Leafintro

Welcome to the 291st edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, the official newsletter of the perennially virid online writing magazine, The New Leaf Journal (“NLJ”) and its short-form writing sister publication, The Emu Café Social (“ECS”).

Despite being busy last week, I published many words to both NLJ and ECS. One trade-off, however, is that there was not much topical variety on the former. But I trust that there will be something for everyone between my new articles and our regular collection of links from around the world wide web. Without further ado...

Leaves from the week that was

I published three new articles on NLJ. All three articles are long. They are also focused on a single subject area.

I began the week with Reviewing Limerence, an al|together-Inspired Visual Novel. I came across Limerence a few months ago because the game's creator, Zalor, cited to my al|together visual novel review project (which ran from 2021-2024) for leading him to discover the visual novel inspiration for Limerence. You will find the entire backstory, along with my review of Limerence, in my article.

My latter two NLJ articles also focused on free-to-read visual novels. In O2A2 2026 Visual Novel Review Project (Part 1/2) and O2A2 2026 Visual Novel Review Project (Part 2/2), I reviewed a combined 23 visual novels from the recently completed O2A2 2026 – Only One of Any Asset Visual Novel Jam on Itch.io, which invited people to create very short visual novels (max 1,000 words, with specific restrictions on assets) within a 10-day period. I wrote about submitting my own visual novel to O2A2 2026 in Releasing a New ONScripter-EN Visual Novel, which was featured in last week's newsletter. In these two new articles, I looked at visual novels other people submitted (note that there were 182 submissions, so I ultimately reviewed a small sample). I will note for anyone interested in trying something new that most of the 23 novels I reviewed can be played/read in the web browser, all can be run on either web or Windows, and most (but not all) can be run locally in Linux and/or MacOS.

I did not write about visual novels on ECS, but I did publish two sumo-related posts in Evaluating My Nagoya Basho Predictions (could have been worse) and Responding to Nagoya Basho Grades. Note there are "spoilers" if you have not yet caught up on the Nagoya Basho, which ran for two weeks in July. I am proud of my third ECS post of the week, Tell Everyone About Your Hero[in]ism, but I will not spoil it here. I wrapped up the week at ECS with Letter to the Editor Backlink in Chicago Sun Times, wherein I shared an interesting new NLJ backlink.

Leaves from the week that was

While I gave everyone plenty to read this week (not to mention links to things to "read"), I understand that some readers may be looking for more topical variety. Below, I present 15 varied links from around the world wide web.

The wide world of sports

(1) 2026 Nagoya basho predictions results: Atamifuji in a play-off, who knew? Me, that's who (Tim Edwards at Sumo Stomp! July 31, 2026.)

I hope you’re all still on a high from the most recent tournament. The 2026 Nagoya basho was probably the most exciting tournament we’ve had this year...

He had a better tournament predictions than I did, but I will be ready for September.

(2) Can the 76ers Really Win it All? (Shyam Maddukuri at Lord of the Rims. July 27, 2025.)

Last week, I discussed how LeBron has been remarkably durable throughout his career, but that players his age have not historically stayed healthy. If there’s a player less likely to stay healthy, it’s Joel Embiid, who has reached the 60-game mark just four times over a 12-year career.

What if LeBron James is able to grow 4-5 inches for the games Joel Embiid inevitably misses?

(3) Long Island racewalking star sets sight on Olympic glory (Alex Mitchell for the New York Post. July 31, 2026.)

“Things kind of just spiraled downhill,” Michta-Coffey said of Harris’ athletic career. “My husband and I would lament how she had this talent that got away. ‘Could you imagine how good she could be? She has all this potential, too bad.’ We just couldn’t get it right on track.'

It appears that things have turned around.

Tangled up with the law

(4) NJ cop disguises himself as a shrub to bust 74 distracted drivers (Zoe Hussain for the New York Post. July 30, 2026.)

A New Jersey cop disguised himself as a shrub on Wednesday to help bust over 70 distracted drivers on a heavily trafficked road.

None of his police buddies will call him a scrub.

(5) Okayama man arrested for catching butterflies in central Japan (Master Blaster for SoraNews24. July 31, 2026.)

Things just aren’t the way they used to be in Japan. It wasn’t too long ago that it used to be safe for a butterfly to flutter by down the street without worrying about being kidnapped and killed.

Dark things are happening in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Cause & effect

(6) Japan now has “edible cat fur” for people who really love felines
Oona McGee for SoraNews24. June 15, 2026.

"[Y]ou can breathe a sigh of relief as this 'fur' is actually... cotton candy!"

Whew.

(7) Bumblebees Seem to 'Lick Their Lips' After Sweet Treats and Shake Their Heads at Bad Tastes, Hinting at the Insects' Inner Lives (Eli Stark-Elster for Smithsonian Magazine. July 10, 2026.)

How do you know if a bumblebee is enjoying its meal? Possibly, the same way you would know for a dog—licking its lips.

I learned last year that bees like cotton candy.

(8) Neanderthals Got Cavities, Too—and New Research Suggests They Drilled Into Their Teeth to Treat Them, Just Like Modern Dentists (Sarah Kuta for Smithsonian Magazine. May 15, 2026.)

Now, new research suggests they may also have dabbled in dentistry. Scientists have discovered a 59,000-year-old Neanderthal molar that appears to have been deliberately drilled to treat a cavity...

Impressive if true, but I'd opt for the more modern cavity treatment options.

Digital preservation

(9) Vanishing Culture: Why Preserve Flash? (Jason Scott for Internet Archive Blogs. August 6. 2025.)

Recent events have strengthened the need to keep Flash preserved—for example, shutdowns of the Cartoon Network’s website wiped out hundreds of Flash games and animations that only existed on the site, and will never show up on a DVD or streaming service.

I discussed ways to run old Flash games in Adobe Flash Version of Gogatsu no Sora (a follow-up to that article is on my distant to-do list).

(10) Why I prefer human-readable file formats (Adële. August 4, 2025.)

Digital archaeology is real, and proprietary formats are its enemy. How many documents from the 1990s are now trapped in obsolete file formats? Human-readable formats, built on open standards and simple text encoding, have remarkable staying power.

This is one reason I prefer human-readable formats.

(11) Markdown and the Slow Fade of the Formatting Fetish
Oliver Reichensten for iA Writer Blog. March 31, 2025.

From online tools to native apps, from GitHub to Slack to ChatGPT, bit by bit Markdown is taking over

I agree with the pro-markdown take as I format this comment in markdown, but I recommend using Ghostwriter (although I will note I like the iA Writer font collection).

Ruling things out first

(12) Rejected Emoji Proposals (Charlotte Buff.)

The squirrel should not have been rejected.

(13) Emojis I use (Bojidar Marinov. January 18, 2026.)

Yet, emojis are ubiquitous. With modern advances in encodings and fonts, they can be used anywhere! And as people use them, they pick up different meanings from others, and before you know it, we are facing millions of dialects of a varied, vague emoji language.

Good post but we need to talk more about the story-telling potential of emojis.

Nothing bad happens on the internet

(14) I'm Not That Nicole Carpenter (Nicole Carpenter for Aftermath. January 15, 2026.)

...I received an email from a Royal Caribbean International communications person asking for a correction to a story. The request said that I had used an image of Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas cruiseliner ... and asked if I could replace the image given that Royal Caribbean wasn't involved. A fair ask ... but not something I could help with: The story was one I didn’t write, on a website I don’t write for.

I'm a little offended scam online publications haven't tried to launder my identity yet.

(15) The dark side of account bans (Maddy Miller. May 7, 2025.)

As threatened, this person attempted to get my online accounts banned. I’m not sure how many they reported, but a few hours later I was notified that my Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp accounts were all permanently banned.

I'm still a little sour about Naver banning my account after 5 minutes. Of course, this article covers a more insidious account banning operation.

Most-turned leaves of the newsletter week

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 July 25-31 with notes on their cumulative ranking statistics going back to 2021.

1. Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine (NAF. Jan. 21, 2026.) 28 appearances and 11 top-placements.

2. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search (NAF. April 17, 2025.) 31 appearances and 20 top-placements in 2026; 58 appearances and 41 top-placements overall.

3. O2A2 2026 Visual Novel Review Project (Part 1/2) (NAF. July 27, 2026.) First appearance.

4. “Stick Library” in Brooklyn Heights (NAF. April 18, 2026.) 2 appearances.

5. Installing GrapheneOS on a Google Pixel 6a (NAF. May 15, 2026.) First appearance in 2026; 13 appearances overall.

Analysis

Our regular top-two separated themselves from the rabble as usual, with my article on the "No AI" subdomain of DuckDuckGo regaining the top spot after its eight-week streak had been snapped last week. It was a close race for first this week, with DuckDuckGo only pulling ahead on Friday. Positions 3-5 were uninspiring in terms of page visits. The first part of my O2A2 review project made a debut-week appearance in third. My report on a "stick library" in Brooklyn Heights made its second appearance in the ranking. Finally, Installing GrapheneOS on a Google Pixel 6a made its first weekly ranking since 2024.

News leaf journal

I did not have the publishing month I hoped in July due to (1) work and (2) having been sick for much of the first half of July. But the fact I was able to complete three projects of non-insignificant scope to bring the month to a close should bode well for August. In addition to making progress in fulfilling my America 250 Summer Season Theme, I will publish recap articles for both June(!?) and July. Those will follow two special recap articles for ECS projects, both of which will have the effect of reducing the length of my full June and July reviews. I do have some specific projects in mind for August, but I will reveal them as they are published.

Taking leave[s]

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.

Until August 8...
Independence forever! Nicholas A. Ferrell.