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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 2h

There's a freely accessible version here: www.fouirnaies.com/s/fouirnaies... (the paper is fairly technical, though, depending on your background might also not help much).

The core logic is in these two paras, more details later in the paper

of the primary does not change, divisive primaries prolong the
period during which the eventual nominee is still unknown. In
this way, the runoff’s increased length is a good approximation
for a divisive primary. Nevertheless, in subsequent sections we
attempt to unpack the various mechanisms by which runoffs
affect general-election outcomes, and our evidence suggests that
it is more the divisiveness, itself, rather than the added length
of the campaign that drives the effects

Are runoffs an appropriate proxy for “divisive primaries”
more generally? This is a key question for thinking about how
to interpret the estimates we present below. First and foremost,
runoffs clearly do make the primary more divisive. Using the
definition of divisive primary from Hacker (1965), namely, any
primary in which the winning candidate’s vote share is less
than 65%, every runoff is by definition a divisive primary.4 But
the main issue is that runoff primaries do not only make the
primary more divisive, in the sense of increasing and pro-
longing close competition between candidates, but they also
make it last longer. This is slightly different from divisive
primaries, which do not technically alter the official end date of
the primary election the way runoffs do. However, many di-
visive primaries, especially for president, do actually extend the
length of the de facto campaign. Although the official end date

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 5h

It has always had one. Note that the quota is for syncing files to their servers. You can use a Zotero library of any size locally for free

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 5h

FWIW, you can make a group public & closed and share PDFs with members and have the library minus PDFs visible to anyone

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 6h

Yeah, bad example. NYC mayoral primaries used to have a 2nd round runoff and eliminated it via ranked choice (i.e. instant run off) this time around.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 6h

Yes, sorry, my post wasn't well phrased. I agree that's what the paper does.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 6h

The abstract includes that: divisive is defined as competitive, here, in the sense that there's a runoff election is triggered (like in the NYC mayoral election though it doesn't matter there bc the D candidate wins anyway)

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Michele Tobias, PhD @micheletobias.bsky.social · 7h

I'm writing a grant application to fund features and improvements to Literature Mapper, a plugin for QGIS that makes maps of Zotero citations. Has anyone out there used it in it's current state? Or would you use it if only... ?

micheletobias.github.io/maps/Literat...

#gischat

Maps by MicheleTobias

micheletobias.github.io

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 18h

I really enjoy mine. Also useable in traffic & when you need to hear what kids are doing while cooking/exercising etc
IMO they are mostly for speech -- music isn't much fun given lack of bass. And definitely not for airplanes

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah, it cannot be overstated how common it is for academics to look at a GS profile and go "ooh, 5k citations, nice!" I think most HTP committees are (much) more diligent, but wouldn't be surprised if it happened even there as a first cut.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 1d

There are very little norms about this in social science IME. At least in my areas of it, industry funding is, comparatively, so rare, that it doesn't figure prominently in training or guidance, so people literally don't know whether to disclose affiliation or funding source twice.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 1d

I honestly don't know enough about industry research in engineering to have an opinion on that, but I'd guess the intuition that it's laxer in social science is probably correct.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 1d

Depends on the nature & timing of funding (did they fund my lab the last 5 years or did they give me 10k in 2018) & content of paper (does it affect company interest) but beyond that I'd disclose & check with handling editor.
I think A and B are about comparable levels of COI, C is less severe.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 1d

A question of perspective, though, no? I'd argue that the more relevant QRP here is evaluating a researcher by looking at their citation count. Authorship definitions are arbitrary and vary significantly by (sub)field already.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 1d

Fascinating story -- I'd add that the issue here is breaking bibliometrics in fields that otherwise care about them. Physicists have been writing papers with 1000+ authors for years and no one is bothered by it.

Ilya Kashnitsky @ikashnitsky.phd · 2d

I wrapped up my scattered comments on IHME into a blog post

🔗 ikashnitsky.phd/2025/ihme-bibl

tl;dr: avoid getting unwarranted co-authorship recognition and do apply some sort of contribution-weighted thinking when evaluating someone's publication record based on bare numbers

Beyond Fraud: How IHME Distorts Academic Metrics

Dr. Ilya Kashnitsky is a demographer @ Statistics Denmark.

ikashnitsky.phd

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Ilya Kashnitsky @ikashnitsky.phd · 2d

I wrapped up my scattered comments on IHME into a blog post

🔗 ikashnitsky.phd/2025/ihme-bibl

tl;dr: avoid getting unwarranted co-authorship recognition and do apply some sort of contribution-weighted thinking when evaluating someone's publication record based on bare numbers

Beyond Fraud: How IHME Distorts Academic Metrics

Dr. Ilya Kashnitsky is a demographer @ Statistics Denmark.

ikashnitsky.phd

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 2d

The evidence for bike helmets for kids is actually hugely stronger because of the types of accidents they tend to get into.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 2d

I actually agree that wearing a helmet is a good idea. I wear one 99% of the time. I do think a culture where people feel entitled to tell cyclists to wear a helmet (and they absolutely do, also for non-mayoral candidates) is bad, though.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 2d

I agree with that. Part of the reason of course is that Americans don't grow up cycling nearly as much, especially not in traffic. That's of course mainly due to infrastructure, but I absolutely think the culture of fear mentioned in the TED talk plays a role, and helmet emphasis is part of that.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 2d

Just putting the obligatory Utrecht before & after photo here... against a politics of hopelessness 😉

Two photos of attracted. One in black and white. One in color. The black and white photo shows lots of big rows and lots of concrete. The color picture shows the same part of the town but now lots of green people riding boats, trees etc

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 2d

I'd add to that, legally passing cars on the right and legally driving past parked cars... but yes, that's mostly my point. People here talk about helmets WAY disproportionate to their actual role in bike safety. Even if you take individual actions by bikers, helmets aren't top 3, prob not top 5

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 2d

Right, but that's also not a casual story -- it's undoubtedly true that bikeshare riders (esp on ebikes & scooters) are much worse drivers & that they tend to not wear helmets, but one doesn't cause the other.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 2d

2/2 There's also evidence that emphasizing helmets decreases cycling which in turn decreases safety & political will to improve infrastructure.
T
Qualitatively, the architects of bike friendly cities support that view, e.g. Copenhagen: youtu.be/07o-TASvIxY?...

TEDxCopenhagen - Mikael Colville-Andersen - Why We Shouldn't Bike with a Helmet

YouTube video by TEDx Talks

youtu.be

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 2d

It's certainly not a simple story, but there's good evidence for trade offs of all kinds. This is one of my favorite articles e.g. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Among 5 808 passing bicyclists, there were large differences in helmet and light use: only 2.2% of Paris bicyclists wore helmets compared to 31.5% in Boston. In contrast, 46.8% of nighttime Paris bicyclists had working head or tail lights compared to only 14.8% in Boston.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 2d

It's individually rational to wear a helmet, but there's good reason to believe that systematically the emphasis on helmets (which have a relatively small effect) is counter productive. It's not a coincidence that major cycling cities w low fatalities have low % of helmet wearing.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 2d

The number of people (supporters!) telling him to wear a helmet in replies is insane. By all means people, wear a helmet (you _are_ biking, yes?) but FFS leave other cyclists alone.

Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · 3d

It’s pronounced cyclist.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 2d

What other cities are you comparing MPLS to? Obv NYC is in a different league, but other places w some walking - SF, Philly, Chicago - all have better infra & higher density.
You can't look at neighborhoods in isolation, imo: e.g., can't take light rail btw many of the ones you mention

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Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · 3d

It’s pronounced cyclist.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 4d

The only university slogan I remember is Warwick's "This is Beyond" and that's because everyone here was trashing it (& not just for the typo in their banner ad), so that's got to be up there.
bsky.app/profile/mich...
bsky.app/profile/eve....

Martin Paul Eve @eve.gd · Aug 8

The University of Warwick has paid a lot of money, I'm guessing, for their internet banner ads on the Guardian and elsewhere.

But they can't spell "curiosity". This isn't a US-UK variant. They just, genuinely, have a massive spelling error in their banner ads.

A banner advert for the University of Warwick, which says "Beyond ignores curiousity". This is a spelling error.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 5d

The difference great flour makes took me way too long to figure out. I rolled my eyes at this New Yorker piece www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... until I found the local small farmer operated mill (Farmer Ground)

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 5d

There are equivalent replacements that take 5mins to set up:
github.com/wileyyugioh/...

GitHub - wileyyugioh/zotmoov: Zotero plugin to automatically move attachments and link them

Zotero plugin to automatically move attachments and link them - wileyyugioh/zotmoov

github.com