What's your favorite #Pratchett novel?
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
mastodon
4.5.9
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast.
Also, tractors. Has a language habit.
Trans rights are human rights.
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Joined July 03, 2020
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
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2d ago
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Apr 05, 2026
@RuthSalter That looks amazing!
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Apr 01, 2026
@ainali Nice snappy intro to the topic.
I've noticed WikiData turning up in more places recently (eg. Repology), and have been meaning to look at it more closely.
I've noticed WikiData turning up in more places recently (eg. Repology), and have been meaning to look at it more closely.
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Mar 30, 2026
OMG it hurts! 🤣
Here I was, trying to eat my breakfast, when my darling wife tells me — and I need to be careful as this might set me off again — that Microsoft ... have started putting ... (just breathe) ... ads into GitHub pull requests 🤣
I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. That's how I want to go — laughing so hard my heart explodes and I fall face down in a stack of pancakes.
Here I was, trying to eat my breakfast, when my darling wife tells me — and I need to be careful as this might set me off again — that Microsoft ... have started putting ... (just breathe) ... ads into GitHub pull requests 🤣
I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. That's how I want to go — laughing so hard my heart explodes and I fall face down in a stack of pancakes.
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Mar 26, 2026
The week previously I had no idea I would be leaving Australia at all, or that I wouldn't be going back.
Sometimes the wind just
... changes.
Sometimes the wind just
... changes.
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Mar 26, 2026
On this day 25 years ago I arrived in the UK with enough money to last (almost) two weeks, no credit cards, no return ticket, nowhere to stay, and no job waiting for me.
We drown people of colour for less, even if we just bombed their country of origin, but I was white*, so I was alright.
I think about this sometimes.
* and male, and a native English speaker
We drown people of colour for less, even if we just bombed their country of origin, but I was white*, so I was alright.
I think about this sometimes.
* and male, and a native English speaker
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Jan 31, 2026
@fluconf @onepict Esther's Digital Poppet concept is powerful.
We talk a lot about tracking and Digital Footprints, which is all about recording our past and predicting our present.
The Digital Poppet is the active threat that stems from this data collection: that our data is used to construct tools (poppets) that are used to influence us and control our behaviour in the future, influencing how we vote, our view of the world and how we feel.
🎎
#FluConf2026
We talk a lot about tracking and Digital Footprints, which is all about recording our past and predicting our present.
The Digital Poppet is the active threat that stems from this data collection: that our data is used to construct tools (poppets) that are used to influence us and control our behaviour in the future, influencing how we vote, our view of the world and how we feel.
🎎
#FluConf2026
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Jan 25, 2026
@FediThing @mray Good thinking. I should do that more consistently.
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Jan 24, 2026
@davidculley @T_X Indeed. GitLab is rather easier to avoid, thankfully. There are a few projects that self-host the MIT-licensed software, but I've never had a GitLab account, nor needed one to contribute to FOSS.
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Jan 24, 2026
@mray It seems odd to need to use Microsoft to contribute to Free Software.
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Jan 24, 2026
@T_X I don't understand why people love these webby interfaces to git so much. I worked on a bug the other day that required me to create accounts and sign in to 4 different forges. Some had capchas, or required me to verify my email. One had inexplicable failing CI tests that had nothing to do with my patch.
git send-email is right there, folks. It always has been. No need to create an account. You already have email. No need to leave your terminal.
🤷
git send-email is right there, folks. It always has been. No need to create an account. You already have email. No need to leave your terminal.
🤷
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Jan 24, 2026
I've been asked a few times in the past week to use #GitHub, and I'd like to be helpful, but I keep seeing Renée Good's face and it would seem disrespectful somehow.
Happy to email a patch, but I'm done with that site.
#GiveUpGitHub
Happy to email a patch, but I'm done with that site.
#GiveUpGitHub
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Jan 02, 2026
Reminder: #FluConf2026 is on at the end of this month. It's a safe, virus-free online conference for sharing ideas about Free and Open Source Software and Culture.
Reserve the dates. Participating is free, and anyone can submit something: a video, an article, a livestream, a song, a poem or whatever fits the conference themes.
No AI/LLM slop. Just humans sharing ideas.
Read more here:
https://fluconf.online/
#FluConf
Reserve the dates. Participating is free, and anyone can submit something: a video, an article, a livestream, a song, a poem or whatever fits the conference themes.
No AI/LLM slop. Just humans sharing ideas.
Read more here:
https://fluconf.online/
#FluConf
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Feb 11, 2024
@jejb @onepict @austriancoder @linuxplumbersconf I'm afraid that doesn't address the issue. Whether or not someone is planning to attend in person, knowing the details of the CoC and Health Policy in advance is essential to know if that conference is a safe space.
I would not participate in a conference (even remotely) if that conference did not have a robust #CodeOfConduct and a #PublicHealthPolicy. I know I'm not alone in this.
There's no valid reason to delay publishing the Health Policy
I would not participate in a conference (even remotely) if that conference did not have a robust #CodeOfConduct and a #PublicHealthPolicy. I know I'm not alone in this.
There's no valid reason to delay publishing the Health Policy
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Feb 11, 2024
@jejb @onepict @austriancoder @linuxplumbersconf If the CFP is open, the policy should already be set. How can anyone make an informed decision to submit a paper?
Take a look at @phpledge recommendations. Set a policy now, with the caveat that it "may change, but will only be strengthened, never weakened" and then people have something to work with.
As it stands the conference is excluding anyone #CovidCautious from participating.
Take a look at @phpledge recommendations. Set a policy now, with the caveat that it "may change, but will only be strengthened, never weakened" and then people have something to work with.
As it stands the conference is excluding anyone #CovidCautious from participating.
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Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
Brett Sheffield (he/him)
@dentangle@chaos.social
#FOSS hacker, working at the intersection of #HumanRights and technology. Founder of the #Librecast Project, building the Next Generation Internet with #multicast. Also, tractors. Has a language habit. Trans rights are human rights.
chaos.social
@dentangle@chaos.social
·
Aug 14, 2022
Heard the story of the girl throwing starfish into the ocean? A man watching her says "don't you know there are miles of beach and you can't make a difference?"
The girl bends down and scoops up another starfish and gently throws it into the ocean, turns to the man and says "it made a difference to that one".
I often think of this story when world events make me feel powerless. I can't help everyone, but I can help *someone*.
So... if anyone needs me to throw them into the sea, I'm here.
The girl bends down and scoops up another starfish and gently throws it into the ocean, turns to the man and says "it made a difference to that one".
I often think of this story when world events make me feel powerless. I can't help everyone, but I can help *someone*.
So... if anyone needs me to throw them into the sea, I'm here.
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