Announcements

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Can I Borrow a Feeling?

Announcement #31 • written by Alan Bellows

In 1973, a trio of psychologists convened in a preschool classroom to perform a diabolical experiment upon unsuspecting children. Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett sought to demonstrate that one can take an activity the children naturally enjoyed--namely drawing--and render it hollow and meaningless. More specifically, these scientists hypothesized that if one rewards a human for doing something he or she naturally enjoys, and then remove that external reward, the original intrinsic pleasure will atrophy and perish.

The children were separated into three groups: Group A were promised a handsome certificate of achievement if they would draw during their free-play time. Group B were not informed of the certificate, but they were given one if they opted to draw on their own. The control children of Group C were neither offered nor given any parchment-and-calligraphy tokens of recognition.

The researchers observed, recorded, and rewarded the students. Two weeks later the phychologists reconvened in the observation booth, and found that the children of Group A had lost most of their interest in drawing whereas Groups B and C still illustrated with enthusiasm. This tendency, which has since been supported by additional experimentation, is known as the Overjustification Effect.

We Damn Interesting authors were once like those children. We doodled away with nary a care, writing for writing's sake. But the publication of our book brought a one-time monetary reward which nullified the joy of our original fancy-free writing spree. The fire hose of dopamine became a trickle, as did our article output.

To combat the Overjustification Effect we have created what we hope will become a persistent external incentive: Damnload. This system allows visitors to purchase our catalog of articles, in whole or in part, as an eBook for Kindle, Nook, iPad, Android, etc. Articles published to the live site will remain free as always, but now our thousands of pages of Damn Interesting articles can accompany readers into airplanes, wilderness, and/or faraday cages. Ten percent of all Damnload payments are donated to BuildOn, an organization which promotes literacy in education-impoverished regions worldwide. Hooray for everything.

Apocalypse on the Set

Announcement #30 • written by Alan Bellows

We are pleased to announce that Damn Interesting contributor Ben Taylor has just published a shiny new book that is sure to be the first in what we hope will become a long and lustrous book-publishing career. Apocalypse on the Set retells nine true stories of film-making enterprises which have endured calamity, ruin, humiliation, or some engrossing combination thereof. It's filled with fremdschämen, schadenfreude, and other obscure Germanic emotions.

We encourage our readers to buy this book because our readers have outstanding taste.

Writer on the Storm

Announcement #29 • written by Alan Bellows

As you may have noticed, until about a week ago the Damn Interesting web server was about as sturdy as a pair of paper pajamas. A sustained orgy of traffic was exhausting our finite resources, cramming all of our ports with bits. A superior server remains out of our price range, and even the most potent WordPress caching plugins have proven unequal to the influx.

In response, a few weeks ago I set to work tailoring DamnCache, a more robust protection from such sustained pummeling. After a week or so of testing I am happy to announce that the server is now approximately as sturdy as corrugated cardboard pajamas.

Speaking of unusual apparel, our Zazzle-powered logo store is now online and peddling goods such as T-shirts, hoodies, and iPhone cases for all of your holiday shopping needs. To celebrate, each week from now until the end of December we'll be giving away a $25 gift code that can be redeemed for logoey goods. Watch our Twitter feed and/or Facebook page for details. The first will be given away shortly.

Speaking of shortly, moments from now we'll be posting our first-of-maybe-many Damn Interesting Shorts. If these fun-size word-wads are well-received they will become a higher-frequency feature to help fill the gaps between the full-lengthier articles. Feedback is welcome.

Speaking of feedback, we have recently acquired a high quality microphone for the purposes of performing another experiment: the much-rumored and long-awaited Damn Interesting podcast. Details are forthcoming, but if the pilot episode is as awesome as we anticipate, it will become a tradition for each featured article to be accompanied by audio.

Thank you for your kind attention.

It's About Damn Time

Announcement #28 • written by Alan Bellows

(This post's content expired, but its husk remains here as a historical curiosity).

Something's Afoot at Damn Interesting

Announcement #27 • written by Alan Bellows

A foot.

We at Damn Interesting are happy to announce that we have officially returned from our spontaneous hiatus. One might describe the sensation as "delighted" if one were prone to fits of gleeful hyperbole. We also bring news:

The Damn Interesting book Alien Hand Syndrome is now available at fine bookstores everywhere. Discerning readers may procure copies at any bookseller worth its salt. If we owe you a free copy based on your donations during our fund raising effort, you may expect to find it occupying your mail receptacle very soon. As you thumb through the wood-pulp, be sure to pay extra attention to the dedication page; its sentiment is quite heart-felt.

A Series of Unfortunate Hacks

Announcement #26 • written by Alan Bellows

For the past several weeks, Damn Interesting has been repeatedly violated by a gaggle of Russian hackers. Their strange probes sought out all unprotected orifices of our elderly version of WordPress, and injected each one with a caustic slurry of pharmaceutical links and online casino spam. We erected a brisk and makeshift defense, only to watch as it crumbled repeatedly. Clearly their knowledge of WordPress insecurities was more comprehensive than our own.

Now, after a lengthy and tiresome clash against the hackers, we appear to have emerged victorious. We are crossing our fingers--and every other crossable part of our anatomies--hoping that we have truly and permanently licked these digital despoilers . If so, then we can finally get back to the earnest business of researching and writing.

Thanks for your patience whilst we battled the bastards.

Damn Deadlines

Announcement #25 • written by Alan Bellows

As the manuscript-delivery deadline approaches for our Damn Interesting book, we must take drastic action to avoid being sucked into a temporal vortex of magnificent and frightful proportions. Consequently, we hope you won't mind a handful of re-runs while we enter phase three of the book-writing process: Irrational Bargaining.

We'll try to keep you abreast of our progress as we segue into Guilt, absquatulate into Anger, and deviate into Depression. We anticipate arriving at the final phase-- Acceptance-- vibrating with caffeine and emotional compression.

On an unrelated note, our site's new-and-improved platform is nearing completion, and in about 8 weeks we hope to begin private Beta testing. We'll need people to help us do some load testing (lots of people at the same time) as well as compatibility testing (making sure the new site works everywhere, including weird mobile browsers and stuff). If you are willing to help us test when that time comes, please follow this link.

Superthanks!

Some Damn Interesting News

Announcement #24 • written by Alan Bellows

On 25 January 2007, the Damn Interesting authors boldly-- some might say prematurely-- announced our intentions to expand our project into the medium of dead tree flesh. We writers are prone to episodes of optimistic whimsy, so we set out on the path of self-publication with fires in our bellies, springs in our steps, and other foreign objects inhabiting our bodies in ambitious configurations.

Unfortunately, we soon discovered that self-publication offered substandard products at superstandard prices. Undaunted by this development, we altered our approach to seek a direct relationship with a printing company, only to find that none of those options appealed to our penchant for perfection. Thenceforth, armed with the 2008 Writer's Market, a yellow highlighter, and several spare minutes per day, I embarked upon a lengthy search for a suitable publisher; however these feeble tools proved to be no match for the awesome power of Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert.