Comments

We know our bridges. Seamountie -- thanks for calling my article interesting. But on your criticism, you're way off -- my typing digits are fine. This article describes an incident that occurred in Feb., 2008 on the Lion's Gate Bridge. At one point, the article mentions that the same band of merry pranksters pulled off a high-profile stunt in 2001 at the Golden Gate bridge. Nowhere else do we reference the Golden Gate prank. Perhaps you read the article too fast? PopSci has over a dozen copyeditors and fact-checkers on staff. The editors comb the story in five different stages over three months. The fact checkers call everyone mentioned in the story and read them back the content. Then they call their own secondary sources to double check that work. They called me at 10 pm one night to challenge something I wrote. It's a huge pain in the rear for the writer. But that's probably why there has never been a glaring error that ended up in a PopSci feature I've written (OK, a few wayward commas.) Despite the hassle, it's a great system. While interviewing this top-secret British Columbia crew, it was hard not to become inspired by their good spirit. They remind me of a quote in an old Tom Robbins book: "Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature." Does anyone have any questions about standing around on a cold bridge at 4 a.m. waiting for some rowdy college students to drive up?