An exchange with the creator of probably one of my favorite websites of all time, damninteresting.com.

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Joe Puccio 
Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 12:06 PM
to webmaster

Hello Mr. Bellows (and gang),

I was just listening to the most recent article by Marisa Brook, "89, 263, 201, 500, 337, 480", and I came across a sentence that confused me: "...and some of Nickell’s words and phrases are known to have been associated with Freemasonry in general." I was wondering if perhaps this clause was intended to refer to Ward? 

Wonderful stuff, as always. 

Joe



Alan Bellows 
Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 12:52 PM
to me

Hi Joe,

Oops! You are right. I have issued a correction. Thanks for both the kind words and the heads up!

Alan



Joe Puccio 
Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 6:25 PM
to Alan

Hey Alan, 

Sure thing. If you ever need some assistance with the site on the dev side, I’d be happy to lend a hand (probably two). No charge, of course. Here’s a link to the various web stuffs I have experience with: http://www.unc.edu/~jpuccio/resume.pdf

Best, 
Joe




Alan Bellows 
Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 10:39 AM
to me

Thanks! I tend to do all of the dev work around here myself, but if I get stuck I'll keep you in mind. What did you do for the innovation challenge?

AB



Joe Puccio 
Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 9:06 PM
to Alan

All righty, sounds good. My partner and I pitched a service to help users find niche sites that fit their interests. Funny that you ask, because I got the idea when I noticed that the Damn Interesting Facebook page ‘liked’ another site I love, Engineerguy. What stood out to me was that Damn Interesting and Engineerguy sort of have a similar feel/goal, but one would be hard-pressed to find them near each other in a Google search. So, the core idea (hypothesis, really) was that site recommendations should be made not by analyzing content, but rather trying to identify sites that share more intangible qualities (like sense of humor or writing style). Machines aren’t great at that, but humans can be, so we suggested some basic network analysis on human-generated data (Facebook ‘like’ graphs, browser history, etc.) could yield some fruit. 

Joe



Joe Puccio 
Jan 23, 2017, 2:53 AM
to Alan

Hey Alan, 

Hope you're doing well! I'm going through and changing all the passwords for my accounts (part of my transition into the 1Password world), and I got caught by your custom spam filter upon attempting to reset my password on Damn Interesting. Even login attempts take me to the same page. Here are the parameters the page spits back: 

user_login: josephpuccio@gmail.com
redirect_to: [empty]
wp-submit: Get New Password 

My IP reported by your page: 99.69.17.68. 
My IP reported by Google (IPv6): 2602:306:3451:144f:1409:5d5a:65d2:f2b6

That's just a residential IP (my home). I tried with a proxy server (obviously a lot more likely to be blocked), and hit the same page (IP: 78.129.148.101). Let me know if I can provide any more info.

Best,
Joe





Alan Bellows 
Jan 23, 2017, 11:14 AM
to me

Hello Joe,

Hmm, I just checked, and your IP addressed isn't blocked. We don't tend to block IPs unless they have attempted a lot of harm. 

My best guess at a glance is that our security software is hanging up on the "php" that appears in your email address. It's only supposed to get cranky about ".php", but there may be a bug. You could try using your username (monstermac77) rather than your email to perform the change. Whether or not that works, could you let me know, so I know what kind of bug-hunting I need to go do? 

One way or the other we'll get it working.

Best,

Alan




Joe Puccio 
Jan 23, 2017, 12:14 PM
to Alan

Hey Alan, 

Indeed, my username made it through the password reset process and my subsequent login using my email address (just wanted to check) made it through as well! 

I did have to disable my favorite browser extension, which peppers my web requests with Russian IPs, illicit pharmaceutical ads, and mentions of online gambling. But I suppose that wasn't really helping anyone 😉

Thanks for your help,

Joe




Alan Bellows 
Jan 23, 2017, 6:22 PM
to me

Oh yeah, Pharmarussocasino, I love that browser extension! It's right up there with AdAdder.

AB



Joe Puccio 
Nov 8, 2020, 1:32 PM
to Alan

Hey Alan, 

A friend of mine was just telling me about a field trip he had in high school to Oak Ridge National Laboratory where a researcher had explained that force fields actually existed. He said "they were allowed to de-classify that because a tape factory somewhere had accidentally generated them and was giving cars on a local road some trouble". 

He sent this link when I pressed for more details. Damn interesting stuff, so I knew I'd be remiss not to pass it your way as a 10-year avid reader of your site. 

Hope all is well. 

Best,
Joe