I opened X a few days ago to check my profile. Instead of taking me to my profile (I have a special social browser profile where I stay logged in), X told me that I was suspicious and made me complete two very annoying CAPTCHAs to prove I was a person. After getting back into my account, I was told to review X’s rules (no clue as to what “rule” was violated). Then I had to log out and in again to interact with the UI. Everything was back to normal the next day. I only use X to post links to my articles (which is similar to how I use Mastodon, Bluesky, Minds, and NOSTR), so “losing” the account would not have been a serious problem like being blacklisted by Bing for the better part of a year was. But consider my story a cautionary tale for anyone who relies on third-party social media platforms (open source, proprietary, or other) as their primary or, worse yet, sole online presence. Focus on building your online home and then use third-party social media to invite others to visit.
Author Archives: Nicholas A. Ferrell
Assad Denies Having Intended to Flee Syria
From i24 News:
‘My departure from Syria was neither planned nor did it occur during the final hours of the battles, as some have claimed,’ former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said in a statement released on Telegram Monday.
Who among us has not at least once found ourselves evacuating Syria aboard a Russian military plane after having not once previously entertained the possibility of engaging in such course of action?
Donut Deliveries?
I quote the following excerpt from a cleverly titled BBC report on a cybersecurity incident at Krispy Kreme:
Some customers in the US have been unable to make online orders as a result of the hack, which occurred in late November but has only just been disclosed.
Since when do people order donuts from Krispy Kreme? Here I thought that was more a “go there and buy a donut” kind of place. The more you learn. In any event, sitting at home or in the office and ordering donuts is unhealthy. You should go out and buy a donut if you want a donut. Moreover, do not install donut apps.
Cotton vs Cornyn for Senate Intelligence Chair
Jonathan Martin for Politico reported on an internal GOP Senate leadership fight for the post of Intelligence Committee Chairman. Marco Rubio had in line for the Chairman position, but he is now the soon-to-be-confirmed nominee for Secretary of State. Next in line is Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who also secured the third-ranking position in the Senate GOP conference. Mr. Martin reports that Texas Senator Jon Cornyn, who lost a bid against Senator John Thune of South Dakota for the caucus leader post, has backers in a bid to leap-frog Mr. Cotton for the Intelligence Committee chairman post (I wrote about an interesting fact related to Mr. Thune’s ascending to the position of Senate Majority Leader). The logic, according to Mr. Martin (note that Politico is not my go-to source on these matters, but we can set that aside), the logic of the Cornyn idea is that gaining the Intelligence Committee chairmanship would make it more likely that he runs for reelection in 2026. Mr. Cotton seems to be having none of the plan, and Mr. Martin implicitly opines (I am inclined to agree from the outside) that Mr. Thune, who has the power to select chairs, will favor Mr. Cotton because Mr. Cotton supported his leadership bid while Mr. Cornyn was his opponent. But all of this manuvering leaves open an important question, especiall in light of the upcoming push to reform how the initelligence agencies conduct their affairs: Who would be the better Chairman? I will submit for the record that given the two choices, the answer is clearly the one who will most likely prevail in this power struggle, the junior Senator from Arkansas.
“Potter Fun” Referral to The New Leaf Journal
Koko Analytics, the local page counting tool I use here and on The New Leaf Journal, shows referrers. The vast majority of my regular referrals are from Google, with the rest being split between DuckDuckGo, Bing, Brave Search, Yandex, and miscellaneous search engines (usually in that order, although sometimes Brave and Yandex switch positions). Unusual referrers stand out. I just noticed one from potterfun.com. I had no idea what it was, but it turned out to be a Harry Potter fan site. This struck me as peculiar. Not only have I never written about Harry Potter, I also never read it. While I did not find the where my link was posted, I suspect it is my article on a 1920s book about reading tea leaves. Why? One of the most recent Potter Fun articles is titled Study Your Future With Tea-Leaf Reading Divination. But that article does not include a single link, internal or external, so I could be wrong.
Resuming My Pokémon Red Novel Project
Back on February 27, 2024, I wrote an article on The New Leaf Journal introducing a project wherein I would turn my real play-through of Pokémon Red into a serialized novel. I abandoned two play-throughs (including one with a humorous SNAFU) because I was missing a story angle. I was in the midst of what will be my story-producing run on August 6, 2024. I then shelved the project (for some reason) until today (being December 7, 2024), when I resumed after a four-month hiatus. It took me a few minutes to remember exactly what I was doing, but we are now half-way to the eight-badge mark and I have what I think is my final team (one slot may be swapped for the Elite Four, but that will be late). If all goes well, I may be ready to start publishing “chapters” by the end of the month. For those of you who cannot wait, you can read my side-story from the current play-through about spending an hour in Viridian Forest trying to catch a Caterpie.
Lenovo T400 RAM Issue
I have a librebooted Lenovo T400 laptop which I picked up on Ebay a few years ago. I went to turn it on for the first time in a few weeks and, to my great disappointment, the screen did not turn on. I did some research and determined that the culprit could be the RAM. The laptop came to me with a spinning hard drive and 4 GB of RAM (2×2). I replaced the hard drive with a solid state drive and doubled the RAM to 8 GB (4×4). The laptop’s screen powered on when I removed one of the new RAM sticks. I got rid of the broken RAM and re-inserted one of the original 2 GB sticks of RAM (so we now have 6 GB total) while waiting for a new order of two 4 GB sticks. I also ordered new case screws since I have a few missing screws and two of the screws that were holding the palm rest seem to not fit correctly. At least it works, I suppose.
Universities Coddle Students After Election
The Washington Times published a well-sourced and humorous report headlined Universities help students cope with Trump win with canceled classes, milk and cookies. We wind through stories of canceled classes, quizzes not being counted, and even therapy animals. However, I was most curious about one part of the headline:
Meanwhile, Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy provided a ‘Self-Care Suite’ that included ‘Milk and Cookies,’ ‘a Legos Station’ and ‘Coloring and Mindfulness Exercises,’ according to a memo obtained by The Free Press.
I voted for John McCain in 2008 and went to class (Brooklyn College) the day after his heavily foreshadowed landslide defeat was confirmed by election results. I did not think to run around wailing or tell my professors about my feelings. The former would have been unseemly and the latter deeply weird. But had someone offered me a cookie, I would have taken the cookie. I read this now and think that there should have been cookies. I would have settled for Dunkin Donuts. If people today with outstanding student loan debt can demand that the majority of Americans with no such debt pay their debt, I think I can demand retroactive cookies from Brooklyn College. I am not picky but white chocolate macadamia, ginger, or oatmeal raisin would be very welcome.
Al Gore’s Historic Streak Ends
On October 20, 2024, I wrote an article about presidential runner-ups with the most recent birth dates. My article was inspired by the fact that prior to the 2024 presidential election, Al Gore, who lost in 2000, was the youngest person to finish runner-up in a presidential election. I went through all the runners-up to see if Mr. Gore had the longest streak, and learned that he was the record holder. Mr. Gore had appeared slated to extend his mark prior to July 2024 since both of the presumptive major party nominees were older than him. However, the presumptive Democratic nominee, now-outgoing President Joe Biden, withdrew the race and was replaced by the Vice President, Kamala Harris, who is just more than 18 and one-half years younger than Mr. Gore. I noted the possibility that Mr. Gore’s streak would end and indeed it has. As Donald Trump prepares to join Grover Cleveland as the only men to serve two non-consecutive terms as president, Ms. Harris replaces Mr. Gore as the presidential runner-up with the most recent birth date. This is admittedly a very niche record, but Mr. Gore’s holding the mark for six elections is a fun oddity, especially in light of the fact that he was not an exceptionally young major party nominee in 2000. I will add a few small updates to my research article in the coming days.
Cannot Fix Computer With Punch
Nicholas A. FerrellI built my current desktop computer back in August 2020. One of the benefits of building your own computer is that you can easily fix it when you have a hardware issue. For example, one of the top fans on my case is becoming a bit off-kilter. Once in a while (maybe once every 30-40 start-ups), it wi...
I had to buy case-fans for my current computer, which I built back in August 2020. I have had issues with the fans rotating askew and making an unpleasant noise. I had already replaced two before one of my replacement fans started to go. In February, I fixed the replacement fan by punching the top of my computer case. Unfortunately, the punch solution became unreliable on the morning of October 26, 2024. Having work to do, I unplugged the offending fan. I think I can harvest case fans from my previous desktop PC, which I built in 2011.
Halloween for Nagasaki Bio Park Capybaras (2020)
I published a research article on Halloween in Japan on October 17, 2024. My article was based on a selection of English-language sources. After I published the article, it occurred to me to use Feedle, an interesting search tool for RSS/ATOM feeds, to see if I missed any good Halloween-Japan articles. While I did not find any articles that I would have added for their research value, I did find an important report on capybaras at the Nagasaki Bio Park devouring a Halloween Jack-o-lantern in 2020. From that report, I learned that the jack-o-lantern was something of a mulligan after the capybaras had struggled in doing battle with a sturdier pumpkin a few weeks earlier.
Girls Band Cry on Crunchyroll
Anime News Network reported that Crunchyroll is adding Girls Band Cry, a spring 2024 anime, on November 6. Girls Band Cry was perhaps the only high profile anime of 2024 to not be officially simulcast. News of Crunchyroll’s picking it up is bittersweet for me. I am a Crunchyroll subscriber. But I purchased Girls Band Cry on Amazon (in the digital purchase is really a rental sense) early last month. Fortunately, I actually watched all 13 episodes in early-to-mid September, so I got some value from the “purchase” before it officially arrives on Crunchyroll. I had been on the fence about writing a Girls Band Cry review, but now I almost certainly will with the news that it is arriving on Crunchyroll. Now can you expect to see it ranked in my year-end top-six anime of 2024 in a couple of months (see my 2023 ranking)? I did (mostly) like Girls Band Cry, but we are close enough th the end of the year that I will issue a no comment on its prospects.
Recommending the PocketBook Line
For the last few months, I’ve been trying to decide if I should buy a new ereader and, if so, which brand I should purchase. I have been researching options from Kindle, Kobo, Onyx Boox and a few others. My goal is to read books and I check ebooks out from our library so I really want Libby support. ... I could really use some recommendations. I’m leaning away from Kindle (for the most part) but I haven’t ruled it out.
I subscribe to The Well Apportioned Desk in my feed reader. Site creator Ana Reinert is looking for e-reader recommendations. She wants an e-reader that allows her to “read books” and “libby support” for checking out books from her library. She would also prefer a non-Kindle option, although that is not a requirement. I personally have a PocketBook Color (seen here), PocketBook Inkpad Color (first model, seen here), and a 2018 Kindle Paperwhite (discussed here). I like the Pocketbooks. Pocketbook’s native Linux-based OS is unobtrusive and it is very easy to install KoReader for a much better reading and library-management experience (KoReader is noticeably snappier than the default reading app). I do not use PocketBook’s store at, instead using it for DRM-free books (I use Calibre on my PC to send books to my PocketBook). However, I have tested its built-in Adobe DRM functionality and found that it works as expected for DRM-protected books from the Kobo sore. As a bonus, Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included guide has a positive assessment of Pocketbook devices. Readers should note I have not tried an Android-based PocketBook, so I have no opinion of those. I have no take on Libby functionality since I have never checked out library ebooks (moreover, I was only aware of Overdrive). If PocketBook does not check the library box, I would see if Kobo, which, like Pocketbook, supports KoReader, is a viable option (assuming arguendo that Kobo is preferred over Kindle). Since Ms. Reinert mentioned Onyx Book, I will note that I would stay away from that one due to its tendency to phone home and GPL violations, but I would be interested in Onyx Book if something like LineageOS were available for it.
Like an Olympic Walker
I was walking in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, on the evening of October 23, 2024. A little girl (probably about 9 years old) was lagging behind her father. She asked him to slow down. When he did not slow down, she dropped the following line:
You’re like in the Olympics for walking.
That is a good line for a kid. Imagine what she will be able to put together when she learns about Olympic racewalking.
Spectrum Internet Speed Increase
My home internet service provider is Spectrum (it has been for a long time), which I discussed in some detail in an article about receiving surprisingly good customer support back in May. I have the cheapest internet plan. That plan had been for 300 Mbps. With my MikroTik hAP ac3 router and good ethernet cables, I was able to get about ~370 Mbps out of it with a wired connection. Spectrum recently bumped the internet speed on my plan to 400 Mbps for no additional cost. I finally got around to testing and got 493-495 Mbps on three tests with an ethernet connection. That is a nice increase but it made me wonder whether there is anything I can do to squeeze 500 out of it.