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

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

#231

Post by mixmastamyk » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 6:02 PM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #102

raffraffraff wrote: post #39

Without reading everything there is on the subject, I'd guess it's tilted for the same reason it's tilted to the left . Humans are tool makers and tool users. After enough time the tool becomes an extension of the body, even if the tip of the tool is mechanically or virtually detached from the hand that is controlling it. The tool maker designed this as a right-handed tool, coming into the frame in the right hand. If…

A horizontally flipped (straight edge on the right) cursor does exist, I think some versions of Microsoft Word use it when editing the left margin of a document or something like this. I don't think it's a standard Windows cursor though.

Also selecting numbered lines in a text editor, say on X.

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

#232

Post by jahewson » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 6:02 PM UTC

waveBidder wrote: post #203

handsclean wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 plausi…

there's another reason for some optimism about a voting-truth connection: wisdom of the crowds. As long as there isn't a strong bias to people's estimate, the average will converge on the truth.

Unfortunately not, because wisdom of the crowds requires not only a lack of bias but independence which, let’s face it, is usually impossible achieve.

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

#233

Post by sircastor » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 6:08 PM UTC

edm0nd wrote: post #57

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn’t funny, the response was informative, and throwing around the term “fanboy’ is juvenile.

It was pretty funny and the fact you are getting offended just proves their point even more imo.

The trouble with text is that it often does not have implied intent. There is no sarcasm font. And when people respond with “can’t you take a joke?” It comes off as dismissive at best, and trolling at worst. Not to mention that “it was just a joke” feels like a hail-Mary attempt to justify a comment that was poorly received.

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

#234

Post by sfink » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 6:11 PM UTC

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #164

demondemidi wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 incr…

It's not necessarily irrational. For example, for some people if they ever have any extra money, someone else will immediately spend it for them. If the earner wants to make a larger purchase, perhaps something that will cost short term but pay off in the long term, they need some mechanism to save, outside of the regular controls that apply to daily life.

You may think this situation is still irrational, that the other person is being irrational. But again, there are many life situations out there. Perhaps they have lived in situations where they had to fight for what they needed. Perhaps they lived with an earner who would spend their money on drugs if it wasn't taken away, and yet if the non-earner saved it up themselves, the earner would find it and spend it.

The supposedly rational thing may depend on everyone around you to also be rational, and everyone around them, etc. And given that we are human, and humans are not fully rational...

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

#235

Post by phonon » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 6:13 PM UTC

sgerenser wrote: post #208

phonon wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FICA cap is per employer, not total. Is that what you're referring to?

FICA cap is not per employer. Well, it is from a withholding perspective (only because it would be impractical to make employers monitor withholding outside their control), but once you do your taxes for that year, you’ll get everything you paid in over the cap refunded.

Right, but employers aren't allowed to coordinate to calculate whether the hit the cap together or not. They don't have that discretion. See

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-26/part-31#p-31.3121(a)(1...

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

#236

Post by jncfhnb » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 6:16 PM UTC

waveBidder wrote: post #203

handsclean wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 plausi…

there's another reason for some optimism about a voting-truth connection: wisdom of the crowds. As long as there isn't a strong bias to people's estimate, the average will converge on the truth.

Wisdom of the crowds is obviously dog shit.

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

#237

Post by CharlesW » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 6:24 PM UTC

None of the Stack Overflow answers mention Alan Kay, who created the angled mouse cursor at PARC. When asked about this¹, he responded:

"The Parc mouse cursor appearance was done (actually by me) because in a 16x16 grid of one-bit pixels (what the Alto at Parc used for a cursor) this gives you a nice arrowhead if you have one side of the arrow vertical and the other angled (along with other things there, I designed and made many of the initial bitmap fonts). Then it stuck, as so many things in computing do."

¹ https://jameshk.com/mouse-cursor

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

#238

Post by Tagbert » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 6:26 PM UTC

handsclean wrote: post #166

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.

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 plausi…

In that way, it’s a bit like an LLM choosing the most likely answer based on the mass of training material.

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

#239

Post by graemep » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 6:28 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.

Most often it is because people are too lazy to take the time to understand the explanation they are being given.

Sometimes that is because experts just say "I am an expert so trust me" without proper explanations or links to explanations or evidence.

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

#240

Post by graemep » Sun, Feb 04, 2024, 6:29 PM UTC

Auracle wrote: post #201

wonderfulcloud wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Reddit is exceptionally bad at this though. It's basically about what sounds the most positive for the upvoter's way of thinking rather than anything else.

Reddit is a place where you get downvoted for linking something that proves what someone was saying is wrong just because it goes against the site’s overall narrative. Lies are encouraged if they’re the correct lies.

Depends on the sub. Political ones are the worst.