No, this ain't no Mayan thing. It's just that I learned something about computers today.
By experimentation.
Believe me, in this case, science is way cool.
I suppose most people must know this--I feel like an idiot for not ever thinking about it myself--but did you know that a mouse click is actually two moves?
With almost every point and click interface--mice, mousepads, etc.--the click is not just the push down on the contact below the button, but also the release. That means that, until you pull back from your button-pushing, you really haven't said, "Yeah, do that."
You haven't authorized your credit purchase of that item. You haven't uploaded that video (or downloaded that one. You haven't revealed your darkest secret on Facebook or destroyed years of credibility on a blog ("Who are you and what have you done with Crashing Vor?").
You. Have. One. Last. Chance.
Should some lucky day a lick of sense, like a charged particle slipping through the Van Allen belt, somehow strike you just before you are about to cybernetically ruin your life, you can save yourself by holding down the left mouse button or its equivalent, not letting it back up, and mash the power button on your computer or whatever your system's version of force-quit, cold boot, etc.
Until you lift that digit, you haven't cleared your virtual Patrick Stewart throat and ordered, "Make it so."
Like I say, not earth shattering, and I'm pretty dumb for not figuring it out before, but posted as a holiday public service to anyone on the intertubes that may benefit from it.