Hi!

This weekend marks Now I Know’s fifteenth (!!) anniversary. That’s a long time! On June 22, 2010, I sent out the first-ever issue of Now I Know to 20 people. Today’s will go to more than 60,000. For me, Now I Know has always been a hobby — a way to share all the really neat stuff I’ve come across. I never imagined that there’d be so many of you willing to listen!

But it wouldn’t be worthwhile if it weren’t for each of you. Whenever I learn something new and interesting, Now I Know makes that discovery wonderful — I haven’t just fed my curiosity, but I know that I’ll get the joy of sharing it with each and every one of you. I write the newsletter, but you make it come alive.

So, thank you for reading. Thank you for inviting me to be part of your day, every day — our lives and our inboxes are busy places, and the five to ten minutes you give me is something I value more than I can express. And an additional thank you to everyone who writes back, sharing what they’ve learned, discovered, or simply appreciated along the way.

I don’t have any celebrations planned for this milestone; writing Now I Know has been its own reward. Thank you, again, for reading, and here’s to another 15 years (and beyond!).

The Now I Know Week In Review

Monday: The Original Slush Fund: The origins of the phrase “slush fund.”

Tuesday: The Earth’s Great Bear Coincidence: Arctic = bears. Antarctic = no bears. But that’s bearly relevant. (And yes, I know that’s spelled “barely.”)

Wednesday: The Radio Reporter Who Found a New Voice, Literally: Technology brings a man’s career back.

Thursday: Freed But Not Free: Not Juneteenth related, exactly, but my decision to re-run this story was inspired by the holiday.

Long Reads and Other Things

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

1) “They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling.” (New York Times/gift link, 18 minutes, June 2025). The subhead: “Generative A.I. chatbots are going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and endorsing wild, mystical belief systems. For some people, conversations with the technology can deeply distort reality.” Personally, I find ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot useful for very specific tasks — finding sources I can’t find via a Google search, specifically. I don’t think having “conversations” with them are useful or healthy at this point in their development, and this article suggests I’m right.

2) “I Was a Juror on a Murder Trial” (Thing of Things, 22 minutes, June 2025). Sitting on my desk, right now, is a juror summons for early July. I want to serve on a jury (although I think I’d be bored by it) because I never have, and I want to experience it. But I don’t want to be on a murder trial.

3) “A Day in the Life of a Bottle Collector” (Eurozine, 17 minutes, June 2025). This story takes place at a music festival, but it isn’t about the music — it’s about some people who are attending as a strange form of employment:

Each year, a growing number of individuals from marginalized communities, primarily from Romania and West Africa, travel north to collect empty beer bottles, cups, and cans discarded by thousands of festival-goers, exchanging them for cash through the Danish refund system. Roskilde Festival acknowledges that more than 300 refund collectors from about 15 countries visit the festival annually.

Thanks again for 15 years of Now I Know. Have a great weekend!

Dan