My friend briefly had a copywriting job writing weed strain descriptions for dispensaries. He was never provided the product he was describing, just told to make it up.
I have the very same feeling concerning electronics. Searching for a particular product does not even popping up 5-10 comparison articles but the content of all seems to be based on technical specifications of the manufacturer only, which I already have a hands on.
Significantly more time required for consciously choosing a product to purchase (which in my case is critical because I am like Sheldon Cooper trying to choose between PS4 and XBOX One normally, to the horror of my wife, she wants a new TV and it is months long project based on accurate and quick data, and now this, with Google, which makes our family atmosphere even more tense : ) )
In case you haven't encountered it yet: https://www.rtings.com is a good site for TV specs/reviews specifically. I know someone who works there and their methodology seems legit (I like it more than Wirecutter).
Most reviews are useless from the start because most reviewers are totally dependent on manufacturers or dealers providing samples (yet will generally claim to be "totally independent"). That's before you get to reviewers who can't or don't know how to test the product in question and so end up narrating the manufacturers specs to their faux testing.
Niche, probably outdated, but indicative: The only way to purchase a laser printer with high printing quality these days is to buy something expensive and hope for the best. Magazines used to do actual reviews of these things.
Brother MFC laser printers have delivered for me for over 15 years now. I have bought many for various small offices and my home and relatives’ homes, etc, and I have not heard any complaints.
I especially like the scan function where brother web connect OCR’s the document and saves it as a pdf directly in your Box/Dropbox/OneDrive/GoogleDrive folder. Just wish it worked with iCloud Drive.
Oops, my bad, I did not properly take into account high quality printing. It is definitely too cheap to be anything high quality, they just get the job done for everyday printing at a low price.
I look back at the newspaper stories I wrote a few decades back. I could get the score from the coach, find out hits from who and when, and after that 20 second interaction, I could write a news story in maybe three minutes, which told you everything you needed to know.
Somebody who worked at a winery once told me that the flavors they mention on the bottle are actually what the wine is missing, and they name them in the hope that the power of suggestion give you a more balanced impression.
It would be interesting to see some sort of study, to see the impact on wine labels on: normal people, vs wine "experts", vs sommeliers.
I've seen a few of those wine documentaries about sommeliers, and they certainly made it seem like it was a legitimate ability to identify stuff. I'd be interested to see how close they are in a more neutral, measured environment.
>Tasters can't even tell reds from whites with a great deal of accuracy. [2]
Actually, this one is bullshit. While it may be true that the average person without blind tasting experience cannot do this, anyone who has actually done blind tasting seriously should be pretty accurate at this. Purely structurally, red wines generally have much more tannin and more alcohol than whites.
Sommeliers are professionalized, with courses & exams. But I don't believe they are actually judged on their ability to taste wines and detect flavours. Designing such tests would be simple - rate of successful flavour identification based on data from other Somemeliers.
Instead Sommelier exams are subjective - candidates are judged by another Sommelier on subjective criteria rather than objective measurement. In my opinion they judge it as a dramatic performance: how quickly can the candidate rattle-off various flavours? How "high class" is the language they use to describe the flavours? How does the candidate present themselves? Sommeliers dress in fine suits, but this should have no impact on actual wine tasting ability. Yet I am sure if I showed up in a draggy old t-shirt I would fail regardless.
The whole industry seems allergic to objective scientific measurement. I am sure Sommelier's do have some ability to identify varieties, but are they actually tasting all those subtle hints they list off? I doubt it.
What is this comment based on? To me it feels like this is what you imagine the exams are like. The MS exam (the highest and most famous one) has three parts: theory, service, and tasting. The service part is all about presentation, absolutely (that's the whole point). The tasting part is not. In particular...
>But I don't believe they are actually judged on their ability to taste wines and detect flavours. Designing such tests would be simple - rate of successful flavour identification based on data from other Somemeliers.
That is exactly how the tasting portion of the exam works. And
>In my opinion they judge it as a dramatic performance: how quickly can the candidate rattle-off various flavours? How "high class" is the language they use to describe the flavours?
This isn't really how it works, especially the "high class" language comment. Actually there are a variety of different things that they are supposed to identify about the wine, known as "the grid" [1]. You can take a look at it yourself. They are essentially judged based on how well their grid matches up with the consensus grid from the master sommeliers.
This is something I notice in advertising generally: whatever they most emphasize is least likely to be true about the product (e.g., the "great taste" of McDonald's).
