The possibilities are endless, not for the tram, but for Legos. Great video, I chuckled. Actually, the video says how creative a kid with Legos can be. Too bad I can't say the same for Dan Saltzman.

The only thing creative there is the accounting.

Have you ever been to Lego Land in San Diego?

I walked into that one.

No, but I played with the legos like most kids. Closet I've been to Lego Land is Gilbert House in Salem(The namesake house of the inventor of the Erectorset.).

Cool. I'd like to order one with a cup holder for my beer, sort of a high tech version of the old Reginald Van Gleason train set.

Speaking of train sets, that reminds me of the Addams Family when uncle Fester blows up the trains and other such model mayhem.

In regards to the Kohler coaster, there's some major f-ups in its engineering and construction.

The upper tower has a sky bridge connecting it to the building. Apparently, the bridge is off by about 6-inches. Engineers thought the cable tension would literally pull the bridge into place. It didn't work out that way. Major work needs to be done to correct the problem.

On the lower tower, the cars are colliding with the beams connecting the tower to the building. They have to literally tear out part of the building and facade to make the cars fit.

The completion date will be pushed back, count on it.

There is a page on OH&SU tram on Wikipedia.

It quotes $55M as the final cost with OHSU paying some 85% of it. If that's true the thing is a decent deal for the city, imho. People who disagree with these numbers and have other relevant data/observations, should go and edit that page for our mutual benefit. Wikipedia forces you to rethink your arguments clearly, and document them properly if you want your point of view included. That's usually helpful. Blog discussions on the other hand tend to be too ephemeral to be of significant benefit.

P.S. b!X could put some of his pics there, the current one is not good.

sorry the proper link is this.

Blog discussions on the other hand tend to be too ephemeral to be of significant benefit.

Bye.

Hmmmm... WG does have a point, Jack. I don't think it was a potshot at you.

Blogs tend to lean toward partisans on both sides firing arguments at each other. There tends to be many unsourced claims and statements of questionable fact.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia has a strong core of people dedicated to NPOV - the 'neutral point of view' - wherein opinions are excised and facts and claims are sourced.

Don't get me wrong. Obviously, I love blogs - precisely because of their capacity to motivate, inspire, create buzz, and make a strong persuasive case.

But there's a place in this world for encyclopedic fact-gathering, too.

Using my bandwidth to tell my readers that their comments are of no significant benefit was a really stupid thing to do.

"Meanwhile, Wikipedia has a strong core of people dedicated to NPOV - the 'neutral point of view' - wherein opinions are excised and facts and claims are sourced."

Not always; I have found unsourced factual errors there and opinion posing as fact. And NPOV, what is that really? Sounds kind of like a contradiction in terms. Nonetheless, Wikipedia is valuable, I would say to about the same degree as blogs. When readers are motivated to think about and investigate issues raised, the populace is better informed overall, imho.

It is obvious that wg hasn't been reading this blog for the past two years or so. There has been numerous posts that disputes, with backup information, that the public costs far exceeds $8M or whatever Adams might tell you.

Please, wg, do some research. When city officials do not include land cost, financing cost, staff time/expenses, competition costs, hidden benefits given to OHSU (numerous) to compensate for their percentage, and the general public might use it only 10% of the time, then it might look good on paper from their perspective. The life cycle cost for twenty years is over $250M, and even Adam's recent PDOT shorten version life-cycle-cost substantuates this. Wg, look at his blog too.

Jack, you are right, of course. WG gets no style points.

Cynthia wrote: I have found unsourced factual errors there and opinion posing as fact.

Of course, the whole point of Wikipedia is that when you find something like that, you're supposed to fix it. Just click Edit, and fix it. Don't even have to log in.

Wikipedia is a great example of a commons. But a commons only works if everyone who benefits from it also contributes to the commons.

If you find it valuable, you have an ethical duty to help make it more valuable - when you have the ability to do so. Otherwise, you're benefiting without contributing for the benefit of others.

(Which isn't to say that other people aren't misusing it. That's become a regular beat on my professional blog: here and here.)

Blog discussions on the other hand tend to be too ephemeral to be of significant benefit.

Bye.

Forgive us if that seems like an overreaction on your part, Jack. In no way does that seem like a poke at you, but rather one aimed at blog-pomposity in general [and goodness knows, there's no shortage of that].

Here's hoping you'll reconsider. It was a point well taken.

It's been an ugly day in Comment World, and this person wasn't even the half of it. I readmitted him or her to the fold a while ago, but I'll be glad if this person, and a few other of today's visitors, give it a rest for a while.

Me no style points!

------------

Yours is a great place Jack, but it's not a library, you are more like a crowded winery on the shores of Mediterranean on a steamy summer night. Wine flows freely, excited, colorful, lively people all around you, laughing, talking, sometimes shouting through each other. You juggling little neat pieces from all over the internet to everybody's delight. Great place to be, great place to watch, but no place to look for concise, clinically detached, perfectly balanced presentation of technical issues. For that I and others go to Wikipedia, which in no way reflects on the quality or value of your place.

The intent of my original piece was to get those who hold strong negative views of the OH&SU tram to share them on Wikipedia. As things stand now the present Wikipedia entry appears terribly one-sided. No indication of any controversy. Nothing. The critics so plentiful and vocal here owe us something there too.

I clearly misspoke though when I said that your place is "of no significant benefit" . What I meant to say was that your place is "of little use" for those who look for dry, strictly technical, detached, dry as a bone, almost academic exposition of the issue.

Your place is much more than that.

I just noticed you want me to shut up for a while. No problem. Happy to oblige.

It's been a long day. No hard feelings.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia has a strong core of people dedicated to NPOV - the 'neutral point of view' - wherein opinions are excised and facts and claims are sourced.

I dont think thats entirely accurate. Maybe after some review thats the case. This entry on the tram is pretty typical of Wikipedia. Its more like the op-ed page of the WWW.

wg, I am sorry, but I am lucky to find the time to blog on BoJack, let alone on Wikipedia. I don't think it is my duty to make sure my postings or other pertinent postings on the Tram, or other issues, are posted on other blogs to make sure everyone is on the same page. Things can't be perfect.

"Wikipedia is a great example of a commons. But a commons only works if everyone who benefits from it also contributes to the commons."

Agreed. But problems can arise when one goes there to inform herself on an issue and finds mis/dis information and doesn't know enough to correct it. No worse than anywhere else, I guess. Rigor and skepticism are always well advised, imo.

I do think Jon has a point: the "NPOV" stikes me as an editorial slant,too. At least on blogs, we can argue with each other and defend/change our positions based on what we learn. You can't really go through that kind of learning process at Wikepedia. Imo, some blogs are too doctrinnaire to be of much value, but I think this is a good one, and that many people value the varied points of view and interchanges they find here.

Jerry it doesn't have to be you but I think we agree somebody should. Wikipedia is too important to ignore. Re learning process on Wikipedia they have a pretty good system over there including discussion groups specific to individual entries if necessary.

"Re learning process on Wikipedia they have a pretty good system over there including discussion groups specific to individual entries if necessary."

Thanks. I'll check it out.