A lot of the emojis also seem to have a bevel along the inside cutting edge, making it impossible to cut anything because the edges of the two blades don't meet. A real pair of scissors would only have a bevel on the outside edge.
I still want to write some software to support community-curated lists of related links. It would include whatever I'm currently posting as "related"* plus fabulous contributions like cloudier's above.
This is also a dream of mine and I have many thoughts around this. I have a lot of little collections like this list and have always wanted a way to open this up to community contributions
I also don't think "awesome lists" are a sufficient solution for a number of reasons. Like this list is a perfect example of something that would (1) definitely get ignored on GitHub, (2) not reach the most likely target audiences, (3) not be easy to contribute to for basically anyone who doesn't know what a "git" is (so, the majority of people on earth)
If you (or anyone!) have any concrete ideas to offer about how list of related links could best be incorporated into HN's UI, I'd like to hear them!
We'd be looking to make the minimum possible change while adding such a feature. The goal is a "splash free dive" as sctb used to say. Most ways that I've thought of doing it (so far) involve too much splash.
The butterfly one reminded me of how much I liked reading the now elusive and Pagerank murdered non techie blogs that would pop up a few results under Wikipedia in biology/physics related queries.
Yes. When you close scissors, you use your grip to push the blades together perpendicular to the direction of travel. This makes the blades closer to each other so they slice.
You probably do this without thinking about it due to practice, but if you watch little kids try to use scissors, they'll sometimes end up with the paper just turning sideways and folding flat between the blades.
If you use the correct handed scissors, your natural grasp will cause this to happen fairly easily. If you use the wrong handed scissors, you have to push your thumb away from your palm at the same time you bring it closer to your fingers. Unnatural and uncomfortable.
Tbf if the grip can alter the distance between the blades you need to recalibrate them by adjusting the middle screw (unless they're riveted in which case welp) that holds them together. Well maintained scissors ought to cut perfectly well in both hands.
While this is true, most scissors I've used are pretty bad with that. Especially nail scissors, which I find odd, since you'll by definition use nail scissors with the wrong hand 50% of the time.
This isn't it. The shape of the handle is orthogonal to whether a scissor is left or right handed. The real difference is in which blade half is on the bottom.
Right, because which blade half is on the bottom affects which direction you need to apply force so the blades meet tightly. I didn't mention anything about the shape of the handle...
What you described misunderstands or at least poorly describes the problem.
> Right, because which blade half is on the bottom affects which direction you need to apply force so the blades meet tightly.
That would violate Newton's Third Law of motion, so no.
You don't have to apply force in any different direction if you put scissors with symmetric handles in the wrong hand. You will, however, end up tilting the scissors to the side so that you can see what you're doing. But that's not the same as needing to apply force any differently. It's a required sight issue not a required force issue. Anything else only comes from handle shape.
If the scissors don't have ergonomically sloped handles, an ambidextrous person can comfortably cut with either hand if they don't look at what they're doing.
>You don't have to apply force in any different direction if you put scissors with symmetric handles in the wrong hand.
Yes! You do!
So scissors hinge on a pivot point, and they hinge in two dimensions. They mostly move in the dimension that they cut in, but they also move a little in the perpendicular dimension. And in order to bring the cutting edges closer, you move the handle ends farther away. If you're using the correct-handed scissors, doing so is easy and natural because your hand grip curls one way easily. If you then switch the same scissors to the other hand, it's hard and uncomfortable because your other hand is a mirror image and your natural hand grip curls to bring the handles closer and the cutting edges farther away.
The fact that you keep mentioning that this violates some law of physics is bonkers.
It’s because people aren’t aware the 2nd dimension, the looseness of the connection between the planes of the blades, where the screw isn’t (and can never be) perfectly tight yet still allows the blades to slide. It’s hard to get the idea across in text. Your second comment helped a lot.
Your thumb and fingers of both hands are equally capable of producing both separating and joining force while closing. You learned to do it one way, by pushing out with your thumb and pulling in with your other fingers, so that way feels better to you, but that's a property of you not a property of scissors.
It's got nothing to do with hand capability, you've misunderstood. For an ambidextrous person, using right-handed scissors in their right hand will work properly, using right-handed scissors in their left hand will work poorly. And vice versa for left-handed scissors.
When holding scissors, the bottom blade is held fairly steady. The top blade tends to get pushed away from the rest of the hand by the action of the thumb. If the top blade is on the far side of the scissors (away from the hand), the far blade edge will get pushed towards the near blade edge when the thumb handle is pushed away (because the blade is on the other side of the hinge from the handle). If the top blade is on the near side of the scissors (the hand side), by pushing the thumb handle away from you, you are separating the two blades rather than pushing them together.
So on right handed scissors, with the thumb handle facing up, the thumb blade is on the left side of the hinge. That way the natural "push away" force from the thumb will keep the blades close together when held in the right hand. On left handed scissors, the thumb blade is on the right side of the hinge, for the correct push-together force when held in the left hand.
>Your thumb and fingers of both hands are equally capable of producing both separating and joining force while closing.
What makes you so sure? The ergonomics of the thumb, fingers, and hand are not symmetric. The left-handed people who struggled with right-handed scissors as kids suggest otherwise.
> You don't have to apply force in any different direction if you put scissors with symmetric handles in the wrong hand. [...] But that's not the same as needing to apply force any differently.
For precision made scissors with tight tolerances at the pivot joint and sharp blades (premium brands like Kai, Gingher, etc), it will cut with either hand.
But for scissors with a loose rivet (like cheaper scissors very common in kids' schools), the gp (ianferrel) you replied to is correct: the blades will not close tightly if the wrong hand is used to squeeze. The loose rivet scissors in the wrong hand will fold the paper instead of cutting it because the natural finger-closing motion will spread the blades apart creating a tiny gap instead of making them touch.
Here's a 1-minute video that tries to visually explain what a left-handed person struggling with a right-handed scissor experiences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyGCvSCnkWk
TIL: I've been using scissors wrong my entire life. I didn't realize that you need to push the handles to apply lateral force to the blades to make them slide against each other, the more the better.
You probably haven't been. You probably learned it with muscle memory as a kid and just weren't aware of it. I wasn't aware of it until I was in my late 30s and was helping my kids learn to use scissors.
Sorry for asking, but isn't that... obvious? So obvious that I bet most people just don't think about it consciously at all. If you don't do that, they don't cut properly, but it's likely to be something that the brain sorts out for you without you realizing the forces you apply.
And for the average scissors I use, it won't cut properly in either hand. Interestingly haircut scissors are better at cutting paper than regular paper scissors! I tried disassembling a pair of haircut scissors, and found the screw is interestingly rotationally locked to the blade next to the nut (rather than screw head), and the nut has a spring-loaded locking mechanism (a planar version of mouse wheel notches) so it doesn't rotate unless you turn the nut with a large amount of torque.
It sounds like you and they have decided that a human hand scissoring may only push inward or outward or neither using one side of the hand but not the other. That's not true about hands or about scissors though, even poorly constructed scissors. Your thumb and fingers of both hands are equally capable of producing both separating and joining force while closing. You and they have just decided that curling your fingers and pushing your thumb outward is right and the opposite is wrong, but the opposite works too. The scissors don't care and hands support both.
The grip strength of curling your fingers into the base of your thumb is stronger than the pinch strength of pressing your thumb against your fingers.
Scissor ergonomics aligns the handles so applying the finger-to-base-of-thumb grip to the handles (with the upper handle pressed against the outside of your thumb’s knuckle) pulls the blades together. In order to do that, scissors have to be designed to fit either a left or right hand.
To use scissors wrong handed you have to catch the outside of your finger knuckles against the lower handle and pinch the upper handle down with your thumb.
The sight issue is true (but in my opinion not the major difference).
Have you watched little kids learn to use scissors? You really do need to apply force to bring the blades together or they won't cut well. You likely do this unconsciously. I didn't think about it until I was teaching my children how to cut with scissors and noticed that they would generally end up folding the paper were I could cut it (toddler scissors aren't very sharp, so it's even more important to push the blades together from the side).
> You really do need to apply force to bring the blades together or they won't cut well.
It depends on the scissors. With the pair I'm holding right now, even if I'm actively pushing so the blades would move apart, they stay tight enough to cut fine.
Notably, the blades are curved into each other, which is capable of compensating for a moderate amount of hinge slack and narrowing the cutting to a single point. And the hinge has very little slack in the first place because it has a big flat mating surface.
It definitely has also to do with the force applied. If the blades are setup for the other hand your default grip will puah the blades apart and you can get the paper between the blades
Thats why as a lefty I had major issues with the cheap scissors (which had a ton of play on the hinge) we had in school, bit if you have a decently made scissor the issue is much less severe.
Sorry, what you're describing violates Newton's Third Law. The force applied by one side is equal and opposite to the force from the opposing side.
Scissor blades, paper, and force don't care which side is up. Anything other than line of sight is 100% handle ergonomics, and scissors aren't required to have wrong-side-incompatible handles.
If you open and close scissors the main force is up/down but based on the structure of the hand you also apply a sideways force which twists the blades left/right.
Depending if the top blade (where your thumb goes in) this pushes the blades closer together, or a bit apart. And if the hinge has to much play, this is enough that the paper gets twisted between the scissors.
I agree with this being the issue. With a right handed scissor in my left hand, I feel like I have to "pull" with my thumb to keep the blades together. Same scissor in tje right hand, that instead is a slight push but that happens automatically as I do the cut motions.
Handle ergonomics aside, because scissors aren't required to have ergonomic handles, you really want the nearer blade on the bottom so you can see exactly where the cut will be. A nearer top blade would overhang and obstruct the view of the cut line.
People talking about causing the paper to fold are either describing how they have subconsciously tilted the scissors to be able to see where they are cutting or the fact that many but not all scissors have handle shapes that curve wrong if held in the wrong hand so they end up holding those specific scissors oddly, which means that the scissors are no longer slicing perpendicular to the paper.
But handle curvature is not a requirement of scissors, just a characteristic of some of them.
If the scissors don't have ergonomically sloped handles, an ambidextrous person can comfortably cut with either hand if they don't look at what they're doing.
I just got the nearest pair of scissors and cut a sheet of paper with it, it was equally easy both with my left hand and my right. Even holding it very loosely so I couldn't secretly unconsciously apply some horizontal force it cut fine, as well as when tilted slightly left or right. The two halves seem perfectly identical, too, so I don't know what's this talk about "nearer blade on the bottom" either by some sibling comment, seems like both blades are about equally near and obviously one is on the bottom and the other on top.
So in short I have no idea what everyone's on about.
I did the same and had the same result. From reading the the other comments, I suspect a high-end pair of scissors is more tolerant of technique whereas as low end scissor you have to push and pull the blades just so for it to work.
Some scissors are more ambidextrous than others. If the blades are curved towards each other enough then you may not need sideways pressure from your thumb and fingers, and even sideways pressure in the wrong direction may not matter. I have some scissors like this and some not.
Alternatively, it's possible to apply the sideways pressure in the opposite direction to the "natural" one, and thereby use scissors with the hand they're not intended for (you may even be doing that without realising - I do). My dad is left-handed but struggles to use left-handed scissors as he didn't have access to them until later in life and is just used to applying sideways pressure in the "wrong" direction.
>If the blades are curved towards each other enough then you may not need sideways pressure from your thumb and fingers
I've never heard of nor seen scissors with blades curved towards each other and I don't see why they ever would be anything but straight in that dimension.
Then I think you're not paying attention, or you've misunderstood. I just checked 5 different pairs of scissors here, old, new, cheap, expensive, big, small, and all of them have blades that curve towards each other. When you look at them edge-on while they're closed, only the tips of the blades are touching, and light is visible coming through the gap between the blades everywhere else. That way only the cutting point is in contact as you use them.
You're going to love this then: There are left-handed bread knifes, and I want one.
Bread knifes have a ever so slight slant to the cutting surface, to ensure that it actually goes straight through the bread. Without it the bottom of the slice will be a little more narrow, or thicker, I can't remember. Anyway, if your left handed the cut goes into the bread at an angle and the bottom get much wider than the top. This happens because the slant in the knife is to the wrong side (for left handed people). It is basically impossible to compensate for, without attempting to use your right hand, which just makes it worse really.
The price of the cheapest available left handed bread knife I've been able to find: USD100.
You have just answered why I've never been able to cut bread straight. I always thought I was just bad at it and somehow everyone else had mastered bread cutting while I wasn't paying attention.
I have one as-yet-unredeemed gift certificate from my girlfriend for a left-handed bread knife. They're SO hard to find. Living in Germany I've wandered into multiple knife stores and ask and the people there all say "I know what you're talking about but we don't make one."
The only time I've actually seen one in real life is at the left-handed store on the San Francisco wharf!
Anyway, if you've got recommendations I'd love to hear them.
Yeah, the edge on a serrated bread knife is like |/ and not \/.
I got a cutting knife (Øyo japansk kokkekniv), which has holes in it and a bump on one side to get rid of vacuum and things sticking to the knife when cutting. I actually got that in a lefty version, with the bumps on the other side.
I'm left handed but I've always used right handed scissors in my right hand. I can actually cut with either, but cutting right handed has always been more natural for me. Using the left handed scissors in my left hand requires more concentration.
The only real benefit I've ever noticed of left handed scissors is that when you hold them in your left hand, you can see the point on the paper where the blades are going to cut. Holding a pair of right handed scissors in your left hand (or vice-versa) obscures that point behind the top blade, making it a lot harder to make accurate cuts.
If you try holding a pair of regular right handed scissor in your left hand you should be able to see the issue of the top blade covering the part of the paper you want to cut. Which let me tell you, makes following dotted lines a lot harder in school if you're using them on the wrong hand...
That's the only difference I've ever come across anyway, not sure what other commenters are talking about with the paper turning sideways!
I've always used right-handed scissors as these are simply the default, but a year ago I bought proper left-handed scissors (one general purpose and one for fabric) and now after almost 40 years of using the wrong type of scissor I can't imagine ever suffering those again. You can use the wrong scissors, but you're constantly compensating and getting a cramped hand in return. It makes a huge difference.
Simple test is to get right-handed scissors and try to cut with your left hand (as your are required to do is some projects due to tool or space constraints). You’ll notice that you have to “horizontally” push in opposite way, which is really hard to do.
We have a pair of nail scissors that I cannot use to cut my right hand's fingernails. Most aren't like this, so it's clearly possible to make ambidextrous scissors.
I never much point in them as a kid. I'm left handed and I found it harder to use left handed scissors in my left hand than using right handed scissors in my right hand.
I'm also left handed and the only difference I've ever noticed is that when I use scissors (whatever they may come from) with my right hand, the cuts are less precise. That's it. And everything I do with my right hand is less precise than when I do it with my left hand.
I've never really understood (said like I've spent much time thinking about it!) why wrong-handed scissors are so difficult/impossible to use. We must angle them slightly, sub-consciously, w.r.t. our standing vertical (out of the plane projected forward from our figure)?
Right hander with right handed scissors, you pull the lower loop toward yourself and push the upper loop away, this pushes the blades into each other. If you can use the "wrong-handed" scissors, you can reverse the pull/push and get the blades together, but it feels weird/unnatural. It does work, though.
I don't see how you reverse the pull and push. It's just the blades that are different, not the open/close mechanism. You squeeze to close and unsqueeze(?) to open.
The only difference is which side of the visible blade the cut is.
Assuming right handed with right handed scissors, looking down at what you cut:
You put a couple fingers through the bottom loop. Most people don't pull those straight upward, but pull a bit toward their hand. This pushes the blade to the left as it closes. Likewise with the thumb you push away a bit, which pushes the blade to the right. Thus, both blades are pushed against each other.
Sure, you could balance the scissors perfectly and only go straight up/down. But this won't work very well when cutting something difficult since there are no forces balancing each other out. It also won't work with looser scissors (every pair in elementary school) ad the blades will remain apart from each other.
I'm a lefty and left-handed scissors are impossible for me to use. And not from lack of exposure I think, one of my memories from elementary school was the teacher trying to make me use left-handed scissors because she knew I was a lefty, but they simply wouldn't cut for me.
I think there must be more to the left/right handed thing, because I'm effectively right-handed in everything I do except writing. Even in novel tasks I haven't done before: I'll try first left handed, it doesn't work, then I try again right handed and it works fine. But when it comes to writing specifically, I'm very clearly a lefty.
> one of my memories from elementary school was the teacher trying to make me use left-handed scissors because she knew I was a lefty, but they simply wouldn't cut for me.
People tend to damage the left-handed scissors because they use them wrong: it bends the blades slightly apart. If you apply seemingly-excessive lateral force to the handles while closing the blades together, they work fine. (Also, new, undamaged pairs work fine.)
You do have to hold left-handed scissors at a slightly different angle to cut, though. If you're used to right-handed scissors, it's a difficult adjustment to make.
Because you subconsciously push the blades togheter in the right way, so the gap gets narrower and the cut sharper. While if the scissor is mirrored you pull them apart.
Are you a lefty? I'm a lefty scissors user as well so I've gotten used to right hand scissors (you just push the bottom blade to the right as you cut). That may not be the case for most right handed folks since it "just works" most of the time.
No, right-handed, but left-handed were readily (read: overly) available at school so I recall trying them thinking surely it's just a comfort thing at most how could it possibly make a difference, and the paper or whatever just flopping up parallel to the blades instead of being cut.
That happens the other way round too, hence the workaround GP suggested. It's a little uncomfortable because you naturally push the other way while cutting, but you can get used to it.
When you use left handed scissors with your right hand, you apply some force to the blades that moves them slightly apart, while with right-handed ones, you force them together tightly. You need to actively work against that.
I think it's actually to do with whether the cutting edge is visible or not. Right-handed scissors held to the right of your eyes have effectively no margin between the cut and the edge of the blade. Right-handed scissors on your left (or vice versa) have a blade-width worth of margin between what you see and what you cut.
Funnily enough, you can also see well if you cut with right-handed scissors on your left side, but with the paper held above your eye-line.
I love watching people go in depth and get passionate about something that seems so trivial. The next time someone asks why I don't use Microsoft's emojis I'll let them know it's because it takes too long to cut things with their scissor emoji.
The handedness of the Google scissors seems deducible to me based on the shading, and the author seems to have disregarded the shading so as to incorrectly identify the handedness and therefore draw a nonsensical closed position.
I love these little measures of attention to detail. You can tell when a craftsman really thought about their work, vs. when a mere implementer stops once the design is shippable and the requirements are met.
Similar to the "Cheese in the wrong place" controversy over the Google burger emoji[1].
Apple is usually first to get their designs in to the OS so everyone else sort of has to or they will be the odd ones out. Especially when most users are on iOS, the expectations are set on what ios displays it as.
You only look odd when you override the OS default. Then You’re odd all the time. Even if you ape it, like web Twitter, you’re still odd, because the small differences are even more pronounced.
Most designers may be on iOS, but saying most users are on iOS is objectively not true, except in very niche apps.
Depends on your target market. In places like India, Android absolutely dominates. In countries like the US and Australia, iOS does. Especially among younger users where iOS has almost universal coverage.
> Unlike the real world tool it represents, the emoji’s job is to convey the idea, especially at small sizes. It doesn’t need to be able to swing or cut things. Nevertheless, let’s judge them on that irrelevant criterion.
