Monday, Feb 19, 2024 (Middle Presidents' Day)

Let's check in on Presidents' Day posts...

The New Leaf Journal

I published an article about the four U.S. presidents who used their middle names as first names.

https://thenewleafjournal.com/presidents-who-went-by-middle-names/

I had originally planned to use WordPress' native footnotes. However, they thought back enough that I went with a new system for this post.

New Project: Pressed Leaf Reader

I created a single page feed aggreagator site for my projects with WordPress.com.

https://pressedleafreader.wordpress.com/

I will add new feeds over time. While I suggest using a feed reader, consider this a good bookmark alternative.

The Emu Café Social

I published a regular post explaining the origin of my Pressed Leaf Reader WordPress.com project.

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/making-use-of-wordpress-com/

I also posted a short status on my starting fresh with Zotero.

https://social.emucafe.org/patrons/naferrell/activity/5/

Music

My friend and occasional New Leaf Journal writer, Victor V. Gurbo (https://www.victorvgurbo.com), posted his home recording of "The Party After You Left"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubLOmIbn4X4

I'm not too up to date on the music scene but I think that just might be my exit music.

On Second Thought -- Around the Web

I read a couple of articles today that may make for interesting future New Leaf Journal prompts.

First:

https://maggieappleton.com/ai-dark-forest

This is an interesting piece on the negative effect that AI-generated garbage has on the quality of content on the internet. However, I had some issues with its suggestion that the onus is on human beings writing and posting media to prove that they are not AI, especially where the article veers dangerously close to suggesting that humans should change how they write to sustain their burden of proof.

Second:

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-state-of-the-culture-2024

A characteristically excellent piece from Ted Gioia's Substack on the internet being subsumed by distraction and addiction. I have some thoughts about it that tie into the previous link.

This Day in NLJ History

On February 19, 2022, I published an article on a horror story of a young girl working to become a TikTok star while her parents encouraged this terrible endeavor.

https://thenewleafjournal.com/on-children-tiktok-and-social-media-stardom/

The story ends with her gaining a stalker and her father shooting the stalker dead when he arrived with bad intentions.

Anyway, TikTok should be banned yesterday.