Nice solution!

Out of curiosity to the OP, did you use an AI to tweak/refine the text? It contains a lot of similar writing patterns as some read-aloud 4chan greentext/copypaste YouTube channels, especially liberal use of whimsical similes: "like it's 2000 and I'm downloading a JPEG on dial-up" "starting to feel like cosmic punishment" "like it's protecting nuclear launch codes", and jocular asides: " -- exposed to British weather, coated in a mysterious film of protein shake and regret, probably being livestreamed to TikTok by someone's ring doorbell -- ".

So I started to wonder if my AI-radar was spot on, or is that style of writing something people naturally do – because I wouldn't bother, but then again, I don't run a blog that people actually read.

I got the exact same uncanny valley feel from the text. Great article, though. Some people just don't have great writing skills and need a leg up, so I think it's totally excusable to use AI to help you write something. Writing up a little pet project like this is super valuable and I'd hate it to only exist on the author's system because they didn't enjoy writing or didn't feel good at it.

was looking for this comment. excellent writeup nevertheless :)

Did you use an AI to tweak/refine your comment? It's:

* Written more formally than the typical HN comment

* Uses uncommon language like "jocular asides" and "whimsical similes"

* Fails to recognize that those mentioned phrases are cliches that people have been using for ages, long before LLMs

In short, recalibrate your AI radar, it's malfunctioning.