Today is July 31. With the end of the month comes our regularly scheduled month-in-review post. The New Leaf Journal had a bit of a publishing lull in the second half of July thanks to your favorite perennially virid website editor (I hope I am, at least) having a day job and some sinus issues. Nevertheless, we still published a solid number of new posts in July and had our best month in terms of page views since our Bing ban kicked in fully in February. Below, you will find our articles of the month and our most-visited articles of July.
New Leaves from July 2023
I published 13 new articles in July prior to this review. You will find links to all of our new articles with brief descriptions. I singled out three of the new articles as my “editor’s choice” selections.
- Most-Visited NLJ Articles of 1H 2023 (NAF: July 1, 2023)
Where our most-visited article ranking stood for the year as of June 30, 2023 (July shook things up a bit — so this ranking is no longer up-to-date.) - Basil Hall on Benjamin Franklin’s grave (NAF: July 3, 2023) [EDITOR’S CHOICE]
An 1829 visit to Benjamin Franklin’s grave. - The Eagle, the National Seal, and turkeys (NAF: July 4, 2023)
Celebrating 4th of July with a children’s story and a letter from Benjamin Franklin. - Mafia Social Media Over-Sharing (NAF: July 7, 2023)
Even the mafia cannot help but over-share on social media. - Installing Non-Listed Programs in PlayOnLinux (NAF: July 8, 2023)
A guide (with pictures) to using PlayOnLinux. It probably also applies to PlayOnMac. - The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses Ep1 Animation (NAF: July 10, 2023) [EDITOR’S CHOICE]
A detailed animation analysis of the divisive first episode of The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses. - Barbie & Oppenheimer without context (NAF: July 12, 2023)
I only learned it was a meme when I started writing. - RSS for keeping up with MikroTik updates (NAF: July 13, 2023)
Using RSS feeds to stay abreast of RouterOS updates. - Japanese Language Env in Steam (Linux) (NAF: July 14, 2023)
A guide to configuring a Japanese language environment with Steam Proton. - Hallmarks of Former Service Members (NAF: July 23, 2023)
A short story on identifying military veterans by speech patterns. - DuckDuckGo in the Bing Pond (NAF: July 28, 2023)
DuckDuckGo once again finds itself wading through the Bing pond. - Basquiat Forgeries Made With Alarming Ease (NAF: July 29, 2023) [EDITOR’S CHOICE]
I ask the questions others avoided about a Basquiat forgery scheme. - Anime Case Against Japan’s Population Loss (NAF: July 30, 2023)
Our newest Justin and Justina dialogue tackled the intersection between anime and reports of Japan’s population decline… but not in the way you may expect (without knowing Justin).
Collections
I created new Collection pages for our Justin and Justina dialogue series and my posts tacking anime queries. We now have 54 Justin and Justina dialogues (four were about site news). If you are not familiar with the series, I encourage you to use the collection to catch up with The New Leaf Journal’s resident comedy duo.
Leaflets
I only published two new Leaflet posts in July. Both went live on July 27. The first covered my thoughts on a new Android-based PocketBook e-reader (note that I have two versions of the PocketBook Color). The second covered news that Techdirt had been blacklisted by Bing. Note that the Techdirt news broke right after I had finished drafting my new DuckDuckGo-Bing article. While the timing was good for the article, it did create extra work for me.
Leaf Buds
I published six short Leaf Bud posts in July.
- Do I have to watch My Tiny Senpai?
In light of the success of an article inspired by the new anime series My Tiny Senpai, I asked whether I should watch. (Note I still have not watched the series.) - The “well actually” guy on coyote rescue
The well actually guy on the internet tries to ruin a feel-good story. - Stadia controller gets Linux rumble support
I offer qualified praise to Google. - “The Old Men With Good Eyes”
Brief reflections on a good quote seen on Hacker News. - Leaving “likes” from FreshRSS
An elaborate Webmention set-up beginning with a FreshRSS favorite. - On Algorithmic Feeds and Owning Nothing
On the anti-ownership ethos of algorithmic feeds.
Newsletters
July saw five new newsletters: 142, 143, 144, 145, and 146. 144 was a unique entry because I had not published any new articles that week, leading me to include more links from our archive and from around the web than usual. Newsletter 146 saw the end of the weekly top-five streak of my tsuki ga kirei history, which had featured in every weekly top five going back to April 2021.
While I syndicate all of our newsletters here to The New Leaf Journal, I encourage you to consider subscribing to the flagship edition which goes out on Saturdays. You can sign up to our email list or, in the alternative, simply add the newsletter’s RSS feed to your favorite feed reader. All of our options are available here.
24 Most-Visited Articles of July 2023 and 24 Most-Visited Articles of May-July 2023
I use a privacy friendly local analytics solution called Koko Analytics to count page views (see my review). It has its limitations — it misses RSS visitors, people who enable do not track, and those who block its little slice JavaScript. But it is good enough for our purposes. I have been publishing our 24 most-visited articles each month and our most-visited articles over three-month periods. Before today, I published these in two separate lists. Below, I will try to do it all in a single table. First, we will list the 24 most-visited articles of July while noting their three-month ranking. Then, I will list the articles that made our three-month May-July ranking but were outside the top-24 in July.
Our July ranking was dominated by my essay on height differences in anime romances, which swept the top spot in every week of the month. It was a banner month for anime articles as a whole, taking spots 1, 3, 5, 16, and 18 in the ranking. Moreover, my July 2023 essay on animation in the first episode of The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses performed solidly, albeit not enough for a top 24-placement. Other than the top spot, we had three surprises in the top 12. My Otho article followed up its first ever top-12 in June by repeating the feat with its best monthly finish of 7th place in July. Two articles which had largely been non-entities recently, my barely-noticed short post on a banana bench and my article on an 1851 letter by Abraham Lincoln (the Lincoln article posted a 3rd-place finish back in September 2022) took spots 8 and 9.
Conclusion
I ended up not having time to publish some of the articles I had planned for July. Fortunately, that means that you should have plenty to look forward to in August and September (glass half-full take). While our Bing ban continues, we posted solid numbers in July, especially early in the month, and I saw some good signs through inductive reasoning that our visitors are beginning to take the time to navigate the site after landing on one of our articles. I hope you look forward to what promises to be an interesting August here at The New Leaf Journal. I recommend checking out our selection of RSS, ATOM, and JSON feeds.
