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Sebastian Karcher

@adam42smith.bsky.social

1.2K followers 730 following 1.6K posts

Director, Qualitative Data Repository (personal account). Data, Zotero, Social Science Methods https://sebastiankarcher.com

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Political science 25%

Computer science 23%

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 10h

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

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 10h

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 · 10h

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.

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 10h

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 · 10h

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

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 10h

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.

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 10h

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

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 10h

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.

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 11h

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.

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 12h

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 · 1d

It’s pronounced cyclist.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 18h

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

Reposted by Peter Thorne, Charles W. Smith, Sebastian Karcher , and 1 more Peter Thorne, Charles W. Smith, Sebastian Karcher, Federica Genovese

Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · 1d

It’s pronounced cyclist.

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 2d

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.

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 3d

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)

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 3d

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

Reposted by Sebastian Karcher

Crystal Lewis @cghlewis.bsky.social · 3d

I am so grateful for everyone who has subscribed (500 of you), liked, shared, promoted, and bought me coffee in support of RDM Weekly! Just knowing that people are reading is a huge win. I have really enjoyed putting this newsletter together over the last 3 months and look forward to continuing it!

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Reposted by Sebastian Karcher

Martin Paul Eve @eve.gd · 3d

Martin Fenner's Rogue Scholar is SO cool. (in a really geeky sense of cool) rogue-scholar.org/records/r5px... Just pulled in my latest blog post, assigned it a DOI (which I requested by giving it the DOI in the atom feed), got the full text, archived and mirrored it, and more.

Using a public API, or the instability of MusicBrainz IDs

I have a script (a custom static site generator) that produces the output at https://ticitaci.com – a page for the record label on which I have released music (and that I really, really love).

rogue-scholar.org

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Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 4d

“Someone” cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second.

We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’

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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, Lisa W. Fazio, James Q. Wilson , and 38 more Meredith Broussard, Lisa W. Fazio, James Q. Wilson, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Dorothy Bishop, Anna Nagurney, Brigitte Nerlich, Ben Bond‐Lamberty, Gavin A. Schmidt, Jesse H. Kroll, Julie L. Lockwood, Patrick A. Jansen, Joshua S. Weitz, Nicole Dubilier, Jason Stajich, Simon J. Greenhill, Michael A. Clemens, Hugo Mercier, Megan L. Ranney, Rosemary A. Joyce, Philip N. Cohen, Michael J. Allen, Andrew Curry, Jacob Montgomery, Juan Cole, Kris Inwood, Smith, Robert C. Richards, Rebecca Tushnet, Alan Richardson, Lauren Hersch Nicholas, Victor Galaz, Scott A. Imberman, Sebastian Karcher, Brian Keegan, Ann Bartow, Jack Stilgoe, Ted Temzelides, Christina Pagel, Annalee Newitz, David Darmofal

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 4d

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

nyti.ms

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Reposted by Sebastian Karcher

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 4d

Academics: In your discipline, are author names usually listed alphabetically?

{Reply with your field/discipline!}

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 4d

Here in central NYS, National Grid gives us a flat fee ~$21 rebate for charging off peak at home. At ~100kwh/month (i.e. 300-500 miles depending on temp) and 15c/kwh we literally make $6 dollar per month charging our EV.

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 4d

we charge our hyundai ioniq 5 around once every two to three weeks at a muncipal charger and i’d say it runs about $9 for 250 miles of range.

How Much It Costs to Drive an E.V. and a Gas Car in Every State

www.nytimes.com

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 4d

They are heavier -- e.g. the Kia Soul EV weighs almost half a ton (and ca. 35%) more than the ICE version.

Reposted by Gerald Friedman, Sebastian Karcher, Nathan P. Kalmoe

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 4d

we charge our hyundai ioniq 5 around once every two to three weeks at a muncipal charger and i’d say it runs about $9 for 250 miles of range.

How Much It Costs to Drive an E.V. and a Gas Car in Every State

www.nytimes.com

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 5d

It's presumably this: www.beaverapp.ai

I personally don't think libraries can (or should) realistically stay out of that space and I'd much rather see it filled by tools developed by faculty with a long open source track record than by big publishers.

Beaver

AI research agent for academic research that lives in Zotero, instantly searching through all your documents and explaining complex concepts as you read

www.beaverapp.ai

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 5d

I think we should just throw in random Dutch phrases instead of Latin ones.
No more snobbish "ceteris paribus".
It's now "als alle andere dingen gelijk zijn"

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 7d

The one the 'student' mentions oddly explicitly, safeMyGPA

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 8d

You realize this is a viral video to promote an AI study platform? Neither students nor professors talk like this (they have produced a whole slew all following the same template)

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Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 8d

It's not a degree. It's a center that offers some related classes. I worry about some of the things SU is doing w curriculum (the 20 majors part) but having a podcast center at a journalism & media school doesn't seem off

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 9d

The link should show the "Black Maria, Oakland" selected. If it doesn't for you, you can search for that.

Sebastian Karcher @adam42smith.bsky.social · 9d

JSTOR doesn't provide the metadata for them as images (you can download & inspect the RIS file, which just has this as GEN, i.e. generic), so not sure how much Zotero can do there.
For entering paintings consulted online following Chicago 14.133 see this entry www.zotero.org/groups/22055...

Zotero | Your personal research assistant