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Now I Know -- Learn Something New Every Day
Personal blog · nowiknow.comculturehistory
Now I Know -- Learn Something New Every Day is a personal blog at nowiknow.com about culture and history. Since 2012, 54 different Hacker News readers have linked it 69 times, most often “Now I Know: A Daily Newsletter of Interesting Things”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
A free daily newsletter: one fun fact and the true story behind it, every weekday morning. Read by about 50,000 people since 2010.
Most-linked posts?
- Now I Know: A Daily Newsletter of Interesting Things3 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2012-10-02
- Learn Something New Everyday by Email3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2012-12-03
- The Mystery of the Third Shaker (2024)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-06-02
- The Decoy Effect (2014)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-01-03
- Why You Can’t Buy a Car on Nissan.com – Now I Know2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-06-10
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-11-22
What Hacker News says?
This was done by the UW-Green Bay years ago (among many, many others, I'm sure) and was featured in Dan Lewis' "Now I Know" newsletter about a week ago. ( http://nowiknow.com/ ) Still a worthwhile thing to report, I guess, but somehow manages to still be very "the media is clueless"
Comment linking /
on “Teen to government: Change your typeface, save millions”Submitted The Case of the Missing Magenta as a story · 67 points
HN discussionPreviously considered by the University of Wisconsin Green Bay: http://nowiknow.com/an-inkling-for-ink/
Comment linking /an-inkling-for-ink/
on “Teen to government: Change your typeface, save millions”Submitted A story about a man who outsourced his own job as a story · 30 points
HN discussionReference: Why mattresses come with warning tags http://nowiknow.com/why-mattresses-come-with-warning-tags/
Comment linking /why-mattresses-come-with-warning-tags/
on “BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales”Submitted Learn Something New Everyday by Email as a story · 19 points
HN discussionWhat's the third shaker for?! https://nowiknow.com/the-mystery-of-the-third-shaker/ TL;DR: There's a unknown 3rd shaker in many 19th century table settings and no one really knows what went in it as far as I can tell. There's some indication it might have been for dried mustard powder but that's the only guess anyone has and it wasn't that popular as a condiment as far as anyone can tell outside of the tiny referenc…
Comment linking /the-mystery-of-the-third-shaker/
on “Internet Archive's big battle with music publishers ends in settlement”Submitted The problem with lots of people drinking lots of tea as a story · 14 points
HN discussionEven if you salt the hashes. The problem is that the number of inputs is limited and it's trivial to enumerate over the input values. Let's take a contrived example: We have the data of a small, entirely made-up island where only two families live, so we have two surnames. Let's name them Foo and Bar. Now, they have an entirely funny tradition, they all get first names based on the order in which they were born (1).…
Comment linking /wayan-balik/
on “Facebook was in talks with hospitals about a proposal to share data”Submitted Abraham Lincoln Created The Secret Service The Day He Was Shot as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThis sounds like what Charles Hinton did with jungle gyms for children. They were originally made to teach children "monkey instinct" to be able to navigate better through 3-dimensional space, hopefully increasing their capacity to visualize and understand 4-dimensional space. It didn't work, but it's very interesting! https://nowiknow.com/mathletes/
Comment linking /mathletes/
on “New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars”Submitted South African province pays $4m for $40 Wordpress theme as a story · 5 points
HN discussion“From 1991 through 1994, Sergey Bubka topped his own mark nine times, each time besting his previous mark by only 0.01 meters.” https://nowiknow.com/the-man-who-inched-away-at-history/
Comment linking /the-man-who-inched-away-at-history/
on “Archery World Record: Most arrows through a keyhole [video]”Submitted The $2.56 Trophy as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI’m on my phone so I can’t find a better source, but Mercedes plays a sound to prevent hearing loss during a car crash. https://nowiknow.com/the-special-sound-a-mercedes-benz-makes...
Comment linking /the-special-sound-a-mercedes-benz-makes-before-a-crash/
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite examples of elegant software?”Submitted A Man Who Sued Himself (and the IRS) and Won as a story · 4 points
HN discussion> There is no sharp dividing line between lemons and limes, either There is, if you care about scurvy: http://nowiknow.com/dont-forget-the-lime/
Comment linking /dont-forget-the-lime/
on “Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer”Submitted Why You Can’t Buy a Car on Nissan.com – Now I Know as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI think you should take a gander at this: http://nowiknow.com/shuffled/
Comment linking /shuffled/
on “Shortest bit sequence that's never been sent over the Internet (2017)”Submitted Mr. Peeler: showing people they want what you sell as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI am, at http://nowiknow.com It's a general trivia email. Every day I send a fun fact of the true story behind it. Been writing for seven years. Not going to disclose how much I make a month, but I describe it as not quite full time job money but a lot more than beer money.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Who's running a profitable newsletter?”Submitted The Bicholim Conflict as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSeconded, with a footnote that its articles regularly appear on HN. There is also now I know, a daily light digestible easy read that bring a lot of interesting lesser known stories. https://nowiknow.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What are some of your favorite journals or magazines?”Submitted What to Do If You Don’t Go to Jail as a story · 3 points
HN discussionKind of like that "4 out of 5 dentists" claim from back in the day - it involved some very heavy editorializing: https://nowiknow.com/who-was-the-fifth-dentist-that-didnt-re...
Comment linking /who-was-the-fifth-dentist-that-didnt-recommend-trident/
on “85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics”Submitted The war against Pyrex as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis was recently covered in depth in "Now I Know" [0] - a random corner of Internet with quirky collection of articles. I have been a happy reader these past many weeks. [0] https://nowiknow.com/the-marketing-stunt-that-vacuumed-up-a-...
Comment linking /the-marketing-stunt-that-vacuumed-up-a-whole-company/
on “27 years ago, Hoover offered free international flights with any £100 purchase”Submitted Innovator's Dilemma: Kodak made a digital camera in 1975, but didn't market it as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHere's an eclectic list to get started: Company intel: http://mattermark.com Hacker Newsletter: http://www.hackernewsletter.com Curated design links: http://sidebar.io Minimalism: http://nosidebar.com Daily news and culture: http://nextdraft.com Random pub trivia: http://nowiknow.com Curated design and dev: http://mergelinks.com Metal trivia: http://www.skulltoaster.com Music mixes: http://noonpacific.com Front end…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What newsletters do you read every day or week?”Submitted The Cartoon That Shut Down Boston as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
