People think you are a wizard...or Genius?

[MikeyTampa]

I wanted to see if anyone else has this same issue that I do.
I have a hacked Iphone, Macbook Pro setup for VNC, a VPN, Boxee, Hacked Xbox but by no means does that make me a Genius or Hacker...I just know how to use google and follow directions. All of my friends are average joes who own one computer, a sidekick (blah), and didn't know what twitter was till they saw it on tv. They on the other hand think that about me then ask me to debug their computers to which I point them to google.

Anyone else the only person they know who has boxee or xbmc or any other homebrew open source hackable items? It's just kind of funny how easy the directions are for so many great items people just won't take the time to look at.

Must be nice for people with non lazy friends...

[FOURFOX65]

Face it. You and I and most of the folks that are regularly using Boxee and cutting edge tech are always going to be in the minority. People are lazy. They just want things to work. Heaven forbid they have to figure stuff out, or dare I say......READ!?!?!
People want to watch content on thier TV and will pay for a soloution that works out of the box. That's the reason that when there is an actual "Boxee Box" on a store shelf someplace, it's gonna sell like hot cakes. That is if the cable companies don't put the hit out on Boxee first...or buy them out.;)

[Illuminaughty]

I get that genius stuff a whole lot.
And that thing you said about google, that is what I say ALL THE TIME!
It's kind of funny, I think these things are so easy and everyone else thinks it's some kind of voodoo. Sometimes it really gets old though, I am sure it's the same with you where people are always wanting you to fix their this and that.

Something else that is annoying is when I start a project and show a friend, they are like "oh, cool" then later when I make progress and show em then, they're like "you already showed me that" and I have to go through this whole detailed overview of the differences and the changed/added things...by the time i'm done explaining they look exhausted with confusion.

[roontoon]

Face it guys, you are smart.

d

[mwpei]

It is kind of funny, I started using atv over a year ago and before we had all the cool patchsticks and stuff like that. But now that things are easier to do I have convinced 3 people at my work to get an atv and install boxee on it (and I have another 3 people that are thinking about it). Most of the time I help them set things up but once they know were to find the info they seem to be able to do it all with out much help.

I think this just points to how good open source stuff is and having a community work on the project makes it much easier for everyone else.

[dan1son]

Nah, it doesn't make you a wizard or genius... the difference is your ability to be OK with doing these mods to your hardware. Most people are scared that they will break something and never be able to use it again, therefore they never try the seeming simple processes.

Same thing with installing car stereos or fixing appliances. It's not hard to do, most people just don't have the faith in themselves to pull it off.