Antinormal - 2010

2010

Posted 6 Jan 2010 by Akinwale Ariwodola

I wasn't able to make any posts late last year due to having quite a lot of work on my hands. But here I am, now, writing this.

First, and most importantly, it's 2010! I should actually be starting with university by September this year. I know I've probably said this several times, but it's definite now. I've been considering Computing at the University of Bedfordshire.

Which brings me to the next point. Based on my experience online, being called a fraudster and all either in jest in chat rooms, indirectly or even directly by a number of online stores, I've always said we're this close to being labeled terrorists. And then some idiot decided to blow up a plane. And he didn't even do it right. He's got to be the ultimate moron I've ever come across. When I apply for a visa, not only am I gonna be discriminated against because I'm a young adult (who's not likely to come back to his country - which I clearly disproved, but hey, no second visa for me anyway), or a potential fraudster, I'm also going to be considered a potential terror threat. Very nice, I'd say. I did find the media hype surrounding the issue to be rather sensationalist and ultimately amusing, though. I guess when someone tries to blow up a plane, it's an exponentially greater threat than shooting up a bunch of random people or trying to blow up a bus or a building.

Next up, Nigeria doesn't have a President. It's been ~43 days now and we haven't heard anything about his whereabouts or his condition yet. Hilarious.

Okay, I'm done with sad stories. The N900! I was a bit upset when Nokia got around to announcing this considering it was 2 months after I purchased my N97, but I've got to say, it's a particularly attractive device. And it runs Linux. I've not been really impressed with desktop Linux lately as it's still a hassle to get some basic things to work (I'm looking at you, NVIDIA driver installation on Ubuntu and your max 800x600 resolution) but it'd be nice to tinker with it on a mobile device/phone. I'd probably pick it up when I get some spare cash. At least, there would've been a few firmware upgrades and improvements before that.

The Google Nexus One also looks really appealing but I'm holding out. Perhaps, when I've got "extra" spare cash, I'd probably pick it up along with the Samsung Omnia II. Speaking of, I also quite like the Nokia E72. I initially wanted to get an E71 back in late 2008, but since the N97's release was close, I skipped it. At this rate, I think I'd probably go bankrupt from buying a lot of mobile devices, but we'll see.

The v20 firmware for the N97 broke my touch input scrolling implementation in SimpleIRC and I have not been able to fix it. I've got a post up about it here. If anyone has any ideas or solutions short of rewriting the user interface to be based on a Canvas (which I'd probably have to do anyway in order to get an onscreen QWERTY keybaord implementation up), I'd appreciate the help.

Finally, when I get a spare $250,000+ or thereabouts, I'm gonna purchase a Ferrari California.

Happy New Year, everyone! 2010's gonna be awesome, yeah.