I feel almost churlish bringing this up, but wanted to ask and see if there was some rhyme or rationale that I may have missed out upon. Perhaps its a trifling thing, but over the last couple of months, I have noticed on the beloved Gentlmint podcast, that the MTS mainframe has been re-calibrated from a 10 point scale to a 100 point scale (surely a technical upgrade equivalent to Y2K). What used to be a 7.5 is now a 75, a 8.35 now an 83.5. It seems so minor to question, and does nothing to effect the scientific efficacy of the MTS, but this shift seems to be, to me at least, some acknowledgment of 'another way of thinking'. Almost like adoption of metric. It sounds innocuous, but is it? Maybe I overreact. Maybe I'm stuck in the mud, and not with the happening, Pokemon-Go generation (or any self-identifying generation for that matter). I intend not to cause controversy or schism here. But perhaps just a quest for an answer that will help me move along. I hope you fellow parlor visitors can help me out of my internal struggle.
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glen
7 years, 8 months agoExcellent question!
@brian is our head architect for the MTS scale, but I think I can take a stab at this. (For those scratching their heads, the MTS is our proprietary, patent-pending computing device that we use to calculate beer ratings on the podcast.)
I think what happened is that we started getting a little too fine in our ratings for a standard 10-point mark. An "8.35" just doesn't roll off the tongue quite like an "83.5". It gives us greater control in our ratings, which helps us best serve the beer drinker.
Anyway, I'm sure Brian can chime in here with a more technical answer.
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brian
7 years, 8 months agoThis is a great question. On the podcast website, I always refer to the ratings in a 1-10 point scale. This allows a uniform basis to compare all empirical MTS beer ratings. Somewhere along the line Glen started corrupting the language of the scale in the podcast. 8.35 became 83.5 almost overnight. After having to edit out many tirades which were set off due to this inept mixing of technical rating data, I have been attempting to be calm and happy when Glen magically multiplies the scale of the MTS by a power of 10. Fear not, the MTS computer is all knowing and seeing, it merely is the blunder of our feeble human minds that causes the confusion.
I should add that I found some video we made of the last time someone attempted to question the MTS computer about something and it wasn't pretty:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARJ8cAGm6JE
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glen
7 years, 8 months agoFun fact: Without editing out the tirades the average podcast length is 2+ hours.
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trigjoh
7 years, 8 months agoThanks gents. I feel comforted that the matter is at hand, and that the MTS mainframe, on its path to self-awareness, is able to cope with these alternate schemes flawlessly. My personal preference is for the more precise, 10 point scale, which I feel reflects a higher degree of refinement & elegance to the scoring that the MTS brings to the world of beer.
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