October 1, 2022

Newsletter Leaf Journal CIII 〜 October 1, NOT September 31

The 103rd Newsletter Leaf Journal features our newest articles (including two poems), links from around the web, and notes about Hacker News RSS feeds.

Welcome to the 103rd 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 administrator and editor of The New Leaf Journal, Nicholas A. Ferrell. Today’s newsletter contains our usual assortment of links to new New Leaf Journal content, links from around the web, and news and notes about our growing project.

Table of Contents

1. Leaves From The Week That Was
2. Leaves From Around The Web
3. The Old Leaf Journal
4. Most-Turned Leaves Of The Newsletter Week
5. Notable Leaf Journal
6. News Leaf Journal
7. Taking Leaf

1. Leaves From Around The Web

I published five full articles since the last newsletter. See our new content below:

• The Days of the Month Poem
  N.A. Ferrell. September 26, 2022.

  An old poem to help you remember which months have 30 days and which months have 31 (with some lines on the matter of February as well).

• Bad Dog Owners in New York City
  N.A. Ferrell. September 27, 2022.

  Inspired by a lady taking Fido into a produce store.

• Video Game Stories and Standing the Test of Time
  N.A. Ferrell. September 28, 2022.

  Which games stand the test of time as technology marches on?

• The Nuptial Charm (1827 Poem)
  N.A. Ferrell. September 29, 2022.

  A short poem on the charm of wedded bliss.

• September 2022 at The New Leaf Journal
  N.A. Ferrell. September 30, 2022.

  All of our September content organized into topical categories. Moreover, the post also includes a ranking of the most-visited articles of September.

I published 11 shorter Leaflet posts in the past week. A few of the posts will be linked to elsewhere in the instant newsletter. Below, you will find the Leaflets which do not make appearances in other newsletter sections.

• Suspicious Email Claiming Bitcoin Spam
  N.A. Ferrell. September 24, 2022.

  I have reason to doubt the story of the “concerned” emailer with “marketing” in his, her, or its email address.

• Question About Copying .odt into WordPress
  N.A. Ferrell. September 24, 2022.

  My question about dfn tags remains unanswered.

• Do We All Need to Listen to Your Kid’s Tantrum?
  N.A. Ferrell. September 25, 2022.

  You do not need to take every problem to your balcony.

• Corrupted Photos in Google Photos
  N.A. Ferrell. September 26, 2022.

  A warning to be careful with free online photo storage.

• Ella’s Bad Car Insurance Customer Service
  N.A. Ferrell. September 26, 2022.

  When telemarketers selling “car insurance” hang up on you for not having a car.

• Google Discontinues Stadia
  N.A. Ferrell. September 29, 2022.

  I have been so successful at ignoring game streaming services that I only learned about Google Stadia with news of its impending demise.

• NYC Mayor Says Kansas Does Not Have a Brand
  N.A. Ferrell. September 30, 2022.

  I remind our Mayor that “brand” is value neutral. The question should be less whether you have a “brand” and more what your “brand” is.

2. Leaves From Around The Web

Let’s see what’s happening around the world wide web.

• Browsers with built-in VPNs - the new normal? Microsoft bakes a VPN into Edge and turns it on.
  Ekaterina Kachalova for the AdGuard VPN Blog. September 30, 2022.

  I published my thoughts in Leaflet form.

• He’s back: Italy’s Berlusconi wins Senate seat after tax ban
  Giada Zampano for the Associated Press. September 27, 2022.

  While some focus on what was a new and inspiring political comeback story, I focused instead on Mr. Berlusconi continuing to be his authentic self in a Leaflet about him and his 32-year old girlfriend both winning their elections (happy 86th birthday, Senator-elect Berlusconi).

• Lycoris Recoil and Shingo Adachi: Turning Original Anime Production Chaos in Your Favor
  kViN at Sakuga Blog. September 28, 2022.

  An excellent long-form piece on the production of one of the most popular new anime series of the summer season, Lycoris Recoil. See my Leaflet on the post making page 1 of Hacker News shortly after I shared it (I posted a couple of comments there as well).

• Fish fossil catch from China includes oldest teeth ever
  Maddie Burakoff for the Associated Press. September 28, 2022.

  Is 400 million years that old?

• PS1 Strengths and Weaknesses vs N64 and Sega Saturn
  Racket Boy. January 10, 2020.

  An interesting technical comparison between the three most successful consoles of the fifth console generation.

• Activist takes on Central Park’s speeding ‘Tour de France’ cyclists with bullhorn, radar device
  Reuven Fenton and David Meyer for the New York Post. September 25, 2022.

  “Jerome Dewald, 71, has devoted several hours every day since May trolling speeding, red-light blowing cyclists at a deadly park intersection – using a radar device to track their speed and a bullhorn to try to shame them into slowing down.”
  (I am honored to recognize a true hero in this humble Newsletter.)

• Bullets Journal for 25 September-30 September 1996
  Bullets Journal. September 30, 1996.

  Let’s check in on how the NBA’s Washington Bullets (now the Wizards) were preparing for the 1996-97 NBA season:
  “When asked if he [Rod Strickland] really wanted to play for the Bullets or not: ‘I don’t need to get into all that. But I’m feeling good about it now. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to come.’ Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it looks like he’s bought into the team concept for the time being.”
  (Strickland did end up staying with the Bullets for several years and was voted to the All NBA Second Team in the 1997-98 season, his one and only All NBA selection in his 17-year career. Curiously, he did not make the mid-season All Star game in 97-98 despite his end-of-year All NBA selection.)

• Japanese KitKats get a new regional flavour, straight from a Tokyo island
  Oona McGee for SoraNews24. September 28, 2022.

  This is an interesting article with interesting facts about the island of Ogasawara and its native mizu lemon, but… “The little-known island lemon is now getting its time in the sun as the star ingredient in the new ‘Tokyo Island Lemon’ KitKat.” I am not sure about this combo. But in any event, I do not think it will make it stateside for me to test.

• Remote Work and the State Tax War
  Steven Malanga for City Journal. September 26, 2022.

  A tax war between the states.

• NESOS gives 8-bit system a GUI desktop, 8 tiny files, and it’s amazing
  Kevin Purdy for Ars Technica. September 29, 2022.

  A mini Nintendo Entertainment Operating System that can apparently be run in an emulator (the NESOS is free to download for anyone inclined to give it a go).

3. The Old Leaf Journal

Let’s dig into The New Leaf Journal archives…

• The Inspiring Political Comebacks of Byron Brown and Vito Fossella
  N.A. Ferrell. November 7, 2021.

  My Leaflet on Mr. Silvio Berlusconi is not the first time that I have tackled inspiring political comebacks at The New Leaf Journal.

• “Hawkweed” - An Autumnal Poem By Lizzie Deas
  N.A. Ferrell. October 15, 2021.

  Seasonal.

• The Happy Halloween Ghost
  N.A.Ferrell. October 18, 2020.

  Already seeing unfortunate signs that my call to keep Halloween decorations tasteful will once again be unheeded.

• A Walker’s Review of BLUPOND’s Knight Vision Night Driving Glasses
  N.A. Ferrell. November 13, 2021.

  I misplaced the glasses somewhere in my room. The car lights are terrible. Please help.

4. Most-Turned Leaves Of The Newsletter Week

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 – which I reviewed. The week of September 24 to September 30 was the 39th Newsletter Week of 2022. (Note we do not count the homepage in the ranking, but it would have been second last week.)

#	Article	Auth	Pub	22Top5
1	Review of /e/ - An Android Alternative For Mobile Phones	NAF	11.21.21	8 (4)
2	The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei	NAF	3.14.21	39 (24)
3	Recommended F-Droid FOSS Apps For Android-Based Devices (2021)	NAF	11.27.21	38 (7)
4	Installing Ubuntu Touch on an Asus Nexus 7 (2013)	NAF	7.5.21	31
5	Ghostwriter Markdown Editor Review	NAF	10.8.21	1

(Parentheticals in 22Top5 section indicate number of first-place finishes.)

The week in New Leaf Journal page views was proceeding uneventfully through Thursday afternoon with my tsuki ga kirei article en route to its fourth consecutive third-place finish despite having a middling week by its standards. Then my /e/ OS review, which shattered every New Leaf Journal views record with his Hacker News page one appearance in August 2021, was shared on the personal website of Mr. Ruan Yifeng. I never heard of the site. This is perhaps unsurprising because the site is in Chinese. I still have not translated where my post appeared, but it appears that the site is popular and my /e/ OS review gained so many views on Thursday and Friday that it nearly took the top spot in the September ranking for the second month in a row, coming up just short in what was our closest top-two article race for a month going back to the start of 2021 (my tsuki ga kirei article narrowly won the honor for the 12th time in 17 months). Other than the late surge of my /e/ OS review, the only mild surprise in our weekly ranking was the top-five debut of my review of the Ghostwriter markdown editor, one week short of one year since it was published. However, while this is its first weekly top-five, it is (as of this writing) our 21st most-visited article of 2022.

5. Notable Leaf Journal

The New Leaf Journal has benefited from having others share our content on Hacker News. Three of our five most-viewed articles of all time, my /e/ OS review (linked above), my article on RSS as a Facebook Alternative, and my short post on an individual who uploaded 2,000,000 videos to YouTube, all gained the majority of their views thanks to Hacker News shares. However, I also have a profile on Hacker News. While I have not posted an New Leaf Journal articles, I have sporadically posted other content.

I follow Hacker News shares via RSS using my DecSync-powered feed reading solution. Where do I find Hacker News RSS feeds? I use an interesting site called Hacker News RSS, which offers a variety of customizable Hacker News feeds.

Now something occurred to me. I have a page on The New Leaf Journal where I list all of my online profiles and feeds. Yet Hacker News was not listed. I rectified that problem with the help of Hacker News RSS. You will now find two Hacker News feeds for my profile:

• Submissions, including submitted articles and comments
• Favorited posts

If you are curating a New Leaf Journal feed collection, feel free to add my two Hacker News feeds. I am not a frequent commenter (not my favorite pastime in real life, much less online), but now that I am sharing my feeds on The New Leaf Journal, I will work to share more interesting content from around the web to Hacker News and use the favorite button to highlight posts that I find interesting. If you run your own site and have a non-anon Hacker News profile, I encourage you to share your profile feeds with your community of readers.

6. News Leaf Journal

My Hacker News Notable Leaf Journal content segues into this section. I have been studying IndieWeb concepts to see what I can incorporate into The New Leaf Journal (as well as into future projects). You can see the result of some of my research in how I marked up a few of this week’s Leaflets (see example). Right before the Hacker News feed idea occurred to me, I was looking at creating a system for bookmarking interesting articles from around the web on The New Leaf Journal. I found a suitable format for the task, so the next step will be to create a new bookmark custom post type and then make sure that people can find it. In addition to the bookmarks, I am also looking at creating an Events custom post type, although I may decide to run that off-site.

With regard to content, I fell a bit behind in September due to my day job and as a result, I have a few outstanding projects that I had planned to publish in September to align with the end of summer. But it is always summer somewhere (hello Australia), so I will publish some of the end-of-summer content in October while possibly reserving others for a more appropriate time.

Finally, I am looking at moving this humble newsletter from Buttondown to somewhere else in the somewhat-near-future due in part to changes in Buttondown’s free plan (while I very much like Buttondown, its paid offerings are too expensive given the small scope of this non-commercial project and the fact that it would cost more than hosting The New Leaf Journal itself). I have a few ideas, but I have not settled on a solution yet. I am of course looking for an affordable, privacy-respecting solution which also offers RSS/Atom functionality. While I will transfer all subscriptions to whatever our new solution is (just as I did from TinyLetter to Buttondown in 2021), I will give as much advance notice as practicable so that readers know when to expect a different emailing address.

7. Taking Leaf

Thank you as always for reading and following 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. I also syndicate our newsletters to Bearblog, albeit on a little bit of a delay.

Until October 8,

Cura ut valeas.