December 17, 2022

Newsletter Leaf Journal CXIV 〜 Telegram leaf journal

The 114th edition of our humble newsletter features talk show subsidies, links from around the web about Christmas tree cartels, and new and notes from The New Leaf Journal.

Welcome to the 114th 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 issue comes packed with links to our newest content, links from around the web, and other news and notes from The New Leaf Journal.

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. News leaf journal
6. Notable leaf journal
7. Taking leaf

1. Leaves from the week that was

I will begin by linking to our full articles from the previous week and conclude by linking to our shorter Leaflet posts.

• At Summer’s End vs A Dream of Summer
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 11, 2022.

  The over-detailed account of how I had intended to read At Summer’s End for a review but inadvertently started A Dream of Summer instead (life is hard).

• Photos of a pigeon eating berries
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 13, 2022.

  Left out of the headline: It was a struggle for the pigeon, standing on a sparrow-sized limb and all.

• Lincoln’s Telegram after first day of Battle of Nashville
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 16, 2022.

  Our latest “this day in history” piece.

• Wasteful talk show subsidies in New York
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 16, 2022.

  If our featured article is determined by length, this week’s featured article consists of my complaining about how my tax money is being put to work.

• Updating 2020 Murena Teracube 2e
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 11, 2022.

  Because two of our most-read articles relate to my Murena Teracube 2e (see phone review and OS review, I decided to write a short guide to how I fixed an update issue on my 2020 model (fortunately, an easier fix is on the way).

• Social media on government phones
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 15, 2022.

  Long time readers should not be surprised that I support a new effort to ban TikTok on government phones, having said as much in a 2020 article. However, I expressed my horror at the idea that people install any personal social media apps on their government-issued devices.

2. Leaves from around the web

Let’s see what is happening around the world wide web…

• Secrets of the Christmas Tree Trade
  Owen Long for Curbed. December 7, 2022.

  Wherein we learn that Christmas Tree dealing in New York City is a dirty business (but only one murder in the last 30 years).

• Ash Ketchum And Pikachu’s Time In The Pokémon Anime Is Coming To An End
  Ollie Reynolds for Nintendo Life. December 16, 2022.

  This story calls for a nostalgia-tinted article from me. I am working on an angle.

• Putting Out Fires
  Peter Braun for City Journal. October 17, 2022.

  Peter Braun, a Portland police officer, shares stories and thoughts from a night on patrol.

• Floppy Driver Update Ready For Linux 6.2 - Still Being Maintained in 2023
  Michael Larabel for Poronix. December 5, 2022.

  Guys! We don’t have to go back to Windows!

• Federal COVID Aid is Funding a Pickleball Court Construction Boom
  Daniela Altimari for Route Fifty. April 26, 2022.

  Our Federal tax dollars at work.

• The nurses fired for mocking patients on TikTok exemplify our culture of narcissism
  Adam B.Coleman for the New York Post. December 13, 2022.

  That among many other things.

• Nicole Kidman Makes Movies Worse
  Varad Mehta for Arc Digital. November 23, 2021.

  Notwithstanding the headline, the article is about there being too many trailers before movies. The author chose Ms. Kidman for the headline because those 20-25 minutes of trailers were followed by an advert by the actress lecturing people who are already in the movie theater about the importance of movie theaters.

• How to rebuild social media on top of RSS
  Jacob O’Bryant at Tools for Online Speech. December 13, 2022.

  This is an interesting piece from the developer of the Yakread reading app. I like many of the ideas, but I would emphasize different points from my perspective as someone interested in publishing.

• The Sega ST-V’s MIDI OUT: A Quick Examination and Failed Experiments
  Nicole Branagan at Nicole Express. December 11, 2022.

  I have had many personal battles with MIDI sound while reviewing old visual novels. This battle, however, is comparatively next-level.

• A visit to Japan’s Kirby Cafe to eat the Kirby car cake and more!
  Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. November 30, 2022.

  The car cake is truly a work of art.

3. The Old Leaf Journal

Let’s dig into our own archive…

• Perspectives From Japan On Watching Movie Credits
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. May 13, 2022.

  Less of a problem than the pre-movie trailers noted in one of our Around the Web posts.

• Mary Lennox and Winter Walks
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 16, 2020.

  If the heroine of The Secret Garden can go for winter walks, there is no reason to let the colder weather keep you indoors.

• The Pigeon on a Limb
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. February 11, 2021.

  The spiritual predecessor to last week’s new pigeon-on-a-limb post.

• A Christmas Menagerie On a Lawn in Gowanus
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 12, 2021.

  I can report that it is back this year – (fighting?) unicorns and all.

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 on The New Leaf Journal. The week of December 10 to 16 was the 50th Newsletter Week of 2022.

#	Title	By	Pub	22Top5
1	The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei	NAF	3.14.21	50 (29)
2	Cross-posting from Mastodon to Twitter	NAF	4.18.22	8 (5)
3	The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 - Statistics and Analysis	NAF	1.18.22	5
4	A Look at ProxiTok, a TikTok Frontend	NAF	5.14.22	5
5	The Last Stand of Constantine XI	NAF	5.30.20	13

My 2021 tsuki ga kirei post topped the weekly ranking while continuing its streak of making every weekly top five in 2022 (the streak is now at 86 consecutive weeks going back to 2021). It looks quite likely to make the final two weekly top fives of 2022 and complete a perfect year.

The middle of our top five featured three 2022 articles. My Leaflet on cross-posting from Mastodon to Twitter made its eighth consecutive weekly top five (despite the fact that the main instance for the crossposter no longer works due to there being too many users). My study of early-generation Pokémon stats returned to the weekly top five for the first time since Newsletter Week 31 (July 30-August 5), at which time it capped off a stretch of four consecutive appearances. Despite its prolonged absence from the weekly top fives, it has continued to rank highly in our monthly rankings. My post on ProxiTok made its second consecutive top five. Our weekly rank was capped by my history of Constantine XI’s last stand edging out my 2021 Ubuntu Touch install article to make its 13th appearance of 2022, rounding out a week which features articles from 2022, 2021, and 2020.

5. News leaf journal

I will focus on writing and publishing articles during the next two weeks. I have a number of interesting projects in the works, so be sure to regularly check The New Leaf Journal (and subscribe to our main RSS/ATOM/JSON feeds).

6. Notable leaf journal

One of my most-read articles of all time is a 2021 survey of my favorite F-Droid apps. F-Droid is an independent Android application repository which, by default, only includes free and open source applications. That article is due for an update, but for this newsletter, I will share a new F-Droid app that I stumbled upon.

Meet the Inflation Calculator.

Do you get this sinking feeling that a dollar today is not worth what a dollar was worth a few years ago? If so, you can confirm your suspicion with this very easy-to-use open source application. Some of our international readers will be in luck too. The app is ready to use for people curious about the United States, United Kingdom, and France.

7. Taking leaf

Thank you as always for reading and following The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you enjoyed the content and are not already following the newsletter, you can sign up with your email or add our newsletter’s RSS feed to your favorite feed reader see options.

I plan to mail newsletters for the next two Saturdays – which fall on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve respectively. However, due to the holidays and the fact that I have some big New Leaf Journal projects in the works (especially my annual New Years Day year-in-review – see 2020 and 2021), the next two newsletters may be on the shorter end of the spectrum.