If you’re anything like me, you spend most of your time on the computer because it’s way easier than real life. Literally everything in a computer is easier than its analog counterpart. Email is better than snail mail, YouTube lets us watch people get hit in the balls without having to endure whatever asshole is currently hosting America’s Funniest Home Videos, and word processing programs let us type without revealing what grammatically inept morons we are.
Wouldn’t it be great if we had the same conveniences of a computer in reality? Here are the features I think we could use the most.
#8. Copy/Cut/Paste
I’ve worked exclusively with computers for well over a decade, because I’m clumsy and therefore a danger to myself when doing real-people jobs, and I get frustrated easily with repetitious tasks. Whether it’s flipping burgers or making a brick wall, the act of repeatedly picking things up and moving them is a pain in the ass.
In The Real World …
You could select an object and then just copy, paste, repeat. A job at Taco Bell would be a lot more bearable if you made one taco before lunch and just pasted it, hot and fully wrapped, over and over again for every customer.
“Or you could give me a Ctrl+Z to undo working here …”
Stores would save a bundle simply reusing the same product over and over, and you could save even more buying one of those build-your-own six packs and just pasting the good ones forever. Even more practically, you could make copies of your more valuable organs for when you inevitably destroy them with all of the cigarettes, Big Macs, and vodka you copied over the years.
The cut function might be even better. You’d never have to do any heavy lifting again. You could just cut and later paste things wherever you want them to go. Imagine a world in which strained backs are a thing of the past. Carrying loads of laundry up and down the stairs would be as easy as walking up and down the stairs — which is a challenge for me because I’m terribly out of shape, but you get the general idea.
Though carrying a complete bedroom set on a clipboard might prove to be tricky.
Destroying evidence would be as easy as cutting an object, then cutting another. Just like the joke that was originally here but accidentally copied over, it would never be seen again. Those hundreds of beer bottles from that binge you pasted over the weekend? Cut and then lost seconds later when you copied that McNugget into the full 20 you now need to fight the hangover.
#7. Saving Progress
Do you have any regrets? I do. I’m divorced, I’ve gotten speeding tickets, and I once got hit in the junk by a piece of wood that flew out of a table saw. So I have some experience with looking back on moments and reflecting on how it would be super to have not done that, because I still cry when I pee sometimes. (Divorce is rough, folks)
On the other hand, I have zero regrets with any video game I play, because I save as often as possible, whether it allows quick saves or has save points. For example, there is no regret for your character in Alien: Isolation when you accidentally attract the creature with your running and it kills you, because you saved the game and can go back and not do that this time. Unfortunately for your underwear, that doesn’t undo the racing stripe you just forged in terror turds.
A better bowel loosener than Metamucil or a draft notice for Ted Nugent.
In The Real World …
Wouldn’t it be great if we could save the day when we get up in the morning? Or just before a big interview? Or before asking the custodian if he was propositioning you with his eyes or just has a weird tic? All that regret could be undone with a reload. It would be like Edge Of Tomorrow, except you don’t have to get shot in the face or run over to undo your most recent screwup.
“Shit …”
Had an awesome relationship, but fucked it up over a stupid misunderstanding? Reload. Blow through a red light? Reload. Got drunk and put peanut butter on your genitals to make friends with the dog? Reload, but gross. You can reboot your life, but you can’t scrub a soul clean, pervert.
#6. Piracy
Before anyone screams, I know, piracy is bad. It can and has murdered the careers of indie developers and writers, because rather than paying for their product, people just shared it for free, and free doesn’t buy food and WiFi. On that note, a lot of people are A-OK pirating things from big companies. Raise your hand if you paid $7,000 for that copy of Photoshop you use to replace celebrities’ heads with dicks. I thought so.
Fact: Only two legitimate copies were ever made, both in 1997.
In The Real World …
Now that we’ve cleared that up, think about a world in which the poor and downtrodden could have lobster mac and cheese because someone made some at a fancy (possibly schmancy) restaurant, then made a bunch of free copies to share. That wouldn’t even impact the restaurant, because it’s not like Ol’ Hobo Gus was going to eat at the Four Seasons but “fuck it, free lobster mac.” And what if simple things that add up in life could just be duplicated from what the Haves have to make life less shitty for the hardworking Have Nots? Trips to the food bank would be a snap, and you could drop off Costco-sized boxes of Q-tips or actual fresh food instead of that canned garbage that people who can’t afford a can opener are always offered.
True, but would we really want to have to sit through this PSA before every meal?
Granted, some people would take advantage of this and use it for Teslas, Blu-ray players, and 96-inch TVs that would go perfectly in my living room. Now, these pirated copies will probably have some built-in problems just to fuck with the thieves, but honestly, that’s an extra layer of hilarious I think the real world could use right now.
#5. Bookmarks And Shortcuts
Bookmarks are already a thing. Remember those pieces of poster board you shoved into your pre-Kindle so that when you went back you didn’t have to remember what page you were on? That’s actually exactly how we came to use the term “bookmark” for webpages.
In The Real World …
Condescending history lessons aside, the basic idea behind bookmarks and shortcuts would be amazing in the real world. Imagine being able to snap right back to where you were in line after running to the bathroom, regardless of how many dick nerds stole your place for the new Star Wars movie.
Although autocomplete will lead to awkward questions as to why you went
to the strip mall while your husband ended up at “Mammary Lane.”
More practically, you could make a shortcut to the responsible groceries you always “forget” when shopping. A shortcut to where you parked at a mall or concert could save valuable hours of your life that could have been spent doing something other than wandering and crying quietly.
#4. “Invisible” Setting
One of the main reasons socially inept people like myself evolve into Howard-Hughes-like hermits who collect cats and cereal boxes until A&E has to intervene is the fact that it’s hard to go anywhere in society without socializing. Leaving the house almost always means someone is going to say “hello” or make eye contact, and that is just too damn much human interaction for some of us.
Even if you’re not a shut-in, there are some people you’d rather not interact with who can’t seem to read the “get fucked” look in your eyes and insist on speaking to you.
This is why chat programs have an “invisible” setting. Because sometimes you have shit to do and don’t want to be bugged by employees, former friends, or that mall Santa who’s been following you for years.
In The Real World …
Just think, you no longer have to feel guilty as you try to avoid eye contact with a homeless person despite the wad of cash in your pocket. You could get that cucumber and variety box of condoms through the self-checkout without feeling watched. Go on, I won’t judge.
That virgin olive oil isn’t going to stay that way for long …
It would also make life much more bearable for the self-conscious in the world. I’m someone who can trip over nothing on a linoleum floor, so walking down a concrete sidewalk with seams has caused more than a few completely unnecessary stumbles when people were looking. There’s nothing I can do about that, because there’s no therapy for clumsiness, but it would be awesome to fall because your feet are stupid and not have witnesses.
On the downside, shoplifting would be super easy. But come on people, don’t be assholes.
Pirate that shit.
#3. Pausing
If anything on this list is a superpower I would bathe myself in toxic chemicals to get, this is it. The best part of watching a movie, listening to a song, or playing a video game on a computer is the ability to pause it at any time for any reason.
Like that much needed change of underwear and vodka shot after this.
In The Real World …
The ability to pause life would make time management meaningless, since procrastinating would only consume non-time that you’d essentially have an endless supply of. Impromptu naps could happen at any time with no repercussions. No matter how crazy/important/fast-paced your job, you could just drop everything and run to the can at any time (but still wash your hands, stinky).
Work in fast food? You could spit in some asshole’s food for being rude, and literally no one would be able to tell. Not that I endorse that kind of thing. You could also rob a bank just by waiting for someone to open the vault and walking in. But I recommend just using it for napping and meeting deadlines at the last minute, unless you’re a terrible person.
There’s a reason we called this the greatest superpower of all time.
#2. Search Engines
Search engines are more than just a convenience in the modern world. They’re necessary to find a job, a cookie recipe, or personal information about that person you have a crush on and can’t seem to get a lock of their hair to sniff. But in the real world, it would become the single most indispensable tool anyone ever devised.
Way more than whatever the fuck this is.
In The Real World …
You’d never lose another set of keys, or your phone. You wouldn’t have to ask anyone where the condoms were at the store (see: invisibility, self checkout), and you could “image” search that person you kinda recognize and knows your name so you don’t look like a dick when they say hi. Combine it with the bookmark feature and you could dominate on Jeopardy or emotionally brutalize the stupid on Wheel Of Fortune.
Otherwise known as the University of Phoenix of game shows.
If you were ever lost in the wilderness, you could look up which mushrooms you could eat for fun, and which ones you could eat for food. Or maybe search where you are and not get lost in the first place.
You could also become the world’s most hated “um, actually” guy by immediately debunking the bullshit everyone around you spouts. But hey, self-righteousness is it’s own reward, right? It’s what fuels Facebook.
#1. Muting/Blocking
If you’ve ever used Twitter, these are indispensable tools for not being bothered by people who insist on “debating” you by spamming up your timeline with endless tweets, blowing off those “See Why I faved You” religious accounts, and, most importantly, keeping unruly dicks from so called “movements” from sea-lioning you with bullshit questions because you happened to share an opinion they disagreed with.
The new universal symbol for “asshole.”
In The Real World …
Wouldn’t it be great to never again have to hear those annoying people working the kiosks in the middle of the mall?
No! No one wants your stupid copper head-octopus thing, and you smell like a cologne ad from the 1970s.
You could permanently avoid people you’ve had a falling out with. Or you could block or mute other things, like tabloids in the checkout line or anything on daytime TV that isn’t Twilight Zone reruns.
Even better, women could mute or block catcallers. Imagine a world in which cutting shitty people out of your life was as easy as clicking a button. Of everything in this list, this is the one that would allow people to take back their lives from assholes and do some real good. Hell, how much heartache and pain could we all have avoided in the ’90s if we could just block Columbia House?
“You can buy 15 puppies for just a penny!”
“Must … ignore …
As with blocking on the Internet, people will call you a coward and claim that they won life if you block them. And just like blocking on the Internet, they’re dead fucking wrong, because your life now contains one less annoying cow pie of a human. And we could all use fewer human cow pies.
source http://allofbeer.com/8-software-features-that-would-make-real-life-awesome/
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