201 New York buildings are pictured and described in An Amateur Guide to architectural New York. The description for the Flatiron reveals the origin of the phrase “Twenty-three skiddoo”. No opinions are held back in the scathing critique of Trump Tower. Discover lesser known buildings and reacquaint yourself (if necessary) with the vocabulary and time periods of grand architecture. (via Yahoo’s Daily Picks)

Long years ago, seven maybe, Apple launched what they termed a “ground breaking online service”. Called eWorld, it was an interactive community with a characteristically Apple-friendly environment. I recall wandering through a life-sized depiction of it at MacWorld. Standing amongst those cartoon building and friendly people cut-outs I thought “could this be the future of online communities?” But within a year I had loaded up my first web browser over my Netcom account and never looked back. eWorld pressed on, as their list of press releases attests, adding content from various publishers, Apple & Claris support areas, NewtonMail, and O.J. Simpson coverage. They added World Wide Web access in July of 1995 (not shabby at all). But in March 1996 the happy world came to an end and the friendly people cut-outs were witnesses to an employee memorial.

Two days ago, courtesy of a random brain spark, I suddenly said to my husband (a long-ago Apple employee): “Whatever happened to eWorld?” His response? “It turned into AOL.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “turned into” is perhaps not the right phrase; Apple replaced eWorld with AOL as its preferred online service and AOL committed to an Apple client and WWW access. But Apple hasn’t forgotten eWorld entirely. eworld.com, purchased January 1994 and last renewed in February 2001, takes you to Apple’s home page.

Alton Brown’s online store has finally opened so you can purchase your very own Sodium Chloride Containment Unit. Unfortunately, the 200 (rumored 400) signed ones were probably all gone within hours.

The SF Chronicle’s look into “Who killed Excite@Home” brought forth these facts I had not heard yet: “board members never considered adjusting the price they charged cable companies” (much of the board was the cable companies), “as of a few months ago, cable operators owed the company close to $100 million”, and George Bell, the chief executive in 2000, lived in Brookline, Mass and was rarely at the Silicon Valley headquarters.

Guinness connoisseurs are already familiar with the widget that creates the proper foam when a can of the stuff is opened and poured into a glass. Now Guinness has created a rocket-shaped device that releases gaseous nitrogen in a bottle, and you don’t need to pour it out into a glass for the correct effect. Purists, of course, will always insist on Guinness from the tap. And super-purists deride any that isn’t from the source in Ireland.

Long ago, in a place far away, I used to watch the WPIX Yule Log at Christmas time. Now, in this place, I often use it in the bonding part of the “hey I’m from [Connecticut, Long Island, Manhattan, etc]” conversation, as in “hey, did you ever watch the Channel 11 Yule Log?” The televised video of a crackling fire, accompanied by a soundtrack of carols was fascinating in ways I could not fathom. I’d stare at it, wonder how long the loop must be (the log never got smaller), and then realize I had just spent many minutes watching a fireplace on television. Gone since 1989, the log returns this year, but only for two hours on Christmas morning. The NY Times reveals background trivia (the first log video was a 17 second loop, the one I knew was a 7 minute loop), and this Bring Back the Log website helped get that log back where it belongs.

The A2Z4Birders Online Guide has free access to their North American Shorebird and Warblers guides. The details for each bird include excellent photos, sound samples of their calls and videos of them in action. I used to see and hear many birds in the suburbs of Connecticut, but in the urban sprawl of California I rarely see more than pigeons, crows, and the occasional hummingbird. (via Yahoo’s Daily Picks)

Reading my old Usenet postings has brought up the old saying that I’ve forgotten more than I know. It seems that there was once this young female programmer who understood Macintosh Apple Events and Microsoft DDE, used something called VROOOM Overlays (a memory manager for DOS programs), and knew the difference between resistive, capacitive, and inductive digitizers used in pen computers. But she couldn’t figure out how to install RAM on a Powerbook 500 or get her cat to stop chewing on plastic bags so I suppose she didn’t know everything.

Writing messages and drawing designs on cookies has become easier thanks to edible food coloring markers. “FooDoodlers permit food decorators to draw directly upon foods with pens utilizing various colors of edible food inks.”

The NY Times has a poignant piece on electronic remembrances of September 11 victims. Friends and relatives have carefully saved final emails and instant messages from those lost. A lawyer who would’ve been in Tower 1 if he had not been late for work published the archive of messages from his Blackberry handheld device which chronicles 14 hours of frantic messages as colleagues attempt to ascertain each other’s whereabouts. The deep horror of that day comes through in 91 short emails.