I want to thank @Hardyboy for making my point, and the section he so kindly printed online proves exactly what I said: that the subscriber print/digital versions do not have that problem and they came out months ago. Not weeks. MONTHS.
Facts forthwith:
The print version, which I received mid-January (as well as the online version subscribers received) don’t have the error in the online, NON-SUBSCRIBERS article, which appeared 2 months AFTER the print/digital subscriber versions (which we, as subscribers, ALWAYS GET, months before the public. My print version received around January 15th. TAS’ (error-filled) website article date shows: March 25, 2026.
Neither (subscriber print/digital) version have that Hindi glyph (or whatever it is). By the way I saw it too, when I went to their website last month. I even acknowledged seeing it in my post, except that I passed it off to whoever TAS pays to post it, screwing up. It is STILL, however, not in the print/digital subscriber version released in January. Gee, so AI can reach into my home and magically change my January issue? That IS advanced!!!!!!
I clearly stated that I’d contacted Harley about the supposed AI writing, and his response, already noted above.
The poster is fine with believing what he wants, although he clearly has no understanding of creative writing, and why using AI is death to those of us who have been writing for decades. It takes a lazy mind not to even be able to imagine the joy that those of us who have published journalistic works (I wrote for The New Haven Register in the early 1970s, and it was one of the joys of my life) get when we see something we wrote in all it’s glory (or, sometimes, not☹️) . Had AI even been around in 1976, I would have forgone it, because what good is my imagination if not to translate thoughts into a beautiful article. That just doesn’t compute with the poster, who thinks EVERYONE would use AI. I imagine he thinks Dostoevsky and F. Scott Fitzgerald would have used AI if it was there, and that’s his prerogative. A very shortsighted one, but, anyone can see how attention-deficient people are nowadays. Writing a 7,000 word article is beyond him. It’s just not beyond the rest of us.
By the way, Jonathan gives a clue as to what eventually give a clue as to what went wrong in posting it online: He states that he has just spent "7,000 words" describing the amp. Anyone doing a word count could see that the article only contains 4,700 or so words (my text edit is a basic program). Where are the other 3,000 words of the article? Oops, another error by whoever posted, but certainly one that the poster could’ve confirmed, as he is clearly technologically more knowledgeable than me. Except in reaching the correct conclusion. If he had the whole article (or a subscription), he would have seen that the bullet points he refers to are part of the designer’s section where the designer explains what he improved. It is clearly laid out in the bullet points, easily visible to anyone who is a subscriber. That’s not part of Jonathan’s writing
He’s right: the facts DON’T LIE. And the fact IS that the - by now - 5 month old print version looks like any other article in TAS. Nothing’s missing, nothing’s out of place. Oh, and it IS 7,000 words long (as Jonathan happened to mention), unlike the abbreviated version (4,700 words) that TAS’ web designer screwed up.
I almost wish they’d left the errors online, so the more perceptive viewer could have looked at it. I wish I could publish the print version in the magazine I received in January, but I’m sure that that - even if not illegal - would not be cool with TAS.
As for my ’age’ being a factor, I can only point out that I am alive, in my seventies, when Michael Jackson, Karen Capenter and Whitney Houston, died before they turned 50. Unless the poster has an expiration date, he might want to muse on what living a long time gives you: perspective and insight. Right now, he has neither.
I’d have responded earlier, but my aging body needed a checkup. But that’s easier than needing to get a checkup for one’s mind.