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Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?

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Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?

#141

Post by nsagent »

speff wrote: post #123
Stratoscope wrote: post #44

It's a bit scary to see that one of the highest-voted answers to this question (188 points) is completely wrong. It says that the (0,0) hotspot simplified the calculations for a cursor position update, because you didn't have to add any (X,Y) offset. https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/52349/43259 The problem with this idea is that the arrow pointer was never the only cursor. On the first Macintosh, there were many others…

It's only scary at the beginning. Then you get used to it. Every single social media site - including HN - has uninformed people agreeing that a correct-sounding answer must be right. My friend the tax accountant gets downvoted for clarifying how taxes actually work. My wife the linguist gets downvotes for explaining no that's not how language works. It's not scary - it's typical.

I think this also partly explains the LLM hype — people can be as confidently incorrect as LLMs, or maybe LLMs are as confidently incorrect as humans since they are trained on text from social media.

Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?

#142

Post by speff »

MenhirMike wrote: post #139
speff wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only scary at the beginning. Then you get used to it. Every single social media site - including HN - has uninformed people agreeing that a correct-sounding answer must be right. My friend the tax accountant gets downvoted for clarifying how taxes actually work. My wife the linguist gets downvotes for explaining no that's not how language works. It's not scary - it's typical.

> my friend the tax accountant gets downvoted for clarifying how taxes actually work. Let me guess: Tax brackets? That's the one thing that most regular workers in the US just don't seem to understand (and arguably, many people knowingly spread falsehoods to further some agenda).

Decent guess, but nah. Something to do with corporate tax accounting. Can't remember the details because that's out of my element.

Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?

#143

Post by jturolla »

I was just going through my regular Sunday morning routine when I opened hn and realized I'm the second most upvoted answer to this question.

That was 10 years ago.

Is it right? Probably not.

Did I answer instinctively? Yes.

Is it a problem to keep it there? I don't think so, there are plenty of other explanations in the same page.

Am I providing further evidence? No.

Please refer to https://xkcd.com/386/

Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?

#144

Post by ant6n »

justinsaccount wrote: post #127
xattt wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The tilt on the cursor has never seemed odd or wrong or strange to me in any way. Not sure if people realize, but this setting is changeable, probably since the times of single-digit Windows.

> since the times of single-digit Windows. Do you mean 15 years ago with windows 7, or 30 years ago with windows 3?

Arguably, the last date of the "times of single-digit Windows" would be one day before the release of Win 10, which was on 2015-07-29.

Didn't Win 8 have fewer options for adapting the UI compared to previous versions of Windows?

Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?

#145

Post by PopAlongKid »

MenhirMike wrote: post #139
speff wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only scary at the beginning. Then you get used to it. Every single social media site - including HN - has uninformed people agreeing that a correct-sounding answer must be right. My friend the tax accountant gets downvoted for clarifying how taxes actually work. My wife the linguist gets downvotes for explaining no that's not how language works. It's not scary - it's typical.

> my friend the tax accountant gets downvoted for clarifying how taxes actually work. Let me guess: Tax brackets? That's the one thing that most regular workers in the US just don't seem to understand (and arguably, many people knowingly spread falsehoods to further some agenda).

I think the basic thing about taxes that is least understood is the difference between gross income and taxable income (the latter is the amount that tax brackets apply to). A close second is the difference between tax liability, and refund/balance due on the tax return.

Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?

#146

Post by ant6n »

jturolla wrote: post #143

I was just going through my regular Sunday morning routine when I opened hn and realized I'm the second most upvoted answer to this question. That was 10 years ago. Is it right? Probably not. Did I answer instinctively? Yes. Is it a problem to keep it there? I don't think so, there are plenty of other explanations in the same page. Am I providing further evidence? No. Please refer to https://xkcd.com/386/

I guess the obsession to fix something that's wrong on the internet only applies to mistakes by other people, not one's own mistakes. Cuz really, it's the responsibility of other people to fix my mistakes.

Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?

#147

Post by jsjohnst »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #110
Stratoscope wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo! Now that you jogged my memory, I can confirm this. The next question is why you need a white outline around the black arrow. This is easy to answer: if you didn't do that, what would the black arrow look like against a black background?

Some DE solved that by having an inverse outline.

Took me a really long pause to think up what DE meant, so to save others from similar waste “desktop environment”

Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?

#148

Post by akarve »

Most SO answers were non-answers or word salads. Thankfully one of you added an answer explaining that the cursor is already straight given that it must be visible from the graphics coordinate origin (upper left) and is 45 degrees wide.

https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/149837/45927

Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?

#149

Post by sgerenser »

PopAlongKid wrote: post #145
MenhirMike wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my friend the tax accountant gets downvoted for clarifying how taxes actually work. Let me guess: Tax brackets? That's the one thing that most regular workers in the US just don't seem to understand (and arguably, many people knowingly spread falsehoods to further some agenda).

I think the basic thing about taxes that is least understood is the difference between gross income and taxable income (the latter is the amount that tax brackets apply to). A close second is the difference between tax liability, and refund/balance due on the tax return.

Just try to convince the average person that “getting a big refund” is a bad thing, since it means you gave the U.S. government an interest free loan.

Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?

#150

Post by itomato »

vintagedave wrote: post #19

Time for one of my favourite Youtube videos, by Posy (Michiel de Boer.) 'Mouse cursor history (and why I made my own).' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YThelfB2fvg It runs through the history of mouse cursors, as well as problems with some of the standard ones, and shows, among other things, historical cursors which were straight and not tilted. It is one of those amazing videos that make the internet worthwhile, is…

I'm not sure this is accurate. He shows the IIGS cursor as the Lisa "Color mode" cursor, for one thing.

He never mentions the NeXT environment, DPS and differences in DPI, their own black and white arrow cursor, and how that cursor actually came into Mac OS X, not the one from System 1 and onward.

Hmm.

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