December 31, 2022

Newsletter Leaf Journal CXVI 〜 Newsletter's eve

Our special New Years Eve newsletter comes with recaps of our own nine posts from the week, 13 articles from around the web, and other news and notes to bring 2022 to a close.

Welcome to the 116th edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, and our last newsletter of 2023 (happy New Year’s Eve/New Years to all of our readers). For those who may be new or those who have forgotten, The Newsletter Leaf Journal is the official newsletter of the perennially virid online writing magazine, The New Leaf Journal. This newsletter, like our previous 115 newsletters, comes to you from the waterproof keyboard of the editor of The New Leaf Journal, Nicholas A. Ferrell. Today’s newsletter features our usual assortment of New Leaf Journal links and stats, 12 articles from around the web (we have two bonuses), and other news, notes, and recommendations. It is a bit longer than usual, so without further ado, let’s get to the content.

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 final newsletter week of 2022
5. News leaf journal
6. Notable leaf journal
7. Taking leaf

1. Leaves from the week that was

The last week saw five new full articles and four leaflets. I will reserve one of the leaflets for the News Leaf Journal section.

• A Children’s poem about a Mrs. Quince
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 24, 2022.

  Our third quince article in just a few days. I used a new upscaling tool to produce a high quality version of the children’s book illustration which accompanied the poem.

• io [Christms Eve] - Visual Novel Review
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 24, 2022.

  There was no better time to publish the sixteenth installment of my al|together reviews than on Christmas Eve. The first half of the review was dominated by all the work it took to figure out how to make this visual novel work. Fortunately, I did the research so you don’t have to.

• Malcontent Openclipart Cat Christmas Tree
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 25, 2022.

  I had not planned to publish an article on Christmas, but events (heretofore “seeing a funny Openclipart vector image”) overtook me.

• Lincoln spares Frank R. Judd in 1864-65
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 29, 2022.

  Our feature article of the week (in terms of length and work involved) tells the story behind Abraham Lincoln’s December 29, 1864 directive that a volunteer soldier by the name of Frank R. Judd not be executed for desertion. Lincoln’s telegram caught my attention because it noted that Judd was the son of the United States Ambassador to Prussia. I found some interesting points about Lincoln’s relationship with Norman B. Judd (Frank’s father and said ambassador) and his prior efforts to help ensure young Frank Judd’s future.

• Reviewing Buddy Simulator 1984 for Switch
  Victor V. Gurbo. December 30, 2022.

  Victor V. Gurbo returned with his first article in a long while. He much enjoyed Buddy Simulator 1984 – but for the fact that the game benefits greatly from a physical keyboard and the Switch version only offers a virtual keyboard.

• Android/iOS Pigeon Calculator in English
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 27, 2022.

  Consider this a bonus around the web post. I link to the source article and offer my brief Pigeon Calculator thoughts.

• Fixing Wallabag connect on issue Nexus 7
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 28, 2022.

  There may have been another issue involving my private DNS settings, but things are working for the moment (which is good because Wallabag is now a key part of my new method of organizing external articles to share in this humble newsletter).

• Shutdown of the dev Mastodon Twitter Crossposter instance
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 28, 2022.

  Our most-read article over the past two months has been my short April Leaflet on trying the Mastodon Twitter Crossposter. I used an instance of the tool, which is self-hostable, run by its developer. The developer has decided to shut down his instance due to the fact that Twitter is no longer raising its API limit for the application (Twitter ordinarily limits apps to posting 300 times per hour). Because I wrote that Leaflet and a full review, I decided that I should publish a new Leaflet on the news. For my part, I had already stopped using it in November, and for the time being I am running my Mastodon account and our Twitter account separately. Those who are still interested can look into hosting the Crossposter on their own or finding a new instance or other cross-posting alternative.

2. Leaves from around the web

I have a new system for bookmarking articles for use in our humble newsletter. Let us see if it paid off in recommendation quality…

• NYPD arrests the Grinch, stops him from ‘stealing Christmas joy’
  Tina Moore for the New York Post. December 25, 2022.

  I had a hard-to-describe feeling that someone had saved Christmas around here.

• 1902 Rose Bowl: First College Bowl Game
  Mike Quinn for the Library of Congress. December 26, 2022.

  An interesting article about a game which turned out to be as much of a mismatch as it appeared to be on paper.

• Haiti’s Beloved Soup Joumou Serves Up ‘Freedom in Every Bowl’
  Jacquelyne Germain for Smithsonian Magazine. December 30, 2022.

  The history of this New Year’s dish comes with a recipe.

• The meaning of the mandarin and 6 other Japanese New Year traditions explained
  Oona McGee for SoraNews24. December 31, 2022.

  As advertised. In point three, it discusses the mikan, a Japanese mandarin. If you happen to play io [Christmas Eve], which I reviewed on December 24 (see previous section), you will find that the mikan played a central role in one scene of the visual novel.

• Buffalo man hailed as hero for rescuing 24 people during winter storm
  Nicholas McEntyre for the New York Post. December 30, 2022.

  “The Cheektowaga Police Department sent out a tweet asking for assistance to find the hero. After several hours of searching, police assured that [the hero] will not face any charges, but may face the thanks of a grateful community”

• New federal food label law has unintended effect: Sesame now in more foods
  Joel Aleccia for Fox 9. December 22, 2022.

  “Food industry experts said the requirements are so stringent that many manufacturers, especially bakers, find it simpler and less expensive to add sesame to a product — and to label it — than to try to keep it away from other foods or equipment with sesame.”

• We buy Kentucky Friend Chicken’s box of New Year’s food, but it comes with a surprising extra
  Dale Roll for SoraNews24. December 28, 2022.

  KFC used effective marketing to establish market dominance in the Christmas dinner sphere in Japan. Not fully satisfied, they are trying to capture New Years too (may be a heavier lift). This article has details about what is on offer along with an anecdote.

• (Currently) Free Movies I Enjoyed
  Larry Sanger. December 24, 2022.

  Recommended free (as of December 24, 2022) classic movies (and a few more recent movies) on YouTube. Each recommendation comes with Mr. Sanger’s rating and some additional analysis. Note that I have not tested the movies, so your results may vary – especially if you are reading this newsletter well after December 24.

• Christmas During the Civil War
  American Battlefield Trust. December 20, 2010.

  We’re close enough to Christmas for some Christmas celebration history.

• Cat behavioralist reveals what your feline’s go-to spot reveals about them - and why some are drawn to HOSPITALS
  Abi Turner for the Daily Mail. December 26, 2022.

  The writing is not interesting – but the article is worthwhile for the illustrative photos.

(I introduce the last two articles as a pair.)

• Judge Agrees Consumers Can Sue Over Misleading Movie Trailers
  Brian Doherty for Reason. December 22, 2022.
• “Why She Had to Go…She Wouldn’t Say”: Movie Renters Allowed to Sue Over Absence of Featured Star
  Jonathan Turley at Res ipsa loquitor. December 26, 2022.

  Worth reading together – two articles on the same ongoing (and… peculiar) lawsuit offering different perspectives.

3. The Old Leaf Journal

Let’s dig into our archive…

• Justin & Justina: Most-Read NLJ Content of 2020
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 1, 2021.

  Our first-ever New Year’s special featured Justin and Justina at The Emu Café reviewing the year that was. Justin and Justina will be going further than “top 20” tomorrow – but I will note that three articles from our original top 20 will be making their third consecutive top-20 appearances.

• Justin & Justina: The Most-Read New Leaf Journal Content of 2021
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 1, 2022.

  Our second annual year-in-review featured many more articles than the first, but still benefited from my fictional comedy duo. While there was more to review in 2021 than in 2020, I think my 2020 piece was a bit cozier.

• Anime Recommendations of the Decade (2011-20)
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 29, 2020.

  I concluded our first year with what was a big project – recommending some of my favorite anime series from the 2011-2020 decade (it was our longest article to date at that point and I think that it is still close to, if not in, our top 10). I chose series that (A) I liked and (B) may be of interest to a general audience, not just those who already watch anime. Because I could not finish my best-of-2022 anime post last week (it will come in the first week of 2023), I figured this may hold everyone over. I will preview my 2022 ranking by noting that later seasons of two series that I mentioned in my 2011-2020 decade piece will feature very prominently in my 2022 ranking.

• Reading Tea Leaves: The Symbolism of the Guitar and Other Instruments
  Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 4, 2022.

  I began 2022 with one of my stranger research projects. Let it be said that the title is an accurate description of the content.

4. Most-turned leaves of the final newsletter week of 2022

#	Article	By	Pub	22Top5
1	The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei	NAF	3.14.21	52 (30)
2	Tom Cantor’s Changed Has Poor Color Scheme	NAF	8.3.22	NEW
3	Installing Ubuntu Touch on an Asus Nexus 7 (2013)	NAF	7.5.21	36
4	An Early Review of Pixelfed - Instagram Alternative	NAF	11.13.20	10
5	The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 - Statistics and Analysis	NAF	1.18.22	7

We have finally reached week 52 of 52 of our 2022 newsletter week rankings. Save for one notable new entrant, there were no big surprises in our final weekly ranking, but a few points are worth noting.

Firstly, my tsuki ga kirei post completed a perfect 2022 – making the top five all 52 weeks and toping the ranking on 30 occasions. Going back to 2021, it has made 88 consecutive top-five appearances with 55 of those being in first place. It weakened in the second half of the year compared to its dominance from January through April, but there is no doubt that tsuki ga kirei continues to be our most consistent article in terms of generating page views. I doubt that it will repeat the perfect feat in 2023 – its streak will likely end at some point in 2023 – but I do think it is more likely than not to climb to 100 consecutive appearances.

Our final weekly ranking of 2023 saw one article making a debut appearance: My joke article about an unsolicited direct-mail religious conversion book. This brilliant piece of writing took me a few minutes to put together. In the back of my mind, I thought: “Hey, he is probably going to keep mailing these books to unsuspecting Americans, maybe I should cover this.” Thank you for never giving up on your dream, Mr. Cantor (so long as people keep trying to figure out why you are spamming their physical mailboxes, that is).

Our latter three articles have been common in recent top-fives. My Ubuntu Touch piece made its 36th appearance of 2022 – all without ever topping the ranking (it has notched a few second place finishes). In light of the fact that there is some news with Ubuntu Touch moving from Ubuntu Touch 16.04 to 20.04 (sadly, my Nexus 7 will not be making the leap), I expect it will continue to do well in 2023. My 2020 Pixelfed article became the sixth to notch 10 weekly top 5s in 2022, joining the two noted above, my 2021 F-Droid (42 appearances) and /e/ OS (14 appearances) reviews, along with my May 2020 piece on Constantine XI’s last stand (13 appearances). Finally, my early 2022 piece on Pokémon stats in generations one and two heads into 2023 with three consecutive weekly top fives.

Several articles very narrowly missed the last spot – but one that I will highlight here is my May 2021 review of the School Days anime, which has already quietly notched its best month in terms of total page-views. It is all but assured of making our year-end top-25 for the second year in a row, but in so doing, it will be one of only two top-25 articles to not be among the 40 articles to have made at least one top-five appearance this year. The other is my March 2021 piece on the forget-me-not flower, which will also make the year-end top-25 for the second year in a row. However, School Days is unique in that it also has no monthly top 12s (note I always list our top-12 most-visited articles in my month-in-review). My Forget-Me-Not piece did quietly achieve a 7th place finish in March. School Days, despite having its best month, is likely to finish one or two spots outside of the December top-12. While the School Days anime was anything but consistent, my article review of it likes to notch just enough views to add up without ever being noticed.

5. News leaf journal

I completely overhauled our category structure this week, so I suppose that this qualifies as news. Let it be said that this is no small project with (at the time) 740 articles, but it needed to be done. When I chose the categories for our post-reorganization articles, I noted how much less claustrophobic the list was than before.

My category reorganization is still not completely finished. I am satisfied with the current group of categories, but I will look into creative sub-categories for some of the bigger ones. Moreover, I will also go through them carefully to make sure that articles are assigned correctly (and assess articles that I assigned to more than one category – especially if one of the categories is big).

As I noted in The Old Leaf Journal section above, I have begun work on my special Justin and Justina recap of the year that was in 2022. It will be published on New Years Day, so I hope that early newsletter readers look forward to it and that people reading this newsletter after it is published look back for it.

6. Notable leaf journal

Firefox has a good reader mode that I make use of regularity – good enough that one does not need a reader extension. Although I do not need a reader extension and I generally avoid unnecessary extensions, I was intrigued by the free and open source Tranquility Reader and decided to give it a try. It has a more configurable reader mode than does Firefox plus the ability to save articles and take highlights with notes (however, whether an article looks better in Tranquility Reader or default Firefox reader depends on the content – I think New Leaf Journal articles look better in the built-in Firefox reader mode). I have enjoyed playing around with a bit so far – including setting my preferred font through its intuitive UI. I may cover it down the line once I decide how useful its article saving features are. For any Firefox users reading this, you can check out the extension on the Mozilla Extension store and GitHub.

7. Taking leaf

Thank you as always for reading The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you have not done so already, note that you can sign up to receive our weekly newsletter via email or simply add our RSS feed to your favorite reader (I am personally an RSS subscriber to my own newsletter).

2022 was an exciting year for The New Leaf Journal – but granting our progress in many areas, it is clear that I need to make some improvements to the site to make content more discoverable and I need to create some new foundational articles that will not only attract new visitors, but also introduce said visitors to our past content. Rearranging our categories is one of the first steps, and I plan to have some exciting announcements in store in early 2023 – including a plan to more tightly integrate this humble newsletter with our main site.

Until our first newsletter of 2023,

Cura ut valeas.