Dude, what the hell is happening to the cranes in NYC? : Pure Pedantry

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Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC getting a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience. He holds a BS and MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. If a volcano were to erupt Pompei-style in Central Park, his body would be preserved in a scoliotic posture over his lab desk. Archeaologists would later conclude that he spent most of his day training rats to perform tricks, until he went blind building electrical equipment by hand using a dissecting microscope. But, still, he died happy...because science is cool.

Pure Pedantry is a blog about science -- social sciences and otherwise -- as well as academic and scientific culture. No one can live on science alone, so I also like to dwell on pop culture, periodically explore the humanities, and indulge in other types of geeky goodness.

DISCLAIMERS: 1) Jake Young is not a licensed physician (yet). He is merely a medical student. The information published on this site is not intended for use in medical decision-making. Please seek advice from a licensed, medical professional before making any health decisions. 2) The opinions expressed are my own. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments I currently attend or attended in the past.

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Dude, what the hell is happening to the cranes in NYC?

Category: Breaking News
Posted on: May 30, 2008 11:42 AM, by NotoriousLTP

Another crane has collapsed in NYC. This is the second crane to collapse in the past several months, and this one is even closer to my house.

Yikes. I would say that I would never walk under these things, but it is kind of impossible.

Comments

I note the typical mayoral grandstanding as Bloomberg immediately pronounces the incident "unacceptable and intolerable" (that's what mayors are supposed to say), but you can't make that judgement before you know what happened. That reaction is coming from the very widespread fallacy that engineering should be able to achieve zero accidents. Sure, probably carelessness and greed were the main causes of the accident, but maybe not, you don't know yet. There will never be such a thing as no accidents at all.

Posted by: Vasha | May 30, 2008 8:01 PM