Welcome to the 264th 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 published several new articles and short posts last week. I will share those with you below along with our regular collection of links from around the web and other news and notes from the week that was.

Leaves from the week that was

I published three new New Leaf Journal articles and four Emu Café Social short posts since mailing Newsletter 263.

On the NLJ side of things, my first post of the week was PixelFade Studio VN Review Project. Back in 2022, I reviewed two visual novels by Canadian circle PixelFade Studio, ACE Academy and Kaori After Story. The latter review ended up being our most-visited article of January 2025. PixelFade Studio announced its "retirement" last week, and as a result its five visual novels, including ACE Academy and Kaori After Story, will be de-listed from Steam in February. I had been planning to review the other three PixelFade Studio visual novels, and I announced my plans to do so in the near future in my new article. For anyone who may be interested in playing (or reading) along with my reviews, you still have a bit over a week (as of this writing) to purchase any of the five novels you may be interested in.

One day later, I published Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine. DuckDuckGo has AI features that can be toggled off in the settings. But to save people a step, it also offers a version of DuckDuckGo with the AI features turned off by default at the subdomain in my article headline. In this article, I demonstrate how to set up the "No AI" version of DuckDuckGo as a custom search engine in Firefox- and Chromium-based browsers.

Finally, I published Creating NLJ QR Code With QR Code Generator, wherein I tested a free and open source tool for generating QR codes and used that took to make QR codes for The New Leaf Journal homepage and my own author page. The tool is free to use if you too need to generate a QR code.

My QR code article segues into my third ECS short post of the week, New Newsletter Leaf Journal Sign-Up Page. As the title of that posts suggests, I re-designed the Newsletter Leaf Journal sign-up page on The New Leaf Journal, which you can see here. What does that have to do with my QR code article? I explain in the ECS post.

In Agreeing With Ebay’s Buy-For-Me Agent Restrictions, I supported Ebay's decision to prohibit the use of buy-for-me agents in its new terms of service. But I would not have taken the time to publish this had it not tied into a post I wrote about Amazon and similar AI agents back in November (explained in my new post).

In the self-referential category, I share my thoughts on my featured image choice in Revisiting Last Year’s Election Research Article, which I published on NLJ last January.

Finally, Note Resuming Christmas Tina is unsurprisingly about my resuming the Christmas Tina visual novel, which should result in a full NLJ review by the end of the month.

Leaves from around the web

My publishing output last week was adequate, but probably not enough for our more voracious readers. But fear not, I come with links from around the web. Moreover, I have a concept for this week's around the web. While I will not spoil the concept, you can find the inspiration in the first Around the Web link below...

Reading and writing law carefully

If You're Asking the Court for Something, Don't Just Put It in a Footnote
Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy. January 22, 2026.

Is that a challenge, bro?¹

Obligation to "Cite-Check ... the Cases Cited by the Other Side" and Report Errors to Court
Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy. January 22, 2026.

Totally not speaking from experience, but also cite check briefs submitted by your client's former counsel.²

Restroom tech

Down the Toilet: Shanghai Bids Farewell to Chamber Pots
Chen Yiru for Sixth Tone. November 21, 2025.

I'm more than a little bit concerned about other cities in China if it took Shanghai until 2025...

Toilet maker Toto scores a royal flush as share price rises due to AI demand in unlikely chipmaking side-gig — Japanese company develops electrostatic chucks to hold silicon wafers in lucrative segment (HT Pixy Misa) Mark Tyson for Tom's Hardware. January 23, 2026.

AI is going to end up causing a toilet shortage, isn't it?³

The best on social media

Newly Signed Deal Offers Pathway for Chinese Company ByteDance Into TikTok’s New U.S. Operation
Jack Burnham for FDD. January 23, 2026.

This deal of questionable legality is probably a very qualified improvement in the whole Chinese social experiments on America's children situation, but TikTok should still be banned and killed with fire.⁴

Work of Art: The Cost of Keeping a Private Museum Open in China
He Qitong for Sixth Tone. January 23, 2026.

Have they considered entering into a deal with Larry Ellison?⁵

Trying and failing to defy my expectations

Pantone Has Reveals Its Color of the Year—And It’s Unexpected
Eva Baron for My Modern Net. December 5, 2025.

What if I didn't have any expectations?⁶

Why more women are going to rage rooms
Annabel Rackham for BBC. January 22, 2026.

"But what seems surprising is the client base, with some owners saying most of their customers are women."⁷

Something is bugging me

Behind a Museum Door, These Beetles Are Eating Flesh for Science (archived)
Corey Kilgannon for The New York Times. May 13, 2025.

For whatever it's worth I think they're eating flesh because (A) they eat flesh and (B) they're hungry.⁸

Rhinoceros beetles falling out of favor with Japanese kids
Master Blaster for SoraNews24. August 17, 2025.

This is the result of foreign influence. The kids learned about elephant beetles.⁹

Rekindling my sports memories

Where Does Indiana Rank Among All-Time Champions?
Neil Paine. January 20, 2026.

"Roughly a quarter-century ago, Miami dominated the national title game to solidify its place among college football’s greatest teams ever. In this season’s finale, though, the shoe was on the other foot — the Hurricanes were cast as the feisty underdog, looking to use home-field advantage and an elite defense to stand athwart Indiana’s bid for immortality."¹⁰

NASCAR returns to Chase championship format for 2026
Zack Albert for NASCAR.com. January 12, 2026.

One problem with more than two decades of playoff format flailing in NASCAR is that no matter how they try to "reset" points or declare part of the schedule "playoffs," there is nothing obviously distinguishing the playoff races from other races (Jimmy Johnson surely appreciated the last 10 races coming on many of his best tracks). The easy solution would be to just base the championship off the entire season but change the point weights to more decisively reward wins and high placements, but they just can't do it.¹¹

Episode 37. Purple Mountains and All That Jazz.
Sports Branding (building on article by Ryan Miller for KSL.com). June 12, 2024.

The Jazz switched to the purple mountain uniforms in 1996-97, which was the first season I followed the NBA. They also made the 1997 and 1998 NBA Finals. Very nostalgic and great uniform design. NBA branding peaked in the 90s.¹²

Checking in on the Former Soviet Union

Russia Seeks Georgia’s Concession on Breakaway Regions
Giorgi Menabde for The Jamestown Foundation. January 20, 2026.

Looks like Russia's Georgian Dream is deferred.¹³

Kazakh president uses language to deliver a surprising message to Russia
Justin Blake for Eurasianet. November 10, 2023.

Revenge is a dish best-served in Kazakh.¹⁴

Related?

Making kids do remote schooling on ‘snow days’ sucks — get off the screens and go touch snow
Kristen Fleming for the New York Post. January 23, 2026.

It'll probably make the kids dumber but as long as key stakeholders profit from the so-called remote learning, all is well.¹⁵

The Public School Crisis: Higher Payrolls Associated with Worse Student Performance
Open the Books. September 17, 2025.

Here I would have thought that growing the number of school administrators by 41% from 2010 to 2022 would teach kids how to read.

You can always count on friends

Kremlin Views the Potential Loss of Cuba as Major Symbolic Blow
Sergey Sukhankin. January 22, 2026.

This is great news for Cuba. Russia would never allow a friend on a different continent to fall. The Cuban government can rest assured.

Shunned by Putin, Syria’s Ex-Dictator Lives in Isolation
Amir Daftari for Newsweek. December 15, 2025.

I mean Assad did claim he never intended to end up in Russia.¹⁶

The best ideas are never published

Darwin’s Children Drew All Over the On The Origin of Species Manuscript (Updated)
Benjamin Breen for The Appendix. February 12, 2014.

The fruit vs vegetable battle needs to be adapted.

Huge Eyes? Big Head? Lara Croft Almost Looked Very Different For Her Japanese Debut
Damien McFerran for Time Extension. January 19, 2026.

I never played Tomb Raider but I can be persuaded if they release one with this unused aesthetic (reminds me of the original Pokémon character art).¹⁷

Most-turned leaves the week that was

I use a privacy-friendly and entirely local tool called Koko Analytics (see my 2025 article) to track page visits. 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 our most-visited articles for the week of January 17-23 with notes on their cumulative ranking statistics going back to 2021.

1. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 17, 2025.
   2026: 4 appearances and top placements.
   Cumulative: 31 appearances and 25 top placements.

2. Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 21, 2026.

3. Dragonair Safari in Pokémon Yellow
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 5, 2023.
   2026: 3 appearances.
   Cumulative: 22 appearances.

4. Umineko When They Cry Red Truth Guide
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 7, 2022.
   2026: 2 appearances. Cumulative: 3 appearances.

5. The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 - Statistics and Analysis
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 18, 2022.
   2026: 2 appearances.
   Cumulative: 65 appearances and 4 top placements.

Analysis

It was a good week for Pokémon articles, with three of the top five posts of 2026 Newsletter Week 4 being Pokémon related. Topping our ranking for the 17th consecutive week¹⁸ was Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search, which once again won by a big margin. But on January 23, it failed to lead a daily ranking for the first time in 2026, being narrowly edged by new arrival Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine.¹⁹ The strong Thursday-Friday performance of my DuckDuckGo article displaced Dragonair Safari in Pokémon Yellow, which had one of its stronger weeks, from the runner-up position.²⁰

While Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search should be considered the favorite to lead its 18th consecutive weekly ranking next week, my new DuckDuckGo AI is performing well enough in its first three days online to make a fight of it. Will it keep it up for a whole week? I suppose we shall see...

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 would ordinarily include a section or two after my most-visited article list, but the footnotes²¹ (see below if you missed them earlier) make this a long newsletter, so I will wrap this up here. I will note cryptically that I hope to have something very interesting and New Leaf Journal-adjacent to share in next week's newsletter, but I will leave it at that for now.

Until January's end,
Cura ut valeas -- Nicholas A. Ferrell.