Magnus Borgh

Associate Professor of physics (AMO, quantum fluids), keeper of parrots, lover of classical music, and wearer of hats. English & Swedish.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@duncancame745 @MadelaineLucyH Also very much of its time and generation. It probably never was nearly as good as hype had it, but it’s hard to imagine it being made at any other time than ~2000 and about other than early-mid Gen-X characters. It worked for a reason – and likely aged badly for the same.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@PhysWiz @peterrhague Legally I’m pretty sure not, since anything < 0.5% abv is legally NA by definition. I’m not sure if restricting NA beer is a legal requirement, but the reason is usually either blanket (that section, period) or the claim that even NA beer encourages drinking behaviour.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@PhysWiz @peterrhague Sure, but does that make a difference here? (It has nothing to do with the reasons usually given for restricting NA versions of alcoholic drinks, but I’d like to know your reasoning.)

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@PhysWiz @peterrhague Why does that matter?

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@tallrite 3 of 3 inferences wrong is impressive! Hottest May day in 80 years means only no hotter may day in between. It may or may not have been hotter before. On hotter day says nothing about climate. The warming mechanism of CO2 is well understood.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@Mlambm @MatjazLeonardis @fermatslibrary Yes, but they can have very counter-intuitive properties.

[Will Kinney @WKCosmo]

One of my favorite classical mechanics facts is that if gravity were a 1/r⁵ force law instead of 1/r², circular planetary orbits would go through the center of the Sun.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@GregTrayling @TSHamiltonAstro If we expected to linger in the 28+ range all summer, it would be different. At the moment we’re in “AC would be nice, but it’s a lot of money” territory for most people. If we start getting prolonged/high heat waves on the regular it becomes a different story.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@GregTrayling @TSHamiltonAstro And even now, long stretches of weather hot enough that you really would need an AC are not common. We’ll get 33 °C where I live today, but tomorrow will be 19 °C again, and so on.

[Will Kinney @WKCosmo]

Yeah but did all of them read the references?

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@LoveInner Absolutely still a classic. Perhaps no longer lone king of the hill, if it ever were, but yes, definitely one of the reference recordings, definitely historically important, and still one of my favourites.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@wylfcen In Swedish, there exists a slang for (young) boys with very light blond hair: lintott = linen tuft (or flax tuft), from the natural colour of flax fibres.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@Quasilocal @WKCosmo Spot on. And students get bombarded with increasingly meaningless surveys too, so they just get less inclined to actually answer them. Dumping well though-out answers to small, tailored feedback questionnaires into the void is a giant middle finger to those who deserve gratitude.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@LoveInner None of them are my favourites, but yes, 1 and 4 very good. We'll agree to disagree on 2 for now (I'll return to that). I'll need to give the later symphonies a couple more listens, but I worry some of them will join no. 3.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@WKCosmo Yes, exactly. So do I, for the same reason. Which is why I think withholding information due to few responses is nonsense (we shouldn't be doing statistics on it anyway), and also why I think evaluations should not be used for performance management.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

#NowSpinning Edo de Waart's and Zoltán Kocsis's surprisingly light and fleet San Francisco recording of Rachmaninov's 3rd piano concerto. The opening is very allegro indeed! This shows a very different character to the work than we often hear.
https://t.co/E6TOsKCBho

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@RupertDarwall @LoveInner It has a slightly post-apocalyptic feel to it – quite appropriate for the 6th symphony.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@GregTrayling @WKCosmo *given, not giving

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@GregTrayling @WKCosmo I agree. I'm just saying this is the reason I have been giving in similar situations. I'm not saying I agree with it, think it makes sense, or can explain it – I don't, I don't and I can't.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@WKCosmo As in, the direct feedback is useful on a case-by-case basis. Either it says something useful or it doesn't; we need to see it. Use of teaching evaluations as a performance-management/promotions tool has always been iffy, for gender-bias reasons and others.

[Magnus Borgh @SpinVector]

@WKCosmo Huh … I've heard the "low numbers make responses potentially identifiable" argument (it's mostly nonsense, as you say), but not the gender bias one. In the context of small N, that is. As a general critique, yes of course, it's well known. I don't buy either in this context.