TN: Two Rinaldi Baroli and Pisca Port with Oliver

Isn't it a statistician's job to take exactly this sort of individual data and assemble it into something that has descriptive or predictive power about the group?

For example, my height has nothing to do with your height, yet, if we gather up enough measurements we learn something about the human race. I grant that points are not meters but I think the same numerical machinery can apply.
 
You know, I'm sorry I entered this discussion (points, that is).
It is remarkably boring and tedious.
Let the 100 flowers bloom.
"Dismount."
Best, Jim
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
You know, I'm sorry I entered this discussion (points, that is).
It is remarkably boring and tedious.
Let the 100 flowers bloom.
"Dismount."
Best, Jim
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Put on your memory cap and this is eerily like a discussion with the doghead re: vintage generalizations many moons ago.

I knew you'd like the "dismount" bit.
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
You know, I'm sorry I entered this discussion (points, that is).
It is remarkably boring and tedious.
Let the 100 flowers bloom.
"Dismount."
Best, Jim
Click to expand...

Having entered it, what's gained by throwing bricks as you exit?
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
At worst, from the perspective of group utility, a numerical rating is a purely subjective expression of an individual's response to their interaction with a wine; their use of numbers to express this reaction is idiomatic and trivial. So if you, on hearing the rating, don't know the ranker, or don't respect their judgment, or can't correlate your tastes with theirs, you disregard the rating and no harm is done.

If you do know the rater, respect them, and can correlate your preferences with theirs then, even in this worst case of purely subjective, even sentimental expression, their expression can tell you something, just as if they've said "Ooh, I really like this," instead of, say, "I rate this wine 93 points."

If the rater is someone who has acquired skill at relating their reactions to some objectifiable variables, you are ahead of the worst case and may take away even more information from their statement.

The use of numbers to express personal views isn't a moral issue.
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Now that I've bombasticated at length, I have to climb down a bit and own that it drives me crazy when people say 'positive' and 'negative' when what they mean is they like or approve of something or other. I imagine use of points to describe wines' qualities has the same affect on some people. I guess I can see both sides of the argument.
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
You know, I'm sorry I entered this discussion (points, that is).
It is remarkably boring and tedious.
Let the 100 flowers bloom.
"Dismount."
Best, Jim
Click to expand...

Sorry - 96 flowers at the most.
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
originally posted by Florida Jim:
You know, I'm sorry I entered this discussion (points, that is).
It is remarkably boring and tedious.
Let the 100 flowers bloom.
"Dismount."
Best, Jim
Click to expand...

Having entered it, what's gained by throwing bricks as you exit?
Click to expand...
My apologies, sir.
Best, Jim
 
originally posted by VLM:
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
pinot meunier champagnes.
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Eww.
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Oh, dear, dear, dear.

I can laugh at you freely and honestly for once!

But I agree with your analyses.
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Thanks, love.
Click to expand...

xox

Now drink some Bérèche Vallée de la Marne Rive Gauche, or some Prévost Closerie, or some Chartogne-Taillet Les Barres (franc de pied!).

All 100% meunier.

You'll, as they say in French, tell me the news.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Now drink some Bérèche Vallée de la Marne Rive Gauche, or some Prévost Closerie, or some Chartogne-Taillet Les Barres (franc de pied!).
Click to expand...
Where might one find the Les Barres?
 
Well they're good for making calls, google maps and such, but by the time I finish henpecking on a forum, 3 people post something that I'm not responding to...(sorry Sharon!).

Anyway, is it just because people have unused braincells which might be better devoted to destruction via wine that they dither on this point issue? RP, who I guess at least popularized the system still has a caveat that the review and the points are like a snapshot of a long distance runner in time. At least that part makes sense to me. Maybe, I'm wrong (small wonder) but David's system of numbers is for himself. Eric seemed to question that reliability vis-a-vis points across wine styles....but I'm not sure if he questioned the reliability for D himself or for the general public. I may have to re-read.

If some mathemetician wants to plot vectors for 2009 bojo's and ask everyone here in the next month what they think about X and rate them by points, that would be fun, but really...a minor distraction from tasting the fucking wines. Numbers, I hear, are real, but don't it still depend on the observed and observer? One can mathematically describe anything....but it's still less than the thing, and in a different language to boot.
 
I remember '83 with a real fondness. It was in that year that someone, my father actually, explained to me that it would never ever, after December 31, be 1983 again. I remember I cried and cried. Somehow I felt like something was being broken that I desperately wanted to stay together. I didn't want it be 1984 already, maybe later, but not now. But there was nothing I could do.

The next day I went to elementary school and dutifully wrote my name in labored print blocks at the top of the ruled page. And for some reason, against any reasonable hope, underneath my name I wrote 01/01/83. Perhaps I was trying to cast a spell.

Numbers have a lot of power that way.
 
But I think you cried over the loss of time (and reacted to that)...not the numbers.

Fuck it...let's go ask the Aztecs. Or would that be the Mayans?
 
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