Robert Birming published an interesting short blog post titled Where do blogs go when they die? He noted having noticed that many blog posts shared in recent years by participants in his Junited initiative are no more. From the outset, I agree with Mr. Birming that bloggers can end their blogs at any time and may have good reasons for wanting to remove them from the internet instead of preserving…

I follow The History Blog by psuedynmous blogger livius. It features blog posts about history (surprise?) focusing significantly on archaeology news. Significantly, The History Blog links to sources. Take for example a June 6, 2026 blog post titled Oldest iron saw in Japan identified. The post summarizes a linked Asahi Shimbun report on what appears to be a saw found in Japan dating back to the…

I have never been to Montana. Save for the occasional competitive U.S. Senate race, Montana is also not a common election hotspot. Thus, I never thought much about counties in Montana. I just learned that Great Falls, Montana, is in Cascade County. Do I see what they just did there? I see what they just did there. For seeing what they just did there, I will accept a Cascade Badge. Signed N.A.…

I am on a daily Pook-Emu Bee links roll. Today, I keep it doing with a third consecutive edition of the links.

1. Construction of jail in tony NYC nabe turns into potentially deadly ‘clown show’ with failling debris: records, locals (Nicole Rosenthal, Kevin Sheehan, and Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post. June 8, 2026.)

Boerum Hill is "tony" but that particular stretch of it was not "tony"…

I came across Brian McCormick's Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletter, which focuses on coaching basketball, via Mike Klinzing's Hoops Head Podcast Newsletter (Hoops Head inspired one of my recent memories articles). I had almost included Mr. McCormick's On Being a Generalist in my NLJ 6th Birthday Blogging Wisdom Series, but I ended up saving it for later use. But in celebration of Junited…

I watched a good amount of most of tennis' grand slams from about 2000 through 2013 or so. I was a Roger Federer fan, and for a good chunk of that period, you could always count on Mr. Federer playing late into the Slam (he had a record 23 consecutive Semifinals appearances from Wimbledon 2004 through the Australian Open 2010, and 36 consecutive quarterfinal appearances from the same starting…

Wherein I managed to successfully publish my "daily" Pook-Emu Bee links for a second consecutive day (what a twist!).

1. Persona 4 Revival Broadcast Announced As Atlus Reveals New Mechanics, Editions, And Screenshots (Orpheus Joshua at Noisy Pixel. June 7, 2026.)

Let no one say I am not a long-standing Persona 4 fan, but $65 for a second re-master of the original Persona 4 is steep before you…

I read a blog post titled Personal Search Engines with interest (HT Steve Makofsky). The author, Jason J. Gullickson, describes building a prototype federated personal search engine seeded with domains from his RSS feed collection. I like the idea of a personal search engine and have had trying YaCy to that effect on my personal "to-do" list for some time. This very interesting post (and perhaps…

I stumbled upon a blog post by Kenneth Reitz on his personal blog via Bubbles. The essay, titled Self-Hosting Adventures, is well-advertised by its headline. While my personal set-up does not have much in common with his, I appreciated the walk-through and a distinction he makes between tools one uses and tools one relies upon. The use/rely upon distinction has many applications. For example, I…

Games Industry.biz (GIb) is a news website which covers the video game industry (surprise!). I have had GIb in my feed collection for a couple of years, and it has informed two NLJ articles in Provocative Out-Of-Context Headlines (GiB was responsible for the "context" rather than the headline) and AI Game Worlds and Humane Games. I usually do not think of GiB in terms of authors, but I decided to…

I missed two days of Pook-Emu Bee links. But it is not all bad: Now we have even more links from around the web to choose from.

1. Why I Built Bubbles (Ben at Bubbles Blog. March 26, 2026.)

I've been an RSS obsessive for years. Hundreds of feeds, hand-picked one by one. But RSS only shows you sources you already know. New voices don't find you there.

I added Bubbles' Daily Briefing to my feed…

Today is June 1. It is also Monday. With that, I present our first-ever collection of June Pook-Emu Bee links after a brief photography interlude.

1. Wikipedia editors plot strike and banner sabotage after Wikimedia layoffs (Carly Page for The Register. May 30, 2026.)

HT to and quote from Ambient Irony: "Wikipedia editors are threatening a global strike where they'll stop airbrushing history."…

Today is Friday, May 29, 2026. Because it is a day ending in -day that is not Saturday, it is time for our daily Pook-Emu Bee links. There will be no Pook-Emu Bee tomorrow, but you will find even more links in The Newsletter Leaf Journal. I usually do not publish links on Sunday, but maybe I will surprise everyone. In any event, Pook-Emu Bee will be back on Monday. By the way, do you know what…

I learned about an interesting YouTube video about visual novels titled A Defense of Visual Novels: What are They and What They Do Well through an email exchange with the creator. I have been collecting materials for a future article on making the most of the visual novel medium, so I can now add this in-depth video take to the collection. If you are interested in visual novels, the video comes…

This site is (as of the publication of this post) on WordPress 7.0. I became aware that WordPress added some AI features through articles and blog posts instead of the WordPress admin area. The fact that I did not notice on my own is probably a good sign. In any event, Rodrigo Ghedin published a useful blog post describing two methods to disable the new AI features (or anti-features?) in…

I have more work ahead of me today. But once again, I refuse to let work stand between me and another edition of our regularly scheduled Pook-Emu Bee links.

1. Can an ESPN analyst revive the Scripps Spelling Bee? (Molly Liebergall for Morning Brew. May 28, 2026.)

The premise presupposes that the spelling bee needs to have big (it's relative) TV ratings.

2. Hochul tries to dunk on Trump over…

I have a busy day ahead of me, but not too busy for Pook-Emu Bee links. Before getting to links from around the web, I note that I just published the sixth and final part of my New Leaf Journal sixth birthday project, Be the Blogger You Want to Be (Or Read). Now watch me follow my own advice.

1. Government says 5.7 trillion yen of Japanese media was pirated last year, thinks AI could help (Casey…

I am a bit late on today's Pook-Emu Bee links, but the links are better late than never.

1. Ghost CMS SQL injection flaw exploited in large-scale ClickFix campaign (Bill Toulas for Bleeping Computer. May 24, 2026.)

PSA for those of your running Ghost. Not WordPress, for once. Winning over here.

2. Former Nintendo exec confirms NES and SNES Classics were made to sustain the company's business…

My friend told me that she was making "Kashmiri chai" tea this morning. She correctly anticipated that I did not know what Kashmiri chai was and sent a link to the recipe she was using. I read the recipe and learned that the tea is pink because of a reaction that occurs between the green tea leaves and baking soda. I decided to investigate further and found an scientific explanation of how the…

Inspired by Col. John McCrae's poem, In Fladers Fields, Georgia resident and professor Moina Michael championed the remembrance  poppy following World War I. Sara Freeland, writing for UGA Today, explained:

She also launched a national letter-writing campaign encouraging others to adopt the poppy. The American Legion designated the red poppy as its official flower in 1920, and distribution of…

The Pook-Emu Bee links return today for Memorial Day, a day for remembering those Americans who gave their lives in battle. I put together some suitable links for the occasion to lead off today's Pook-Emu Bee. You can also see some of my own Memorial Day articles in Saturday's Newsletter Leaf Journal.

1. Every American Needs to Know What Happens at 3 p.m. on Memorial Day (Brandon Wile for…

I was too busy yesterday to put together my daily Pook-Emu Bee links. I am busy today as well, but not too busy to take a link break.

Article Links

1. Six search engines worth trying now that Google isn’t really Google anymore (Amanda Siberlin for TechCrunch. May 21, 2026.)

This is a fair list but the article misses some nuance about the sources used by Startpage and Ecosia. I would add Mojeek…

I use the ActivityPub for WordPress plugin here on ECS (follow me from Masotdon or similar at @naferrell). Because ActivityPub for WordPress is a key part of this project, I subscribe to the ActivityPub for WordPress blog with my feed reader. Thanks to my subscription, I was able to read ATmosphere 1.0.0 — Liftoff. ATmosphere is a new WordPress plugin which integrates a Bluesky account with a…

According to Vasif Huseynov writing for The Jamestown Foundation, "Italy is Azerbaijan's largest trading partner." Had you asked, I would have probably guessed Turkey. But I suppose Italy makes sense. The more you know.

We are having a second consecutive 90+ degree day here in Brooklyn today's Pook-Emu Bee links are warmer than the outside temperatures.

Links

1. Google Search as you know it is over (Sarah Perez for TechCrunch. May 19, 2026.)

The AIfication of Google Search is concerning but NLJ has been hitting new highs in Google Search despite my disfavoring AI cawlers via .htaccess and robots, so we'll see…

I had been sitting down to churn out today's edition of Pook-Emu Bee links when work fell into my lap. But it is now lunch, and lunch means it is time for links.

1. Humpback Whales Sometimes Hold Their Mouths Open for No Clear Reason. Tourists Are Helping Scientists Understand the Rare Behavior (Margherita Bassi for Smithsonian Magazine. May 18, 2026.)

Maybe they're just messing with…

Monday is here. So too after taking the weekend off are my Pook-Emu Bee links.

1. Maniac strangles 7-year-old boy in Brooklyn park: cops (Dean Moses for Brooklyn Paper. May 18, 2026.)

These sorts of troubling Brooklyn headlines are seldom about places I visit. That is mostly true in this case as well, but "Bush-Clinton Park in the Red Hook Recreation Area" caught my attention. I only walked by…

After two missed days due to having many work assignments, I return with a new edition of my Pook-Emu Bee links. Of course, there are no Pook-Emu Bee links tomorrow because of the newsletter and Sunday is hit and miss, so I encourage you to thoroughly enjoy today's links.

1. Microsoft BitLocker-protected drives can now be opened with just some files on a USB stick — YellowKey zero-day exploit…

I have never had to weigh an owl before, much less a large owl. But in the event I were ever called upon to weigh a large owl, I learned from MARS Wildlife Rescue, via Owls in Towels (see Owls in Towels re-post) that I should first “burrito” the large owl in a towel and then gently place the likely malcontent large owl upside down in a box on a scale. I suspect that the ultimately successful…

I have another busy day ahead of me, but we cannot forsake our daily Pook-Emu Bee links.

1. Syncthing 2.1 adds group organization and proxy support options (Fla for AlternativeTo. May 12, 2026.)

I approve of having "the ability to group devices and folders in the GUI using a new group attribute."

2. Airbnb enlists Al Sharpton in fight against Mamdani’s short-term rental crackdown in NYC:…