Comments on: Surface Tension

By: jarvisloop

jarvisloop — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 15:55:57 +0000

Finished.

By: Just Another Commenter

Just Another Commenter — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 02:45:51 +0000

Just another addition to this article: during WWII, many structures of the Netherland sea defence and land recovering systems were either destroyed by the Germans on their retreat or by the Dutch themselves as acts of sabotage, and these destructions were partly not being remedied and added to the damage in 1953 when the storm struck.

Besides, people are always wiser in the retrospective and things are always easier said than done, as the flood of Hamburg in 1962 proved so tragically.

By: Harry Sufehmi

Harry Sufehmi — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 08:45:13 +0000

“One of the immediate British responses to the flood was, rather predictably, the formation of a committee: the Departmental Committee on Coastal Flooding”

LOL ! :D thanks, this made my day !

By: James

James — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 22:46:10 +0000

That was dam interesting!

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 21:03:43 +0000

This is an excellent site in all respects. Keep up the good work.

By: Alan Bellows

Alan Bellows — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 22:24:59 +0000

@Chris: Actually, the voice you are recognizing is that of Simon Whistler, our professional voice talent. He just happens to do the voice work for that other podcast as well. My voice is the one you’ll hear reading the end credits, and I have also recorded a few episodes myself (e.g., The Clockmaker).

Regarding the reduction in article publication frequency, this is simply a function of decreased free time, increased publication difficulty (longer articles, addition of the podcast, etc.), and an unwillingness to reduce quality for the sake of quantity.

Damn Interesting has always been a spare-time endeavor for me, so I become a bottleneck. This is especially true considering that I personally edit articles, produce the podcast, create most of the podcast music, create most of the article artwork, manage our social media, keep our server running through Reddit click-storms, code site updates, and generally manage our constellation of responsibilities, all in my spare time. And I also like to write articles on occasion.

So, I’m sorry that we cannot publish with the swiftness of our youth, but at least we’re not caving to the easy and lucrative clickbait-and-ads model that is gobbling up so much of the Internet nowadays.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 15:59:20 +0000

Now I know why the articles have dried up past year or so, Alan you’ve been busy doing the Daily Knowledge Podcast haven’t you? Recognise your voice a mile off, glad to get a fix using Audioboom’s new app anyway.

By: David

David — Sat, 14 Feb 2015 14:12:12 +0000

Those events are still discussed. The hero was a man on one vessel, Radio Officer Proudfoot who was in the singular position of being able to send weather reports that forewarned the emergency services of the danger that would engulf the eastern coast of Britain. He lost his life but the measures, such as could be mustered, were in place and thanks to him loss of life was to some degree minimised. The high water levels that overwhelmed Norfolk were caused by a high tide combined with the depression that caused the seas to rise well above maximum spring tide levels.
It is with thanks to R/O Proudfoot, with his totally unambiguous copper plate morse, that we owe this debt.
There was another freak incident in more recent times when an atmospheric depression affected the river Trent and the oxygen levels were depleted. Oxygen had to be vapourised and blown into the water to stop the fish from dying.

By: Ron

Ron — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 21:39:02 +0000

12 days in Alan, 12 days in!

By: Alan Bellows

Alan Bellows — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 18:19:07 +0000

H. Danial said: “It’s been a long time since a new story was published.
Out of interesting stories or out of interest to do one?
Please don’t be dead.”

We have countless more interesting articles to share, in fact we have one in the final phases of preparation which is scheduled be published in the first few days of 2015. Spare time is always scarce this time of year, and this new article required a large investment of research effort, so it was just a little delayed. All is well.