OpenID works!
I've always been intrigued by OpenID, while simultaneously being repulsed by the identifiers that I thought users were forced to adopt. Seeing one too many strings like:
https://me.yahoo.com/a/.DuSz_IEq5Vw5NZLAHUFHWEKLSfQnRFuebro-
tossed around made me think I'd have to adopt a username like that, which obviously is never going to wash, for aesthetic and typability reasons alone.
Fortunately Ned Batchelder's rant, leading me to Simon 'Zeppelin' Willison's demystifying blog post, taught me all about how to use your own URL as your OpenID equivalent of a username, by inserting some HTML onto your web page. So now I've managed to jump through the sign-up hoops required to get me one of those globally-unique OpenID username identifiers for myself:
tartley.com
There. That isn't too painful, is it? Since I got set up, it has proven lovely to use. Get on board!