2008-06-02T13:28:24Ztag:sursumcorda.salemsattic.com,2018:/isso/thread/post/the-cult-of-the-amateur2tag:sursumcorda.salemsattic.com,2018:/isso/443/16752008-06-02T13:28:24ZStephan<p>Iconic record stores: I'm only aware of <a href="http://www.towerrecords.co.jp/sitemap/SiteManager.jsp" rel="nofollow noopener">Tower Records in Japan</a>, and they're still doing fine.</p> <p>Journalism: I've got less experience and it's mostly of scientific items reported in mainstream media which tends to go horribly wrong - mangled units and an obvious lack of understanding of physical concepts. Most recently, I was misquoted on local radio as having said that we'd worked with the universities of Basel and Freiburg on the Mars AFM when it was Basel and Neuchatel - not a critical error, but such a simple error to make with a recorded interview that I found it hard to believe.</p> <p>The problem is that if both professionals and amateurs are careless, and we don't necessarily have the education to weigh their publications nor the time to verify them, how do we deal with information? I think we can either research information that touches topics close to us and ignore everything else, or be information omnivores that maintain a keen understanding of how flawed that information may be. I'm not sure there's a foolproof method for quick discernment - I wish there was!</p>