Aaron Rudkin

@LukeSonnet A lot of these "tiny USPSes" are actually local contractors -- I was surprised to find out that the one in Sequoia (Kaweah) is one such... and it's actually closing soon :(

Excited to present tomorrow at #APSA2021 on some of my dissertation work about how audience beliefs and content preferences affect demand for state and independent media in Russia. Stop by Skagit 2, 10/2 8:00am!

@ProfHansNoel @APSAtweets Using conjoints, @aaronrudkin and I find the relative emphasis voters place on state/national issue positions in candidate selection. We find (1) both s/n issue positions are used (2) national more that state & (3) more partisan issues = stronger effect derekholliday.com/pdfs/Holliday_…

🚨 New working paper alert! 🚨 How do voters use nationalized policy information to select candidates? @aaronrudkin and I find out using a conjoint design. tldr; all policy info is useful, nationalized info moreso, and polarized info the most (🧵1/n)

@vwirtschafter @BrendanNyhan This is a skeletal podcast scraper I wrote for @ExID_project (n.b.: the included scrape list is all pretty ghoulish). You could use feedparser or w/e to scan the RSS feed for linked show notes / transcripts. github.com/ExID-proj/podc…

@vwirtschafter @BrendanNyhan There are several ML APIs for automatic podcast transcription. These are just OK. Past that you need to pay a human if the publisher didn't. Actually scraping podcasts is trivial because with the exception of private (e.g. Luminary, Spotify exclusive) it's just an RSS feed.

@drdrew empathy for all my colleagues who do comparative politics fieldwork in jurisdictions that have required vaccine paperwork for decades -- apparently a host of teen mom thinks you are "segregated" and unfree.

These vaccine passports segregate people and strip them of their freedom to travel internationally. Vaccinations are important, and I encourage everyone to get the Covid vaccine, but how would you feel if international travel also required other vaccinations?

@birchlse Derek Parfit's Teletransporter thought experiment in "Reasons and Persons" convinced me that teleportation is death. Douglas Hofstadter's "I Am a Strange Loop" also comments on this (both the phenomenon and Parfit's experiment), though I find his case less convincing.

Do some people watch Star Trek and quietly mourn every time the main characters step into the transporter and die?

Do commodity price shocks cause armed conflicts? In a new letter in #APSRFirstView, @graemedblair, @aaronrudkin, and @DarinCr find it depends on the commodity. #APSR #polisciresearch ow.ly/qrod50DRt5Y

@kyebarker Myself, I feel like a 0 on the autodidact scale. I can't recall ever mastering anything without help. Agreed that this doesn't need to be formal pedagogy, but I try to always surround myself with something resembling a guide to drag me to success.

@noonanjo also, like, are you against the dc home rule act? should we like dissolve the city council? the infinite wisdom of the framers did not imagine a world where muriel bowser counted as five fifths of a human being, let alone that dc would have her as mayor, is this really it

@noonanjo that specific purpose is that in 1780 states had no way to defend the capital, only the feds could do that (meanwhile in 2021 the republican president who controlled the dc national guard refused to use them to stop an angry mob; your boss refused to convict him of inciting it)

@kyebarker heaven help me if I sound like I'm defending Harold Bloom, just put me out of my misery.

@kyebarker I feel like the desire to attack narrow (cis-het-white-western-etc. etc. canon) gatekeepers has led some people to mistakenly attack the act of gatekeeping, and likewise curators/curating, media/mediating, with negative externalities in all three vis-a-vis signal to noise ratio.

Okay, so granted the denominator of this equation changed a bit, but Ralph Nader got 600,000 more votes for President than Abraham Lincoln did.

Just in case there's anyone who follows me and doesn't yet have disdain for the entire enterprise of "fact checking", here's a doozy.

@pewresearch Why not try a free response arm? Granted the E/S translation issues pose a complication, but my guess is that a free response would be easy to collapse while maximizing respondent dignity. Those who would claim pushback against inclusive options wouldn't notice that was the point

A recent post on our methodology blog, Decoded, explains how and why we changed the way we ask our survey respondents about their gender. bit.ly/3qmSzDY

@hamelpolisci i would die to save literally any song on e-motion

The correct answer is “Run Away With Me” by Carly Rae Jepsen.

@prairieroamer00 @enzo11001 @JeanCourtney413 @Tboneator64 @ColinDMello Full disclosure: Subsequent reporting has indicated he did at some point plan to get the vaccine -- so I don't want to infer anything about his intentions, just that he had not at the time of his death received the shot. per here and elsewhere: statesman.com/story/news/202…

@enzo11001 @JeanCourtney413 @Tboneator64 @ColinDMello False.

BREAKING: Ontario is updating the colour-coded COVID-19 system and making major changes to the grey zone. When regions enter the grey zone, ALL retail will be allowed to re-open with 25% capacity. Big box will be reduced to 25% cap. Grocery will remain at 50% cap. #onpoli

Rep Ron Wright died of COVID today. Noteworthy that his final vote before dying was no on impeachment, and also that he reportedly did not get the COVID vaccine in December when it was offered to members of congress for continuity of government purposes. voteview.com/person/21984/r…