Damn Interesting
damninteresting.com · Group blog · on HN since 2007
Damn Interesting publishes long-form articles on strange true stories, science, and history, such as the Great Molasses Flood.
What HN saysCommenters praise its well-written accounts of bizarre real events, and one reader mentions long RSS subscription and donating to its fundraiser.
388HN people shared it
246linked it in comments
288stories submitted
7.5Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The origin of circuits (2007)70 people · 173 points · first shared 2010 · 25 comments on HN
- 2The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon29 people · 32 points · first shared 2010 · 13 comments on HN
- 3Warning signs for the year 10,00016 people · 125 points · first shared 2009 · 54 comments on HN
- 4Dang Interesting14 people · 1 points · first shared 2007 · 1 comments on HN
- 5The Zero-Armed Bandit12 people · 216 points · first shared 2015 · 49 comments on HN
- 6The Unfortunate Sex Life of the Banana10 people · 103 points · first shared 2010 · 35 comments on HN
- 7What it's like to skydive through a thunderstorm9 people · 227 points · first shared 2011 · 23 comments on HN
- 8Project Cybersyn, a 1971-73 Chilean Experiment in Computer-Assisted Economy9 people · 141 points · first shared 2012 · 65 comments on HN
- 9The Ethyl-Poisoned Earth9 people · 3 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 10Faxes from the far side of the moon8 people · 289 points · first shared 2015 · 35 comments on HN
- 11Rapatronic Nuclear Photographs8 people · 24 points · first shared 2010 · 2 comments on HN
- 12Who Wants to Be a Thousandaire? (2011)6 people · 643 points · first shared 2011 · 156 comments on HN
- 13Absolute Zero6 people · 253 points · first shared 2014 · 41 comments on HN
- 14How Coca-Cola won the war6 people · 131 points · first shared 2010 · 82 comments on HN
- 15The Curse of Konzo6 people · 96 points · first shared 2018 · 9 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
DamnInteresting · 2026-05-20
I've been running websites on WordPress almost as long as WordPress has existed, my oldest site has been running on it continuously for 20+ years[1]. Between forcing Gutenberg into the core (it should have been a plugin), Mullenweg's recent unhinged actions (e.g., the ACF fiasco[2]), the increasing number of naggy subscription-based plugins, and now this contemptible AI integration, I'm going to start the process of migrating my sites, probably to ClassicPress[3].
Oh well, we had a pretty good run.
[1] https://www.damninteresting.com/
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41828958
[3] https://www.classicpress.net/
mattkevan · 2017-12-05
Thank you whoever is writing these articles.
I'm fascinated by the history of computers and these articles are a great read. Like a Damn Interesting [0] for computing.
[0] https://www.damninteresting.com
tunap · 2016-10-24
damninteresting.com is where I 1st read about the Great Molasses Flood, amongst a slew of other bizarre non-fictional events & people. The wordsmiths make the bizarre accounts even more damn intetesting.
edit: link
https://www.damninteresting.com/
david927 · 2009-04-21
Silly. It took us 24 years to get 12km straight down, and that's the best we've ever done.
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=567
pavel_lishin · 2026-08-02
I love your site. I've been an RSS subscriber for a long time, and tossed some money at the recent fundraiser.
(I mention that last bit not to be thanked, but to give others an opportunity to do the same without it looking like you're soliciting: https://www.damninteresting.com/a-possible-future/)
scientifik · 2026-07-09
https://www.damninteresting.com/this-place-is-not-a-place-of-honor/ - has long been one of my favorite articles on the internet. Happy to chip in to support the site.
jcims · 2026-06-27
Reminds me of this old article - https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/
One of my favorite little morsels of internet goodness.
NuclearPM · 2026-05-20
Great site. I’ve been reading since the beginning. I even copied your format on a shortly lived site about 19 years ago.
This one is my favourite.
https://www.damninteresting.com/nineteen-seventy-three/
vee-kay · 2026-01-17
I remembered Damn Interesting (fantastic website!) has a nice narrative-story-style article on this "pop up from persecution" story":
https://www.damninteresting.com/up-in-the-air/
Also an audio podcast available for the article, that's more thrilling.
mgsouth · 2024-09-20
tldr: Shear forces set up a nano-scale front/back electric potential difference.
Arxiv: [1]
SciTechDaily summary: [2]
And a shout-out to DI, where I saw the first link [3]
Edit: Dupe [0]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41603387
[1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2408.16083
[2] https://scitechdaily.com/groundbreaking-study-finally-reveals-how-rubb…
[3] https://www.damninteresting.com/
alexpotato · 2024-07-10
> Last time I read about this the main practical difficulty was model transferability.
There is a great write up of this in this old blog post: https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/
rzzzt · 2024-06-21
I read an article on evolutionary algorithm-based designs a long time ago -- they are effectively indecipherable by humans and rely on the imperfections of the very FPGA that they are synthesized on, but work great otherwise.
- https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S037843710201747…
scrlk · 2024-02-27
Was it this article? https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/
> "It seems that evolution had not merely selected the best code for the task, it had also advocated those programs which took advantage of the electromagnetic quirks of that specific microchip environment. The five separate logic cells were clearly crucial to the chip’s operation, but they were interacting with the main circuitry through some unorthodox method — most likely via the subtle magnetic fields that are created when electrons flow through circuitry, an effect known as magnetic flux. There was also evidence that the circuit was not relying solely on the transistors’ absolute ON and OFF positions like a typical chip; it was capitalizing upon analogue shades of gray along with the digital black and white."
mzur · 2023-12-07
If you liked the article, please consider a donation to Damn Interesting. They recently announced taking a break [1] because of a shortfall of donations. DI has been such a great resource for interesting articles (to me) and it would be sad to see it wither away.
[1] https://www.damninteresting.com/breaking-a-bit/
jdmichal · 2022-10-18
That's now how bananas work. Bananas are sterile hybrids; that's why they're cloned in the first place. Other plants are cloned for other reasons, typically because they don't grow true from seed.
Luckily for us, banana plants grow like bromeliads. They flower and fruit then die. But not before sprouting several new stalks. So they're really easy to propagate by separating the new stalks once they get big enough.
Someone else posted this excellent article on it:
https://www.damninteresting.com/the-unfortunate-sex-life-of-the-banana…
argiope · 2022-07-10
This reminds me of the story about a mysterious outbreak in Mozambique https://www.damninteresting.com/the-curse-of-konzo/, which without giving too much away bears some similarity. It's a pretty good read for a Sunday.
somebodynew · 2022-02-17
When this technique is performing at its best, I would expect so. The old story of the evolved FPGA comes to mind: https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/
You're intentionally depending on the "personality" of each gas sensor to get data measuring unknown features, so you can't expect consistency from sample to sample. Anything that was completely portable between different sensors would inherently be less powerful.
funwares · 2021-12-18
https://www.damninteresting.com/the-traveler-and-his-baggage/
This is one of my favorite long reads of the year, although it is extremely disturbing.
HN thread from earlier this year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27435384
errcorrectcode · 2021-12-08
Awareness with surveillance is important. Leaded gasoline (TEL), lead pipes, and leaded paint were a problem for IQ before the 1980's that most Americans view as "solved" today.
https://www.damninteresting.com/the-ethyl-poisoned-earth
Here's what the CDC recommends:
https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/prevention/sources.htm
akadruid1 · 2021-08-03
I'd never heard of this until earlier this week I listened to an old episode of Damn Interesting which covers it in their usual gripping fashion. Highly recommended: https://www.damninteresting.com/a-debaculous-fiasco/
nerdbaggy · 2021-07-28
Here is a great long form about it https://www.damninteresting.com/the-zero-armed-bandit/
airhead969 · 2021-03-19
zxcvbn4038 · 2021-01-05
“Fool parts with money?”
Or more click bait-ish:
“Car runs out of gas on hillside, then this happens”
Or just wait for the Damned Interesting version https://www.damninteresting.com/
_aleph2c_ · 2020-12-23
It could be a marketing campaign paid for by the "greedy rich" to improve the health of the system.
American's love celebrities, so if celebrities pay for access, the common American will want what is temporarily denied from them.
There is a historical precedent, Antoine Parmentier tricked the French people into adopting the potato in 1786, by placing armed guards around potato fields:
https://www.damninteresting.com/cry-havoc-and-let-slip-the-spuds-of-wa…
Daub · 2020-11-26
Oddly enough I addressed this in my motion graphics lecture today. It was in relation to this information visualization issue:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warning_messag…
More material here:
https://www.damninteresting.com/this-place-is-not-a-place-of-honor/
This type of problem (warning future generations about the dangers of radioactivity) is a brilliant limit-test for the general problems of information visualization.
The radioactive warning trefoil has an ignoble history of being unequal to the task.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
Hence its semi-recent update (ISO 21482).
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/new-symbol-launched-warn-public-a…
joshvm · 2020-08-13
I think this is the story, it's good fun: https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/
The evolved circuit used fewer gates, but only worked on the device under test and when they removed gates that were apparently doing nothing, it failed to perform the task. ML cheating at its best!
morphle · 2020-02-28
Freeman at his best [1] when he is thinking blue thoughts [4,5] in the blue plane.
Thermogenic plants have already evolved [2]. We need to make them grow an anti-desiccant film and be more efficient like living stones [3].
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yzgPMwshqE
[2]https://www.damninteresting.com/warm-blooded-plants/
[3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC4onPf_htQ
[4] Alan Kay's explanation of Arthur Koestlers creative thinking (link will follow later).
John Cleese explains how [6]. Point of view is worth 80 IQ points, the best way to predict the future is to invent it.
[5] Arthur Koestler (link will follow later).
[6] John Cleese explains why in a funny way.
vmurthy · 2019-06-16
Ah brings back memories! Damn interesting.com was the site that hooked me onto evolutionary biology. The following article in particular: “Parasites of the brain” https://www.damninteresting.com/nugget/parasites-on-the-brain/
RobertRoberts · 2019-06-14
I am not sure it's less efficient by default or simply because of lack of R&D into making steam engines better.
I read about a government program in maybe the 70s (oil crisis?) where steam engines were reviewed to replace gas engines. The reason being is that burning fuel at atmospheric pressure means you burn it more cleanly and fully. This sounds like an efficiency balance at some level, certainly a pollution advantage.
A quick search brought up this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_steam_technology#Automotive_use…
https://www.damninteresting.com/the-last-great-steam-car/
craftyguy · 2018-12-12
I disagree. It is exceedingly long, and there was no indication about what it was even going to be about. I wasn't able to decide if it was worth investing all of the time required to read it, so I decided not to.
Someone else in this thread posted this article, which does it right. There's a one-liner summary at the top and everything: https://www.damninteresting.com/the-zero-armed-bandit/