No, the term Microtransaction has become a standard definition for MMO's that have items for purchase, ranging anywhere from $1 to $10 or so. The credit card/financial definition is certainly the source of the term, but its definition is now pretty irrelevant when talking about MMOs.
If you say a MMO with microtransactions, that means they will have a store of items that will cost a few bucks or so. The reason this is a big deal is that with a subscription-based MMO, this is faily uncommon, and is seen as being greedy. Microtransactions are usually only seen in Free to Play or Freemium (Free but with a premium subscription option) MMOs, as that would be their primary form of revenue generation. In subscritpion-based MMOs, it's just seen as a lame attempt to milk more cash out of already paying customers.
I think this is a bad idea and is nothing but a cash grab. I know I will definately be avoiding Champions now. The thing that worries me is there are rumors they will do this with ST:O as well. I don't like being a part of games where RL income can affect how you do in the game. I quite frankly see it as a form of cheating.
There's also the fact where the 'standard' content suffers because they reserve things for the pay item store. In freebie MMOs this is expected, but when you're already paying a subscription and for boxes of the game, that's just bullshit.
And there's also the fact I know I don't have the self-control and would probably spend exhorbitant amounts of money if I ever tried to play one....
It depends on your definition of 'capable'. The F-35 is primarily a multipurpose aircraft...designed for everything, air to ground, air to air, etc. The F-22 is first and foremost air superiority, where it handily trumps the F-35. Not as slightly as NPR would suggest...it would be a clear victory for the F-22 in most circumstances.
There is some famous military quote that says something to the effect of whoever controls the skies controls the battlefield. The F-22 allows us to do that. The F-35 is going to be in service with suveral other nations, so despite the extremely unlikely scenario where we have to go up against any of them, it's nice to know we have the edge.
However, the 187 we already have purchased, I would wager, is quite enough to maintain this edge. Probably a good decision to not buy anymore.
The other interesting thing to consider is the successor to the F-22 will almost certainly be unmanned, therefore making it cheaper. The F-22 actually has restrictions on its manuverability because of the limits of the human pilot.
The cost is also a little misleading. Additional units cost ~$130M each (which is still expensive as hell), the $339M figure is total program cost plus build cost divided out per aicraft. That number only decreases the more we produce. So if we ordered another singe aircraft, it would not cost $339M.
My desk with my computers is always immaculate...I am ungodly anal about that. My other work areas are absolute trash, but the area around my workstations is a sanctuary, and I meticulously manage all wires with zip ties and adhesive clamps. It's not about workspace, I just hate the cord. It pushes the light optical mice, somtimes you need a little slack to use it from a different angle showing stuff to people, somtimes you want to slouch back and pull it back a lot futher than normal, and besides it's just one more annoying cord to manage.
I used corded mice for many years before wireless mice, and being IT responsible for plenty of end user support, I have to still use a lot of wired mice. And the cord always drives me nuts.
These downsides your speak of are almost nonexistant. I basically never worry about the batteries on my mice...they either last forver, or putting them on my recharging stand is just something I do as second nature. And if I forget once or twice, no big deal, the battery still has plenty of juice. Interference and connectivity issues are extremely rare, and happen maybe once a month at most, and I use 3 different wireless mice daily at least. I have yet to have one actually 'frizzle out', even the early ones. I used my MX700 for 3 years, my G7 lasted me almost 4 years, including a Grand Marshal grind in WoW (8+ weeks playing so much I am almost ashamed of it). I have not had a single wireless mouse die on me.
I'm not saying wired mice are crap, some people prefer them and that's just fine. What I'm saying is anyone who complains about wireless mice in general, batteries/interference/etc. is just being ignorant based on early or crap wireless mice, or has a case of the "get off my lawn"'s.
Because modern, non-crap wireless mice almost never have those issues, and jerking on the mouse cord for slack, or having the cord push back against your movement because you have too much slack is extremely annoying.
I mean seriously, have you used a modern wireless mouse? I change the battery in my laptop mouse at work once every year. No exaggeration, in fact it was a bit longer. I just change it last month, and the time before that was when I got back from my overseas trip in February 08. I use one Energizer Lithium AA, and I use the mouse 8-10 hours a day, 5-6 days a week.
My rechargable mouse can go a week without needing to sit on the charger, and I usually charge it more often than that, so the battery is never an issue.
Interference for high-frequency mice is either a) happens once every blue moon and is solved by a quick on/off or b) you end up with bad luck and something specific in your evironment messes with it.
I've been using wireless mice since the early Logitech Optical wireless...you know the silver and blue one with massive reciever from like 1999. I used a MX700 after that. Then I picked up another Logitech one I can't remembe rthe name for that I used on my 2nd PC, then I snatched the G7 the first second it popped on newegg, and used that up until a few months ago when I bought a Razer Mamba. I use a Logitech VX Revolution with my laptop at work, and a MX Revolution on my workstation at home, before that a MX 610 with the workstation. Oh, and a MX Air with my HTPC.
So I would say I have a little experience with wireless mice, despite them overwhelmingly being Logitech. Basically after the MX700, all the newer mice got much better with interference, mostly because they switched to higher frequencies. Battery life too. On my original optical, battery replacement was monthly.
Wireless with built in rechargable battery that lasts several days easily for me. Lots of buttons, the scroll wheel is very nice, you can keep it in standard click mode, or use free scrolling, or toggle between the two easily; automatically or manually.
Fully programmable with lots of buttons, forward/back, and the cool thumb quick flip thing.
It contours very well in the hand, and I really like the extra lip under the thumb. It has some nice weight to it, but it's not too heavy to be tiresome. Overall it's the best mouse I've every owned.
I agree moblie browsers are becoming much more significant, but a 6% drop in a month is substantial.
I am wondering if maybe it has to do with kids being out of school, and them being more likely to use other browsers. I would also like to see the specific numbers on Chrome, as Google seems to be advertising for it more lately. Another thing is maybe IE8 might be causing issues with browser detection or something goofy like that...does the new privacy mode block browser strings?
I just have a hard time believing 6% of internet users suddenly decided to install something else. My money's on the kids out of school explanation.
What we have here was people that didn't actually want to play the game. They just wanted to rack up (dubious) "achievements".
Who said the game wasn't about racking up "dubious achievements"? Since the majority of players seem to do it, I would say that IS the game, or at least one of the most significant parts of it. Just because you think it should be played out exactly like a comic book doesn't mean the game should be that way, and anyone else doing anything different is not really playing it. It's a superhero GAME, not a superhero SIMULATOR.
This part in the summary also kind of irked me, and follows what you said:
Myers decided to play the game by the designers' rules disregarding any customs set by the players
COH was far from a first-gen MMO. The designers went in full well knowing the players would develop their own customs, and designed the rules around that. Basically, the players' customs are part of the game design. Those customs are there generally to make sure the game stays 'fair', or perhaps gentlemanly is a better word. It's a game, not a real war between superheros and supervillians. If Clark Kent was real, do you think he would want to kick Lex Luthor's ass all day? No, he'd want to take Lois out to dinner and a movie in hopes that he gets lucky. For a MMO to be fun, it depends a lot on the other players. The designers can't make griefing prevention mechanics for everything without affecting other aspects of the game, so to make it a fun for everyone, players develop their own rules/customs that everyone generally follows to make sure they all have a good time.
And you can throw out the argument that some people want a superhero simulator. This is true, not everyone likes the same thing. However, COH is not intended to be that 'simulator'. Why? Well first and foremost, MMOs are a business. You make something that you think your target audience will like, and you then generally cater to that target audience to keep them playing and paying. The game is quite mature, so the playerbase most definately represents the target audience at this point...otherwise they would have quit playing long ago. If the game was supposed to be a 'simulator' and not a 'game', the playerbase would be different.
Me neither. Live in a small rural town of 10k people. Verizon is the only carrier that will not drop a call driving across town. Hell with AT&T you can't get any signal on the east side at all. (And for the people that live far west of town, they can't get VZW, they can only get Sprint. Some people that travel for business have two phones to maintian coverage.)
That is why I shit a brick when about a year ago I woke up, and my phone said 'EV' on it. I restarted it 3 times just to be sure. I guess when 95% of a small town uses your service, it looks like a lot of users and they feel compelled to upgrade it.
I loathe Sony as much as the next informed geek, but I just limit it to not buying anything with a Sony name.
Think of it this way...you're causing yourself much more trouble by doing all that research than you are causing Sony by not buying their crap. You're effectively letting Sony make your life more difficult. They don't deserve that.
I've experienced the exact opposite. NOD32 has found viruses other AV programs miss...somtimes several AV programs. Heck my solution to fix virus issues on the clients with Symantec installed is to uninstall Symantec, install NOD32 and run a scan to clean it (then begrudginly reinstall Symantec since we're still waiting for our Symantec licenses to run out and only have a few NOD32 ones). I've had to do that about a half dozen times now and it has yet to fail me. I keep it on my own computers and I've personally had it find viruses in netowork shares while simply browsing around, and I use it on-demand to check suspicious files.
It's even good about picking up stuff it things might be viruses but doesn't have a signature for yet...the "UPS delivery failure" Trojan/Adware bundle that likes to go around constantly changes, and Symantec only picks it up half the time...NOD either gets it by signature, or it immediately notices the code is suspicious and quarantines it and submits it for investigation (at my consent).
So I would say you either have had some really rotten luck, or you work with idiots.
Exactly. Slashdot 2.0 is horribly broken on Opera, and has been for months. Sometimes they fix something and it temporarily works what I assume is supposed to be correct, but generally something is wrong.
Where does it say Joe-sixpack is expected to care about an Acid3 score? The only people who are expected to care about an Acid3 score is those who know what it is.
I would be, if it was actually Opera 10 being released today. However that is not the case. They released the Alpha of their new Unite collaboration thingamajig which requires the current BETA of Opera 10. The current version is still 9.64, with 9.7 in beta testing, so it will be some time before 10 comes out.
Kinda off topic, so mod me down if you want, I got karma to spare, but you seemed to indicate you enjoyed messing with these guys, so you might also enjoy one of my favorite pasttimes...messing with 419 Scammers. 419 is the criminal code dealing with Advanced Fee Fraud in Nigeria...long lost relative died and left you millions, you've won the lottery in Nigeria, etc...all that junk you get in your email. It can be a lot of fun to mess with those guys, and the overall goal is to waste their time so they don't scam as many real victims. Most are from West Africa but they can be from anywhere in the world...the number coming from developed nations has increased a lot lately. Check out this site here if it's something you might be interested in trying: www.419eater.com
I agree. It's one thing to call out Microsoft for their many mistakes, but it's comepletely different to be so rabidly anti-MS that you start making yourself appear stupid. I really thought this statement kind of shows what kind of an idiot this guy is:
'Consumers are hesitant to pay for a Microsoft security product that will remove problems in other Microsoft products,'
Most malware is not something that exploits vulnerabilities inherent in the product, they exploit the easiest vulnerability of all: the user. A lot of what AV programs do is protect stupid users from infecting their own PCs. Really, it doesn't remove any problems in other products...the patches and updates available for free do that. It will look for known malware that exploits those vulnerabilities if left unpatched, however.
Well sometimes it's noob, that's kinda close. But overwhelmingly, it's idiot or moron. The name-calling is generally when talking to other IT guys...ie: "That idiot tried to send a 100MB attachment." As someone else said in this string of replies, it's all about the audience.
But you make a very good point, and something more IT people should try to take seriously. I have been burnt a couple times by the wrong person hearing it. Generally they understand, but I'm also rather fortunate the turnover rate on our CS reps is high:-)
I would completely agree with your first statement. I don't know a balance sheet from a cash journal. And I can only think of about 2 other fancy accounting terms aside from that (And I seriously mean all of that, I hate accounting..I actually took a marketing class at a branch campus ~75 miles away to avoid having to take accounting as a business requirement). I would really have no problem with an accoutant calling me an idiot, because it would be very accurate of my level of accounting knowledge. And as a matter of fact, I did use Turbotax online to file my taxes this year:-)
You seemed to have completely missed my point. We don't call people idiots to their face, or because we think they are dumb, heck we don't even always use the term idiot, nor do we use it all the time (normally just when we're having a bad day). We use it as a generic way to refer to their skill level with basic computer operation. Computer knowledge is not black or white. There are some people who are quite good with basic computer use and can generally solve basic problems themselves...and some people can't. It doesn't mean we think they are actually idiots, we just call them that sometimes in private.
And occaisionally you hit true idiots. People who need you to explain how to do the same thing every other day. They are a rarity, but every company of a decent size has a few.
It's been like that with Live or MSN search for years now...IE's default address bar search has always been their own search engine. The reason for the spike is probably all of those abasolutely stupid commercials on TV advertising Bing.
No, the real reason IT people get bad raps is because they are cranky from dealing with idiots all day. We don't call people idiots or morons because we think they are generally stupid. Idiot is easier to say than "inexperienced or complacent user". I refer to inexperienced or complacent users as idiots (or other equally derogatory word) when talking to other "IT people" (professionaly or not) all the time for simplicity (and probably as a vent for frustration).
I know full well they are not stupid (most of them), heck I've called some of the smartest people I know idiots or morons because they couldn't handle a computer to save their life. We use terms like that as a reference to their computer skill, not overall intelligence. If some other IT guy refers to someone as an idiot, I immediately know their skill level with using a computer is limited to being able to check Facebook, or less.
Maybe you should just lighten up and take less offense? It's not like we call people idiots to their faces. Unless they really deserve it.
Slashdot Mirror
No, the term Microtransaction has become a standard definition for MMO's that have items for purchase, ranging anywhere from $1 to $10 or so. The credit card/financial definition is certainly the source of the term, but its definition is now pretty irrelevant when talking about MMOs.
If you say a MMO with microtransactions, that means they will have a store of items that will cost a few bucks or so. The reason this is a big deal is that with a subscription-based MMO, this is faily uncommon, and is seen as being greedy. Microtransactions are usually only seen in Free to Play or Freemium (Free but with a premium subscription option) MMOs, as that would be their primary form of revenue generation. In subscritpion-based MMOs, it's just seen as a lame attempt to milk more cash out of already paying customers.
I think this is a bad idea and is nothing but a cash grab. I know I will definately be avoiding Champions now. The thing that worries me is there are rumors they will do this with ST:O as well. I don't like being a part of games where RL income can affect how you do in the game. I quite frankly see it as a form of cheating.
There's also the fact where the 'standard' content suffers because they reserve things for the pay item store. In freebie MMOs this is expected, but when you're already paying a subscription and for boxes of the game, that's just bullshit.
And there's also the fact I know I don't have the self-control and would probably spend exhorbitant amounts of money if I ever tried to play one....
It depends on your definition of 'capable'. The F-35 is primarily a multipurpose aircraft...designed for everything, air to ground, air to air, etc. The F-22 is first and foremost air superiority, where it handily trumps the F-35. Not as slightly as NPR would suggest...it would be a clear victory for the F-22 in most circumstances.
There is some famous military quote that says something to the effect of whoever controls the skies controls the battlefield. The F-22 allows us to do that. The F-35 is going to be in service with suveral other nations, so despite the extremely unlikely scenario where we have to go up against any of them, it's nice to know we have the edge.
However, the 187 we already have purchased, I would wager, is quite enough to maintain this edge. Probably a good decision to not buy anymore.
The other interesting thing to consider is the successor to the F-22 will almost certainly be unmanned, therefore making it cheaper. The F-22 actually has restrictions on its manuverability because of the limits of the human pilot.
The cost is also a little misleading. Additional units cost ~$130M each (which is still expensive as hell), the $339M figure is total program cost plus build cost divided out per aicraft. That number only decreases the more we produce. So if we ordered another singe aircraft, it would not cost $339M.
Oh come on, am I the first pathetic anime geek to mention Ghost in the Shell?
Are you implying it's possible that a Slashdot 2.0 feature is broken? Nonsense!
My desk with my computers is always immaculate...I am ungodly anal about that. My other work areas are absolute trash, but the area around my workstations is a sanctuary, and I meticulously manage all wires with zip ties and adhesive clamps. It's not about workspace, I just hate the cord. It pushes the light optical mice, somtimes you need a little slack to use it from a different angle showing stuff to people, somtimes you want to slouch back and pull it back a lot futher than normal, and besides it's just one more annoying cord to manage.
I used corded mice for many years before wireless mice, and being IT responsible for plenty of end user support, I have to still use a lot of wired mice. And the cord always drives me nuts.
These downsides your speak of are almost nonexistant. I basically never worry about the batteries on my mice...they either last forver, or putting them on my recharging stand is just something I do as second nature. And if I forget once or twice, no big deal, the battery still has plenty of juice. Interference and connectivity issues are extremely rare, and happen maybe once a month at most, and I use 3 different wireless mice daily at least. I have yet to have one actually 'frizzle out', even the early ones. I used my MX700 for 3 years, my G7 lasted me almost 4 years, including a Grand Marshal grind in WoW (8+ weeks playing so much I am almost ashamed of it). I have not had a single wireless mouse die on me.
I'm not saying wired mice are crap, some people prefer them and that's just fine. What I'm saying is anyone who complains about wireless mice in general, batteries/interference/etc. is just being ignorant based on early or crap wireless mice, or has a case of the "get off my lawn"'s.
Because modern, non-crap wireless mice almost never have those issues, and jerking on the mouse cord for slack, or having the cord push back against your movement because you have too much slack is extremely annoying.
I mean seriously, have you used a modern wireless mouse? I change the battery in my laptop mouse at work once every year. No exaggeration, in fact it was a bit longer. I just change it last month, and the time before that was when I got back from my overseas trip in February 08. I use one Energizer Lithium AA, and I use the mouse 8-10 hours a day, 5-6 days a week.
My rechargable mouse can go a week without needing to sit on the charger, and I usually charge it more often than that, so the battery is never an issue.
Interference for high-frequency mice is either a) happens once every blue moon and is solved by a quick on/off or b) you end up with bad luck and something specific in your evironment messes with it.
I've been using wireless mice since the early Logitech Optical wireless...you know the silver and blue one with massive reciever from like 1999. I used a MX700 after that. Then I picked up another Logitech one I can't remembe rthe name for that I used on my 2nd PC, then I snatched the G7 the first second it popped on newegg, and used that up until a few months ago when I bought a Razer Mamba. I use a Logitech VX Revolution with my laptop at work, and a MX Revolution on my workstation at home, before that a MX 610 with the workstation. Oh, and a MX Air with my HTPC.
So I would say I have a little experience with wireless mice, despite them overwhelmingly being Logitech. Basically after the MX700, all the newer mice got much better with interference, mostly because they switched to higher frequencies. Battery life too. On my original optical, battery replacement was monthly.
Wireless with built in rechargable battery that lasts several days easily for me. Lots of buttons, the scroll wheel is very nice, you can keep it in standard click mode, or use free scrolling, or toggle between the two easily; automatically or manually.
Fully programmable with lots of buttons, forward/back, and the cool thumb quick flip thing.
It contours very well in the hand, and I really like the extra lip under the thumb. It has some nice weight to it, but it's not too heavy to be tiresome. Overall it's the best mouse I've every owned.
I agree moblie browsers are becoming much more significant, but a 6% drop in a month is substantial.
I am wondering if maybe it has to do with kids being out of school, and them being more likely to use other browsers. I would also like to see the specific numbers on Chrome, as Google seems to be advertising for it more lately. Another thing is maybe IE8 might be causing issues with browser detection or something goofy like that...does the new privacy mode block browser strings?
I just have a hard time believing 6% of internet users suddenly decided to install something else. My money's on the kids out of school explanation.
What we have here was people that didn't actually want to play the game. They just wanted to rack up (dubious) "achievements".
Who said the game wasn't about racking up "dubious achievements"? Since the majority of players seem to do it, I would say that IS the game, or at least one of the most significant parts of it. Just because you think it should be played out exactly like a comic book doesn't mean the game should be that way, and anyone else doing anything different is not really playing it. It's a superhero GAME, not a superhero SIMULATOR.
This part in the summary also kind of irked me, and follows what you said:
Myers decided to play the game by the designers' rules disregarding any customs set by the players
COH was far from a first-gen MMO. The designers went in full well knowing the players would develop their own customs, and designed the rules around that. Basically, the players' customs are part of the game design. Those customs are there generally to make sure the game stays 'fair', or perhaps gentlemanly is a better word. It's a game, not a real war between superheros and supervillians. If Clark Kent was real, do you think he would want to kick Lex Luthor's ass all day? No, he'd want to take Lois out to dinner and a movie in hopes that he gets lucky. For a MMO to be fun, it depends a lot on the other players. The designers can't make griefing prevention mechanics for everything without affecting other aspects of the game, so to make it a fun for everyone, players develop their own rules/customs that everyone generally follows to make sure they all have a good time.
And you can throw out the argument that some people want a superhero simulator. This is true, not everyone likes the same thing. However, COH is not intended to be that 'simulator'. Why? Well first and foremost, MMOs are a business. You make something that you think your target audience will like, and you then generally cater to that target audience to keep them playing and paying. The game is quite mature, so the playerbase most definately represents the target audience at this point...otherwise they would have quit playing long ago. If the game was supposed to be a 'simulator' and not a 'game', the playerbase would be different.
Me neither. Live in a small rural town of 10k people. Verizon is the only carrier that will not drop a call driving across town. Hell with AT&T you can't get any signal on the east side at all. (And for the people that live far west of town, they can't get VZW, they can only get Sprint. Some people that travel for business have two phones to maintian coverage.)
That is why I shit a brick when about a year ago I woke up, and my phone said 'EV' on it. I restarted it 3 times just to be sure. I guess when 95% of a small town uses your service, it looks like a lot of users and they feel compelled to upgrade it.
I loathe Sony as much as the next informed geek, but I just limit it to not buying anything with a Sony name.
Think of it this way...you're causing yourself much more trouble by doing all that research than you are causing Sony by not buying their crap. You're effectively letting Sony make your life more difficult. They don't deserve that.
I've experienced the exact opposite. NOD32 has found viruses other AV programs miss...somtimes several AV programs. Heck my solution to fix virus issues on the clients with Symantec installed is to uninstall Symantec, install NOD32 and run a scan to clean it (then begrudginly reinstall Symantec since we're still waiting for our Symantec licenses to run out and only have a few NOD32 ones). I've had to do that about a half dozen times now and it has yet to fail me. I keep it on my own computers and I've personally had it find viruses in netowork shares while simply browsing around, and I use it on-demand to check suspicious files.
It's even good about picking up stuff it things might be viruses but doesn't have a signature for yet...the "UPS delivery failure" Trojan/Adware bundle that likes to go around constantly changes, and Symantec only picks it up half the time...NOD either gets it by signature, or it immediately notices the code is suspicious and quarantines it and submits it for investigation (at my consent).
So I would say you either have had some really rotten luck, or you work with idiots.
Another vote for NOD32. We use Shitmantec Corporate right now, and I am counting the days untill our updates expire so we can switch.
Aloso, the price we were quoited is only a few dollars per client higher than just RENEWING Symantec.
Exactly. Slashdot 2.0 is horribly broken on Opera, and has been for months. Sometimes they fix something and it temporarily works what I assume is supposed to be correct, but generally something is wrong.
Where does it say Joe-sixpack is expected to care about an Acid3 score? The only people who are expected to care about an Acid3 score is those who know what it is.
My bad, that is the mobile version that has a 9.7 beta.
I would be, if it was actually Opera 10 being released today. However that is not the case. They released the Alpha of their new Unite collaboration thingamajig which requires the current BETA of Opera 10. The current version is still 9.64, with 9.7 in beta testing, so it will be some time before 10 comes out.
Kinda off topic, so mod me down if you want, I got karma to spare, but you seemed to indicate you enjoyed messing with these guys, so you might also enjoy one of my favorite pasttimes...messing with 419 Scammers. 419 is the criminal code dealing with Advanced Fee Fraud in Nigeria...long lost relative died and left you millions, you've won the lottery in Nigeria, etc...all that junk you get in your email. It can be a lot of fun to mess with those guys, and the overall goal is to waste their time so they don't scam as many real victims. Most are from West Africa but they can be from anywhere in the world...the number coming from developed nations has increased a lot lately. Check out this site here if it's something you might be interested in trying: www.419eater.com
This is what I get for not reading the children posts before replying. The guy above me just said almost the exact same thing.
'Consumers are hesitant to pay for a Microsoft security product that will remove problems in other Microsoft products,'
Most malware is not something that exploits vulnerabilities inherent in the product, they exploit the easiest vulnerability of all: the user. A lot of what AV programs do is protect stupid users from infecting their own PCs. Really, it doesn't remove any problems in other products...the patches and updates available for free do that. It will look for known malware that exploits those vulnerabilities if left unpatched, however.
Well sometimes it's noob, that's kinda close. But overwhelmingly, it's idiot or moron. The name-calling is generally when talking to other IT guys...ie: "That idiot tried to send a 100MB attachment." As someone else said in this string of replies, it's all about the audience.
But you make a very good point, and something more IT people should try to take seriously. I have been burnt a couple times by the wrong person hearing it. Generally they understand, but I'm also rather fortunate the turnover rate on our CS reps is high :-)
I would completely agree with your first statement. I don't know a balance sheet from a cash journal. And I can only think of about 2 other fancy accounting terms aside from that (And I seriously mean all of that, I hate accounting..I actually took a marketing class at a branch campus ~75 miles away to avoid having to take accounting as a business requirement). I would really have no problem with an accoutant calling me an idiot, because it would be very accurate of my level of accounting knowledge. And as a matter of fact, I did use Turbotax online to file my taxes this year :-)
You seemed to have completely missed my point. We don't call people idiots to their face, or because we think they are dumb, heck we don't even always use the term idiot, nor do we use it all the time (normally just when we're having a bad day). We use it as a generic way to refer to their skill level with basic computer operation. Computer knowledge is not black or white. There are some people who are quite good with basic computer use and can generally solve basic problems themselves...and some people can't. It doesn't mean we think they are actually idiots, we just call them that sometimes in private.
And occaisionally you hit true idiots. People who need you to explain how to do the same thing every other day. They are a rarity, but every company of a decent size has a few.
It's been like that with Live or MSN search for years now...IE's default address bar search has always been their own search engine. The reason for the spike is probably all of those abasolutely stupid commercials on TV advertising Bing.
No, the real reason IT people get bad raps is because they are cranky from dealing with idiots all day. We don't call people idiots or morons because we think they are generally stupid. Idiot is easier to say than "inexperienced or complacent user". I refer to inexperienced or complacent users as idiots (or other equally derogatory word) when talking to other "IT people" (professionaly or not) all the time for simplicity (and probably as a vent for frustration).
I know full well they are not stupid (most of them), heck I've called some of the smartest people I know idiots or morons because they couldn't handle a computer to save their life. We use terms like that as a reference to their computer skill, not overall intelligence. If some other IT guy refers to someone as an idiot, I immediately know their skill level with using a computer is limited to being able to check Facebook, or less.
Maybe you should just lighten up and take less offense? It's not like we call people idiots to their faces. Unless they really deserve it.