Newsletter Leaf Journal XCVII 〜 Armadillo edition

Welcome to the 97th 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 from the editor of The New Leaf Journal, Nicholas A. Ferrell. Last week, I sent a short Newsletter from my lightly-used laptop. Today, I am back at my main workstation drafting this letter with my trusty dual-monitor set-up and waterproof keyboard. With everything back in order, this week’s newsletter contains all of the bells and whistles that regular newsletter readers should be accustomed to.

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. Notable Leaf Journal
6. News Leaf Journal
7. Taking Leaf

1. Leaves From The Week That Was

I pushed a couple of articles that I had scheduled on August 9 to go live while I was on vacation early in light of the number of visitors we received from my /e/ OS review making Hacker News page 1 on August 10. That decision took a bit of a toll on our content from August 13-19, but I managed to publish four light posts during the week which included one day for traveling and one day for recovering from vertigo related to said traveling.

• Crossing Guard Adrian Dantley on the BlackBerry | N.A. Ferrell | August 14, 2022 | Summary: A short musing on a decade-old anecdote about NBA legend Adrian Dantley moonlighting as a school crossing guard and noting that many pedestrians were distracted by their BlackBerry phones.
• Being Recognized as Florida Man | N.A. Ferrell | August 16, 2022 | Summary: My Atlanta airport story.
• Baby Armadillo at Crescent Bend Nature Park | N.A. Ferrell |August 17, 2022 |Summary: While the picture is not very good, it is the sentiment behind the sighting that counts (probably).
• Laps Around the Atlanta Airport | N.A. Ferrell | August 17, 2022 | Summary: A Justin and Justina dialogue inspired by my own airport story (see August 16 article).

I also published two Leaflet microposts during the week. First, I notedthat OS News briefly discussed my /e/ OS review. Second, I explained why I changed my Arch User Repository Mullvad VPN package on EndeavourOS and Manjaro Linux.

2. Leaves From Around The Web

I cut our Around the Web section from my vacation newsletter. However, there will be no such cutting in Newsletter 97. Let us see what is happening around the internet…

• iOS Privacy: Announcing InAppBrowser.com - see what JavaScript commands get injected through an in-app browser | Felix Krause on his website | August 18, 2022 | Key Point: Mr. Krause created a tool to examine the behavior of “in-app browsers” on iOS. The post includes detailed information about the in-app browsers for the TikTok (very bad) and Instagram (very bad, but not nearly as bad as TikTok) apps. I personally recommend avoiding issues with those apps by not using them because they are both terrible.
• The Kindle Test | Eric Frisch on his blog | August 18, 2022 | Summary: An interesting post about testing a website by making sure that it is readable on an e-ink Kindle’s very limited web browser. While I do not test The New Leaf Journal on my Kindle Paperwhite, I did establish that it works well on another e-ink device, the PocketBook Color.
• Long Island officials stunned after no one votes in referendum | Zach Williams for the New York Post | August 15, 2022 | Summary: The headline is not an exaggeration. No one voted in the referendum in question. The buried lede is that the “stunned” officials also did not vote in the referendum. Did they think that everyone else was going to take care of the voting?
• Visit the birthplace of the Japanese daruma in Gunma Prefecture | Oona McGee for SoraNews24 | August 14, 2022 | Summary: More or less as advertised, but with a bit of history on a peculiar doll-form.
• I spent $15 in DALL·E 2 credits creating this AI image and here’s what I learned | Joy Zhang on Medium | August 6, 2022 | Summary: Learn about using the DALL·E 2 software, which generates AI images from text, to create the idea image of a llama dunking a basketball.
• Stray Dog Crashes Couple’s Wedding — And Becomes A Part Of Their Family | Stephen Messenger for The Dodo | July 14, 2022 | Summary: Your feel-good animal story of the newsletter.
• Hummingbird that was feared extinct is spotted in Colombian mountains | Luke Taylor for New Scientist | August 5, 2022 | Summary: Santa Marta sabrewing sighting…
• Gang offices the coveted prize in internal ‘turf wars’ of yakuza |The Asahi Shimbun | August 19, 2022 | Quote: “Last year, a yakuza boss in western Japan sued his former mentor over the gang office. The old boss had filed papers to transfer ownership of the office to a company headed by one of his relatives.”
• Burger King just sent spam receipts to customers | Simon Sharowood for The Register | August 9, 2022 | Thoughts: I have not been to a Burger King in more than 20 years. Maybe I am old-fashioned, but in what universe does one need to give Burger King his or her email? It is a fast food place. You go in and you leave with your food. Is there an app? Please do not tell me there is an app…
• The En Banc Fifth Circuit Sharply Divides On Personal Jurisdiction and the Fifth Amendment | Josh Blackman for the Volokh Conspiracy | August 18, 2022 | Summary: An interesting and complicated decision from the en banc Fifth Circuit.

3. The Old Leaf Journal

Let’s dig into The New Leaf Journal archives…

• Justin & Justina 〜 The Dangers of Heroism | N.A. Ferrell | October 17, 2020 | Summary: The first armadillo reference in The New Leaf Journal came in the inaugural Justin and Justina dialogue.
• Building an Airline Res-O-Glas Guitar Copy | Victor V. Gurbo | August 26, 2020 | Summary: Victor V. Gurbo details the trials of building a Res-O-Glas guitar from a kit and how it inspired his subsequent work as a luthier.
• The Aesthetic Digital Environment | N.A. Ferrell | October 19, 2020 | Thoughts: While I do not use the tablet that featured in this post anymore, the content is evergreen.
• The Evening Walk - An 1854 Poem | N.A. Ferrell | March 3, 2021 | Thoughts: A poem about a nicer evening walk than going up and down the Atlanta airport more times than I could count (I adapted my Atlanta airport walking story for the Justin and Justina dialogue linked in part 1).

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. The week of August 13 to 19 was the 33rd Newsletter Week of 2022.

My /e/ OS review had more than enough momentum from its August 10 Hacker News appearance to easily take the top spot on the ranking for the second consecutive week while posting one of the best New Leaf Journal weeks on record. There were few surprises in the rest of the top-five with only the Teracube 2e phone review likely still benefiting from the /e/ OS review after-effect. The /e/ OS review slowed down enough by the end of the week that the race for the top spot in Newsletter Week 34 may once again be competitive.

5. Notable Leaf Journal

The Web Archives browser extension was featured in my August 12 article about using the Wayback Machine to view web pages otherwise blocked by CAPTCHAs. I explained in that post how the extension works for normal purposes. To be sure, circumventing CAPTCHA blocks is not the main use for viewing older versions of web pages. Rather, one may want to view an archived or cached version of page that is no longer online or view an older version of page that was subsequently (or may be liable to be) modified. For example, my recent post on CUNY taking down an alumni profile relied on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to present the original profile.

The Web Archives extension is available for Chrome (and Chromium-based browsers) and Firefox. I recommend adding it to your browser’s tool-belt.

6. News Leaf Journal

In light of the fact that I only just returned to Brooklyn on Wednesday night, I do not have much website news to report. I have some interesting post ideas that I had slated for publication this month, so I will work on publishing those in order to bring August to a strong close.

7. Taking Leaf

Thank you as always for joining us for another edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you enjoyed the newsletter content, there are three ways to ensure that you stay abreast of our Saturday mailings. You can sign up via email or subscribe to our newsletter RSS feed or follow The New Leaf Annex on Bearblog where I syndicate our newsletters. I look forward to returning to a regular posting schedule and publishing interesting content at The New Leaf Journal in the coming days.

Until next Saturday,

Cura ut valeas.