<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I published an article on The New Leaf Journal about doping in cycling during (and before) the Armstrong era. I noted in my Saturday newsletter that it unexpectedly blew up (by our standards) within hours of its publication. I was not immediately able to identify the source, but I figured out from our referrals that […]]]></summary>
<author>
<name>Nicholas A. Ferrell</name>
</author>
</entry>
<entry>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Search, Means, and Ends]]></title>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I starred this very insightful comment by Hacker News user marcinzm about search engines. The commenter noted the obvious, that big tech search shows ads because its purpose is to generate revenue through ads. But I appreciated the commenters putting it in terms of means and ends. Ideally, the user wants a search engine to […]]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This was the first completely new (as in not subsequent season) anime I am trying in the Winter 2024 season. These days, not involving “another world” or “reincarnation” is a good place to start. We have a girl, Himari Momochi, who is an orphan. When she turns 16, she learns her late parents left her […]]]></summary>
<author>
<name>Nicholas A. Ferrell</name>
</author>
</entry>
<entry>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[2023 Anime Year in Review]]></title>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[N.A. Ferrell ranks the top six anime series that concluded in 2023, lists honorable mentions, and gives several category-specific awards.
Possibly related posts...
The al|together and Insani Visual Novel Translations
New Leaf Journal Year-In-Review: 2023
Justin and Justina review 2022 at the NLJ
A Dream of Summer - Visual Novel Review
New Leaf Journal Third Birthday Reader
The New Leaf Journal Celebrates Its First Birthday
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Welcome to the 168th 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, like the newsletters of 2020-2023, from the waterproof keyboard of the editor of The New Leaf Journal, Nicholas A. Ferrell. Despite being under the weather for the early days of 2024, we still had an eventful week of the new year at your favorite green online writing magazine. Without further ado, let us begin with the first newsletter of the new year.
Leaves from the week that was
I published four new articles since mailing Newsletter 167.
December 2023 at The New Leaf Journal
Just in case you have to catch up on 2023 before starting on 2024.
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I re-watched the first season of Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki (after having watched it as a simulcast in 2021) for two reasons. Firstly so I could write a review and secondly so that I could refresh my memory for the second season. I watched the first episode of season 2, titled The best games make reconnaissance […]]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Addressing an interesting argument that because Lance Armstrong was the best stage racing cyclist in a largely doped field, he would have been the best clean cyclist in a clean field.
Possibly related posts...
Most-Visited NLJ Articles of 1H 2023
The Best of Anime in 2022: Year in Review
Golf and Immigration: Matter of Masters
Anime Recommendations of the Decade (2011-20)
Analyzing BIA Decision in Matter of Salama
ACE Academy - Visual Novel Review
Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki S1 Anime Review
New Leaf Journal Third Birthday Reader
The Poor Little Bird - Visual Novel Review]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Presenting the 54 most-visited New Leaf Journal articles of 2023, in dialogue format. For WordPress admins out there, I use Koko Analytics, an open source and entirely local page counting solution for stats.
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I opened Steam because I am purchasing at least one visual novel while it is on sale. Steam prompted me to ask whether I wanted to participate in the Steam hardware survey. I said yes. I did my part to represent EndeavourOS. But what about my specs? OS: EndeavourOS CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core […]]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[My final newsletter of the year includes links to a week's worth of new articles and short posts, 21 links from around the web, and news and notes about what I am working on as we look ahead to 2024.
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Welcome to the 167th 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. We had New Years Eve for the last newsletter of 2022, but we will have to settle for New Years Eve Eve in 2023. But while we missed the holiday this year, I think we nevertheless have some holiday-tier content to bring 2023 to a close.
Leaves from the week that was
We (actual "we" this time) published five new articles since mailing Newsletter 166.
Victor V. Gurbo's "Christmas & You"
I included links to Victor's two YouTube videos of his recording of his original song, Christmas & You, with last week's new…]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[With season 2 of The Dangers in My Heart just around the corner, I review season 1 of the middle school romance with an antisocial boy and a popular model.
Possibly related posts...
Heights in “The Dangers in My Heart” Anime
Height differences in anime romances
The al|together and Insani Visual Novel Translations
The Best of Anime in 2022: Year in Review
On Review Scoring Systems
The Best Anime Series of 2021
The New Leaf Journal Celebrates Its First Birthday
New Leaf Journal Third Birthday Reader
The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten - Anime Review]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I checked by 404 logs over at The New Leaf Journal. I found an interesting user agent among the myriad web crawlers: PoorlyConfiguredWebCrawler I appreciate that the crawler advertises that it is not well configured. You get the feeling that whoever released the poor thing on the internet is asking us to not be too […]]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Back in January 2022, I wrote a dialogue (using fictional characters) explaining why I was moving the NLJ off Bluehost shared hosting to a small VPS server. Nostalgic, and in terms of site performance... definitely turned out to be the correct decision.
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[My privacy-friendly local page-counting solution for WordPress, Koko Analytics, picked up a referral from snapchat.com over at The New Leaf Journal. Snapchat? Really. I thought this was for sending photos. No no, don’t correct me. I am happy living in ignorance. I will just go on living under my assumption that Snapchat is not the […]]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[My short notes on figuring out how to properly enter administrative precedent decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals into Zotero.
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I enjoy some of the fun public domain images on Openclipart. For Christmas 2022, I shared a “cat Christmas tree” over at The New Leaf Journal. This year, I will use my new social posting site (it seems more conducive for the purpose) to share a fun Openclipart Christmas owl posted by Openclipart artist Michal […]]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Once clad in a witch's hat for Halloween, an endearing green car in Gowanus is now bearing Christmas presents.
Possibly related posts...
The Wicked Car of the Gowanus - Car with Hat
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Car with Antlers
io [Christmas Eve] - Visual Novel Review
Plain Song Christmas Special - VN Review
A Christmas Menagerie On a Lawn in Gowanus
Make it Christmas With a Santa Hat
"Uncle Susan is a Wolf" - A Graffiti Photo and…
The New Leaf Journal Celebrates Its First Birthday
The Inflatable Christmas Dragon of Gowanus]]></summary>
<author>
<name>Nicholas A. Ferrell</name>
</author>
</entry>
<entry>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[The ultimate test of my theory that a Santa hat can make just about anything Christmas. Not Tux (surely that penguin is Tux), but the gentleman just behind Tux.
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[The ultimate test of my theory that a Santa hat can make just about anything Christmas. Not Tux (surely that penguin is Tux), but the gentleman just behind Tux.<br />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[My good friend Victor V. Gurbo noted over on The New Leaf Journal that his college friend gave him the prompt for a melancholy Christmas song that would have no prospect of commercial success. I addend his post to note that the unnamed friend was a very versatile character. The person Victor refers to is […]]]></summary>
<author>
<name>Nicholas A. Ferrell</name>
</author>
</entry>
<entry>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Cardinals are somewhat Christmas-y for a variety of reasons, but I still ordinarily associate them with warmer months (from my New York perspective). However, if you put a Santa hat on a cardinal -- it is clearly and beyond doubt Christmas-y.
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Cardinals are somewhat Christmas-y for a variety of reasons, but I still ordinarily associate them with warmer months (from my New York perspective). However, if you put a Santa hat on a cardinal -- it is clearly and beyond doubt Christmas-y.<br />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Welcome to the 166th 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 Christmas Eve Eve newsletter comes with six new articles, more links from our new around the web backlog, and other news and notes.
Leaves from the week that was
I was busy on Thursday and Friday after a brief publishing drought...
A Boat Named "S-cape"
Despite being entirely spoiled by the headline, this article strangely had one of the better debut weeks of any 2023 article.
Make it Christmas With a Santa Hat
Justin of our Justin and Justina dialogue duo has a theory, supported by evidence in t…]]></summary>
<author>
<name>The Newsletter Leaf Journal</name>
</author>
</entry>
<entry>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[It is easy to remember that Christmas is on December 25. But what if you forget what day it is now? One home in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, worked to make sure that everyone knows how long until Christmas. (Note that the clock works -- but the red LED does not show in my photo).
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[It is easy to remember that Christmas is on December 25. But what if you forget what day it is now? One home in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, worked to make sure that everyone knows how long until Christmas. (Note that the clock works -- but the red LED does not show in my photo).<br />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Reprinting and discussing The Christmas Rose, an early twentieth century Christmas short story by Lizzie Deas (I also made a simple PDF version).
<title type="html"><![CDATA[An inflatable Santa emerging from (or going into, depending on perspective) an inflatable chimney in three acts. Seen (if I recall correctly) in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[An inflatable Santa emerging from (or going into, depending on perspective) an inflatable chimney in three acts. Seen (if I recall correctly) in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.<br />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I finally review the only al|together visual novel translation in which the player takes the perspective of a pet cat (Don-kichi, to be precise).
Possibly related posts...
The al|together and Insani Visual Novel Translations
Four May Issues of The Nursery Magazine (1873-81)
"Fradie-Cat" - A Children's Poem By Clinton Scollard
Is my cat deaf, or does she just not give a...?
"Winter Quarters" - An 1882 Poem About a Very Warm…
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I hope all the people who went all in on a Christmas Tree before finishing their Thanksgiving leftovers are hanging in there...
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Welcome to the 165th edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, the evergreen 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. I have plenty of content to share with you this week from many new articles and short posts to the story of how the winds of new beginnings blew over my Around the Web backlog. Because I have plenty to share, I cut the introduction short so we can get to the sharing.
Leaves from around the web
I spent more of the last week working on New Leaf Journal projects than publishing them. While many of my articles are in the work in progress phase, I still managed to deliver four new articles since mailing Newsletter…]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I send a weekly newsletter attached to The New Leaf Journal called The Newsletter Leaf Journal. Unsurprisingly, I focus on sharing links to my latest articles (including some from here) and news and notes about my projects. However, in the spirit of generosity and sharing external links, I pack each newsletter full of links from […]]]></summary>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Hostinger guide to WP Cron. Considering looking into changing my set-up after a minor issue with mis...]]></title>
<id>https://memos.emucafe.org/m/41</id>
<link href="https://memos.emucafe.org/m/41"/>
<updated>2023-12-14T18:26:17.000Z</updated>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Hostinger guide to WP Cron. Considering looking into changing my set-up after a minor issue with missed jobs for ActivityPub on Emu Cafe Social:
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I am working on cleaning up a few anime series that I missed throughout the year in preparation for my year in review. As part of the project, I quickly went through The Dreaming Boy is a Realist (light novel titles…) on HiDive (I had neglected HiDive for a bit because there’s no unofficial Kodi […]]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I wrote about a Mondrian theme for KDE Plasma back in early 2021. I used it until I switched from Plasma to XFCE for my workstation in the summer of 2021. However, things come full circle. While I still use XFCE on my workstation, I use Plasma on a mini PC I designated for PC usage and have added some pieces of the Mondrian themeto my set-up.
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I concur with an argument in favor of external linking while taking a different perspective to argue in favor of humane internal linking.
Possibly related posts...
The Enigmatic Life and Death of Emperor Otho
1883 Opening of the Brooklyn Bridge
Should the Pistons have drafted Carmelo?
Anime Recommendations of the Decade (2011-20)
ACE Academy - Visual Novel Review
The al|together and Insani Visual Novel Translations
The Best of Anime in 2022: Year in Review
The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten - Anime Review
The Poetry of Charlotte Becker - Early Twentieth…]]></summary>
<author>
<name>Nicholas A. Ferrell</name>
</author>
</entry>
<entry>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Feeds for Following Over X and Mastodon]]></title>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I came across an interesting passage by blogger Facundo Olano in his blog post about creating a personal feed reader to follow good and meaningful writing from around the web (see the source code for his interesting feed reader project). He assessed his prior usage of Twitter (now “X”) and Mastodon and realized that he […]]]></summary>
<author>
<name>Nicholas A. Ferrell</name>
</author>
</entry>
<entry>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Quick Review of My Tablet – My Computer]]></title>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I came across a free ebook by Roger Carter on Smashwords about using an Android tablet as a computer (see My Tablet – My Computer). The book is short, running just over 5,000 words. While I do not personally need to use an Android (LineageOS in my case) tablet as a computer (not to mention […]]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I think I am the only person to ever use the open source RetroBoy camera app for Android (available on F-Droid) to photograph at falcon at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Am I absolutely certain? No, but I am close to certain.
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I read many video game magazines when I was a kid. Back in my day, E3, which typically took place in May or June, was the major video game expo and a major event in the magazines. I used to look forward to E3 coverage. Over the years, I stopped reading video game magazines and, […]]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Yukinu over at Yukinu blog posted a simple and tasty looking 5am udon recipe. I approve with the qualification that I would opt for unsalted chicken broth (if I am adding soy sauce) and that I am not sure if I am ready for udon at 5 AM (I usually prefer hot cereal for breakfast). […]]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I have received many spam emails at The New Leaf Journal... but none top a request for assistance from China's former Defense Minister.
Possibly related posts...
The New Leaf Journal Celebrates Its First Birthday
The al|together and Insani Visual Novel Translations
The Newsletter Leaf Journal at 100
A 2021 List of Alternative Search Engines and Search…
Justin & Justina: Most-Read NLJ Content of 2020
The New Leaf Journal Newsletter
Oldest Golfers to Contend for Majors Between the…
Recommended F-Droid FOSS Apps For Android-Based…
Justin and Justina review 2022 at the NLJ]]></summary>
<author>
<name>Nicholas A. Ferrell</name>
</author>
</entry>
<entry>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[BSOD Coming to Linux]]></title>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[An article in Ars Technica reported that Systemd Linux distributions (which describes most distributions these days) will receive a much-desired updated from Windows: The Blue Screen of Death. From the article: Today, version 255 of the Linux systemd project honors that original intent by adding a systemd-bsod component that generates a full-screen display of some […]]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[For those looking for free options -- BunnyPress Lite by the same developer is available in the WordPress repository and is similar to the paid theme, only lacking additional display patterns and a few features for increasing page loading times that can be replicated in plugins in any event. Note, however, that I have not used BunnyPress Lite since early June 2020.]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[My September 2020 review of The New Leaf Journal's WordPress theme, BunnyPress -- including my discussing how difficult it was to buy since the store page was entirely Japanese. While much has changed at NLJ since 9/2020, including our layout, BunnyPress remains our theme.
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Welcome to the 164th 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 editor of The New Leaf Journal, Nicholas A. Ferrell. Our second newsletter of December 2023 brings three new articles, news from our other project, links from around the web, and other interesting notes from the week that was.
Leaves from the week that was
I published three new articles at The New Leaf Journal since last sending a newsletter...
Bush Clinton Playground in Red Hook
The best-named playground in New York City.
Unpacking a Mississippi Bonsai Tree
All the Styrofoam peanuts you could ever want.
My Default Apps as of December 2023
Inspired by others, I created a list of my de…]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Blogger foreverketh.is put together a very good list of webrings and similar collections of personal websites and blogs. I recall having come across it before, but I had previously missed that I am cited as a contributor for my New Leaf Journal article on the idea of a “social” media consisting of independent personal websites. […]]]></summary>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Blogger foreverkeith.is put together a very good list of webrings and similar collections of personal websites and blogs. I recall having come across it before, but I had previously missed that I am cited as a contributor for my New Leaf Journal article on the idea of a “social” media consisting of independent personal websites. […]]]></summary>
