Matthew Exon

Computer Programmer. Traveller.
🇩🇪🇭🇰🇨🇳🇬🇧🇦🇺
He/Him

Last Notes

2025-11-02 17:05:25 UTC

It's confirmed, Chagos Islands will be handed back to Mauritius [url=https://theseychellesindependent.com/2025/11/01/the-chagos-islands-to-be-handed-to-mauritius-by-the-end-of-the-year/]"by the end of the year"[/url].
Chagos islands are at about longitude 72°. The nearest UK overseas territory to the west is Akrotiri and Dhekelia at 33°, to the east Pitcairn Islands at -130°.
This being the southern summer, the sun is currently up over British Antarctic Territory, and will remain so until the equinox March 20. It's debatable how much sovereignty the UK really exercises over their slice of the south pole, but there's no doubt which side of that debate the British government takes.
Therefore, it will not be until the equinox, March 20 2026, at 18:53 local time, or March 21 02:53 UTC, on [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oeno_Island]Oeno Island[/url], that the sun will [url=https://github.com/mexon/empire/tree/main]finally indisputably set on the British Empire[/url], for the first time in centuries.
Now is the time to start planning your party.
#[url=https://friendica.exon.name/search?tag=chagos]chagos[/url] #[url=https://friendica.exon.name/search?tag=imperialism]imperialism[/url] #[url=https://friendica.exon.name/search?tag=geography]geography[/url]
[url=https://friendica.exon.name/photos/mat/image/207243889669078b555b732765654801][img=https://friendica.exon.name/photo/207243889669078b555b732765654801-0.png]Satellite image of Oeno Island, a thin ring of coral atoll surrounding a pale blue lagoon, with a small scrubby island in the middle.[/img][/url]
https://friendica.exon.name/photo/207243889669078b555b732765654801-0.png

2025-09-21 09:04:18 UTC

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The negativity under this post is pretty shocking.
The story for those who missed it: this is a tiny group of people taking a hugely risky bet that they can pull off a ridiculously complex technical challenge. But they did it! And then Trump imposed illegal tariffs, there were no adults in the room to stop him, supply chains collapsed, and all of that effort was wasted. Then, somehow, they managed to redo all that work in less than a year on what amounts to a completely different phone. And it's here! This is just an incredible achievement and I can only imagine what they had to sacrifice to get there.
The phone is just a platform for the software. I've been saying for many years that Linux phones won't be practical until they can run mainstream apps. Furi Labs are promising exactly that, filing off the rough edges of Waydroid and adapting to the hardware. Halium is far from ideal, because making stuff work goes against the grain and is hard work. Furi Labs are rolling up their sleeves and doing that hard work. There is no other solution in 2025.
My best alternative would be Murena. But if you've been following the news: Google's monopoly was endorsed by the US courts, Google started a crackdown on "unlicensed" app development, and the EU withdrew investigations into Google's monopoly practices to avoid upsetting Trump. The walls are closing in, people. I still find Android essential, but I desperately want an escape route. Linux apps are a refuge, but they are not ready. We need to ramp up our building effort now.
Personally I'm disappointed that wireless charging went away: that's the feature that shifted me from "maybe" to "buy", and now it's gone. And I still strongly suspect I won't be able to make this phone work for me. But I'm gonna try. And either way, Furi Labs can keep my money.

2025-07-17 16:17:59 UTC

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There is a fresh flyer for... something pasted to a wall in my neighbourhood that I pass on my morning jog, and it has "web 3" on it. Each morning I try to remember which web that was...

2025-02-21 12:31:47 UTC

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I just tried following, but had the same problem.
Meanwhile, [url=https://github.com/friendica/friendica/issues/14826#issuecomment-2673361987]Friendica devs report[/url] that Gancio has account type "Application", which for Friendica triggers it to be interpreted as a relay. And there's more talk on that thread on what it means to be a relay. It's a bit beyond me - I know about relays, but never bothered using them. So I don't know which side has the wrong behaviour here.

2025-02-19 04:00:51 UTC

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Does this system provide native ActivityPub Events I can follow? I tried subscribing to relay@cal.gravitons.org but was told that as a relay I can't follow that account. Not to detract from a great initiative though - this is exactly the kind of project I want to see!

2025-01-11 21:52:21 UTC

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Yes, and the distinction between a comment and an article is whether or not you're participating in a [url=https://fedi.exon.name/2024/04/21/conversations-and-articles/]conversation[/url]. Mastodon is a place to have conversations, but that's not all I want from the Fediverse.

2024-12-03 19:46:14 UTC

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Yes indeed, [url=https://fedi.exon.name/2024/02/11/censorship-on-bluesky/]I share the same concern[/url]. But the talk on this thread about non-archival, relatively low-cost sustainable relays, makes me now think at least BlueSky has the potential to move beyond that. And I still think it's a question of how BlueSky users perceive the two censorship regimes. If they perceive the relay-level censorship as being "just illegal stuff", culturally it could still disappear into the plumbing.

2024-12-03 19:20:12 UTC

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I think I came up with a novel argument why BlueSky should be considered decentralised: it is [em]culturally[/em] decentralised. Relays and PDS's are plumbing. The visible decision-making is in the labellers. Since these are (sometimes) decentralised, BlueSky users will (maybe) internalise and identify with decentralisation, in a way that was explicitly discouraged in the design of Twitter. Power grabs are technically possible regardless of protocol. The only effective defense is community culture. That culture is loosely influenced by technical design, but technical design does not define culture, nor the final power balance. [url=https://fedi.exon.name/2024/12/01/decentralisation/]fedi.exon.name/2024/12/01/dece…[/url]