Color in Rent-A-Girlfriend, which had a big Wednesday-Friday (mostly Google) to debut in the weekly ranking. It had not done much of note previously, but given the notoriety of the series and the fact its strong numbers this week came from Google, I would not be surprised to see it become familiar to our weekly ranking fans. Rounding out the top five was Japanese Environment in PoL, Lutris, and Bottles. You may note in the "Cumulative" field I noted that this was its second all-time weekly ranking appearance. When was the first? I had to dig into my archive, but it apparently came in 2022 Newsletter Week 25 (June 18-24), which happened to be its first full week online. I humbly welcome it back to the weekly ranking after a more-than-three-year hiatus. Despite the gap, it is no big surprise seeing it in a weekly ranking. It was our 46th most-visited article in 2023 and 60th in 2024, so it has been a solid-but-unspectacular performer since being published.
But what if I told you there was a different weekly winner?
While Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search was our most visited NLJ article of the week, it was not my most-visited article. That honor, thanks to Hacker News, goes to Firefox “Privacy-Focused Direct Results” PSA, which cleared Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search by approximately 35%. I thought about combining the rankings, but NLJ and ECS are such different projects that I decided to honor our first ECS "weekly winner" with a note instead. ECS does not generate the sort of traffic at the moment that would justify a weekly ranking (mainly due to lack of search engine presence), but I may start noting weekly winners there if any when the site grows.
Taking leaf
I have places to go and people to meet today, so I will wrap things up here. I will note that I have numerous article project ideas and in-progress projects, and I hope to publish a good number of them in November, work-permitting.
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. You can also sign up for a separate newsletter which sends daily digests of our new posts here.
Until November 8,
Cura ut valeas -- Nicholas A. Ferrell.