I’d heard that if you held the door close button down until you got to your floor you’d have an express ride. This placebo button thing at least explains why that never seemed to work.

About the New York Times paywall, though, there are options. Subscribing, even just to the Sunday edition, is more than anyone should have to do to reach our authoritarian paper-of-record.

If you’d like to get to a piece there. you can Google the headline, then follow the Google result for the article. If you’ve clicked into the Times from Google you’ll be let through, IIRC. Twitter links work the same way, I believe. If you weren’t feeling the magic that way, one could always use one’s browser’s privacy mode. Each browser calls it something else: Incognito mode in Chrome, private browsing, private window, privacy mode, so on and so forth. They say it’s for when you want to shop for gifts without tipping off the recipient with your browser history, but practically speaking it makes sites think you’ve never been there before. Mostly. So if you see a link you need to get into, you can probably right-click on it to open it in some kind of privacy mode and not worry about the paywall. Or use another browser, or clear the browser data, even, to restart the count.

Most anything you’ll see on Snapzu you can probably reach one way or another. Right up until you can't, and who's got time for outlets like that? I'm looking at you, Tiger Beat on the Potomac.