Way back in April, [[Rob Paterson]] was kind enough to make me a gift of an iTunes gift certificate. I’m a slow shopper, so it’s taken me this long to make my way through $35 of purchasing, but today I dropped down to a balance of 21 cents, so I’m all spent out. Here’s what I got:

• Delusions of Klezmer, The Alexandria Kleztet
• Slumber My Darling, Alison Krauss, Edgar Meyer, Mark O’Connor & Yo-Yo Ma
• Dress Rehearsal, Carolyn Dawn Johnson
• Hard Times, Eastmountainsouth
• Hard Times, Eastmountainsouth
• Winter, Eastmountainsouth
• Ghost, Eastmountainsouth
• Interlude, Eastmountainsouth
• You Dance, Eastmountainsouth
• So Are You to Me, Eastmountainsouth
• Show Me the River, Eastmountainsouth
• Rain Come Down, Eastmountainsouth
• Still Running, Eastmountainsouth
• All the Stars, Eastmountainsouth
• Father, Eastmountainsouth
• Too Soon, Eastmountainsouth
• The Ballad of Young Alban and Amandy, Eastmountainsouth
• Mark’s Song, Eastmountainsouth
• On Your Way, Eastmountainsouth
• Russian Rag, Elena Kats-Chernin
• Mushaboom, Feist
• Gilgarry’s Glen, J.P. Cormier
• Shame on Us, Jonatha Brooke
• Ten Cent Wings, Jonatha Brooke
• They Framed a Guilty Man, Leslie Nuchow
• Apology, Leslie Nuchow
• Nearer, My God to Thee, Mahalia Jackson
• Ten Kopeks/Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious/The Hokey Pokey, Mandy Patinkin
• Teardrop, Massive Attack
• Hava Nagila, Scott Merrick and the Last Frontier Band
• You’re Still the One, Shania Twain & Alison Krauss and Union Station
• (I’ll Never Be) Your Maggie May, Suzanne Vega
• Songs in Red and Gray, Suzanne Vega
• Solitaire, Suzanne Vega
• Owner of a Lonely Heart, Yes

Some of these have obvious immediate use — Hava Nagila for example — others, like Suzanne Vega, are old favourites. Thanks, Rob.

It occurs to me that because the [[Plazes]] Launcher API returns the time zone of the current Plaze, I could add functionality to my primitive little Ruby launcher that would automatically set my OS X time zone as I move about the country.

Problem is that I can’t seem to figure out how to programmatically set the time zone using OS X. Does anyone have information on how to do so, either from the command line, or using Applescript?

File this bug in the “very specific” folder:

Some Adobe applications can’t start in Mac OS X v10.3 if the time zone isn’t set or it’s set to Cardiff. Setting the time zone to a setting other than Cardiff resolves this conflict. After you’ve changed the time zone and restarted the computer, you can reset the time zone to Cardiff (or any other time zone) without encountering this conflict.

Emphasis mine.

Every weekday morning in my inbox an email from Charlie Rose arrives that looks something like this:

The Charlie Rose Show
----------------------------------
Tuesday, August 23, 2005 at 11:00 p.m. ET. (Topics subject to change.)
Please go to http://www.charlierose.com/ for an updated show schedule

- Tonight's Show

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY
Playwright, "Doubt"

The Cast of "Doubt"
CHERRY JONES
BRIAN O'BYRNE
ADRIANE LENOX
HEATHER GOLDENHERSH

This is something that RSS was made to transport. I’ve sent email, even made a couple of phone calls, but I can’t seem to make contact with anyone inside the Charlie Rose organization who can make this happen. Anyone out there able to move this along?

The Tourism Industry Association of Prince Edward Island send out a directive to its member this morning that reads, in part:

For 2005, Forrester Research forecasts 32.1 Million U.S. households will use the Web to buy leisure travel for which they will spend $63.6 Billion, securing travel as the largest industry in online commerce.1 Success on the Internet is more important to the tourism industry than any other but it is not without its challenges. One of the obstacles to tourism operators conducting business on the Net, is distinguishing oneself as a legitimate business against the scammers looking for a quick buck. Consumers are aware that only a minimal investment is required to launch a website and continue to struggle with trust issues and business loyalty.

The travel industry world-wide realized that this challenge could cripple online business in the very near future and responded with the new .travel domain. Most of you now have your own domain name which would be youcompanyname.com or youcompanyname.ca or youcompanyname.pe.ca. The main difference with the .travel domain is that any company seeking to purchase a .travel name must be pre-approved by a legitimate organization. In Canada, the .travel domain is administered by the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC). Pre-authentication has begun through TIAC and will be open until September 5, 2005. Keep in mind that you are competing with other destinations, organizations and private companies all over the world so early pre-authentication is very important.

If you’re a potential .travel registrant, you might want to consult Edward Hasbrouck’s Internet domain names for travel page: he covers the history of the creation of .travel by ICANN (it’s not a pretty picture). Edward’s call to arms is a good one:

Why should anyone care that the Internet is being hijacked by commercial interests? The issue is, in part, whether the Internet will be governed democratically or ruled by money and back-room cronyism. It’s also about whether we should have top-level domains (like .com or .edu) for sectors of activity — open to everyone with a stake in those activities — or solely for industries and commercial interests. Will the Internet travel namespace be a virtual community of travelers, or a domain where — as in a speech I heard a while back by the then-president of one of the largest Internet travel agencies — “interactivity” and “participation” will be limited to the opportunity to click on the “buy” button?

Our friends [[Oliver Baker]] and [[Sophie Petersen]] are getting married on Sunday in Berkeley, necessitating a quick dash out to the west coast for our trio. Unable to stand the thought of flying Air Canada, we decided to opt for the new Northwest Airlines service from Charlottetown to Detroit and from there via Northwest to San Francisco.

The airline fates clearly being opposed to this move, Northwest mechanics are now on strike. Nonetheless, Northwest is “completing nearly all flights, albeit with a reduced schedule and capacity off 17 percent from the summer peak.” So, with all due apologies to my colleagues in organized labour, and in deference to our non-refundable tickets, we’re off on Thursday morning to break the strike and fly to California.

Side note: why does flypei.com, the heavily-promoted web address for Charlottetown airport, lead to a Novell Web Services login page?

The Redshift Report is a podcast from my alma mater, the Ontario Science Centre. Listen to Episode 2, Does creationism have any place in a publicly funded museum? and you’ll hear Kevin von Appen; Kevin was my swimming instructor thirty years ago at the Downtown Hamilton YMCA.

I used to trade Commodore 64 software with Wayne MacPhail. Years later, he started a hypertexting business with Kevin. Wayne is one of the instigators of the lefty podcast Rabble Radio; their premiere episode was last week

While we’re playing lateral thinking theatre, I will close the loop: Dr. Chris McGowan, my former employer at the Royal Ontario Museum is the author of the 1984 book In the Beginning… A Scientist Shows Why the Creationists Are Wrong.

Interesting Playmobil photos on Flickr. Watch as a slide show: guaranteed to keep any child’s attention.

Our insertion of RSS into the works at [[Yankee]] continues. Today’s addition: New England Foliage RSS Feeds. We’ve turned the reader reports that come in via our foliage reporting system into RSS feed; you can subscribe to all of New England, or to individual states. Watch the fall colour flow through your newsreader:

Steven’s prophecies were correct.