Tool use is defined as “the employment of an unattached environmental object to alter more efficiently the form, position, or condition of another object, another organism, or the user itself when the user holds or carries the tool during or just prior to use and is responsible for the proper and effective orientation of the tool”

Beck’s classic book defines six different types of tools: objects thrown at predators or rivals, objects used to hit predators, hunting weapons (only hominids), objects incorporated into social displays, objects to clean body parts, and objects made and used to acquire food, such as insects or nuts.

Information on tool use and factors favoring tool use in wild apes helps us to understand its importance in the evolution of our own species. Although there are reports of tool use by captive gorillas, including object throwing and use of tools in feeding, there has been to our knowledge no reported case of tool use in by wild gorillas, despite decades of field research.

record scratch

Let me stop you there pal.

We first observed an adult female gorilla using a branch as a walking stick to test water deepness and to aid in her attempt to cross a pool of water at Mbeli Bai, a swampy forest clearing in northern Congo.

In the second case we saw another adult female using a detached trunk from a small shrub as a stabilizer during food processing. She then used the trunk as a self-made bridge to cross a deep patch of swamp.

In contrast to information from other great apes, which mostly show tool use in the context of food extraction, our observations show that in gorillas other factors such as habitat type can stimulate the use of tools.

But one question remains unanswered. Why aren’t they using Linux? Hmm? Toolsloppers? Care to chime in?

    • JustSo [she/her, any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      5·
      1 month ago

      I’m happy! I’m feeling glad!

      I got sunshine in a bag. janet-wink

      I’m useless, but not for long… the monkey stick is coming on its coming on its coming on

  • CupcakeOfSpice [she/her, fae/faer]@hexbear.netEnglish
    6·
    1 month ago

    Windows and Apple are proprietary software made by companies to extract profit from its users. Being a tool is a second purpose as many things have extracted profit without having an immediate use. Linux is Free and Open Source Software made by the community as a tool primarily serving the users’ needs and liberating then from the ruling class. Gorilla ToolsTM are provided by nature requiring little to no modification by the using individual. This is the ultimate evolution of FOSS as it liberates us entirely from other more skilled tool creators.

    • JustSo [she/her, any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      5·
      1 month ago

      I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Gorilla ToolsTM, is in fact, Monke/Gorilla ToolsTM, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, Monke plus Gorilla ToolsTM. Gorilla ToolsTM is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning Monke system made useful by the Monke corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

      Many computer users run a modified version of the Monke system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of Monke which is widely used today is often called Gorilla ToolsTM, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the Monke system, developed by the Monke Project.

      There really is a Gorilla ToolsTM, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Gorilla ToolsTM is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Gorilla ToolsTM is normally used in combination with the Monke operating system: the whole system is basically Monke with Gorilla ToolsTM added, or Monke/Gorilla ToolsTM. All the so-called Gorilla ToolsTM distributions are really distributions of Monke/Gorilla ToolsTM!

  • 30_to_50_Feral_PAWGs [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    1 month ago

    So what you gotta do is just play a bunch of Black Sabbath chords – E or A minor blues scale stuff, especially hitting those diminished fifths – over some weird-ass time signature, like 27/8, and chuck a Fibonacci sequence in there somewhere and… Hey, are you still listening?

    le-monkespeech-l

  • SwagliacciTheBadClown [comrade/them, null/void]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    1 month ago

    Beck’s classic book defines six different types of tools: objects thrown at predators or rivals, objects used to hit predators, hunting weapons (only hominids), objects incorporated into social displays, objects to clean body parts, and objects made and used to acquire food, such as insects or nuts.

    Forgetting a significant category aren’t we, Beck?