Ever stare at your bus or streetcar transfer while rocketing across town and wish you could decode it?

Well, maybe you should bring a book with you next time if you're that desperate for something to do, but here's what I've been able to figure out.

The design is really pretty simple, and it has to be for drivers to be able to tell at a glance whether to wave you by or stop you for a "Just a minute! Alright, buddy, there's three things wrong with this transfer..." lecture.

The tear-off transfers differ from the subway station machine-printed transfers, which start off as heat-sensitive paper (hence the lighter trick, where you quickly heat the back without burning it to blacken the front) which have the time and station information burned into them when you request one.

In the case of the bus/streetcar transfers, the driver has no way to change what is actually printed on the transfers when you ask for one, and so these portions of the transfer aren't involved in coding the time.

They're very straightforward, and from top to bottom are the route number, date, day number, transfer number, route details and a second printing of the date.

The template colour, of course, varies randomly from day to day but is consistent across the system on each day.

The only details of the transfer that can be modified on the fly are the various tears made into the paper, and so it's these that make up the coded "clock" specifying direction and time of travel.

This is to be taken with as many grains of salt as you typically handle Apple-related rumours with, but here's a quick addendum to my earlier post on how the iPod Touch lacks relative to the iPhone.

DigitalJournal.com is saying that they have inside information that Holt Renfrew will be carrying the iPhone in Canada in as little as two weeks.

No one at Holt Renfrew or Apple would otherwise confirm the claims, so the best info otherwise available is the story so far:

iPhones can make their way to Canada and be unlocked, Rogers' infrastructure has the GSM capability to support such phones, and the photo to the right is an example of an unlocked iPhone operating on Fido, which shares Rogers' network.

However, Rogers recently told retailers to stop activating unlocked iPhones and publicly claimed that a deal with Apple is not coming any time soon.

To the skeptic, these signs all point to "no such luck," while to the eager fanboy types, these are no doubt all sure signs that something is up and Rogers is doing their best to maintain Apple's usual cloak of secrecy.

Like most such predictions, we'll probably just have to wait the two weeks and see.

Photo: Unlocked iPhone by dylanparker on Flickr.

The iPod Touch is now available in Canada, presenting something approximating the über-hyped iPhone. Some people, however, are confused about how far this approximation really reaches.

Since the iPod Touch's recent release, I've been eager to get my hands on one, as my primary interest in the iPhone wasn't due to its phone or iPod facets, but the potential to have an extremely portable internet device for blogging, using Flickr, and to a lesser extent social networking - which, at a glance, the iPod Touch seemed like it could deliver.

I took a walk into the Eaton's Centre Apple store yesterday to check one out.

Okay, I'll be honest - I was more than just interested in checking one out. I have a MacBook Pro and video iPod, and am not just a happy Apple customer but tend to be an early adopter too. I wanted one and was merely giving myself a little room to be talked out of it.

To my surprise, I was.

It turned out I was misinformed - or misassuming - when it came to the device, although I wasn't quite as lost as the guy beside me who was trying to convince his girlfriend it was a worthwhile purchase.

The police released an announcement early yesterday that one arrest has been made in the case of the Sept 7th multiple sexual assaults at York University where two men gained access to the Vanier College residence, an off-limits area that is intended to remain locked to non-residents, sexually assaulting two women, attempting to attack a third and entering six different rooms. (Previously discussed in Rebecca's Take Back The What? post.)

Daniel Katsnelson, pictured above in a clip from a 2005 independent film he appeared in, turned himself in to police on the advice of his lawyer after getting word that he was being sought as a suspect. The 25-year-old was living in a Thornhill apartment with his grandparents, and while initial information did not elaborate on his connection to York, it's since been revealed that he is indeed a York business graduate.

Katsnelson is facing 11 charges: 5 counts of break and enter, 2 of sexual assault, 2 of gang sexual assault and 2 of forcible confinement. As his lawyer has recommended, he has made no statement and thus far does not intend to.

Personally, having previously been rather set against CCTV systems, the fact that their existence in this situation has managed to lead the police to a suspect and an arrest has gone a long way towards making me rethink my position. Prior to the arrest, I was saying that whether or not the hours of footage turned over to the police translated into an arrest would really strongly determine my opinion of the value of cameras, and, well, here we are.

I'm now forced to reconsider how I feel about CCTV - click through to watch me do exactly that.

Despite the heavily trafficked name-giving intersection of rail and roadways, Toronto's Junction district is often overlooked by many people... and I can't pretend I'm not one of them.

I'm from a neighbourhood that is even further northwest of downtown than the Junction, and I pass through it constantly but have spent extremely little time in the area.

My excursion Saturday at the Junction Arts Festival has made me think I might've been making a mistake.

Toronto's second annual Pirate Festival has been jostling and jeering attendees for the past two weekends, and if you haven't been yet your last opportunity will be this Labour Day long weekend.

A host of seafaring entertainment can be found at the festival, which is taking place at Historic Fort York.

It's still definitely worth coming out at this point, since the only limited engagement shows you're too late to catch are the Blud & Gore pirate skills test, and The Original Saffron Finch who, uh, makes boloney sandwiches with his feet.

Open Sept 1 - 3 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Adults $16, Students/Seniors $12, Under-12 $10, Under-3 free.

(Photo: Parrot by Nadya (nb).)