The Newsletter Leaf Journal LXXX 〜 Melancholic kiwi
Welcome to the 80th edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, the official newsletter of the perennially virid online writing magazine, The New Leaf Journal. As always, this newsletter comes to you from the waterproof keyboard of the editor and administrator of The New Leaf Journal, Nicholas A. Ferrell. We have our usual assortment of New Leaf Journal content updates and articles and notes from around the web to cover - so let’s get to it.
Table of Contents
- Leaves From The Week That Was
- Leaflets Of The Leaves
- Leaves From Around The Web
- The Old Leaf Journal
- Most-Turned Leaves Of The Newsletter Week
- Notable Leaf Journal
- News Leaf Journal
- Taking Leaf
1. Leaves From Around The Web
I published five articles since the last newsletter. There was a definite trend toward the end of the week.
| Article | Author | Published |
|---|---|---|
| “Dude, I got a theory” | NAF | April 18, 2022 |
Overheard on the street. He said it so naturally, so effortlessly.
| Article | Author | Published |
|---|---|---|
| Inflatable Carrot and Easter Bunnies in Brooklyn | NAF | April 19, 2022 |
I was a bit late for Easter, but to be fair, I took the featured photograph on Easter.
| Article | Author | Published |
|---|---|---|
| Pokémon: Pathways to Adventure (1999) Review | NAF | April 21, 2022 |
See below.
| Article | Author | Published |
|---|---|---|
| NIXON in Pokémon Colosseum | NAF | April 22, 2022 |
The video game naming conventions of our own Victor V. Gurbo strike again
| Article | Author | Published |
|---|---|---|
| On the Game Boy Renaissance | NAF | April 23, 2022 |
In 2000, the art director for Pokémon hoped that systems like Game Boy would stay around. Today, that hope seems to be coming true. |
Featured Article: “Pokémon: Pathways to Adventure (1999) Review”
My major project of the week was an unusual book review. Pokémon: Pathways to Adventure was released in 1999. It was an novelization of the original Pokémon Red and Blue that doubled as a quasi-strategy guide. I remembered enjoying it when I read it as a kid while harboring some serious reservations about its merits as a practical resource. My own copy had long-since disappeared, but I purchased a used one on Ebay for about $6 in late 2019. This had been on my NLJ to-do list for a long time - I finally sat down to read the book anew and publish my review. The concept was better than the execution - and I will have more to say about the concept in the future.
2. Leaflets Of The Leaves
I published nine leaflet microposts since our last newsletter. I will link to a few of the notable ones below. I will reserve a couple of microposts for our leaves from around the web section.
- Testing Hamsket to Replace Ferdi: The developer behind Ferdi, the multi-messenger browser that I had been using, seems to have gone rogue. I am replacing Ferdi with a similar free and open source messaging browser called Hamsket. So far so good.
- Cross-posting from Mastodon to Twitter: On my reviviving our Twitter account without having to actually touch Twitter. (See Notable Leaf Journal section for more on this subject.)
- Peekier Technical Issues?: Peekier, an interesting search engine that I reviewed in Feburary, had some technical issues this week. I was selfishly worried about my review. Fortunately, it appears to be back up and running.
- Twitter, Elites, and Bad Content: I agree largely with the sentiment that Twitter is used by journalists, pundits, and decision-makers to forge narratives with one another. What does it say, however, that their platform of choice encourages bad content from them and most users and is conducive to sloganeering and soundbites?
3. Leaves From Around The Web
Let’s see what’s going on around the world wide web.
| Article | Site | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chu Chu Rocket - Developer Interviews | shumplations | shumplations | 4/21/22 |
See Leaflet micropost for my thoughts.
| Article | Site | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dulles CBP Agriculture Specialists Intercept Potentially Harmful Bat Meat in Passenger Baggage | U.S. CBP | CBP | 4/14/22 |
The headline leaves out that CBP also seized seasonings (presumably for the bat steaks). I had some thoughts in a Leaflet.
| Article | Site | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| My Pixelfed instance is a bigger success than I could ever have predicted | Peerverse | Chris Trottier | 4/18/22 |
An interesting story about how a small Pixelfed account quickly found followers. I reviewed Pixelfed in 2020.
| Article | Site | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| The sources for the downfall of Majorian | Roger Pearse | Roger Pearse | 1/28/10 |
A collection of sources on the murder of Majorian, who ruled what was left of the Western Roman Empire from 457-61.
| Article | Site | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Zealand prime minister welcomed to Japan by kiwi mascot characters, surreally somber dance | SoraNews24 | Casey Baseel | 4/21/22 |
We were promised kiwis, but instead we got melancholy. (I’m sorry.)
| Article | Site | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Always remember POSSE | Nixnet Social | Amolith | 3/24/21 |
Sound advice on starting a digital home with one’s own website.
4. The Old Leaf Journal
Let’s dig into our archives…
| Article | Author | Published |
|---|---|---|
| A Rather Dry Christmas Tree in Brooklyn Heights in April | NAF | April 28, 2021 |
Someone really dragged his or her feet on disposing of a Christmas tree last year.
| Article | Author | Published |
|---|---|---|
| Justin & Justina 〜 The Pumpkin Taker | NAF | November 14, 2020 |
I am definitely not foreshadowing more rotting pumpkin content.
5. 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 site.
The week of April 16-22 was the sixteenth newsletter week of 2022.
| # | Article | Author | Pub | 22Top5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei | NAF | 3.14.21 | 16 (13) |
| 2 | Recommended F-Droid FOSS Apps For Android-Based Devices | NAF | 11.27.21 | 16 (3) |
| 3 | Installing Ubuntu Touch on an Asus Nexus 7 | NAF | 7.5.21 | 16 |
| 4 | Peekier Search Engine Review | NAF | 2.26.22 | 3 |
| 5 | Using an Amiga OS-Inspired Window Theme In XFCE With XFWM4 | NAF | 1.2.22 | 2 |
Analysis
My tsuki ga kirei article returned to the top of the ranking. Moreover, it made its 52nd consecutive top-5 appearance, and it will almost definitely complete a full year in the top 5 in next week’s ranking.
The only change in this week’s ranking from last week’s is a new article in fourth place. In a week when Peekier search had some technical issues, my Peekier review returned to our top five for the first time in several weeks after making two appearances in the first half of April. This marks the first week in which multiple articles from 2022 made the weekly ranking.
6. Notable Leaf Journal
It is well-documented that I do not like Twitter. See e.g., below:
- The New Leaf Journal Twitter
- An Almost Entirely Twitter-less Success Story
- Around the Web 〜 RSS as a Facebook Alternative
- ATW 〜 Murakami on Bad Social Media Content
- On Musk and Twitter
With one exception, our Twitter account never gained much traction. That, combined with the fact that I do not like Twitter anyway, led me to mothball our Twitter account and focus on other things. However, the account still existed, mothballed and all, because the existence of the account is relevant for search engine purposes.
I use Mastodon, a federated alternative to Twitter, to post notes about our new articles. I have noted that many people have their tweets posted from Twitter to Mastodon. Since our Twitter account exists anyway, I decided to see if I could go in the reverse direction - having my Mastodon posts syndicated to our Twitter account.
I found the Mastodon Twitter Crossposter after a brief search and logged in with both of my accounts. Unlike many services that offer to post to Twitter, the crossposter does not request or demand unnecessary or ancillary permissions to complete its task. I logged in with both Mastodon and Twitter, configured it to post my Mastodon posts to Twitter, and then tried posting to Mastodon. Lo and behold, it worked. You can see the result on Twitter through a privacy-friendly frontend.
I do not expect that we will see a flood of traffic from Twitter through my syndicated posts, but there is no harm in sending content over since the account exists anyway. Those of you who need Twitter for one reason or another, but do not want to actually use Twitter, can consider the Mastodon Twitter Crossposter. The Crossposter itself is entirely free to use. All you need is a Mastodon account and a Twitter account. Regarding Mastodon, there are hundreds of instances (servers) to choose from - and it is also possible to host your own instance if you have the skill and resources.
7. News Leaf Journal
I did not make any changes of note to the site in the last week.
We have a few things to look forward to this upcoming week. Firstly, I am going to modify our main pages e.g., About, Archive, etc., to link to more sub-pages. The reason for this change is that I decided to reduce the number of sub-items in our header menu for the purpose of improving our site’s performance and loading times.
The New Leaf Journal’s second birthday is coming up on Wednesday, April 27, 2022. I will prepare a special post to commemorate the occasion. Moreover, next Saturday marks the end of the month, so you can expect our April review to be posted a bit after I mail the 81st newsletter.
8. Taking Leaf
Thank you as always for reading The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you enjoyed the content and have not done so already, consider signing up by way of email or RSS. You can also read our old newsletters in the newsletter archive.
Until next week,
Cura ut valeas.