Newsletter Leaf Journal CI 〜 A more perfect newsletter
The 101st Newsletter Leaf Journal features pigeons and doves, Story of Seasons, reptile-free wildlife stories from Florida, and a bit of Constitution Day content.
Welcome to the 101st edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, the official newsletter of the perennially virid online writing magazine, The New Leaf Journal. This newsletter comes to you as always from the waterproof keyboard of the editor of The New Leaf Journal, Nicholas A. Ferrell. Today’s newsletter may not be as exciting as last week’s Newsletter 100, but I do have five new articles to share along with links from around the web and other news and notes from the week that was. Without further ado, let us get to the content.
Table of Contents
- Leaves From The Week That Was
- Leaves From Around The Web
- The Old Leaf Journal
- Most-Turned Leaves Of The Week
- Notable Leaf Journal
- News Leaf Journal
- Taking Leaf
1. Leaves From The Week That Was
I published five full articles over the last week, although I will concede that a few were not our longest-form content due to the fact that I was fighting against a couple of work deadlines.
- The Newsletter Leaf Journal at 100
N.A. Ferrell. September 10, 2022.
I published Newsletter 100 as an article. I trust that you have already read the newsletter version last week. Other than adjusting the format and a few minor tweaks, it is the same content.
- Manhattan Pigeon on a Window Sill
N.A. Ferrell. September 13, 2022.
Sometimes there is some deeper meaning to a title. Other times, the title describes the content perfectly.
- Dove on Love Lane in Brooklyn Heights
N.A. Ferrell. September 14, 2022.
Dove Lane.
- The Cathedral Plan With Ominous Dimensions
N.A. Ferrell. September 16, 2022.
Wherein I tell the story of a student in my high school class who tried unsuccessfully to make a logical case for a 666 foot cathedral (this was our 666th article).
- Engrossing but not Excessively Addictive
N.A. Ferrell. September 16, 2022.
I came across an interesting 2004 review of one of my favorite video games, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life. One passage from the review inspired me to reflect on what it means for a game to be engrossing instead of addictive, and how this can serve as a target for game design going forward.
I also published seven Leaflets during the past week. I linked to one Leaflet above. I will note a couple of other Leaflets later in the newsletter. Immediately below, you will find the Leaflets that are not discussed elsewhere in the Newsletter.
- A 6-Year Old’s YouTube Search History
N.A. Ferrell. September 14, 2022.
Suffice it to say, I had some questions.
- Fire Emblem Engage’s VTuber Hair Designer
N.A. Ferrell. September 14, 2022.
Never before had I needed to ask myself whether VTubers should design video characters. But my answer to that question after having been confronted with it is exactly what I suspected it would have been had I been asked in a hypothetical matter in the past.
2. Leaves From Around The Web
Most of my writing output during the last week was spent on a legal brief. Thus, you may need more content to get you through the next few days. Fear not, there was plenty of good content around the web…
September 17, 1796.
- The Dreamcast VM2 is an unofficial successor to the VMU memory card
Aya Furukawa for Automation West. September 10, 2022.
Although the Sega Dreamcast made it to North America 23 years ago, enthusiastic developers are still developing for it. Take, for example, a new and improved Dreamcast memory card. I published a leaflet with my thoughts on the story.
- Pitch-black Black Belt udon noodles are a visual roundhouse but do they taste good?
Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. September 14, 2022.
I’ve had squid ink fettuccine. I have never had black udon noodles colored by bamboo charcoal. I was more surprised by the shape of the udon than the color.
- Libertarian Party of Virginia votes to dissolve itself
Associated Press. September 15, 2022.
Libertarians exercise their free association rights to stop associating and dissolve the Virginia party. It is one thing to say that you are a libertarian. It is another thing to truly live a libertarian life.
- Popular Florida garden plant revives near-extinct butterfly population
Brad Matthews for the Washington Times. September 13, 2022.
I posted some humorous thoughts about how refreshing it is to see a Florida wildlife story with no large, carnivorous reptiles. You can see my Leaflet here.
- The middle school boys thought their teacher was a ‘creep.’ So they tracked how he treated the girls.
Amanda Milkovitis for the Boston Globe. September 9, 2022.
Good for the young men in this story. But it sounds like a greater house-cleaning at that school is in order.
- The Twisted Life of Clippy
Benjamin Cassidy for SeattleMet. August 23, 2022.
Considering what I came up with for The New Leaf Journal mascot, I am in no position to offer a negative critique of Microsoft’s famous (or infamous?) assistant.
- I Didn’t Hate Clippy
Mike Stone. August 26, 2020.
Distinguishing Clippy itself from the technology which powered it.
- Turn Your Old, Cracked Android Phone Into a Backup Server!
Hannah Lee. June 16, 2021.
I admire the effort and ingenuity although I suspect this falls more into the “because I can” than the “because I should” category.
- Too much screen time is turning our kids into boring beasts
Karol Markowicz for the New York Post. September 11, 2022.
“That’s the worst part of too much screen time. It leads to people who can’t meaningfully participate in society. They don’t know how to have relationships. The phone stands between them and real life. That real life, with awkwardness, tedium and monotony, just can’t compete with constant dopamine hits and filters that fix every flaw. But we all know how much better that imperfect reality actually is.” (Interesting take. However, I am not sure if the issue is that kids do not know how to be bored or that kids do not know anything but a very particular kind of screen-driven malaise.)
3. The Old Leaf Journal
Let’s dig into our archives…
- Pressed Flowers and Butterfly on Canvas
N.A. Ferrell. September 6, 2020.
One of my better antique store finds.
- Bed in Summer, Bed in Winter
N.A. Ferrell. September 5, 2020.
A post on changing seasons to mark the last newsletter of summer 2021 (in the northern hemisphere, at least).
- The Quarantine Sessions: “The Railroad Boy”
Victor V. Gurbo. May 15, 2020.
Victor V. Gurbo and Mark Caserta cover The Railroad Boy (video included), and Victor tells the story behind the classic folk ballad.
My 2020 Constitution Day post on the meaning of perfect in a more perfect union.
4. Leaves From Around The Web
I list our most-visited articles of the previous week in each newsletter. In keeping with our newsletter schedule, these “Newsletter Weeks” begin with Saturday and end on Friday. The statistics come courtesy of our local and privacy-friendly analytics solution, Koko Analytics (see review). The week of September 10 to September 16 was the 37th Newsletter Week of 2022.
| # | Article | By | Date | 22Top5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei | NAF | 3.14.21 | 37 (23) |
| 2 | Recommended F-Droid FOSS Apps For Android-Based Devices (2021) | NAF | 11.27.21 | 36 (7) |
| 3 | Review of /e/ - An Android Alternative For Mobile Phones | NAF | 11.21.21 | 6 (3) |
| 4 | “Uncle Susan is a Wolf” - A Graffiti Photo and Research Project | NAF | 12.29.21 | 1 |
| 5 | Abraham Lincoln’s 1851 Letters on Work to John D. Johnston | NAF | 11.4.21 | 3 (1) |
I noted in a Leaflet that the views for my tsuki ga kirei history were picking up after a slow (by its standards) summer. That trend held up for the first half of the week before it returned to its summer numbers in the second. However, taken together, it easily took the top spot in the ranking for the 23rd time in 2022 and the 48th time overall. The notable entrant for the week is my study of “Uncle Susan is a Wolf” graffiti, which turned a big Wednesday showing into its first weekly top-five. However, Uncle Susan is currently the 27th most-visited article of 2022, so that it cracked the top five for one week (I recall it was close on a couple of occasions in the spring) is not a huge surprise.
5. Notable Leaf Journal
I covered a website called The Forest, which is available at https://theforest.link in a short Leaflet. The Forest is a single-page website with two options, “go for a walk” or “plant a tree.” Going for a walk takes you to a random website that has been submitted to The Forest and approved by the people who run the site. Planting a tree allows you to submit a site. It is a fun little project and a good way to find independent blogs and websites that would not often turn up in generalist search engines. I noted it in part because we received an unusually high number of referrals from The Forest over the last few days.
6. News Leaf Journal
I do not have news to report from the last week because I barely had time to post articles, much less to reform the site. But I am still working publish some proverbial big ticket articles by the end of the month.
7. Taking Leaf
Thank you as always for joining us for another edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you have not done so already, you can sign up to follow The Newsletter Leaf Journal via email or RSS feed. I also syndicate all of our newsletter posts to my blog on Bearblog. I look forward to catching up with everyone again next Saturday (September 24).
Until then,
Cura ut valeas.