Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXLVII 〜 Four becomes three
Issue 247 of The Newsletter Leaf Journal brings September to a close with links to the thee newest NLJ and ECS posts, 21 links from around the web, and the most-visited articles at The New Leaf Journal.
Welcome to the 247th 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 was again busy with work-work last week. As a result, I was not busy on my two websites. However, I did publish a few posts, which is more than can be said for the previous week.
Leaves from the week that was
Back in April, I published an article on Amazon's eQuad cargo (so-called) bikes. One reason I dispute that they are "bikes" is because they have four wheels. On September 23, I documented an unfortunate Amazon vehicle in Broken Wheel on Amazon eQuad Cargo Bike in Brooklyn Heights. I suppose this one became a three-wheeler like the Happy Cleaners Cargo Trike in Gowanus that I documented back in July.
One day later, I published Inflatable Back to School Gnome in Brooklyn. While I deduced that the inflatable gnome was meant to signify back to school when I took the photo for the article, I only noticed something about the gnome's costume when I reviewed my photo.
Finally, I published Following MangaGamer on Steam on ECS. MangaGamer has published some visual novels I like, such as the When They Cry series and MYTH. But it also publishes novels I have no interest in, as I was made aware of in a new-release email from Steam.
Leaves from around the web
I probably did not give you enough to read this final weekend of September 2025. But fear not, here comes 21 links from around the web.
Wait for it (AI edition)
I Hate Wasting Time on Identifying AI Slop
Alex Hanna at Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000: The Newsletter. April 16, 2025.
Newsletter Leaf Journal readers can rest assured that while we make fun of AI slop, we do so in humane fashion.
An AI Fail By An Elite Litigation Firm
David Lat. September 23, 2025.
Setting aside all the debates and issues involving the "Church of Scientology," let no one say it's not blessed with its legal enemies.
Humans are being hired to make AI slop look less sloppy
Angela Yang for NBC News. August 31, 2025.
Stay with me but what if we cut out the middle-bot?
What if the problem is actually AI's competition?
At Harvard-Hosted 'Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon,' Law Students Target the Pages of Firms That Criticized School's Response to Anti-Semitism
Chuck Ross for The Washington Free Beacon. April 14, 2025.
Buried lede: Be careful with those Wikipedia cites!
Wikipedia Editors Attempted to Delete Article on Murder of Iryna Zarutska, Then Protected Suspect's Name
T.D. Adler for Breitbart. September 21, 2025.
...Especially on any matter that may cut against the political sensibilities of the people most involved with contributing to Wikipedia.
Finding the angles other people miss
China’s Great Firewall suffers its biggest leak ever as 500GB of source code and docs spill online — censorship tool has been sold to three different countries
Luke James for Tom's Hardware. September 13, 2025.
Time to perfect our Baidu SEO game.
Iverson recalled John Thompson's stance on playing college football
Jonas Panerio for The Basketeball Network. September 21, 2025.
Coach Thompson made the right call as a practical matter (Iverson ended up being the number one pick in the 1996 NBA Draft after his sophomore season at Georgetown) but it would have been interesting to see Iverson terrorize Division I-AA (now FCS) football.
Google unveils new personalization features for retail ads
Jasmine Sheena for Marketing Brew. August 26, 2025.
Say what one will but its refreshing to see a big tech company put its customers first.
DOAI EKI: Japan’s creepiest station
Ben Leighton for Tokyo Cowboy. January 30, 2025.
They say creepy. I say good exercise.
The problem will have you know that it is the solution
OpenAI introduces parental controls and new safety features to ChatGPT after lawsuit
AlternativeTo. September 3, 2025.
You'll be shocked to know that it involves additional ChatGPT models.
Hackers Are Costing K-12 School Systems More Than Money
Sophie McDowall for FDD. September 19, 2025.
Not suggested: Maybe consider whether all this student personal information needs to be online.
Hair styles
Game piece reveals Viking hairstyle
The History Blog. August 28, 2025.
Need to look your best for the pillaging.
Can the iper regent hair style of ’80s Japan’s bad boy youth ever make a comeback?
Master Blaster for SoraNews24. April 10, 2021.
It probably won't make a comeback but it definitely sticks.
We visit one of Japan’s top pompadour barbers, learn a secret about those Coming of Age Day photos
Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. March 25, 2021.
It's a good thing there's a one-day option.
Nepalese-run Tokyo hair salon gave us the number-one hairstyle for handsome Nepalese men
Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. May 18, 2021.
Going to Tokyo to learn what's hip'n'happenin' in Nepal.
I'm not the expert
Anime isn’t like reality – Shy girl ponytail edition
Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. May 8, 2022.
I never thought much about how a shy girl would do her ponytail and would most likely have little to offer if I had. I defer to the woman manga artist
Woman Goes to Get Brazilian Wax, Alarmed to Notice Waxer Is Wearing Meta’s Video Recording Glasses
Noor Al-Sibai for Futurism. August 31, 2025.
I'd suggest making "no Facebook glasses" a job requirement but I don't have much experience in the Brazilian waxing industry.
A bit of a deep dive into the Feedly bot
Sean Connor at The Boston Diaries. August 5, 2025.
I took a much more shallow dive while learning about my feed subscribers.
More serious reading
The Press Badge I Did Not Know I Never Wanted To Have
Julio Rosas at MostlyPeaceful.media. September 22, 2025.
"I can’t think of the last time I traveled for a work-related event where I both felt great excitement and absolute dread. The excitement for this trip to Arizona came from being able to see friends and to comfort each other in person as opposed to over the phone. In fact, I don’t think there has ever been a case prior to this week in my constant travels since 2020. Sure, there have been cases of nervousness when going to risky assignments, but never dread."
Medal of Honor recipient's remains identified after 80 years
Nicholas Slaton for Task & Purpose. September 20, 2025.
"Eight decades after he died, the Department of Defense confirmed it had positively identified the remains of Capt. Willibald Bianchi, a Medal of Honor recipient who went 'beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy' while fighting in the Philippines during World War II."
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 XL (September 20-26) with their 2025 and historic (dating back to 2021) weekly ranking information.
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Amazon "Cargo Bikes" in Brooklyn
Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 9, 2025.
2025: 22 appearances and 8 top placements. -
Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search
Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 17, 2025.
2025: 14 appearances and 8 top placements. -
Victory Chimes Schooner in Brooklyn Bridge Park
Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 5, 2024.
2025 & Cumulative: 5 appearances and 1 top placement. -
Aegis Authenticator and Linux Authenticator
Nicholas A. Ferrell. September 8, 2025.
2025: 2 appearances. -
Height differences in anime romances
Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 22, 2023.
2025: 6 appearances.
Cumulative: 21 appearances and 7 top placements.
Analysis
The top two positions in our weekly ranking flipped, with my survey of Amazon's "cargo bikes" reclaiming the top-spot after finishing second behind Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search for six consecutive weeks. The reversal was thanks to Reddit, which has not to the best of my recollection delivered much traffic to The New Leaf Journal outside of cases where one of my articles made Hacker News page one (I know that my tsuki ga kirei study and a few visual novel reviews have been shared there). The cargo bike post had the best single week of any article in 2025 and it may have done enough to take the top-spot in the September ranking, but that race is still too close to call between this week's top two.
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. You can also sign up for a separate newsletter which sends daily digests of our new posts here.
I published 31 articles in the 30 days of September 2020. September 2025 has been considerably slower due to my having more work. But things may be looking up next week, so I will try to finish and publish a couple of in-progress projects so I have more to share next week.
Until October 4,
Cura ut valeas -- Nicholas A. Ferrell