Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight? • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by dcow » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 3:15 PM UTC

demondemidi wrote: post #157

MenhirMike wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes, that's another fun one! Your yearly tax return should be as close to 0 as possible, otherwise you're either over- or under-withholding. Then again, I met some people that use it as a kind of piggy bank because they wouldn't be disciplined enough to save up for bigger purchases otherwise and... well, I can't even, but if it works for them, there are worse things to spend money on.

I have income from multiple sources and they are not aware of each other. For example, they will all keep paying social security even when I’ve exceeded the max deduction. It is far too complicated to correct the finance departments of multiple companies. I just reconcile it all at the end of the year and get a refund. Got a better strategy I can use?

Woah, it’s okay to have different tax situations. I started a business one year and got a pretty big refund. But we’re not out there bragging about how we get big refunds every year like it’s some goal to aim for and accomplishment to be proud of if achieved. That’s the mentality people are criticizing.

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

#162

Post by city41 » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 3:15 PM UTC

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've noticed whenever a topic comes up that I have a lot of knowledge in, people almost always chime in with incorrect or just flat out made up stuff. I always remain suspicious of anything I read in any comment section. Including here on HN.

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

#163

Post by LegitShady » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 3:16 PM UTC

rvnx wrote: post #156

sgerenser wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

(Not from the US) Why is it a good thing to lend for free to the US gov ? Because the regional banks aren’t that stable ?

Nah, because for people with poor financial skills, the ability to save is very difficult (even if they had the "Extra" money in their account each pay period instead of paying extra taxes). So even though you're technically getting your money "back", for some people they would not have been successful to 'save' so much without it being forced on them.

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

#164

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 3:17 PM UTC

demondemidi wrote: post #157

MenhirMike wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes, that's another fun one! Your yearly tax return should be as close to 0 as possible, otherwise you're either over- or under-withholding. Then again, I met some people that use it as a kind of piggy bank because they wouldn't be disciplined enough to save up for bigger purchases otherwise and... well, I can't even, but if it works for them, there are worse things to spend money on.

I have income from multiple sources and they are not aware of each other. For example, they will all keep paying social security even when I’ve exceeded the max deduction. It is far too complicated to correct the finance departments of multiple companies. I just reconcile it all at the end of the year and get a refund. Got a better strategy I can use?

It sounds like you’re not one of the people they met who use it like a piggy bank. From my perspective, they’re just describing the habits of people who are used to not having any money: gotta spend this windfall quick because money doesn’t last long. It’s irrational and ultimately harmful but it’s borne from the practice of spending all of your money every month on non-trivial things and still being required to increase debt in order to stay in your apartment, e.g., credit card spending.

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

#165

Post by dcow » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 3:19 PM UTC

MenhirMike wrote: post #153

sgerenser wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh yes, that's another fun one! Your yearly tax return should be as close to 0 as possible, otherwise you're either over- or under-withholding. Then again, I met some people that use it as a kind of piggy bank because they wouldn't be disciplined enough to save up for bigger purchases otherwise and... well, I can't even, but if it works for them, there are worse things to spend money on.

By the interest free loan logic, you should have your employer withhold zero and then you put your taxes in a high yield savings account and pay them all as late as possible.

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

#166

Post by handsclean » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 3:19 PM UTC

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.

The way I internalize it: public voting selects for layman plausibility, not correctness.

Because laymen massively outnumber experts, the layman vote always overwhelms the informed one, so the reaction of people who don’t know the subject is the only thing that matters. Truth only seems to matter because most subjects either can be somewhat intuited by non-experts, or are in a niche that you’re not, so “layman plausibility” means your reaction, too. But the true nature of the dialog reveals itself as soon as people talk about something you’re an expert on.

Answers like this aren’t a bug in a truth machine, they’re a plausibility machine working as designed.

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

#167

Post by whoswho » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 3:21 PM UTC

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.

This is why I ask for qualifications when someone has an authoritative tone.

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

#168

Post by kragen » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 3:22 PM UTC

Stratoscope wrote: post #101

kristopolous wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see similar things in the Apple Lisa source code as well: https://info.computerhistory.org/apple-lisa-code The linked SO page is a page of complete speculation. History isn't just a bunch of logical thought exercises, it's an assembling of documentation and evidence. As far as I can see, there is no contemporaneous documentation claiming intentionality so the question remains unanswered. A smoking gun would b…

> A smoking gun would be a file with a name like cursor.bitmap or some code like "declare cursor_default = [ [ 1, 0 ... ] ];" from a major source (ms/xerox/apple) say, pre-1988 or so, with some comment above it explaining the rationale of why that cursor style in particular. The Inside Macintosh pages from 1985 I cited above may be what you're looking for. Especially page 158 (I-146). It doesn't give a longwinded rat…

but that is 4 years later than the xerox optical mouse tech report, and from a different company which copied their default mouse pointer style from xerox. it doesn't bear on the question of whether xerox was implementing cursors without hotspot coordinates at the time that they adopted the left-leaning shape

(i suspect xerox mouse cursors always had variable hotspot coordinates because it's, what, six microseconds extra in the screen update to subtract them? and i think smalltalk-76 mouse cursors have hotspots. but 01988 or even 01985 is way too late)

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

#169

Post by minkzilla » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 3:24 PM UTC

rvnx wrote: post #156

sgerenser wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

(Not from the US) Why is it a good thing to lend for free to the US gov ? Because the regional banks aren’t that stable ?

It is not a good thing because it is interest free and inflation exists. If you would have had that money earlier you could have put it in high yield saving account or payed down debt.

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

#170

Post by dylan604 » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 3:24 PM UTC

tomoyoirl wrote: post #158

rvnx wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Not from the US) Why is it a good thing to lend for free to the US gov ? Because the regional banks aren’t that stable ?

“Look! I filed my taxes and I got money back! Yay money!” (Could have had that money all along.)

The people that enjoy a tax refund would not really even notice the small amount they "could have had all along" by adjusting their withholding amounts.