The Newsletter Leaf Journal LXXXVII 〜 Newsletter encore

Welcome to the 87th 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 of The New Leaf Journal, Nicholas A. Ferrell. Below, you will find our usual assortment of our new content from the week that was, articles from around the web, and other interesting news and notes.

If this is your first time encountering this humble newsletter, you can sign up to receive new issues every Saturday via email or RSS.

Table of Contents

1. Leaves (and Leaflets) 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 (and Leaflets) From The Week That Was

I published five new articles since sending Newsletter 86. The fourth of these five articles was the 600th full article published at The New Leaf Journal. I did not commemorate article 600 with a new post, but you can find some of our interesting older content in my 500 articles milestone post from February.

• Reviewing the Ulauncher Markdown Table Creator | By N.A. Ferrell | June 5, 2022 | Synopsis: A niche article on a useful extension for a Linux application launcher.
• A Walk Across the Hamilton Avenue Footbridge | N.A. Ferrell | June 6, 2022 | Synopsis: Join me for a walk across one of Brooklyn’s unsung land bridges.
• Review of the Simplicable Color Guide | N.A. Ferrell | June 8, 2022 | Synopsis: A useful resource for finding aesthetic colors.
• Visual Novel Review - Adagio | N.A. Ferrell | June 9, 2022 | Synopsis: The seventh review in my al|together visual novel review series focused on a five-minute story about a life-changing dance performance.
• School Discipline and Learning | N.A. Ferrell | June 10, 2022 | Synopsis: Recalling one of my June 2020 articles on hard-core troublemakers in the classroom.

I did not publish many Leaflets in the past week. But I will note one covering an unexpected New Leaf Journal citation in the Finnish version of Wikipedia.

2. Leaves From Around The Web

Let’s see what’s happening around the world wide web…

• Japan’s rent a middle-aged man service marks its 10th year in business | Krista Rogers for SoraNews24 | June 8, 2022 | Quote: “One such service, Ossan Rental, has found success over the past ten years by employing [middle-aged] men who can be rented for whatever your needs are-helping you do something, accompanying you somewhere, or just lending a listening ear.”
• Makers of ad blockers and browser privacy extensions fear the end is near | Thomas Claburn for The Register | June 8, 2022 | Summary: Highlighting a potential problem for ad and content blockers on Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers in a few months (Firefox not affected).
• Yakuza bosses struggling to upgrade phones from 3G | Master Blaster for SoraNews24 | June 7, 2022 | Summary: How did this mafia malaise come about? “[M]obile service providers’ contracts require signees to swear they are not members of [organized crime] groups, to avoid liability in the event a customer turns out to be a mobster.”
• An incomplete history of Dissociative Identity Disorder Online | Katherine Dee at Default Wisdom | June 5, 2022 | Summary: A journey through the internet that takes us from 1990s internet forums to Tumblr in the 2010s (this post was delivered to me via a Substack RSS feed).
• NYC sidewalk ATMs swindiling cash-strapped customers | Dean Balsamini and Helayne Seidman for the New York Post | June 4, 2022 | Summary: Don’t use sidewalk ATMs in New York City.
• What is the Order of Malta? | Catholic News Agency | June 6, 2022 | Summary: A short explainer on the world’s most unique sovereign entity.
• I don’t like Medium | Sam Gluck at sdgluck | June 9, 2022 | Summary: A Bearblog post on why Medium is terrible.
• Finger.Farm: Modern Finger Hosting | Jon Roig at GitHub | 2021 | Summary: I may just have to try this soon.

3. The Old Leaf Journal

Let’s dig into our archives…

• Thomas Sowell on Hard-Core Troublemakers | N.A. Ferrell | June 30, 2020 | Summary: This post had a revival in one of my five articles from the current week.
• Reviewing Three Boutique Guitar Strings | V. Gurbo | June 25, 2020 | Summary: Victor V. Gurbo showcased three boutique guitar strings on vintage guitars from his collection.
• A Trip Across Brooklyn’s Summit Street Bridge | N.A. Ferrell | June 20, 2021 | Summary: The nominal predecessor to this week’s post on a trip across the nearby Hamilton Avenue Walkway.

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 on site.

The week of June 4-10 was the twenty-third newsletter week of 2022.

For reasons unknown to anything but Google algorithms, I noticed a decline in our impressions and hits on Google that commenced nearly contemporaneously with our dual appearances on Hacker News at the end of May. Unfortunately, since Google is our largest referrer by a very wide margin, that gradually wore on our visitor statistics as the week went on. Both my F-Droid app review and my tsuki ga kirei piece recorded two of their slower weeks of 2022, although neither was threatened for the top two spots in the ranking. The rest of the top five was conventional, with my 2020 Pixelfed review rounding out the top-five with its third appearance of 2022. Although it has featured in our weekly top-five far less frequently than it did in 2021, the Pixelfed review is close to its 2021 pace in terms of total visitors after posting its best-ever month in May.

5. Notable Leaf Journal

I am finally making good progress on my project to review all of the freeware Japanese visual novels that were officially translated into English as part of three translation festivals in 2005, 2006, and 2008. While working to get a couple of the games working, I came across a few other repositories of freeware visual novels. Here, I link to the Ren’Ai Archive, a collection of freeware English visual novels organized by year and category. I may review some of these games, which date back to 2002, in the future.

6. News Leaf Journal

I did not make any changes to The New Leaf Journal in the last week, but I will note that the site seems to be performing well on both desktop and mobile devices. I have been gradually optimizing some of our older articles by replacing images with smaller versions and editing HTML tags in links.

7. Taking Leaf

Thank you for joining us for another edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you enjoyed the content and are not already a subscriber, you can subscribe via RSS or email. Our past issues are available in our newsletter archive. I also syndicate our weekly newsletters to Bearblog.

I look forward to reporting on exciting new New Leaf Journal content and links from around the web on Saturday, June 18. Until then,

Cura ut valeas.