OpenID TypeKey vs myOpenID.com

OpenID authentication rocks.

I’ve been using TypeKey as the OpenID provider for my domain for a long time now and until today things had gone by without a hitch. But tonight, as I was in a hurry to log in to tarpipe to write a quick workflow to use on my upcoming journey, it just failed me.

Now tonight, of all nights, I became aware that not only has TypeKey undergone some changes, but also tarpipe itself changed something in the authentication page so I was confused for a brief period as to what was failing where. But then I followed the authentication steps and it became obviously clear that TypeKey was the one failing me and having zero time to read all their explanations about the changes they performed (and really annoyed that those changes broke the service they’d been rendering me without any kind of previous warning whatsoever —I’m assuming it is a bug, not a conscious decision, but still, a failing authentication service? Ouch!) I decided to take the only course of action that was available to me on the spot.

So TypeKey is misbehaving but this being OpenID, tarpipe doesn’t really care who authenticates me, as long as they do authenticate me, right?
So I just had to open an account on any other OpenID provider, set up my domain to refer that provider as the one that authenticates me and then everything should work, right?

As it turns out yes, that is all there is to it. I created an account on myOpenID.com (don’t know them at all, maybe it was a good choice, maybe it was a bad choice, I’ll have to look into them more carefully later, but for now I just needed to be able to log into tarpipe and do it NOW), I made the necessary changes to my site to reflect the new authentication provider and voilá, instant gratification! I can now log into tarpipe and create and tweak my workflows at will.

It took me all of 20 minutes, from coming across the problem to solving it. Good heh? :-)

Diary 2008-11-10

Earlier today I tweeted a couple of lines from a song I was listening to and enjoying a lot. This is something I do quite often.

o/’ And if a double-decker bus crashes into us, To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die o/’

This is, of course, taken from The Smiths’ “There is a light that never goes out”.

I broadcast those lines because I was thrilled by the song and it was natural for me to express this feeling in this particular way, but then a strange thing happened: people reacted as if I was having dark and dangerous thoughts and while I must admit that my previous tweets, from the day before, taken together with this portion of the lyrics, could have given them that impression, I was actually in a pretty good mood at the time. I was just listening to, and thoroughly enjoying the pain, drama and misery that is the hallmark of The Smiths and it was great! So I responded with another tweet to try and restore the “truth of the matter”.

Lol, I’m not having dark thoughts, “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” is not a sad song, m’kay?

And yet, people still thought I was troubled somehow. Which was something that gave me a bit of pause, I must admit.
When I realized that they were actually (in the joking/scoffing way that is appropriate to this channel) convinced something was up I just had to reply with:

If I were as susceptible to pop music-induced depression as people apparently think I am I would have been dead by age 14. Get a grip, people. ;-)

But then my own reply gave me even more pause. Yes, I pause a lot.

Nick Hornby wrote in his great novel “High Fidelity” (which most people will have gotten to know by the excellent film that came later by the same name and which constitutes probably the sole best adaptation of a novel to the cinema that I am aware of, but I digress…) the following paragraph:

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

Just to set the record straight, this quote is taken from the opening line of the film, the book version is a little more elaborate, but that is beside the point now. Go read the book. I mean it. Do it. Go! Oh and the soundtrack for the film? Go get it! :-)

Getting back on track here, I think the previous quote, besides being an astonishing tirade as a film opener, has in it the kernel of something really, really serious.
Pop music (most music really, but I’ll mostly stick to this one genre for this discussion) is mainly about feelings —romantic or otherwise— and the most prevalent feeling found in it would seem to be romantic love.
Now love, as we all know, is a bitch. And so while many songs are about the heights you achieve when you’re in love, inevitably there are far more songs about the loss of love and all the pain and misery those situations always bring with them.
Hence the “thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss.”
Well yeah, that’s part of life, isn’t it? And if you believe pop music and cinema (Hollywood may be disqualified for obvious reasons —they usually try to sell happiness to counter-act the seemingly natural state of unhappiness people tend to live in) it is indeed a big part of it.

But the fact that most of pop music is about pain and heartbreak doesn’t necessarily mean that people must be miserable to enjoy it. People empathize with feelings they know (and even with those have only experienced second-hand) even without being in the process of having those feelings right now. I enjoy Morrissey’s dramatic flare and thoroughly despondent renditions of all those sad and miserable Smiths songs even when I’m happy as can be.
But the question that Nick asks is very relevant and I do believe there is a definite answer to it.

Something happened today, after the tweet exchange that prompted this post, that really brought me down, something that’s been brewing for a while and that was rather inevitable (and which may have come across a bit too strongly in the last few days, thus prompting the aforementioned response to my tweets today), so now, as I’m writing this, I really am sad and of course I, as always, turned to music —pop music— to help me out a bit.
Right now Abbey Road is spinning on my record player and it brings about, as always, the best of feelings.

The Beatles. They’re always there for me.
As is Bowie, as is Iron Maiden and Róisín Murphy and Chico Buarque and Jeff Buckley and Keith Jarret and Coltrane and the Pet Shop Boys and Bach and… And hundreds of others (and yes, I know I failed to restrict this list to pop music).
But they do not control my moods, they don’t bring me down or pick me up, unless I explicitly want them to (and for that purpose I have the appropriate playlists to help bring about those particular mood-swings).
I listen to pop music because I am depressed. I listen to pop music because I’m happy. I listen to music —any genre— because it fits my mood, because of the feelings it evoques or because it helps me to get to whatever state of mind I wish to attain.
Maybe not everybody is like that and I am indeed quite fortunate to have this relationship with music. But I do. And I love it.

So there! :-)

Duelo IX

Não se faz.

É que não se faz mesmo!

Como é que eu alguma vez poderia escolher??

Não consigo votar, pronto.

The Smiths vs. The Cure.

É que não passa na cabeça de ninguém!!