Father of two, husband, gamer, lover of free software, and willing teacher.
I reserve the right to be wrong about everything.
Founder & CEO BT Free 501(c)3 Public Charity
Donate to BT Free - https://givebutter.com/btfree
Proton Referral - https://pr.tn/ref/V1SZDGNS
Hetzner Referral - https://hetzner.cloud/?ref=X83HFgQjXhR7
Joined Dec 2025
Also if folks are attempting to reach me here or on my firesidefedi@btfree.social , I'm not able to really check due to some server issue and lack of data connectivity. Feel free to reach me on embark, matrix or signal are best.
I'm doing some videos of the Vancouver trip in tubefree.org. I'm so my best to get pictures and video of everyone as well. If folks are interested.
Also Tracy, the head of FOSSY, said the presentations will be recorded and some will be live streamed. I'll get the link when I can, again if anyone is interested.
SUPER excited to announce that not only do I get to do a panel at #Fedicon2026 during #FOSSY2026 , but I now get to do my presentation on "The Fediverse Isn't..." !
I'm seriously SO excited. I hope people push back on my presentation, make points, ask questions. I want everyone walking away looking at the #Fediverse different and that includes me!
For those interested it'll be 2PM on Friday in the Fedicon room.
I hope to see you folks there and talk about the future of the open social web!
TITLE: The Fediverse Isn't...
ABSTRACT: There is a word we use loosely, sometimes carelessly. We point to servers, apps, instances, logos—and say this is it. But what if all of that is merely the furniture, not the house? What if we're measuring by the wrong units entirely?
What if the real thing—the actual Fediverse—cannot be found in any repository, cannot be forked from GitHub, cannot be described in a protocol specification?
It's not Mastodon. Not Pixelfed. Not Lemmy. Not your instance's uptime statistics or the purity of your ActivityPub implementation. These are vessels. Vessels can break, can fork, can fade into obscurity. Yet something persists through them all.
And here's the uncomfortable part: the walled gardens haven't left yet. They never did. The infrastructure exists for them to step across, to shed their walls, to breathe freely alongside everyone else. Whether they choose to is not a question of compatibility. It's a question of courage.
We have been building monuments when we should have been tending fires. Protocols don't gather. Servers don't trust each other. Tools don't make friends. People do. Communities do.
This talk will walk through what we've mistaken the Fediverse for—and more importantly, what remains hidden beneath our assumptions. We'll discuss why platform-building is a dead end, why community-building is the only path forward, and why choosing between ActivityPub and ATProto might be the very wrong battle to fight.
You came expecting answers. You'll leave with better questions. That's the point. #fedi #protocol #activitypub #ATProto #openSocial #twitter #bsky #facebook #openWeb #web #community #conference
I don't have a clue why I'd ever walk up to someone and introduce myself and say I have a daughter (which I don't), but if it's ever required! I'm READY!
Io sono Ozoned. Io ho una figlia.
Lots of #gaming #fun tonight on #owncast !
Four way #Repo game stream!
3 more link(s)
Ever wanted to run your own #MMO #Guild via a #game #simulator ?
Then have your guild be in a tournament against other guilds?
bretticus82.itch.io/dungeons...
DUNGEONS & DYNASTIES
Football Manager meets D&D.
Heroes die. Dynasties rise. The realm remembers both.
Lead an adventuring guild through a living realm where every fixture is a dungeon, every hero can die in it, and every season is written down.
Climb a six-tier league of 72 rival guilds. Build something that outlasts the heroes who founded it. Then read your dynasty back as a story written by the simulation, not by a script.
The question isn't whether legends will be made.
It's whether your guild survives long enough to make them.
