Yup. Today is my 44th birthday. 44 is a terrible number because Sa-Sa could be interpreted as death twice over.

I don't look old (when I am not tired) but my body feels old and my state of mind feels so tranquil yet rigid that I must have finally reached the much heralded Old Fart club. Here is the proof: toward the end of yesterday's Internet Identity Workshop, I felt sad that everyone seemed so optimistic.

I wanted to tell them that user-centric doesn't mean looking out for the users but learning to live with little or no interests from the users. Users don't really care about identities, guys. They do care about identity theft and phishing thanks to the constant bombardment of security news over the years. For users to care about identity, it'll take more than similar kind of bombardment over the years because fear is more compelling than convenience. And what about all the websites? Why would they adopt any of the identity schemes? I don't see any compelling incentives being discussed.

Am I sounding like an Old Fart yet? Anyhoo. Happy Birthday to Me. 😉