Try explaining interlacing to someone

Now I'm usually one to criticize the world on how fucking retarded it is, but I really made a big mistake this time. Working in retail has opened my eyes to a mass populous of idiots; I never knew how stupid people could be, but then again, sometimes my expectations shouldn't be so high.

The point is this: Many times I'm put in the electronics area of a certain store (they will be nameless), and in my efforts to further educate any consumers on the electronics they purchase, someone asked me the difference between 1080i and 1080p... Being an idiot myself, I actually tried to think of a way to explain the difference in layman's terms. Let's just say I actually got the message across decently, but I wasted a good amount of time that could've been spent doing other tasks at hand.

So I leave you with this; if by some chance any of you happen to try to explain something advanced to an idiot, use the following methods:

Interlacing: Some people actually get the concept of frames (from flipbooks, seeing how a cartoon is made, etc), so explaining how a field is "half a frame" is possible. Try demonstrating that your fingers represent odd and even lines, and show how one hand moves before the other in an interlaced system, whereas progressive hands move together. The hard part is explaining why a static 1080i image looks as good as a static 1080p image...

Compression: Tell them image is pixely or blocky... somehow they understand this...

Optical Zoom vs. Digital Zoom: Optical zoom is a lot like use a magnifying lens on an object, whereas digital zoom is like blowing up an old picture you have but losing the quality. This is probably the easiest explanation to formulate.

Gigabytes vs. Gibabytes: Don't explain, just say that that's the way computers count and that's all they'll need to know...

iPod vs. MP3 Player (this happens a lot...): No difference for the main purpose of the player, so an MP3 player and iPod are generally the same thing.

"Will these headphones work on my iPod?": Sadly, this shit happens on a daily basis for me. Tell the customer that headphones are headphones are headphones are headphones. They'll get the picture soon enough. Telling them that technically only 1/8" mini plugs will work will confuse them, so avoid it.

"Do you have the card for this camera?": People who are too stupid to check the box/ask their friend/read the manual come to me with this question quite often. With some cameras, it's easy to answer if I've messed with the camera before, but seriously, even as a videographer I HAVE NOT used every fucking camera ever made. I don't know what card your camera takes, and on that note, it's not my fault you didn't do some god damn research before buying it (happens a lot with the Sony cams... people are pissed to find out they require the more expensive Memory Stick and proprietary Li-Ion battery, which we don't sell).

"Does it work good?": I get this question in regards to just about everything, and it's even worded like that. Hell, someone asked me what the best wood glue was once, and I told them (as I always do) that I haven't tried every one of the brands so I can't tell you. Just die, please.

I don't expect people to understand interlacing, nor even the entire concept of what a megapixel is, but shouldn't we be at a point where knowing what a byte is? That a headphone works in any other device so long as the plug is the same? That an employee has not personally used every single model on the floor? That you should research your products before buying them? That being a fucking idiot makes products worse for the rest of us because companies won't have to improve?

Jesus Christ.