Comments on More on Crane Collapse

it's pretty incredible -- thanks for slogging about this. i wouldn't have known about it otherwise

Dan,
Take a wander over to Sound Politics. Matt Rosenberg just wrote something very flattering about you, something about wishing you'd been aborted...

Suing, it's the American thing to do.

Yeah, thanks Dan. I wouldn't have known about this either.

I'm thankful for Dan and people like Dan. More Dans. He's the mans. He takes solid stands.

Will, wait, what would you have Yeakey do? Just take it? What would YOU do, if this were you? Besides make a smart ass cute little remark?

What is the PI trying to cover up? Was there some sort of mechanical failure that no one wants to talk about? Who are they protecting?

Is the PI carrying water for BIAW given the total lack of regulation of cranes in this state?

I would suspect that they will change their stance when it is no longer a paper owned by The Hearst Corp.

I'm no expert, but the tilting in that photo looks like it might be lens distortion. Especially with wide-angle lenses, parallel lines tend to bow outward at the center of the image and then converge as they reach the edges.

It's also possible that it's the white crane that's tilting, not the yellow one.

I don't think the P-I is "protecting" anyone. They rushed to a judgement once already; you want them to rush some more? Wait for the investigation. There are about six different companies involved here; the contractor, the owner of the crane, the erector of the crane, and the operator of the crane are all separate companies.

Didn't you stop reading the Times because of the estate tax? If you stop reading the PI because of the crane, how will you know what's going on in Seattle? Reading the Stranger Calendar page?

And, yeah, thanks for following this one. The PI should not be let off the hook for that first huge headline about the "history of drug use" or the story that went with it. Probably need to keep reading both papers though, if only to rant against them.

@8:
I took a look at the pic in Photoshop to check out your idea. The white crane is indeed true (no question there). Comparing other vertical lines in the picture that *should* be true, (edges of buildings, telephone poles) they are. The biggest tilt is the building to the far right in the picture- which makes sense because of the lens distortion you mentioned. The yellow crane, being in the (near) center of the frame, should not be distorted. After doing some highschool math (needed a little help from google to remember the formulas!) it looks like the yellow crane was tilting 5 degrees from the perspective in that pic.

I agree with #11.

I have a substantial knowledge of photography. Generally, even a super wide angle lens is relatively distortion free in the center. They don't state what camera/lens was used for this photo, but it doesn't appear to be using an especially wide lens. All of the angles look pretty straight, with only a slight pyramiding effect at the edges (which is caused more from pointing the camera at a slight downward angle, not from a wide-angle lens).

If you look carefully, you can see that the white crane and yellow crane do NOT line up. At the bottom of the yellow crane, the two almost merge, while at the top, there is a noticeable gap. Given that they are almost one behind the other, perspective-wise, the two cranes should line up, regardless of the lens or the camera angle.

No question about it. One of the cranes is tilted slightly. I wouldn't swear to which one, or whether or not it is tilted beyond its design tolerance (out of my field), but one is definitely tilted.

If slandering the crane operator was just one of the many foul things the PI had done in the past year, hell the past month, I could cope with them. It seems that the PI management is cool with printing half truths and accusations without following up with apologies or correction on a regular basis. After a while, someone needs to call them on their bullshit and if it is the crane operator who sues their asses and gets them to cease with their news generating stories, then hooray for him.