Welcome to the 292nd 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”).

If we go by word count rather than sheer volume, I had what I would describe as a productive week of publishing since mailing Newsletter 291 last Saturday. Below, I provide evidence of my work along with our usual collection of links from around the web and news and notes.

Leaves from the week that was

I published two NLJ articles. But before one questions my output, I submit that Calvin Coolidge’s Homestead Oath of Office, which had been an article I wanted to write for the entirety of NLJ’s life-span, is my longest article of 2026 and one of our longest articles overall.

Calvin Coolidge became the 30th President of the United States on August 2, 1923, upon the death of President Warren Harding. The news reached Coolidge, who had gone to sleep with the erroneous belief that he was still Vice President, at his family homestead in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, where he was staying with his 78-year old father. After some deliberation and consultations with his cabinet, Coolidge decided to take the presidential oath of office at 2:47 AM on August 3, 1923. The oath was administered by his father, a notary public, in the home Coolidge grew up in. I had originally intended to write an article focusing almost exclusively on Coolidge’s description of his unusual homestead oath from his 1929 autobiography. While that is how I led the article, one thing led to another and “another” ended up being in-depth descriptions of the only other three eyewitness accounts of the homestead oath.

My second article was smaller in scope and word count, but big in its own way. Free “Just Heavy :)” Air Conditioner in Brooklyn features a very large and very free air conditioner I spotted on the sidewalk in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. I was inspired to share it because of a note its previous owner taped to it.

I was decently busy on ECS. First, I got back into the game of publishing daily Pook-Emu Bee links posts (think of them as smaller versions of this newsletter’s around the web section). You can enjoy links with commentary for 08-04, 08-05, 08-06, and 08-07.

In Fixing Failed KOReader OTA Update on PocketBook, I explained how I successfully troubleshooted two failed KOReader OTA updates on my PocketBook ereaders. I shared something else I learned in Learning About Zantigo, which covers Taco Bell’s former (and apparently revived) rival.

I shared a Visual Novel Definition From Academic Paper (there will be more to come in that area). Speaking of things that originated in Japan, I noted an interesting statistic related to the disappointing performances of the two current sumo Yokozuna at the Nagoya Basho in 2026 Nagoya Basho Unfortunate For Yokozuna. Finally, I offered a PSA: Shueisha Makes Approximately 400 Manga Series Free For Limited Time.

Leaves from around the web

My Coolidge article in conjunction with its linked sources should be enough reading for a week of Coolidge. But for those of you who may want to mix things up a bit, I present 15 links from around the web, accompanied by quotes and my world-famous link commentary.

The best in fashion

1 - Dress made of living mycelium can renew and repair itself (Rina Sabina Aouf for Dezeen. August 5, 2026.)

Researchers in China have created a textile from living mycelium that is self-cleaning, near self-repairing and can be coloured or made UV protective through ‘plug-and-play’ add-ons of different fungi or yeast.

I doubt that there’s mushroom in the market for this dress technology.

2 - Colors of The Court (Tyler Machado for The Pudding. October 2024.)

In 2017 Nike took over the contract to produce NBA jerseys and ushered in the most extreme overhaul of aesthetic standards yet. The white-at-home standard was officially eliminated; teams were now free to wear the color of their choosing. In fact, the very notion of a ‘home’ or ‘away’ jersey was eliminated, with Nike now classifying each team’s wardrobe into four ‘editions.’ Here’s what they look like for your local team, the Utah Jazz.

I haven’t followed things too closely since 2016 but what in the world is that yellow Jazz uniform monstrosity? My eyes! They were great in the 1997 and 1998 Finals!

Publishing integrity

3 - EXCLUSIVE: Simon & Schuster Selectively Edited Disgraced Scholar Jason Arday’s Memoir To Soften Now-Toxic Reputation (Benjamin Ryan for The Washington Free Beacon. August 7, 2026.)

The co-writer, Eve Claxton, a Brooklyn-based ghostwriter and editor, goes uncredited on the book’s U.S. cover. It’s unusual for a professor to need such help writing a book, much less his own memoir.

There are so many problems here so I selected a quote that would be easy to read over as people ponder is fabricated life story.

4 - Exclusive: Death of girl in Chinese gene-editing trial was never made public (Brendan Borrell for Science. July 23, 2026.)

Although news that base editing saved “Baby KJ” would soon rocket around the world—Science named the feat one of the runners-up for its 2025 Breakthrough of the Year—the story of what happened at Xinhua Hospital has remained hidden … Seven days after the girl’s medical team infused trillions of viruses carrying the recipe for the base editor into her spinal fluid, she died of a severe immune reaction linked to the therapy, Science and Retraction Watch can now reveal.

Details.

Fighting through injury

5 - About pain and other ailments
Andrea Petkovic at Finite Jest. April 24, 2026.

“The last five months of my career I played with a chronic elbow issue. It wasn’t the reason I retired but playing with tears in my eyes from the excruciating pain for the first ten minutes of every practise session definitely didn’t help … My whole life revolved around my elbow. Until the day I retired. I was so occupied grieving my career when it ended that I completely forgot about my elbow. After all, I didn’t need it anymore.

An interesting reflection on dealing with injury at the highest levels of tennis.

6 - Congrats (Again) to Aonishiki! Updated Profile of July 2026 Grand Sumo Tournament Winner (Mary Pat Campbell for Sumo Stats. August 1, 2026.)

Given [Aonishiki’s] foot troubles, there is probably a reasonable limit to how much weight he can put on without causing lots of performance issues.

Winning a grand sumo tournament on a bum ankle with a broken toe is no small feat…

Pocket the books

7 - You Don’t Need to Get a New eReader to Read 3rd Party eBooks (Matthew at TechTea. March 11, 2025.)

You can buy ebooks from many places and still put them on your eReader using Calibre. Before we get started I wanted to preface this with the fact that I’ve never owned a kindle and only have ever used a Kobo, but the principles apply to all eReaders.

These are good tips. But for free ebooks, count me as a PocketBook fan. See my post *DRM-Free Ebook Sources* for additional recommendations.

8 - Pocketbook Era With Koreader (Florian Engel. September 21, 2025.)

The PocketBook Era was the first I tried because my wife has one. Unfortunately, I was disappointed very quickly: the text looked excellent, but the performance was downright abysmal … By chance, I stumbled upon KOReader in the context of Kobo devices.

I almost talked myself into getting an Era because of the side buttons, but for now I am sticking with my PocketBook InkPad Color with Koreader.

Questionable Construction

9 - Life Inside Icelandic Turf Houses (Amelia Soth for JSTOR Daily. July 15, 2026.)

The Icelanders of the nationalist movement saw turf houses through the lens of their struggle for independence from Denmark; today, we see them through the lens of a different anxiety—our distance from nature and our impact on the environment. It’s striking how perspectives change.

“We” is doing work here.

10 - Tenement House Act of 1901 (HT Ephemeral New York) (Sarah Bean Apmanin for Village Preservation Blog. April 11, 2016.)

[T]he law succeeded in prohibiting the construction of buildings with windowless interior rooms, requiring that all rooms have windows facing the street, rear yard, or an interior shaft.

Correct policy call in 1901.

11 - Fall of the House of Bobble (Josh Blackman for The Volokh Conspiracy. August 18, 2025.)

On Friday, I visited my office for the first time in several weeks. When I opened the door, I saw it. One of the two cases had fallen off the wall. More than a dozen bobbleheads fell to the floor. They were shattered, broken, and decapitated.

Especially for Supreme Court Associate Bobblehead Justice Thomas.

What’s going on in Japan?

12 - Shizuoka man arrested for stealing 50 fire hose nozzles (Master Blaster for SoraNews24. September 19, 2025.)

The original arrest took place on 29 August, when the man was caught attempting to steal a fire hose nozzle in Kannami Town, Shizuoka Prefecture. The man admitted to the charges but remained in custody as police investigated similar thefts of 81 nozzles throughout the eastern part of the prefecture.

Look. He’s not judging your hobbies.

13 - Anime fan in Japan arrested for ordering and cancelling over 4.3 billion yen in anime merch (Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. August 6, 2026.)

That’s not to say that the woman, Mayu Yoshida, stole anything. Instead, she placed the orders but never paid for, or took delivery of, the items.

While I once cautioned against window shopping in excess, I may recommend it to this lady as an alternative to what led to her arrest.

Scandals: You decide

14 - Scandal Rocks Tour de France After Teams Accuse Riders of Wearing Padded Bras to Gain Advantage (Warner Todd Huston for Breitbart. August 4, 2026.)

Elite racers of all sorts try to gain every advantage they can, even if the gain might seem extremely negligible to the rest of the world. As such, some female cyclists have used bras that make their bosoms rounder to aid in the aerodynamics of their bodies as they race.

When I saw “Scandal” and “Tour de France,” I thought back to the many doping scandals of year’s past, some of which were darkly comedic. This one is a little different.

15 - Chinese Rafting Park in Hot Water Over ‘Female Companion’ Service (He Qitong for Sixth Tone. August 5, 2026.)

In an official announcement posted on WeChat last Thursday, however, the company behind the park denied any connection to the female companion service, saying a separate company had privately launched the service.

A likely story.

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 August 1-7 with notes on their cumulative ranking statistics going back to 2021.

1. Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine (NAF. Jan. 21, 2026.) 29 appearances and 12 top-placements.

2. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search (NAF. April 17, 2025.) 32 appearances and 20 top-placements in 2026; 59 appearances and 41 top-placements overall.

3. Free “Just Heavy :)” Air Conditioner in Brooklyn (NAF. August 6, 2026.) First appearance.

4. Broken Optical Audio Cable Door “Fix” (NAF. September 16, 2023.) First appearance in 2026; 23 appearances overall.

5. Using a Small Paper Clip as SIM Tray Tool (NAF. October 5, 2025.) First appearance.

Analysis

Our regular top-two led the way as usual, with Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine going wire-to-wire for its 10th top-placement in 11 weeks. But this week was notable in that we had three articles make their first appearances of 2026. My short free air conditioner post was boosted into third by the Newsbreak App while Using a Small Paper Clip as SIM Tray Tool, which sits in 24th place overall in 2026, made its weekly ranking debut. Slotting in 4th was Broken Optical Audio Cable Door “Fix”, which made its first 2026 top-five after having appeared in 22 weekly rankings in 2024-25. My optical audio cable article was the second highest ranked article on the overall 2026 standings without a weekly top-five. The highest? Futaba Igarashi’s Hair Is Naturally Green?, which perhaps improbably sits in 10th place overall in 2026, but has not appeared in a weekly top-five since being published in November 2021.

News leaf journal

I changed the color of the background for articles on The New Leaf Journal. It is now off-white instead of white and goes with our main background color. I may make a few other tweaks to different in-article elements (August is the month for style changes).

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 have a few in-progress articles that I did not have time to finish for publication last week, so I should have a good amount to share in Newsletter 293.

Until August 15,
Independence forever! Nicholas A. Ferrell.