From knives to ammunition and missiles, all these things are made with rocks (minerals) so, in a sense, humans still use rocks to fight each other. As they say: "War... War never changes..."

I wonder why disinformation and misinformation is such a problem nowadays... Maybe the access to scientific papers should be opened and democratized so everyone, regardless of social and economic classes, could read and lookup reliable knowledge? Nah, just paywall 'em all and blame those silly conspiracy theorists for online misinformation, it'll certainly work. /s

I'm not sure if it's a São Paulo (as in the state, not the city) thing, but I had English classes when I was in public high school ("ensino médio"). They weren't the best English courses out there (i.e. they weren't comparable to Brazilian schools that specialize in English courses such as CCAA, CNA, Fisk and Wizard), but they offered a good start for those who had no prior knowledge of the English language. It's also worth mentioning that people who work in IT have more potential to come into contact with communication in English because a lot of documentation is in English. But I totally agree with you that most of the population does not have quality access to English courses.

I'm Brazilian. For personal projects and snippets, especially if I'm going to share their code publicly (e.g. GitHub or GitHub Gists), I often use English. However, when it's a project from a company I'm working for, I use Portuguese, as every company I've worked for so far are Brazilian (and my coworkers were Brazilian as well).

Just a small Portuguese correction: "Bem vendos aos fediverses" should be "Bem-vindos aos fediversos!".

Despite the lack of apps, Windows Phone was very good for me at that time, as I had two Lumias. They were quite cheap but rather powerful (again, despite the lack of apps like internet banking, but they did have Whatsapp and Telegram). I left WP and Lumia when Whatsapp ended its support for WP in December 2019 (if I remember correctly), and Nokia's Android phones were expensive at the time, so I tried the Asus Zenfone (because I see Asus as a good PC hardware manufacturer). Two years later, my Zenfone started to drain faster because the battery started to swell, so I bought a Nokia with Android, which I still use nowadays. This latest acquisition made me realize that, indeed, Nokia is no longer the same: although it has the Nokia's bold design ("almost indestructible"), it is a slow smartphone. I fixed my Zenfone battery and used both phones simultaneously for another two years, when the Zenfone battery stopped holding a charge again (although, this time, it didn't swell). Since I couldn't find a replacement battery for the Zenfone, I stuck with the Nokia, but soon I'll try another brand like Xiaomi, or maybe Asus again since my previous experience with a Zenfone was really good.

Some examples that I remember are:

• The Berkshire Hathaway's website (https://berkshirehathaway.com/)
• The UNIX website (https://unix.org/version4/)
• Xorg Project website (https://www.x.org/wiki/)
• Marginalia Web Search (https://search.marginalia.nu/)
• W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) pages containing Standards (e.g.: https://www.w3.org/TR/controller-document/)
• Pd (Puredata) Project Website (https://puredata.info/)

I've been using it on Android because of its seamlessly crossfade feature (i.e. the next music/replay gets faded in as the current music is approaching the end). I made some loops with Audacity and it's the only music player that manages to play them endlessly with no gaps.

As a developer, I can foresee websites using features other than navigator.userAgent to detect Chrome, because it's easy to change its value. For example: for now, navigator.getBattery is available only in Chromium, and it doesn't need permissions to be checked for its existence through typeof navigator.getBattery === 'function' (also, the function seems to be perfectly callable without user intervention, enabling additional means of fingerprinting). While it's easy to spoof userAgent, it's not as easy to "mock" unsupported APIs such as navigator.getBattery through Firefox.

As a Brazilian, this too. Also, some PTSD from remembering recent Brazilian elections (sometimes USA and Brazil are so similar that they seem like brothers separated at birth, your Trump was our Bolsonaro, your Biden is our Lula, I wouldn't be surprised if your Harris is our Dilma without the "stockpiling of wind" thing).

I try to find some books regarding occult knowledge. I read them until the dusk (I'll possibly also try to find candles as well as functional matches).

When dusk arrives, I start to do something else: I'm seeing a feather pen, so it implies that there's tint somewhere, possibly black tint as the feather's base is slightly stained in black. I push away those chairs and the table, I roll away that carpet, then I try to draw a big perfect circle on the floor (possibly using that ladder as an improvised drawing compass. Inside the circle, I draw the alchemical symbol for Saturn, perfectly centered over a diametric horizontal line (therefore, an underlined Saturn symbol). I draw six specific letters outside and around the circle, spaced exactly 60 degrees. Then I take that red notebook over the desk, and I start writing:

"Regina noctis, Dea dearum, Thine is my soul." along with other sensitive content that involves a red liquid.

Then I place the red covered notebook exactly in the middle of the circle. I recite a specific Enochian mantra and I wait until a shivering presence starts.

I wouldn't disturb their sleep, I'd actually be joining their sleep. Preferably an eternal sleep.

The secret society of the cryptid goatmen brotherhood (I don't remember which prompt I used, but I used a fast SDXL model from Huggingface)

Been more of a fan of long form discussion that can bring more insight

Me too. I don't like the 500 character limit. It forces us to use slangs and internet abbreviations. Also, it allows for less information when I post in Portuguese (I'm Brazilian, so it's my first language besides English) because Portuguese has all these long conjugations (differently from English). Some sentences are shorter in Portuguese (for example "O rato atravessou a rua" is shorter than "The rat crossed the street"), but they tend to be longer.

I read some of your comments and you seem like an interesting person

Thanks!

I’d be grateful if you could share your poetry

I use the same handle/nickname as here (dsilverz) on Mastodon's main instance (mastodon.social). There's a mix of poetry types and genres (some are really dark, found under the "Content Warning" Mastodon feature), but all of them tries to fit the 500 character limitation. There are other instances as well (one where I post AI imagery illustrating the poetry I've written, other has a plus 500 character limit, where I posted storytelling but has no many posts because it's not well federated) I'm yet to find a Mastodon instance that both supports over 500 characters and has a reasonable federation and user activity (so that posts gets to readers).

Problem is that newer systems aren't compatible with "old" hardware. So to you know, these computers being disregarded are still functional machines, if it weren't for Microsoft and other big techs bringing new requirements. What to do with lots of machines that doesn't have TPM 2.0? Ditch em all, contributing to more e-waste? This thought almost rendered an paralyzed man unable to walk again, as an "old" $100k exoskeleton was deemed "out-of-warranty".

Ubuntu isn't as paid as Windows. Also, newer Ubuntu versions don't need the user to throw their machine away because TPM 2.0 or NPUs are missing. Maybe these are two of the main reasons why nobody is complaining about its EOL.

The problem is that the old multiple-choice physical switches (like the ones from 90s) got replaced by a single electronic flip-flop button (plus lots of "modernities"). These old flashlights could last for decades (especially if the user has the knowledge to repair it through simple soldering for replacement of a defective battery contact, for example).

In my perspective (a lonely person generally accustomed with my loneliness), small talk doesn't seem to be the problem. The problem is the lack of people's interest in deep topics, such as the aforementioned nature of reality: people either don't have the needed patience, time, or both. People are so busy running through the survival game of the mundane existence that deep topics are left for their afterlives (if there's one), when human ideologies and need for survival cease to exist. Small talk is like "sorry I got no time to think about the ultimate question of life, universe and everything else, gotta go to my modern slavery where I'm not paid to think but to obey, bye!". Deep inside, seems like a fear of becoming lonely as those that, just like me, likes to think about the depths of the reality and breaking paradigms (for example, "shouldn't we discuss how existence is so fleetingly finite in the grand scheme of cosmos and how futile is to accumulate wealth and goods?" is a granted source of loneliness).

I've been engaging with Lemmy more than Mastodon. Lemmy allows for more interactions through discussions. To me, it seems like Mastodon is slower to get interactions (for context, I have accounts on three different instances and used to post dark/gothic/satirical/surrealist poetry written by me daily, but I haven't posted in days because no one seems to be really engaging with it). Mastodon has a lot of potential, but I think few are really committed to stick to the fediverse and all its potential.

As for why people don't come back, maybe they're confused about which instance to use since there are thousands of different instances for different purposes, I'm not exactly sure.