Happy Friday! If you're new to Now I Know, you'll notice that today's format differs from the rest of the week. On Fridays, I pause to write the "Weekender," my  "week in review" type of thing, or to share something else I think you may find interesting. Thanks for reading! — Dan

Hi!

This week sucked. But let’s start with the silver linings:

1) A new, improved Now I Know archive is coming soon.

2) A lot of you responded to my biannual fundraising appeal. I’d like to get a half-dozen more of you in, so if you haven’t decided to financially support Now I Know yet, please do. But I’ll definitely call this one a success regardless!

And now, the less fun stuff.

A week ago Thursday, the website I built for my consultancy stopped working — some server error that shouldn’t have happened. I’m still talking with my website hosting company as to what happened, when, and why, but suffice it to say something broke and I didn’t know why. I fixed the the symptom — the down website - on my own. But there was a bigger issue behind the scenes that I didn’t notice. Someone had gotten some malware on my server and it was about to start eating everything.

On Monday morning, I went to do the final set up of that day’s Now I Know email — and I noticed that the story I wanted to link to in the archive was gone. That doesn’t happen… ever. And it doesn’t happen to just one story. I took a look and my worst fears were validated:

Everything was gone.

I mean everything. Sixteen years worth of archives. My personal site that I had just restored days earlier. Courses that I created for readers of my Communications newsletter. Two brand new projects I’m working on that I was eager to share with you all over the next few weeks or months. My personal blog that I rarely ever use. A few photos that I was storing on the server so I could access them from wherever. And a lot of old projects that I’ve mothballed and forgotten about. Totally gone.

Suffice it to say, Monday sucked.

In the days since, I’ve been able to restore all of the important non-Now I Know content — all of that has been built on my local laptop, so once the malware was cleared, I reuploaded it without much issue. Now I Know, though, is a bigger project. The content lives in a lot of different places, and back-populating thousands of articles is going to take a while.

It’s not impossible, though — hardly. AI is a boon here — Claude is well-positioned to do a ton of the work. My friends at beehiiv have been fantastic partners and offered to help me get the archives onto beehiiv, which should make them searchable (finally!) and improve discoverability. There are downsides, particularly because I can’t put ads on the new archives, but I’m hopeful it’ll be a better experience.

But again, it’s going to take a long time — weeks if not a few months. The From the Archives links for the foreseeable future are going to be going to the Internet Archive, not my site (because my site is gone). The Now I Know homepage sucks but it’s fine for now, I guess? And who knows what other issues will pop up along the way.

So, bear with me — I may toss an extra re-run in here or there (which is its own adventure — it’s really tricky to find a re-run when the archive is down!). And as always, thanks again for reading this newsletter.

From ML engineers to founders, 1.1M+ readers use TLDR AI to spot new tools and research before they go mainstream. One free email, every morning.

Subscribe for free

Monday: Pirates of the Cap-ibbean: Why would a pirate steal a hat?

Tuesday: Make Benefit Glorious Medal Ceremony: The medal ceremony song that … wasn’t quite right.

Wednesday: Fool Me Twice, Plane on You: Who says you can’t land a plane on a Manhattan street?

Thursday: A Cell of His Own: He went to prison, but thought the punishment didn’t match his crime — so he increased it.

Now I Know is supported by readers like you. Yes, you! Many of my readers donate a few dollars a month to help Now I Know grow and thrive. And in exchange, they get an ad-free version!

And thanks! — Dan

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

1) “They Kept Outsiders Away for 500 Years. Their World Is About to Change.” (New York Times/gift link, 42 minutes, September 2026). The subhead: “My father dedicated his life to studying the Guna people of Panama, and they may soon allow unprecedented development through their land. I went on a trek through the jungle to find out why.”

2) “The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob” (Texas Monthly, 38 minutes, November 2005). Yes, the story is 20+ years old. The subhead: “He wore a Western hat, never spoke a word, and robbed bank after bank. When the feds finally arrested him, they discovered that their suspect was actually a soft-spoken woman. They thought they’d never hear from her again—but she had other plans.”

3) “How to Hack a Superyacht” (The Walrus, 19 minutes, June 2026). I specifically looked for a hack-related long read given my week, found this, and it wasn’t what I was looking for, but I’m glad I found it!

Have a great weekend!

Dan