The Newsletter Leaf Journal XXXVIII 〜 A Newsletter Journey
Welcome to the 38th edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, the official newsletter of the growing perennially virid online writing magazine, The New Leaf Journal. As always, this newsletter comes to you from the waterproof keyboard of Nicholas A. Ferrell, editor of The New Leaf Journal. In this issue, I bring tidings of six new New Leaf Journal articles, five article recommendations from around the web and one from our archive, our most-read content from the last week, and some news, notes, and anecdotes.
Table of Contents
- Leaves From the Week that Was
- Leaves From Around the Web
- The Old Leaf Journal
- Most-Read Leaves (June 19-25)
- News, Notes, and Anecdotes (With Leaf Puns)
- Taking Leaf
1. New Leaves From the Week that Was
This week at The New Leaf Journal saw new articles every day except Tuesday and today. Below, you will find the new content with links, descriptions, and a few select images.
“A Trip Across Brooklyn’s Summit Street Bridge”
Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 20, 2021.
In my eighteenth and final post from volume 2 of my Around the Web series, I invited readers along for a trip across Brooklyn’s Summit Street Bridge. What is the Summit Street Bridge? Why have you never heard of it? Join me for an answer to those questions.
I did not have much luck finding information about the Bridge online. However, I can happily report that we now rank #1 for the search term “Summit Street Bridge” on DuckDuckGo. Tell your friends.
“The Battery Park Butterfly Before a Hudson River Flyover”
Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 21, 2021.
I had planned to use the butterfly picture that features in this article for a while. While I knew that I took it in Battery Park, I forgot the exact circumstances of the picture. Upon looking on my phone, I found that I had been in Battery Park to watch a 2019 military flyover and that I had taken the butterfly picture a minute or two before the planes appeared overhead.
Instead of embedding the version I used for The New Leaf Journal, see the higher quality full-sized version of the image that I used on Pixelfed.
Speaking of which…
“Pixelfed Embed in WordPress - Follow nafnlj at The New Leaf Journal”
Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 24, 2021.
My November 2020 Pixelfed review remains among our most-read articles. For those of you who have not read it, Pixelfed is an interesting new alternative to Instagram. I had planned a follow-up review, but I do not have much to add to my original review. Instead, I created an article with my Pixelfed profile embedded into it. The embed updates every time I add new content.
“A Miniature Article About a Miniature Stop Sign in Brooklyn”
Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 24, 2021.
More or less as advertised. I recommend reading my Summit Street Bridge article first. Not only did I take the miniature stop sign photo right after crossing the Summit Street Bridge, but I also included a few tie-ins in the stop sign post.
“John Thomas James’ Account of a Cemetery at Tchernigoff in 1813-1814”
Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 25, 2021.
John Thomas James described a quaint cemetery in Tchernigoff (a city in modern Ukraine) in his 1819 travel book, Journal of a Tour in Germany, Sweden, Russia, Poland, in 1813 and 1814. I found the book on Internet Archive, but the image was missing from the copy that was scanned. Fortunately, I found the image in an 1831 magazine scan.
James’ description of the cemetery is hauntingly beautiful. It is included in full in my article.
2. Leaves From Around the Web
If you follow The New Leaf Journal regularly, you may have already seen some of our articles from the past week. If so, fear not. I have six article recommendations from around the web for your reading enjoyment.
NY Post: “Curtis Sliwa gives an inside look of what life is like with 15 Rescue Cats”
Kevin Sheehan and Gabrielle Fonrogue. June 23, 2021.
In an earlier newsletter, I recommended an article about an absurd debate for the GOP nomination for mayor in New York City between candidates Curtis Sliwa and Fernando Mateo. Mr. Mateo stated that Mr. Sliwa spends his time communicating with the 13 cats and 14 litter boxes in his house. Mr. Sliwa corrected Mr. Mateo - stating he has 15 cats. After winning the GOP primary on Tuesday with 68% of the vote, Mr. Sliwa invited the New York Post into his 750 square foot studio apartment to meet his 15 rescue cats. Although the piece does not note the number of litter boxes, we do learn how the Sliwas keep their tiny apartment smelling fresh.
For those interested, I published two articles on the subject of some questionable NYC mayoral candidate about page designs.
City Journal: “American Cincinnatus: A new biography of Henry Cabout Lodge Jr. reminds of a bygone model of the public servant”
Luke A. Nichter. June 17, 2021.
A short and interesting review of a new biography of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., a former U.S. Senator who left the Senate to serve in World War II, and then went on to serve in several diplomatic positions in the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford Administrations.
Radonc Notes: “Yet Another RSS Feed Post”
Radonc Notes. June 2, 2021.
That RSS post Radonc Notes is discussing looks familiar…
I thank Radonc Notes for sharing my piece touting RSS feeds - I’ll forgive the missing “l” from my last name. Interestingly, Radonc Notes recommends using a cloud-based RSS reader:
“[A] ‘cloud-based reader’ (my recommendation is for Inoreader), can help you more than your time spent on Twitter where the algorithms game your attention.”
RSS is a great Twitter alternative. I personally prefer non-cloud readers, but Inoreader and other cloud-based readers may be more intuitive options for some users, especially those who want to easily sync their feeds across devices.
If you are interested in tech and privacy issues, browse through Radonc Notes’ blog. I found some interesting content and an external link to a blog that I decided to add to my own RSS feed list.
Wall Street Journal: “Scholars on LinkedIn Are Being Blocked in China ‘Without Telling Them Why’“
Liza Lin. June 23, 2021.
I assume you can guess what the “why” is in the headline. Your guess is correct. For whatever it is worth, LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. I covered some China-Microsoft issues in an article a few weeks ago.
PetaPixel: “Canon Uses AI Cameras That Only Let Smiling Workers Inside Offices”
Michael Zhang. June 17, 2021.
File this in the “not creepy at all” folder. This may sound like parody, but rest assured, I read the original report in the Financial Times - which republished it from Nikkei Asia. PetaPixel captures the contents well. You can see the original story if the paywall does not intervene.
Daily News Hungary: “The Hungarian inventor behind the world-famous Illy coffee”
Eszter Vass. February 4, 2017.
A short article about the life and inventions of Ferenc Illy - a truly great man. I should really do a series on the great people of coffee history.
3. The Old Leaf Journal
Back when we were planning The New Leaf Journal in 2018, I drafted several articles for later use (most of these drafts have been published). The very first article I drafted was on the subject of a heartwarming video game scene. That article made it to The New Leaf Journal one year ago to the day I mailed the instant newsletter.
“Persona 4, Coffee, and Children”
Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 26, 2020.
Persona 4 is one of my favorite video games. Half of the game involves fighting monsters in a TV world. The other half involves navigating the player character through day-to-day life and building bonds.
Some of the character relationships are better than others. Two of my favorite characters are the player’s Uncle and his Uncle’s six-year old daughter - with whom the player lives.
After a brief introduction, I cover a good scene involving the family where the young girl, Nanako Dojima, asks her father, Ryotaro Dojima, for coffee on a school night. What will the response be? Read on to find out. The post is written for Persona 4 fans and those who have never held a game controller alike.
At some point in the future, I will have more Persona 4 social link content in store.
Most-Read Leaves (June 19-25)
2021 Newsletter Week #25.
The below list covers our most-read articles for the period beginning with June 19 and ending on June 25. This is the 25th such “Newsletter Week” in 2021 covering Saturday-Friday, inclusive. In parentheses, you will see how the article’s rank changed from the previous week. Below each article on the ranking, you will find additional information about the article and its ranking history in 2021.
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“The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei” (No Change)
Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 14, 2021.
Weeks in Top Five: 9 (7 in first place) -
“Persona 4 Golden Digital Artbook Review (Steam)” (Change: +1)
Nicholas A. Ferrell. November 15, 2020.
Weeks in Top Five: 21 (4 in first place) -
“A 2021 List of Alternative Search Engines and Search Resources” (Change: +6)
Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 13, 2021.
Weeks in Top Five: 1 (NEW) -
“A Follow-Up Post on the Meaning of ‘Blob Dylan” (No Change)
Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 12, 2021.
Weeks in Top Five: 2 -
“The Last Stand of Constantine XI” (Change: +2)
Nicholas A. Ferrell. May 30, 2020.
Weeks in Top Five: 14
My Tsuki ga Kirei article held the top spot on the Newsletter Week Ranking for the seventh week in a row. With that, it ties my colleague’s (Victor V. Gurbo’s) review of protective masks for the most weeks at #1 in 2021.
The Tsuki ga Kirei post’s streak atop the Newsletter Week ranking may end at seven thanks to Persona 4 Golden going on sale on Steam. The current Steam sale began on Thursday (June 24) and runs through July 8. It is nice to have a proverbial Steam sale alarm on my site.
My search engine alternative post achieved some success on alternative social media sites Minds and Mastodon.Social. It was hanging on to second place on the Newsletter Week list until the final hour or two of Friday the 25th. I am curious to see if its success is sustainable without the rush of views from social media. In theory, the post should be search engine friendly, but the topic is not lacking in content.
5. News, Notes, and Anecdotes
I wind this exciting edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal down with some news, notes, and anecdotes.
News Leaf Journal
Independence Day falls on a Sunday this year. I may schedule an article for July 4, but it will not be my ordinary Sunday Around the Web post.
I will post some Independence Day-themed content throughout the week. This content will include a July 4-themed Pokemon battle - with video - between me and Victor V. Gurbo.
On Wednesday, you will see my June month-in-review post. In this post, I will include our most-read articles for the second quarter of 2021 (April-June).
Notable Leaf Journal
I discovered an interesting search engine project as a result of my sharing my search engine post on social media: Meta Random Search.
What does it do? As the name suggests, it sends your search query to a random search engine from a list (it allows for changing the default search engine). Meta Random Search has extensions available for Chromium- (including in the Microsoft Edge store) and Firefox-based browsers.
I am not adding the extension, but I tried the web version and it seems to work as promised. It is definitely a novelty project, but I may cover it here at The New Leaf Journal in July.
Anecdotal Leaf Journal
I was planning to publish an article “today” (being June 26, 2021). However, circumstances intervened. I went out for an evening walk. A car with a huge subwoofer drove by. I felt the vibration in my head. Now I am dizzy. Not as dizzy as when I took the Roosevelt Island Tram last, but dizzy enough to call it an evening.
6. Taking Leaf
Thank you as always for reading The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you are already a subscriber by email or RSS feed, I thank you for following us. If you are not yet a subscriber, I hope you enjoyed the content enough to consider signing up for our weekly email or adding our newsletter’s RSS feed to your favorite feed reader. Learn about our newsletter sign-up options here.
I look forward to reporting back to you on the eve of Independence Day for our first newsletter of July 2021.