Hey EXPRESS, you stink

While writing yesterday’s post about the Jonathan Coulton show today I found that he’d been written up in the May 22nd edition of Express, WaPo’s freebie ripoff of USA Today’s in-depth reporting. I could read the article itself on page 53 of the PDF edition but when I went to copy the address for Ram’s Head…. nothing.

When some old cruft pasted into the edit window instead of what I wanted I just assumed I’d failed to press CONTROL-C correctly and went back to the other window to do it again. And discovered that Express apparently releases their PDFs with copy functionality disabled. It’ll let you highlight something – just to get your hopes up, I guess – but no copy.

Really? Your various puff-pieces in your giveaway paper are so precious that I need to be prevented from copying a paragraph? Admittedly, in the realm of difficulties in my life having to re-type that address into the google maps bar isn’t such a trial, but c’mon guys – what’s gained by making my life more difficult? The entirety of the WaPo daily can be copied from the web. Open up your PDFs.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Well I used to say something in my profile about not quite being a “tinker, tailor, soldier, or spy” but Tom stole that for our about us page, so I guess I’ll have to find another way to express that I am a man of many interests.

Hmm, guess I just did.

My tastes run the gamut from sophomoric to Shakespeare and in my “professional” life I’ve sold things, served beer, written software, and carried heavy objects… sometimes at the same place. It’s that range of loves and activities that makes it so easy for me to love DC – we’ve got it all.

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