Plussing the Google

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know by now that Google is launching yet another social network, called Google+. It's in a private, invitation-based beta test mode, and I managed to get one from Steph Romanski before the invitations were halted due to "overwhelming" demand. Here's a peek inside and a taste of what's coming from Google.

Let's just bury the nightside copy desk

Forgive me, nightside copy editors, for I have come to dash your hopes and crush your spirit.

I come as one of you, having edited many thousands of stories and written many thousands of headlines in the darkness of an approaching newspaper deadline. But those days are gone, and that era is past. It's time to let go.

Forget about the horseshoe-shaped universal desk, the rim rat and the slot chief. They are as outdated as green eyeshades, pica poles, rubber cement, and drawing little lines below "w" and above "m" so as not to confuse the Ludlow machine operator.

Thinking about Alaska

View from a Grant Aviation plane

I've spent five weeks so far this year in Alaska, which in part accounts for my absence from blogging. I spent three weeks in Juneau, one in Kenai, and one in Anchorage. That's a tiny sample of our largest state, which has more coastline than all the rest of the country combined, and more land mass than Texas, California and Montana put together. But some points stand out.

No, you can't see Russia.

Sarah Palin is not particularly welcome to return.

Itsy-bitsy teensy-weensy type

I found myself annoyed the other day by the Washington Post's unusually small, hard to read body type, so I installed the very nice CSSViewer Chrome extension and took a look at several sites to see what's popular these days.

When activated, CSSViewer pops up a display of the active CSS rules for whatever element you're pointing at. Here's what I found.