Barry Bonds put up four of the greatest offensive seasons in MLB history from 2001-2004 (setting obvious controversies aside). Thus, one can understand why he was walked at an unprecedented clip, recording the three highest intentional bases on balls seasons from 2002-04. But I explore a different question: Why did Bonds continue to draw intentional walks at a historic clip in 2006 and 2007, when his offensive output, while still solid, was dramatically down from its video game-esque heights in 2001-2004 (not to mention his best seasons in the 90s).
https://thenewleafjournal.com/on-barry-bonds-ibbs-in-2006-and-2007/
#baseball #mlb #BarryBonds #intentionalwalk #sports
My 2020 article on a pumpkin with a mask fastened to its face by looping around its arms.
https://thenewleafjournal.com/halloween-and-the-pumpkin-with-a-mask/
#photography #halloween #pumpkin #mask #myphoto
I found an interesting post by Jonathan Turley on free speech on college campuses (I agree in part, dissent in part) lacking on one area -- its presenting and rebutting an argument that I have not seen made without offering a source for the argument despite having offered sources for other arguments in the article. This inspired a reflection on the importance of citing to sources for arguments you are shooting down.
https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/importance-of-sourcing/
#writing #arguments #colleges #freespeech #law
I published a short post on Egypt's laws regarding eligibility to run for president and dual citizenship/nationality. I stumbled on the issue in Global Law Monitor (and recalled it coming up in 2012) and I wrote other pieces about dual citizenship laws -- so why not?
https://thenewleafjournal.com/citizenship-rules-for-running-for-president-of-egypt/
#egypt #citizenship #nationality #law
Back in January, I wrote that Kimi ni Todoke was due for a third anime season after the first two seasons aired for 38 episodes from 2009-2011. Apparently someone was reading (or that's what I tell myself), because a third season was announced for 2024. I offer my thoughts along with links to related articles on the series.
https://thenewleafjournal.com/leaf/kimi-ni-todoke-season-three-coming-in-2024/
#anime #KimiNiTodoke #netflix #shoujo
Have you ever played a visual novel where you had to re-do the same thing (thank goodness for skipping) 43 times to reach the third ending? I will always remember Midsummer Haze for that and other reasons...
https://thenewleafjournal.com/midsummer-haze-visual-novel-review/
#visualnovel #doujin #videogames #anecdote #freeware
I have read many complaints about the decline of blogging and independent websites. But in the end, it's about caring about good writing by real people. As I explain in a new Leaflet, I carrot, I mean care, about good content (and bad puns).
https://thenewleafjournal.com/leaf/i-carrot-about-good-content/
#carrots #myphoto #nyc #blogging #puns
The 148th Newsletter Leaf Journal features links to our newest articles (and six from our archive), 12 interesting links from around the web, and other news and notes including a story about the dangers of writing newsletters late in the evening.
https://buttondown.email/newsletterleafjournal/archive/148/
#newsletter #buttondown #aroundtheweb #links
Thanks for reading and for the kind words. I will note that there are more convenient solutions than my Handy Reading set-up for people who like third-party providers and services, but Handy Reading is my personal recommendation (provided one uses Android or a derivative thereof) since it is local and keeps everything neatly in one place.
On the anti-ownership ethos of big tech's centralized algorithms.
https://thenewleafjournal.com/leafbud/on-algorithmic-feeds-and-owning-nothing/
#bigtech #twitter #facebook #bluesky #algorithms
I read that the last Nintendo Wii game was Just Dance 2020. I had known that the Wii had a long life cycle, but I did not know it was that long. I was curious whether Just Dance 2020 was actually the last Wii game. This prompted an investigation. As I discovered, it turns out that the answer to the question "what was the last Wii game" depends on where you ask.
https://thenewleafjournal.com/the-last-nintendo-wii-games/
#VideoGames #NintendoWii #Wii #Nintendo #VideoGameHistory
I wrote an assessment of GoHands' animation in the first episode of one of its two summer 2023 anime series, The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses, after learning that it was the subject of debate. My post includes links to select clips from the episode (courtesy of Sakgugabooru). Through 4, I think GoHands improved by calming down a bit and some of the technical issues in 1 have gradually become better. However, GoHands' better animation work has been left to its second 2023 series about an office lady and her very large, masterful cat.
https://thenewleafjournal.com/the-girl-i-like-forgot-her-glasses-ep1-animation/
#anime #GoHands #2023anime
From April 26, a post about the appearance of what appears to be a Windows desktop in the first episode of My Love Story With Yamada-kun at Lv999. I made the (specious) case that the protagonist, who was heartbroken over her recent breakup, would have been happy if she ended her toxic relationship with Windows.
(Article may have been partially inspired by Bing de-indexing my site -- can neither affirm nor deny.)
#anime #linux #windows
I see.
Elephind is a full text newspaper search engine, featuring old papers from thousands of libraries (the bulk are from the United States, Canada, and Australia, but there are many outside of those three). I have used it for a number of article research projects ranging from the origin of Mother's Day to articles on the first year of basketball (1891-92). Back in 2021, I wrote a short review of Elephind and its functionality.
https://thenewleafjournal.com/reviewing-elephind-a-powerful-newspaper-search-engine/
#elephind #SearchEngine #newspapers #libraries
I'll have to look at the auto update option, never noticed it. I like seeing what changed so RSS works for me, but may be useful for some cases where I won't have a chance to check in.
I've used the web UI before, including when I first set up. Works well but I prefer Winbox and it runs well on WINE. I do use web UI to manage my AP (just a cheap TP-Link device for that).
I use a MikroTik Hap ac3 as my router (with a separate AP) and run Winbox on top of WINE on Linux to manage it. The router's operating system, RouterOS, is regularly updated by MikroTik. In this article, I describe how I use MikroTik's RSS feed for RouterOS updates to keep my Hap ac3 up to date (along with a cautionary story from 2018 about why it is important).
https://thenewleafjournal.com/rss-for-keeping-with-mikrotik-updates/
#MikroTik #router #RouterOS #linux #Winbox #WINE #RSS #rssfeeds
This is neat. Can confirm bookmark creation was successful.
I saw a theater marquee with the upcoming release of "Barbie & Oppenheimer" the other day and took a photo. I thought it was funny because the marquee made it look like a single movie. Now note before seeing the marquee, I did not know that there was a Barbie or Oppenheimer movie coming out. I sat down to write an article and discovered there is a whole internet meme about this. The internet meme is dumb. Seeing the way the marquee was set up without context was better. Add this to the list of reasons that context is overrated.
https://thenewleafjournal.com/barbie-oppenheimer-without-context/
#movies #barbie #oppenheimer #photography #CobbleHill #brooklyn #nyc
I don't often say you have to hand it to Google, but credit where it is due for putting effort into ensuring that Stadia controllers -- which promise to have their value decrease to Stadia owners -- will be fully supported on Linux. Ensuring that older controllers work on Linux -- including console controllers -- is an interesting area.
https://thenewleafjournal.com/leafbud/stadia-controller-gets-linux-rumble-support/
#google #stadia #videogames #linux #gamecontrollers