2025

The backpack of anthropologist Rafael Cristaldo.

In this series, readers showcase what they carry in their backpacks on a daily basis. Check out the other backpacks that have been published and submit yours — the this series depends on you.

Hello, everyone! How are you? My name is Rafael, I was born in November 1997, I’m from Farroupilha (RS), and I’m currently an anthropologist living in the capital, Porto Alegre. You can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram.

I’m writing this inspired by my artist friend and roommate Tiago Gasperin, who recently wrote about his fanny pack.

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MusicBrainz Picard identifies songs from *.mp3 files and automatically fixes metadata

Picard icon/logo.

In my first attempt to switch from streaming to move back to listening to *.mp3 files, one of the issues I encountered was organization: how to standardize the metadata of the songs?

The solution I was familiar with at the time — manually editing each song — was impractical. Who has time for that?

In my second (and this time, successful) attempt in 2024, I came across a free app that is almost too good to be true, MusicBrainz Picard (Linux, macOS, Windows).

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A quick look at the iPhone 16e made in Brazil

I was at my parents’ during the Easter holiday when I came across an iPhone 16e. I asked the owner for permission to take a closer look at the spiritual successor to the best iPhone. What a responsibility!

Despite the new name and being part of the current iPhone family, the iPhone 16e is, for all practical purposes, a new iPhone SE: a Frankenstein phone, made up of parts from older versions (the base is the iPhone 14), some components from the latest model (A18 chip and 8 GB of RAM), and features missing due to Apple’s stingy upselling tactics (previously it was the night mode in the camera, unavailable; now, there’s no MagSafe).

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Portuguese is the second most popular language (by far!) on Buttondown

The partnership between this Manual do Usuário and Buttondown, a newsletter service, has been renewed for the second time. Buttondown will continue to sponsor the (Portuguese-only) directory of Brazilian newsletters and the (also in pt_BR) series of interviews with newsletter creators.

In the conversation to renew the partnership, Justin Duke, founder and CEO of Buttondown, revealed to me that Portuguese is “Portuguese is now by far our second most popular language or locale,” and that “I have to assume you [Manual] are a huge reason why.” I was flattered by the comment and pleased with the results!

(Brands, see what you’re missing!? Advertise with us.)

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Another chapter in the series “fascinated by the details of CSS,” this time featuring the attribute text-wrap: pretty and how browsers handle line breaks, “typographic river” (a concept I wasn’t familiar with), and the length of the final line.

Safari is the second-to-last major browser to implement text-wrap: pretty, a feature announced in a super detailed post, which is quite interesting. “Pretty” in English means “beautiful”; I find it lovely that the CSS specification delegates the decisions for presenting beautified text to each browser.

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Detail of the icon of an arrow on the right and the label “Continuar”, repeated on the right showing the difference in pixels (17 against 19) of the distancing of the icon to the edges of the button.
Image: Manual do Usuário.

Oh, Apple’s characteristic attention to detail! After updating macOS to 15.4.1, we are greeted with one more request to activate Apple Intelligence and this visibly misaligned arrow icon.