sandcat_'s comments

Unless you are indeed the original author from StackOverflow, it would be polite to attribute your comment: https://stackoverflow.com/a/3617319

That’s fair. I’ve read a bit more and some of the replies are clearly generated, you’re right. I don’t see any signs the original post is however and can’t comment on the app itself.

I still maintain that reporting this to dang and moving on is the best strategy. It’s hurtful to have your comments pored through and every flaw or inconsistency pointed out in the hope of identifying whether they were written with AI or not.

I feel like it’s time HN had a rule against comments like this. I am biased: I say this as someone who was previously (inaccurately) accused of being an AI, which was kind of a bummer as I’m already quite shy online and rarely speak.

But in that case there was at least a tell-tale sign: I’d used em-dashes. In this case, correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s really no reason to think this post is written by AI. It’s just a long post, that’s all. The sort we should be encouraging!

Just add new notes and tasks at the top? I find that it means less important tasks tend to settle towards the bottom, and I’ll periodically go and reshuffle things as required.

FWIW when I first skimmed your comment I came to the same conclusion as everyone else. I don’t think people are reading closely.

I used iOS to write my comment. It adds curved apostrophes automatically. macOS does too.

The em-dash was me — you can long press on the dash button and you get the choice.

Also, next time? Maybe consider that you might be wrong, and you’re responding to an actual human. Who spent half an hour or so writing a comment to share what they thought was an interesting anecdote. And who is now feeling a bit rubbish.

Can assure you it wasn’t AI generated, and considering the time I spent writing the post, it’s a little upsetting to be accused of it. That said, I do get it. Especially as I’m on a new account.

I’ve always used em-dashes (mild typography nerd) but recently have been considering stopping, for exactly this reason. They always flew under the radar a little, but I’d always notice when others used them, so it’s a shame and I’ll miss them.

fyi, I was based in London at the time. This was for a position helping to build the supposed AI.

I interviewed there a few years back. I bailed on the interview within the first fifteen minutes, the first time I’ve ever done that. I told them they’d given me the ick — not my most professional moment, admittedly! But it was an awkward and unpleasant interview.

They spent the first ten minutes of the call predicting the death of software engineering (this was a software engineering interview) and complaining about expensive devs (ahem). I wouldn’t have minded so much if the only demo apps they had on their website weren’t some of the worst, non-native iOS apps I’ve ever seen. Truly awful.

A month or two later I noticed on LinkedIn that a dodgy CTO I’d worked with, who had attempted to avoid paying me (and did avoid paying several colleagues of mine), had joined there too. It felt like a good fit.

Yeah, I have to say, none of this is a surprise to me.