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Comment by m1el | Hacker News Reader

Oh, and to add an insult to the injury, I was using a collaborative editing tool. So I was able to see the person:

1) Select All (most likely followed by the copy) 2) Type the answer 3) Make an obvious mistake when they type else block, before the if

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i have a really annoying habit of constantly double-clicking to highlight whatever i'm reading or looking at.

i've actually been called out for it in a systems design interview, under the presumption i was copying my notes into another window, but was glad they called me out so that i could explain myself

... as I'm reading through this doing my normal random highlight of text while I read...

Same. I sometimes use Edge when a site is broken on Firefox and I get into trouble there because it has super weird behavior when you highlight text. Very annoying.

That was me interviewing someone yesterday. The telltale select all is so cringe.

Some people compulsively highlight what they are reading.

I'm a compulsive highlighter too, but it's generally in the vein as xkcd (https://xkcd.com/1271/) and not a select all. Frequently, highlighting ends up starting in the middle of a word!

On some modern websites I end up having to select all because the selection mechanism is broken (I'll highlight, remove my finger from the mouse button, highlight another piece of text, and yet the original highlighted text is still totally, or even worse partly, highlighted.). Crtl-A Selecting all and then clicking anywhere is the only way to clear all of the highlighting in these instances.

Thanks for the XKCD. I didn't realize how common this is. Now I'm even more annoyed that so many websites and reader apps force context menus or 'gestures' when you highlight, without a way to disable those context menus or gestures.

Exactly.

Ever go to school with a dyslexic that's using a ruler to expose one line of text at a time? Same thing....

I too select the lines that I read. However, I never select the entire page, unless I intend to copy it.

I compulsively left and right click random shit all day. It helps me encounter bugs like steam locking up for a few seconds on Linux if you right click the steam windows or overlay too quickly.

Oh, I do too. But then his monotone typing out of the answer, eyes darting back and forth between two screens, it’s kind of obvious. The select all just starts me looking.

I just selected your reply here while reading. Some people use mouse selection as a visual aid to keep track of where they're reading. It's there, and it's handy!

(I also just select randomly sometimes. Not even quite sure why.)

> (I also just select randomly sometimes. Not even quite sure why.)

I'm fidgety in general. If it isn't highlighting it's figure 8s with the mouse cursor.

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