Personal Blog
Random stuff about myself
Here you'll find some of my experiences, stories and some random content.
The Tux franchise: Stuff you (probably) played on your school's computer lab
So, you've probably seen Tux the penguin, at least once in your life. That one cartoon-ish penguin that used to be on computers. Most people only know him from Linux, but for someone who grew up with computer labs (like I did), you know him from a large gaming franchise. Stuff like TuxMath, TuxPaint or SuperTux. There was also SuperTuxKart, which was SuperTux as a kart game. Basically you'd just mess with stuff related to open-source software as a kid. Other stuff they made was Tux Racer (a 3D racing game), Frozen Bubble (a clone of Puzzle Bobble), Tux Football and many others. Now, their history. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Linux was growing in popularity, but was VERY unfriendly to its everyday users, especially children. Within that, programmers like Bill Kendrick (the creator of SuperTux) looked at the landscape, and realized that if Linux was to be taken seriously by schools and parents, it needed software for children. TuxPaint was made in 2002, since Kendrick's friend lamented that there wasn't any decent simple drawing prgrams for his children. While TuxMath and Tux Typing were spreadhead by a volunteer project, Tux4Kids, which had free educational sofwtare for schools as its target. Because everything was open-source, more programmers joined in. For example, a dev in Europe could add the language translation code, while an artist in North America made the graphics. It wasn't about the money - it was about that free community-driven software could be as good as expensive commercial software.
Finally, the reason they vanished off the mainstream. It wasn't because of a major corporate scandal, but because they were slowly overtaken by the evolution of tech. Things like the shift to mobile and Chromebooks, the fact that Steam and polished, cheap and free games have taken over, their reliability on donations, and the fact that people believed that Linux having its own mascot held the OS back from looking serious, leading to schools favoring minimalist and modern choices. But are their games still a thing? Actually, yes! since the code is free for anyone to use/update, volunteers have quielty kept the dream going in the background, like the SuperTux 0.7.0 update. Plus, you can still install their stuff, or play them on your browser.
An old laptop from my parents
I decided to take a look at one old laptop from my parents, and it was a laptop running Windows 7, which belonged to my father. Actually, both laptops I found were running Windows 7. I had a hard time looking for the charger (since that thing was offline for a decade), but hopefully, I found it inside a box. I powered it, and we had a black hole in the upper right of the screen. Honestly, I don't remember what happened. But the date and hour was set to midnight, December 7th 2009. I had to change it to March 14th 2026, 3:32 PM (AKA the time I was viewing the laptop), and then I went to look into the files. At the downloads, we had some interesting stuff: A video of me and my mom playing with cups as a kid, a Firefox launcher, some WhatsApp screenshots and a file that had "Doctor Camargo" in the name. Wondering who that doctor is. Anyway, I went into the other sections, and there was nothing really, other than the samples and some old stuff. I even decided to check on the game explorer, but all I found was FreeCell and Solitaire. It was interesting and boring at the same time. The other laptop belonged to my mom, but I couldn't find the charger for it. Also the PC had a disc drive (with support for DVD, DVD-RW and CD), but I didn't actually use it. Personally, I was surprised that a computer that old was also that empty.
The school music concert. Part 1: Rehearsals
The school I study on has three programs: Drama, music and gymnastics. I picked the music course for piano and electric guitar, and we have an annual concert. Since I'm on 8th grade, we're in the team with 11th grade. 7th grade got 12th grade and 9th grade got 10th grade. The theme of this year was gratitude, and our group was about basic needs. We're in the parodies group as well (7th to 9th grade), so our songs should be about that. We're training the shout, and we already have a shirt for the team. Of course the verses had to go through changes so we'd do better. I'm doing well with percussion only, but there are students that just won't collaborate. The group is doing well overall. Anyway, the final stages of the event will happen in May, which is when Part 2 of this atricle should come out. Might also make a Part 1,5 if something happens during April. I'll be playing an instrument on the day, and that'll probably be the piano.
Stay tuned for updates.
An overview on one of the 2000s brazillian Recreio magazines (Edition 247, December 2004)
There was this children's magazine series here in Brazil, which was made by Publisher April in the 2000s, and from what it looked, it was very popular. However, after a while, it just vanished. I first heard of them online, but later I saw them physically at the school library. Makes sense, the school exists since 1986. They had a lot of those magazines - some from 2002, others from 2003 or later. The most recent one I could find there was made in 2009. So, I decided to take one of them to read during break time. And, now I'll bring an overview to it.
The sections
Going on the first page, we have an index of the sections: Cool Things to Know, Test, Stay Tuned, Animals, Crafting, To Laugh, Dinomania, Activities, Games, Science, School, Comics, two more Pastime sections, Mail and Comic Strips. Stick around with me since this article is gonna be long.
Cool Things to Know
This section is basically questions that the readers have asked to the magazine on their email. From what they've asked on this section, we have: Why do sharks attack when they smell blood, Why are nervous cells called that, Why are some people bald, What are the five bet soccer teams on Brazil without the ones that have state titles, and Why is there seven days a week. Personally, these are interesting.
Test
This time, it's a test to see if you're rude, or if you easily forgive people. There are ten questions, and you have to mark the circle, the square or the diamond on each one of them. And, there's a box with the results (if you marked more squares, diamonds or circles).
Stay Tuned
An article about the real identity of superheroes. A thing is that if you collect those magazines, you'll notice there's a lot of stuff related to old 2000s cartoons, TV shows and movies. On the list, we have: Superman, Spiderman, Batman, SuperCow and Yami Yugi. Plus, a few boxe with their info. And, on page 11, there's another test to see if you can be a superhero.
Animals
This article is about the life of deep-sea antarctic creatures. These were discovered by brazillian and german researchers who dived into an area with no icebergs. We have: The wolftrap starfish, a 5-inch amphipod, giant isopods, the glass sponge and starfishes competing for food. Plus, a fact box on the bottom right.
Crafting
A short tutorial on how to make a diver origami. It has six steps, and it's related to the previous section.
To laugh
This section is a 12-question quiz, except those are prank questions. Basically there are elements in the question just to distract and confuse everyone. One of the questions is: A plane crashes in the border of Brazil and Chile. To what side should the survivors be sent? The answer is, None of them. Brazil doesn't border Chile. All the anwers are located on the next page.
Dinomania
It was part of a 2000s toy/card series, with the sponsorship of Bubbaloo. This edition was about the Pteranodon, an animal of the pteranosaur family. It lived by the end of the Cretaceous, 80M years ago. There's an infobox and a 3D-puzzle box.
Pastime sections
To make the process faster, I'll address all the three pastime sections. On the first one (pages 22 and 23), you have to find small objects hidden on a large image. On the second one (page 37), you have to find two equal insects on the image. And on page 39, it's a seven-errors game. The answers to them are located on page 42, the same page as the Comic Strip section.
Games
Around that time, a SpongeBob movie would be released in theaters. So, SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (the game) was made for Xbox, GameCube and PlayStation 2. Playing as Bob or Patrick, you get to his house, go to the Krusty Krab and face Plankton, the one wanting the Hamburger's recipe. On special levels, you ride a car collecting boxes and prizes that can be traillers, images and even new clothes.
Science
This article is about bacteria. Some of them make photosynthesis, and release oxygen. It's believed that they came from the oxygen on the atmosphere, allowing other organisms to develop later. They've witnessed massive shifts on the planet. They saw the dinosaurs appearing and going extinct, and survived every type of climate change. They're in our bodies, inside volcanoes, in Antarctica's ice and the deep sea. We have good bacteria and bad bacteria. Plus, more fact boxes. If you're learning about those at school, you coul show this to your teacher.
School
An article about volunteer work. Anyone can do these, and age doesn't matter. On the US, most people who are volunteers are under 20. On Brazil, 54% of young people want to be volunteers, but don't know how to begin with it. It's easy: just want to do it. Start at home: make your bed or walk the dog. Giving away old clothes and/or toys to a daycare is also a good idea. You can also do this at school in many ways, like informing your class about it.
Comics
The show here is KimPossible (Disney): The Revolt of the Mummies. This is a show that used to air at Disney's cable channels. As I mentioned before, you'll find a lot of old cartoons, TV shows and movies in those magazines. This also happens in the Comics section. In another edition I saw, the section was about Dexter's Laboratory, from Cartoon Network.
Pictures and messages that fans have sent the magazine. Photos, texts and fanarts.
Comic Strips
A section with three comic strips from that era: Animals (Fred Wagner), Mutts (Patrick MacDonnel) and Mother Goose (Mike Peters), all of them from 2002. Plus, the answers for the Pastime sections.
Overall, this is a good magazine series, and maybe you should check it out. It has some cool stuff, and it's not bad at all.
My experience with the indie web
I started getting into this recently, and it's actually nice. While major platforms are bot-infested, predator-infested, AI-clogged and keeping up with recycled UIs and an awful moderation, these websites are just sitting there - clean and entirely powered by humans. These are niche communitiees, which are often ran by a small group of devs, and they don't actually wanna be large companies or compete with major media. So, I'll put here the categories and my experience with them.
Old websites.
Perhaps the mot famous example here is Newgrounds, and the only one of this category I've been to. Around since 1999, and they've survived a lot of events, like the death of flash and the AI invasion. It's mostly where you can upload blogs, animations, games and digital art. A thing is that when you upload something there, it goes to the portal; if it gets many positive votes, it stays on the website forever (protected). But if it gets many negative votes (below 2.0), it's wiped out of the platform (blammed). I have two pictures and a text post there, but I'm not that active there. Fun fact: when you work in a team with a game, the game appears in everyone's profiles, not just yours. Plus, you can make some bucks with it.
Revival websites.
The most popular type of indie social media. Basically remakes of modern websites in their old layouts. For example, SpaceHey (revival of old MySpace). Everyone's out here roleplaying pretending it's the late 2000s and going crazy with their profile layouts. I have a page myself, and I even found a group of someone's hardcore band there. another example is BitView (revival of 2008 YouTube). I tried signing up there, but they were having problems with their email confirmations, which is something they've addressed in August 2025. Since there are a bunch of old yt revivals I chose KamTape (formerly EpikTube, revival of 2005 YouTube). Altough you can't set a profile picture, it's a nice one. They're a larger community, but a bit aggressive when protecting their code/community. SilasTube got taken down because of them. There's even a 2009 twitter revival (Blips), by the same group as BitView, but I don't really know about it.
Transformative websites.
Modern indie media. Not old, but not pretending to be old either. Neocities is one that has many debates due to some people considering it a revival website, because of Geocities. Basically you can make your website, customize it (which you'll have to learn about HTML/CSS, and maybe a bit of JavaScript) and check out on other people's websites. Also I'm writting this on Neocities right now. Another one I've been to is Aftersleep, which is a webforum that you can discuss a few topics and have your own website linked, however it's been down since Christmas due to a 509 error. I only have two posts there in case if you wanna know.
And that's it for today. Expect more things to come on this section soon.