October 22, 2022

Newsletter Leaf Journal CVI 〜 Not annotated (yet)

The 106th edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal features our newest articles, links from around the web, and notes about our use of Hypothes.is for annotations.

Welcome to the 106th 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 brings with it your usual assortment of links to our newest content, links from around the web, and other news and notes. If you have ever been inclined to comment on a New Leaf Journal post, you will want to make sure to read this week’s News Leaf Journal section.

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 Week
5. Notable Leaf Journal
6. News Leaf Journal
7. Taking Leaf

1. Leaves From The Week That Was

I published seven new articles since mailing the previous newsletter. Let’s see what was happening in The New Leaf Journal:

• The Thin Digital Line Between “Buy” and “Rent”
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 16, 2022.

  An essay about those times that the “buy” button is not as different from the “rent” button as the seller would like you to believe.

• Existential Crisis of the Rotting Pumpkin
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 17, 2022.

  A photo-article proving that the scariest thing about Halloween can be what is left out after Halloween.

• An In-Depth Look at Norton Safe Search
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 18, 2022.

  Finding an antivirus “search engine” in my logs would ordinarily prompt nothing more than a Leaflet. However, something about this particular referrer URL prompted a more in-depth investigation.

• Custom Search Shortcut For Norton Safe Web
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 18, 2022.

  Consider this a package-deal with my main Norton Safe Search review.

• Mozilla’s Colorways Gobbledygook
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 19, 2022.

  After reading Mozilla’s announcement for the release of Firefox 106, I pled with Mozilla it write English sentences in comprehensible English.

• Inflatable Minion in Halloween Ghost Costume
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 20, 2022.

  Exactly as advertised.

• Comment on the NLJ with Hypothes.is
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 21, 2022.

  See this newsletter’s “News Leaf Journal” section for more information.

While I published a significant number of articles this past week, I only published two Leaflets. Quality over quantity?

• Birthday Maker: A Happy Birthday App
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 16, 2022.

  See the Notable Leaf Journal section of this newsletter.

• Mapquest Search Engine
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 19, 2022.

  I’m undecided whether the most notable aspect of my small investigation is that there is a Mapquest search engine or that Mapquest still exists.

2. Leaves From Around The Web

No one can say that I did not offer you plenty of reading material for the weekend (or whenever you happen to read this newsletter). But there is also plenty of content out there beyond the friendly confines of The New Leaf Journal…

Let us see what is happening around the web.

• Not a treat: Candy prices up 21% over last year heading into Halloween
  Sean Salai for the Washington Times. October 21, 2022.

  “The biggest increases were a 42% spike in the price of Skittles and a 35% jump for Starburst in September from a year earlier…”

• Blocking annoying and privacy-harming cookie consent banners
  Peter Snyder for Brave Browser. September 28, 2022.

  The Brave Web Browser now blocks annoying cookie consent banners by default. This is a welcome feature. Note that even if you do not use Brave, you can accomplish the same with uBlock Origin and the proper block lists (this is what I do on Firefox).

• Japanese ice cream brand Pino releases an official otome dating sim
  Hideaka Fujiwara for Automation West. October 19, 2022.

  “Because of the differences between humans and ice cream, the Pino wants to distance himself from the protagonist. Melt the Pino’s cold heart in a love story that could only be had with ice cream.”

• French cement firm admits to Islamic State group payments
  Eric Tucker and Bobby Caina Calvan. October 18, 2022.

  Was that wrong? Should they have not done that?

• The Kyoto way: Sidewalk sign with a window is actually a manners warning
  Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. October 16, 2022.

  I suspect that the clever window sign will be less effective than having traffic cops on the ground, but points for creativity nevertheless.

• Scientists prove existence of tiny people - once enigmatic characters from legend - who inhabited Taiwan long before inidigenous population
  Kevin McSpadden for the South China Morning Post. October 17, 2022.

  Make sure to read the part about local lore.

• The family link that reaches back 300 generations to a Cheddar cave
  The Independent. March 8, 1997.

  “Adrian Targett visited the home of a close relative yesterday. He had to put on Wellington boots because the floor is muddy. The relative was not in. Hardly surprising: he died 9,000 years ago.”

• New Jersey Legislators Aim To Ban Most In-Car Subscriptions
  Peter Holderith for The Drive. October 19, 2022.

  I am probably late to this issue because I (A) do not have a car and (B) work to spend as little time in cars as possible. But in-car subscriptions? This is dark. Almost as dark as the smart TV issue.

• Rage Against The ‘Algos’: The Creator Economy’s Algorithm Rebellion Is Growing
  Jaideep Singh for Forbes. September 26, 2022.

  I was fully with the article until the reference to “genuine” content on TikTok.

• How you can help keep blogging alive and thriving
  Marko Saric. May 24, 2020.

  This is a good post. The only thing missing is “be sure to follow The New Leaf Journal and subscribe to The Newsletter Leaf Journal.

3. The Old Leaf Journal

Let’s dig into our archives…

• Apollodorus and the Gourds of Hadrian
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 8, 2020.

  Be careful about telling the future Emperor to go paint gourds (if this ever happened at all, that is).

• Justin & Justina 〜 The Pumpkin Taker
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. November 14, 2020.

  My rotting pumpkin story from a few days ago should leave no doubt that Justin was correct in this 2020 dialogue to sound the alarm about rotting pumpkins.

• Peekier Search Engine Review
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. February 26, 2022.

  My Peekier review is one of our best-performing 2022 articles and as such, hardly needs The Old Leaf Journal for extra views. But I thought that this week was a good week to feature it since it is a more useful search tool than Norton Safe Search.

• The Trick-Or-Treating Halloween Daycare Ghost
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 29, 2020.

  It received a reference in my Minion-ghost report.

4. Most-Turned Leaves Of The 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 on The New Leaf Journal. The week of October 15 to October 21 was the 42nd Newsletter Week of 2022.

#	Article	Author	Pub	22Top5
1	The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei	NAF	3.14.21	42 (26)
2	Review of /e/ - An Android Alternative For Mobile Phones	NAF	11.21.21	11 (5)
3	Ghostwriter Markdown Editor Review	NAF	10.8.21	4
4	Calvin Coolidge Describes His Mother, Victoria	NAF	3.13.21	2
5	Installing Ubuntu Touch on an Asus Nexus 7 (2013)	NAF	7.5.21	33

The top four articles from Newsletter Week 41 returned in the same order, but we do have some interesting notes on this week’s ranking.

Firstly, the race for the most-read article of the Newsletter Week was our second closest of the year, with my tsuki ga kirei post narrowly taking the top spot for the 26th time in 2022 (thus surpassing its total of 25 first-place finishes in 2021).

We nearly had a three way tie from spots 4 through 6. I was surprised to see my post on Calvin Coolidge’s moving reflections on his mother make its second consecutive top-five after having never been close in its first 18 months online. My Teracube 2e phone review was the article which just missed out. While I do not have an exact count, that unfortunate article has narrowly missed the weekly ranking on six or seven occasions (it has made five appearances).

Finally, my F-Droid app review missed the top five for only the second time in 2022, coming in seventh after a strong Friday. It appears to have mostly run its course after notching seven first place finishes in 2022, but rest assured that I will publish a new-and-improved F-Droid app article before the year lets out.

I will conclude this section by noting that my Ghostwriter review, which has now notched four consecutive weekly top fives and back-to-back third-place finishes after having no prior appearances in its first year online, appears to be doing well of late thanks to Google Search. While its past two weeks would not have topped the weekly rank in any week this year, it is showing the type of strength that could allow it to notch a first-place finish at some point. Of course, the same could have been said about my Ubuntu Touch review, but all it has to show for its consistent strength is 53-top five appearances since it was published in July 2021.

5. Notable Leaf Journal

I wrote a Leaflet about a fun web app that I discovered on Hacker News as a “Show HN” post (people can use Show HN to share their own projects with the Hacker News community). A Hacker News user who goes by hitiks on the social tech site shared his Birthday Maker app. To use the app, go to its homepage and enter the name of the lucky birthday lad or lass and your own birthday message. After hitting submit, you will receive a link to send to the birthday-haver. I tested it and confirmed that it works, displaying a nice birthday montage along with your message. It is nice to see people working on charming little projects like this, and the community response was positive. I hope hitkis maintains and builds on the project. Give it a try if you need to wish someone a happy birthday (especially with birthday card prices these days…).

6. News Leaf Journal

I published an article yesterday (October 21) inviting people to post comments and annotations on New Leaf Journal content using Hypothes.is. Hypothes.is, as I explain in the article, is a free and open source (and free of cost) social annotation service. My article explains how to sign up and annotate The New Leaf Journal (as well as any other site). So long as your annotation is public and on an article on thenewleafjournal.com, I will find it. But to make things more fun and easy for New Leaf Journal super-fans (you are out there, right?) to follow along, I ask that you tag your comments and annotations “nljc” so that people who are interested can follow along via RSS or Atom feed.

Hypothes.is is a neat service which has many uses beyond commenting on our humble online magazine. If you already use it or want a creative way to tell me (N.A. Ferrell) how wrong I am about something, try commenting on some New Leaf Journal content. I may even reply on Hypothes.is.

7. Taking Leaf

Thank you as always for joining me for another exciting edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal. We had a good week of publishing, and I have some more interesting projects in store as we hit the final third of October. You can subscribe to The New Leaf Journal via feed and sign up to this humble weekly newsletter via email or RSS.

Until October 29,

Cura ut valeas.