It was a snowy February 2026 here in my birthplace and home, Brooklyn, New York City. But while it was snowing outside, I was typing inside, publishing a good collection of new articles and short posts here on The New Leaf Journal (“NLJ”) and over on The Emu Café Social (“ECS”) and The Newsletter Leaf Journal.
Let us review the month that was in the continuation of a tradition which began all the way back in August 2020.
New Leaves on NLJ
I published 12 new articles in the 28 days of February 2026. Per my recent custom, I will share some of the backstory of my new articles along with the links. One of the new articles was January 2026 at The New Leaf Journal, wherein I covered the first month of the year.
February was a landmark month for articles about visual novels. My first article was Making My First Visual Novel: Little White Lies. While I had reviewed many visual novels and written about visual novel engines here on NLJ, I had never made one myself. I spent a good chunk of my free time in the last three weeks of January collaborating with our own Victor V. Gurbo on putting together LWL, a short visual novel made with Ren’Py (I handled the coding and was the main script and scenario writer). You can learn about the making of LWL in my article and then play it for yourself on Itch.io. Speaking of Itch.io, I published Itch.io Outdated TOTP 2FA App Recommendations, which came from making a “Circle New Leaf Journal” account for LWL on Itch.io. I noticed that Itch recommended apps 2FA apps for BlackBerry and Windows Phone, which led me to conclude that it had not updated its 2FA instructions in some time.
February was also a big month for reviewing visual novels. On Valentine’s Day, I published Christmas Tina – Visual Novel Review, which is my review of a commercial Chinese/Japanese visual novel. I had started reading it on Christmas, but circumstances (illness, work, LWL) delaying publication of the final review until Valentine’s. Despite being this year’s Valentine’s article, Christmas Tina, which is set in late-80s Japan and features a young man and woman living under the same roof, is not a love story. I enjoyed the piece on the whole. 11 days later, I published Shiroi Printer – Visual Novel Review. While Christmas Tina is a commercial visual novel with about 8-9 hours of reading time, Shiroi Printer is a short hobbyist piece which can be read in 10 minutes. It is unique among my reviews thus far in that it was written in TyranoScript and is available in English on Freem!, which is a Japanese platform for freeware games. I came away impressed with the effort as a freeware visual novel developer myself.
While Christmas Tina was arguably a questionable choice for Valentine’s Day in that the game’s store page on Steam makes a point of emphasizing that it is not a romance story (it does look like one on the tin), I needed a real Valentine’s Day article. I delivered with BIA Addresses Marriage Fraud on Valentine’s Eve, six days after the special day. “BIA” refers to the Board of Immigration Appeals. On February 13, the Board published an interesting precedential decision on marriage fraud. I discuss the key points of the decision, but I was inspired to write the article because I could not help but notice that the Board published the decision on Friday, February 13, 2026, i.e., the last business day before Valentine’s.
I had a bad tech and good tech sequence with AI Game Worlds and Humane Games followed by The Positive Case for Good Tech. In the former post, I offered a critical take on Google’s new AI world-generation tech and what it could mean for games followed by what I think is good news for people who are interested in making and playing games by human beings for other human beings. In the latter, I used an interesting essay on the IndieWeb to make the case for advancing the positive case for good tech instead of leading with a comparison to bad tech. I illustrated my point by using this very site and RSS feeds and feed readers as examples. I previewed the good tech post in Re: The Indie Web Is Not Defined by Its Enemies on ECS. Writing a bit about NLJ inspired me to publish Blog Questions Challenge Answers, wherein I answered questions for bloggers.
I published two long research articles on very different topics. In Video Game Home Console Success By Generation, I thought about how to measure how successful different video game consoles were against their peers. This project was inspired by what I thought was an unfair comparison of PlayStation Portable sales to older home consoles. My survey is a bit rough, but I hope it offers someonee with better statistics skills some ideas of how to approach the subject. Five days later, I published Dave Cowens’ 1995 NBA Comeback That Wasn’t, wherein I examined the strange story of an aborted NBA comeback. Dave Cowens was a star and one-time MVP in the 1970s who had played his final game in 1982 at age 34. While an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs he apparently contemplated an NBA return in 1995 at age 46, a plan endorsed by the head coach of the Spurs. Once I read about this “comeback” idea, I knew a research project was in order.
I wrapped February up with Brooklyn Snowmen in February 2026. The article comes exactly as advertised, featuring photographs from February 24, 25, and 28. I had a final draft ready on the 27th, but I added an extra photo I took on my afternoon walk on the 28th before I hit publish.
New Short Articles on ECS
I published 27 short posts on ECS in February 2026. I will list some of the highlights below:
- I started a new (almost) daily link series called Pook-Emu Bee. I collect links from around the web and add comments just like in The Newsletter Leaf Journal. See my entries for February 24, 25, 26, and 27.
- A good essay about the Nintendo Entertainment System puzzle game Wario’s Woods inspired me to publish Things I Learned: NES Wario’s Woods ESRB Rating and Things I Forgot: Wario’s Woods in Animal Crossing.
- I shared good news regarding one service I use in Posteo Doubles Storage.
- My research for a NLJ quip led me to publish Things I Learned: Hedgehogs, Erinaceiane.
- It was snowy in New York City. I learned something about snow in Germany in Things I Learned: Berlin’s Road Salt Ban.
- The RAM pricing crisis continues unabated. But with crises come quips. And Even the Cheap Computer Cubes Are Out of Stock is one such quip.
- I continued on the defining good tech positively theme in A Positive Technologist Identity.
- I got to the bottom of something in my server logs in What is the YandoriRSSBot?
- I saw that one of my NLJ anime reviews had a backlink from Grokipedia and shared the news in Grokipedia Cites to My Anime Review. How did Grokipedia do? Well…
There are more February 2026 posts. See the full archive for the entire collection.
Newsletter Leaf Journal Issues
There were four Saturdays in February and I mailed an issue of the Newsletter Leaf Journal on all four Saturdays. See below:
- Comeback printer 〜 Newsletter leaf journal CCLXIX (February 28, 2026 Issue 269)
- Sixth generation 〜 Newsletter Leaf Journal CCLXVIII (February 21, 2026 Issue 268)
- Inbox Valentine 〜 Newsletter Leaf Journal CCLXVII (February 14, 2026 Issue 267
- Little White Lies 〜 Newsletter Leaf Journal CCLXVI (February 7, 2026 Issue 266)
Every issue of The Newsletter Leaf Journal includes links from around the web with commentary and weekly most-visited article stats in addition to summaries of my new posts. That is, there is original “content” even for people who are all caught up with my newest articles. There are multiple ways to follow the newsletter including using RSS.
Pixelfed
One of my 2021 articles about Pixelfed, an open source and federated answer to Instagram, did unexpectedly well in February 2026. That inspired me to Remember[] to Post to Pixelfed. I published to Pixelfed my photos of a bowl of cherries, bright headlights in Brooklyn Heights, and snow bears in Cobble Hill. All of these photos appeared in NLJ articles, but the Pixelfed versions are better quality. Each photo comes with a short discussion and link(s) to relevant NLJ articles.
Most-visited articles of February 2026
I use an entirely local, open source, and privacy friendly tool for tracking page visits called Koko Analytics (see my 2022 Koko Analytics review and five-year retrospective). In each month-end review, I list our 24 most-visited articles. Below, you will find our 24 most-visited articles of 2026 next to their cumulative 2026 ranking at the end of February (referring to January + February).
| Feb 2026 Rank | Article Title + Link Author. First Publication Date. | Feb + Jan Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 17, 2025. | 1 |
| 2 | Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 21, 2026. | 2 |
| 3 | Amazon “Cargo Bikes” in Brooklyn Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 9, 2025. | 3 |
| 4 | Dragonair Safari in Pokémon Yellow Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 5, 2023. | 4 |
| 5 | The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 – Statistics and Analysis Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 18, 2022. | 5 |
| 6 | How the Forget-Me-Not Flower Found Its Name Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 11, 2021. | 6 |
| 7 | Follow The New Leaf Journal Pixelfed Atom Feed Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 18, 2021. | 27 |
| 8 | The Positive Case for Good Tech Nicholas A. Ferrell. February 13, 2026. | 32 |
| 9 | Examining Whether Defense Wins NBA Championships Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 9, 2024. | 8 |
| 10 | Futaba Igarashi’s Hair Is Naturally Green? Nicholas A. Ferrell. November 23, 2021. | 12 |
| 11 | A Sign of Affection – Anime Review Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 28, 2024. | 13 |
| 12 | Return to Shironagasu Island Review Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 31, 2022. | 20 |
| 13 | The Story of Billy Possum, President Hoover’s Pet Opossum Nicholas A. Ferrell. November 30, 2021. | 7 |
| 14 | The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 14, 2021. | 9 |
| 15 | Height differences in anime romances Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 22, 2023. | 11 |
| 16 | Installing Ubuntu Touch on a Google Nexus 7 (2013) Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 5, 2021. | 14 |
| 17 | Misleading ARRIS Modem Login Instructions Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 12, 2024. | 10 |
| 18 | Installing LineageOS on a 2013 Nexus 7 (Wi-Fi) Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 28, 2021. | 16 |
| 19 | Umineko When They Cry Red Truth Guide Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 7, 2022. | 15 |
| 20 | Japanese Environment in PoL, Lutris, and Bottles Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 16, 2022. | 18 |
| 21 | Aegis Authenticator and Linux Authenticator Nicholas A. Ferrell. September 8, 2025. | 24 |
| 22 | Broken Optical Audio Cable Door “Fix” Nicholas A. Ferrell. September 16, 2023. | 19 |
| 23 | Honey Lemon Soda – Anime Review Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 4, 2025. | 21 |
| 24 | Fixing Refresh Rate Issue on 4K TV Monitor Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 16, 2024. | 17 |
There were no “surprises” at the top of the ranking, with our top-six articles for February also being the top-six articles for 2026 thus far (as of the end of February). Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search had the second-best “unassisted” month in NLJ history (meaning its views did not come from being shared on an external service or platform), following its record-setting January.
Our first surprise comes in at 7th place. Follow The New Leaf Journal Pixelfed Atom Feed performed well when I first published it in January 2021, but it quickly faded by March of that year. But in February 2026, it came from nowhere to take 7th place in what was a strong month-ranking, right above the best-performing new article, The Positive Case for Good Tech. Another entry in the “surprise” category is my Halloween 2022 review of Return to Shironagasu Island, a visual novel. It had never previously made a month-end top 24, but it checked in at 12th and also made its first “Newsletter Week” top-five. It is just the third visual novel review to make a month-end top 24 (following my reviews of Kaori After Story and LoveChoice) and the second after Kaori After Story to make a weekly top-five.
Taking leaf
I am publishing this at the half-way point of March, so it is a bit late for a March 2026 preview. But I have reason to believe that there will be plenty to share in my upcoming March 2026 review and more as we transition from winter to spring. Until next month’s review!
