Slideshow at Photobucket »

Very nice set.

The original class did most of what I needed, but I made some minor changes. I’ve emailed the original contributor to offer my changes back, but until I hear back, I’ve posted my modified version here:

SimpleOpenID class

Comments/feedback always welcome.

I did notice a strange behaviour in OpenID; I’m not yet certain if I missed it in the spec or if it’s left to one’s judgement (note to self: read the spec again)… Anyway, here’s what happens:

- Say I sign up with “roosenmaallen.com”. This site delegates to my ClaimID page, so the openid.identity response is http://openid.claimid.com/silvermoon82, and this is what I actually use to identify the user.
To my thinking, I should be able to log in using “roosenmaallen.com” (since that delegates to my ClaimID), or claimid.com/silvermoon82, or openid.claimid.com/silvermoon82. These URLs all end up at the same identity, so they should be equivalent — and that’s how I implemented it on Rosebleed.

I’ve noticed other OpenID-enabled sites handle this differently. On the OpenID Directory for instance, I first signed up as “claimid.com/silvermoon82″. I’ve gotten in the habit of logging in using roosenmaallen.com; but when I try that at OpenID Directory, I get an error message that my email address is already registered to my ClaimID URL.

So, barring finding that the spec keeps “equivalent” OpenID URLs separate, I think I’m in the right here; always open to feedback though.

Update [2008-03-19]: I’ve checked the spec, and as it turns out, I’m actually in the wrong:

So, to use www.example.com as their Identifier, but have Consumers actually verify http://exampleuser.livejournal.com/ with the Identity Provider located at http://www.livejournal.com/openid/server.bml, they’d add the following tags to the HEAD section of the HTML document returned when fetching their Identifier URL.

<link rel=”openid.server” href=”http://www.livejournal.com/openid/server.bml”>
<link rel=”openid.delegate” href=”http://exampleuser.livejournal.com/”>

Now, when a Consumer sees that, it’ll talk to http://www.livejournal.com/openid/server.bml and ask if the End User is exampleuser.livejournal.com, never mentioning www.example.com anywhere on the wire.

The main advantage of this is that an End User can keep their Identifier over many years, even as services come and go; they’ll just keep changing who they delegate to.

Original post @ Myke’s ‘blob | digg story

Vintage Computing and Gaming | Archive » Why Super Nintendos Lose Their Color: Plastic Discoloration in Classic Machines

The article focuses mainly on the SNES, but mentions old Macs as well, and should apply equally to anything made of the official “this is a computer” grey or beige plastic.

The short version: Plastic is an organic compound (made of basically the same stuff as people) which breaks down over time. As it breaks down, it reacts differently to light and turns yellow. If the composition of the plastic is not perfect (exactly correct proportion of catalysts, flame retardants, pigments, &c.), the breakdown will occur faster. It’s also accelerated by visible and UV light, heat, and oxygen.

The yellowing is caused by the chemical composition of the plastic changing, so it’s irreversible. The author does go on to list some ways to mitigate the damage, but reiterates that there is no non-destructive way to fix it — you can remove the damaged plastic, or cover it.

I’ve found other posts dating back to May of this year (The Numbers Guy) on the subject, so it’s really not a new idea.

The largest part of my doubt is the question of technology. In a CRT, it does indeed use more energy to display bright colours than dark (ref. DOE Energy Star Desktop Information). A CRT produces bright colours by directing an energy beam at the front of the screen; more brightness == more energy used.

As pointed out by Graphics Optimization, the technology in an LCD monitor is entirely different – the brightness is provided by a backlight of some description, and colours are produced by filtering that white backlight with liquid crystals. In this scheme the lowest energy consumption is for a white pixel, where nothing is filtered. Turning a pixel black requires filtering pretty much everything, so uses the most energy.

The DOE report mentioned above appears to have been published in 2001 (curl -I http://www.microtech.doe.gov/EnergyStar/info.htm gives a Last-Modified date of November 27, 2001), when CRTs were far more prevalent than they are today. That said, the CRT isn’t dead – just old, heavy, hot and bulky. If you (like me) do still use CRTs heavily, there are things you can do to reduce your impact:

• Blackle is a frontend for Google which displays in white-on-black. As of this writing, their homepage claims to have saved 370,654.618 Watt-Hours of energy, versus searching Google directly. Note that in a side-by-side comparison their search results are not identical to Google’s. This is possibly due to their own customizations (the first result for “bob” is about energy savings) or Google tailoring my results when I search google.com directly.
• User Style Sheets allow you to override the display of some/all pages you visit. The method is different for each browser, but here are a couple starting points:
  • Firefox lets you set these overrides in your userContent.css file.
  • Safari allows you to set your user stylesheet from the Advanced Preferences pane, or you can install SafariStand, which allows you to set specific stylesheets for individual domains (bonus: this allows you to override the nasty serif fonts used on NYTimes.com and a few other newspapers!)
• OS-Level Accessibility Settings often provide options for white-on-black or other high-contrast display modes which will affect your entire system.

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