[Technology] Cursor jumps around randomly

So I've had a problem a few times where my cursor has jumped into random corners, persistently and erratically.  It also occasionally "clicks", sometimes performing unintended actions or switching my focused window.  It's infuriating.

Each time it has happened, it's when the CPU has been very busy.  I thought their might be some bug where the driver was somehow receiving input from a specific program that was running.  One was a 3D game, Cube 2: Sauerbraten.  However, the others have just been while compiling large programs.  I think the only thing in common is the high CPU usage.

I ended up hoping I could at least workaround the problem by disabling the hardware associated with it.  First I tried disabling the touchpad on my computer (an HP Compaq tc4400), and that did not help.  Next I tried disabling the stylus (it's a tablet PC) and that worked.  In particular, I used

$ xinput list     # find my stylus

$ xinput disable <ID number of my stylus>     # mine was 12

One problem might be that my stylus is a third-party one that has been disintegrating since the day I unpacked it.  

This thread helped me understand what was probably going on, and has good advice for other HP tablets and machines.