Real Life | that damn redhead

It’s time to play: Computer shortcuts I want for real life!

I had a really bad day the other day and sent out a tweet from my phone that said this:

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This is a game I love to play: Computer commands/shortcuts for real life. It came up in a recent conversation on Facebook with Arno, a.k.a. @camera_obscura, one of my South African friends. He said, “My next few weeks will be much easier if I could uninstall the “sleep” function from my body. And also upload information to my brain.”

Amen to that.

I’ve played it before briefly on Twitter, but I’d like to see what we come up with in the comments. So far this is my list of computer commands/shortcuts I want for real life:

An ESCAPE key for awkward situations.
*CMD/CTRL+F for things like my car keys.
CMD/CTRL+Z for “undoing what you just did as you get the sinking feeling that you have officially just been a dumbass” (that one was Arno’s)
A service like shorten URL that you can plug long meetings into.
A help file (per Arno’s friend Adrian)
CMD/CTRL+S to save important things for later
Copy & Paste to relay important conversations so you don’t get anything wrong.
CMD+Q to just quickly quit stuff and get on to the next thing.
CMD++ to make things bigger that are too small . . . like, uh, ice cream sundaes (be creative)
CMD+- to make things smaller that are too big . . . choose your crisis & shrink it!
CMD+H to instantly hide
CMD+O to open doors and stuff
CMD+R (or F5 for PC users) to refresh . . . could save money on your water bill
CMD+SHIFT+DELETE to empty the trash . . . nobody likes to do that in real life!

Your turn!

What are some computer commands/shortcuts you’d like to apply in real life?

*Note: I’m a Mac person so I use the CMD key, which is similar to the CTRL key. Your shortcuts may slightly vary if you’re a PC person.

My social network wish list for the internet deities

In the beginning of my recent post where I told the Facebook Luddites to stop whining, I pointed out some minor changes that social networks have made lately, and also emphasized that technology is constantly being improved upon, hence this thing we call innovation. Unlike these misoneists (had to use that word again), I actually look forward to new features on my favorite sites, and found myself brainstorming on what I’d like to see in the future from these mythical beings of the web known as developers, who are rumored to live somewhere in the cloud among the Google Gods.

Without further ado, I present my wish list of new features I’d like to see among select social properties, and hopefully They are listening:

Facebook:

level playing field and include a “does not like” option in addition to the new “like” feature
a “meh” button for the apathetic (this one’s from my friend Ian)
“Not a Fan” pages (e.g.: “Stacy is NOT A FAN of the Yankees.”)
allow users to be in multiple geographic networks (i.e.: for those who live in one and work in another, or those who recently relocated but still want to be in their home network)
ban MySpace-like “surveys” and other similar memes, otherwise make those people go back to MySpace
have a “3 strikes” policy that would forbid somebody from friend-requesting multiple times (If I’ve said no once, I’m not going to change my mind!)
a way to bookmark inside Facebook the links of your friends that you like
charge people who whine to “bring the ‘old’ Facebook back” every time changes are made

Twitter:

instant visibility of locked twitter accounts that choose to follow you (much like how Facebook unlocks one’s profile to be seen by the person whom they are trying to befriend)
some kind of 3rd party application telling you who NOT to follow and/or who has you blocked (this may already exist, there are so many Twitter apps out there I can’t keep track of them. Does it? Bueller?)

LinkedIn:

rename the “Answers” section either “Questions” or “Questions & Answers,” because that makes more sense
ability to group contacts much like Facebook’s “Friend Lists” with multiple privacy options (this was suggested by a friend, I’m ambivalent)

MySpace:

please do not cease to exist, but keep all the annoying people on MySpace from invading Facebook somehow (I’m going to catch hell for this one, just watch)

Real life:

have a service like “shorten URL” that you can plug long meetings into
an escape key for awkward situations
CTRL+F: car keys & other things I can never find when I need them
incorporate hashtags into real life somehow so people would know what we’re referring to instantly

So there’s my wish list for social networks. I can only hope those in The Cloud are listening and ask for no goats’ blood. What would you like to see?

Flying Spaghetti Monster image via Perrenque.