Michael Coslo wrote:


Fine. My interpretation of Amateur is a person who cannot do
things in a professional manner, a person who is interested in
something, but for lack of intelligence, skill, persistence, or
talent, will never become proficient in what they are interested
in.

You are entitled to your extremely judgemental interpretation but it
is not necessarily correct!

An amateur is a person who is not a professional, a professional is
someone who is paid for their skill(s). Nowhere does it say that
either is competent or incompetent. Many amateurs are vastly more
skilled than professionals operating in the same area.

Only this week NASA were impressed and enquiring of a UK hobbyist
how he obtained such incredible pictures of the earth from 21 miles
up when it cost them millions of dollars to to the what he had done
for about $750.

(He'd put a common digital camera with some electronics and a simple
radio beacon as the payload to a helium balloon which burst at 21
miles up and which then came down by parachute and he was able to
locate it by radio DF. See
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/w...re/8587749.stm . Now
that is an amateur - hardly fits your idea of amateur does it :-)


Charlie.


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