Hi!

Monday marked sixteen (!) years of me writing this newsletter. I don’t have a formal way of celebrating it — how do you get a driver’s license for a newsletter? — but I wanted to mark the occasion today anyway. I’ve shared a lot of stories over the years — a lot of fun things to learn about and discover — but today, I’m going to be more meta about it. Here are some things I learned about the newsletter — and about myself — from writing Now I Know.

Readers are my reason for writing. First up on this list: thank you for reading. Your feedback is what keeps this going. Emails back, watching the stats where I can see that 50% of you open this each day, seeing the random social media share — all of those remind me that my work is appreciated and enjoyed. I thought I’d keep writing this because I love learning these fun facts; I was wrong. I keep writing because I get to share these stories, and the sharing is what brings me the most joy.

Ignorance is overcome by curiosity, but empathy needs to lead. Early on, I shared a few stories that I’m not particularly happy about in retrospect — I learned something interesting, shared it, and most people appreciated it. But I didn’t try to see the story through the eyes of the protagonist, and a few readers objected. At first, I dismissed those as the complaints of the few. But after thinking it over more, they were right. It’s a lesson I’ve carried forward for years, both in writing Now I Know and beyond.

Mundane observations probably aren’t. The original reason my Friday newsletters are this open-ended, freeform blog style posts? Burnout. Writing five stories a week is rough; I needed a way to balance it. (The Wednesday reruns — more of the same.) It’s become one of my favorite parts of the week. I really appreciate being able to share my (apolitical) thoughts with all of you, and also using this space to share new things I’m working on, supporting, or concerned about. Friday has become the creative outlet I didn’t know I needed. And even more surprising — you all seem to appreciate it a lot. I get a ton of feedback about these Friday emails.

Keeping Now I Know apolitical is hard — but not for the reasons I thought it would. I have few rules about what I’ll share, but that’s a bright-line one. I always knew it would be because of the temptation: I have a sizeable audience and therefore, can actually have some minor influence on events that others simply can’t. I figured I’d ultimately give into that, but it’s never really been an issue. But something else has: politics has become increasingly part of culture, much like food or sports is, and therefore, it’s becoming an inseparable part of many of the stories I’d otherwise share. There’s one really small story about a Civil War marker in New Jersey that I’ve wanted to share for a while, but it’s impossible to do without it becoming, ultimately, about American politics. Politics invading everything is bad for apolitical storytellers.

User support saved the newsletter. This isn’t a push for your donations and support — I’ll take it, of course, but today is me saying thanks, not asking for anything. I can’t say thanks without sharing how grateful I am for everyone who has pitched in a few bucks along the way. I expected the ad revenue to make Now I Know a worthwhile endeavor — it isn’t. Ad revenue goes down and down every year, and the advertisers out there are worse and worse. I can’t tell you how many CBD, bedroom drugs, and sports betting ads I reject on a weekly basis. I only share AI related ones because they’re at least marginally appropriate for you all. If it weren’t for reader support, Now I Know wouldn’t be viable.

I feel like this could go on forever. Sixteen years is a long time, but it feels like I only started Now I Know yesterday. I expected to burn out by now — yes, there are days I don’t want to write, and yes, there are changes I’ve made (per above) to help mitigate the burnout. But the joy of discovery and sharing is endless. Sixteen years down; many, many more to come.

Thank you, again, for being here with me for this adventure.

The Now I Know Week In Review

Monday: A Random Quack of Kindness: I now can’t see a Jeep without looking for ducks.

Tuesday: Why Cops Stereotypically Eat Donuts: Symbiosis!

Wednesday: Fogerty versus Fogerty: Can you be sued for sounding like yourself?

Thursday: The Great Pink Coincidence of 2026?: I now can’t watch a World Cup match without looking for pink cleats.

Long Reads and Other Things

Here are a few things you may want to check out over the weekend:

1) “The A.I.-Design Aesthetic That’s Taking Over the Internet” (The New Yorker, 7 minutes, June 2026). The subhead: “How Anthropic’s new tool, Claude Design, is creating overnight web-design clichés.” I’ve seen a lot of this firsthand — and it began way before Claude released Design. The story resonated immediately with me.

2) “What I Learned About Masculinity at Thai Kickboxing School” (New York Times/gift link, 28 minutes, June 2026). One of those great headlines that just makes you click. Or, at least, it was for me.

3) “America’s Greatest Food Export” (The Atlantic, 6 minutes, June 2026). This is about ranch dressing. I hope you don’t get caught by the paywall because I can’t recommend paying for a six-minute read about the role of ranch dressing in broader culture, but it’s still worth your time.

Have a great weekend!

Dan