Geek Eye for the Average Guy

Yxes writes "Fortune designed an experiment: give three geeks US$15,000 and three days to bring a family of four up to date with technology. The average family doesn't know which DVD player to buy or how to setup a wireless network. What happens when even the geeks can't get it to work?"

Comments

why it doesn't work

[spoonyfork]

Heistad grilled them on their tech needs--really, all they wanted to do was send digital pictures of the kids to Grandma. Heistad came back with a shopping list that would get them that, plus a home theater, a wireless network, new computing, a tricked-out music system, and GPS positioning capabilities.

Not only did the family not want the technology but had what they didn't want "forced" on them. This is the problem with mass consumerism of entertainment technology. You don't need it. It isn't even cool if you think about it.

• Crappy pop music doesn't sound any better on outrageously huge speakers and expensive audio system.
• The TV show "Friends" certainly isn't any funnier on a 90" plasma HDTV.
• GPS is only helpful if you don't know where you and you know where you want to go. Besides, who needs to know the lat/lon of the dry cleaners?
• Computer and console games like Grand Theft Auto X, Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, and Sims still suck and disconnect you from society whether on a slow computer or fast one.

The parents should do their kids a favor and sell all that crap. Keep a decent notebook and digital camera around for the pictures to grandma and email. Buy the kids some books, take them to the parks, get them involved in their community.

All of that useless tech is going to kill your culture.

Re:Some things for most people:

[DeadSea]

I didn't know about 30 second skip for the first year and a half that I owned a TiVo. I turned it on and for me there is no going back. It is much easier to skip over the commercials with it. No counting, no being annoyed when TiVo changes the fast forward speeds with an update (yes they did this once). With the replay button, it is easy to go back if you overshoot, so accuracy isn't a huge issue for me. I don't see any of the commercials, but then there are none that I want to watch. None. Whatever works for you, I'm glad there is a choice in the matter. Three cheers for configurability.

What is the opposite of 'geek'?

[OECD]

Geek Eye for the Average Guy? It seems like we need a term for the opposite of geek (I'm not ready to concede 'average guy', though you could make an argument there.) Preferably, it'd be a single syllable word, like "gay" or "straight" or even "geek".

I'm going to suggest "mug". It seems to have gone unused since the 40's--"Hey, you mug!"--so we might as well dust it off. Plus, it suggests "Muggles".