[Eug-lug] Making geeks look bad

[Ben Barrett]

Agreed... gentrification prolly isn't the right word, anywhoo, but the
gentrification brings along its shadows as well...

I said pffft in disgust when I saw the video produced to make the work
of the techie appear as voodoo, or at least the assessment of the
scammers.  The way the clips were put together, they voiceover that
the person decided the CPU, hard drive, video, etc are bad but only
seem to show the technicians walking around the box, not running any
diagnostics.  Hopefully this sort of foolishness will make it easier
for honest folks to make a buck.... but I'm not sure.  We always hope
users become more educated, but again I think of cars (most people
just need them to work, some care how they work, and a few totally
tweek them out) as an analogy.

ben




On 10/30/07, marbux <marbux at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 10/30/07, Ben Barrett <stircrazyben at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> > As for incompetence, I cannot count or remember crap but I think they
> > tried like 10 advertised in-home repair services and only 2 id'ed the
> > bad memory.  To me that begs a different question:
> > Is the market burdgeoning so much that 8 of 10 are clueless (sorta
> > like cellphone market boom, anyone can sell phones & service plans)...
> > or is the audience/customerbase so fiscally fit and clueless that they
> > usually don't notice? (yea I know users are always clueless blah blah)
>
> In answer to your last question, I think the answer is yes. But I'm coming
> from a different place. I suspect there is a lot of fraud going on. But I'd
> like to see news reports that go a bit more in depth. For example, did any
> of the ones who got it wrong run any diagnostics? I just think the report
> could have been far more convincing if they hadn't tried to cover it in a
> very short piece. As far as the evidence went, I think it would have been
> more persuasive to put a "fools or crooks" slant to the story rather than
> trying to force "crooks" as the only explanation. Either that or show the
> proof of dishonesty.
> > This sort of media blitz seems to beg for industry regulation.  I've
> > noticed the trend toward excessive legitimization by some of the firms
> > like GeekSquad with their uniforms and almost-police-looking cars,
> > lately -- what think ye?  Is our wild west eroding to gentrification?
> >
> >
> Being born in 1946 and raised in the last town at the end of the gravel road
> before the Great Idaho primitive area, literally five years after the last
> horse-drawn stage coach run pulled out, I can answer this one. :-)  Our wild
> west is long, long gone. But I'm not sure I'd call our local crime and
> employment statistics a sign of gentrification. At least in Springfield,
> things seem to be heading the other way.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Marbux
>
>
> BUCK "MARBUX" MARTIN
>   Director of Legal Affairs
>   OpenDocument Foundation
>   Contact:
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> Charter member, Two Guys without a Garage,
> <http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/10/cracks-in-foundation.html>
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