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
Two Truths and a Lie
Hi!
I recently redid my personal site in an effort to drum up consultancy work, but before that, I had a list of fun facts about me. All of them were true, and — inspired by yesterday’s story about Ken Jennings’ inability to come up with 74 fun facts about himself — I wondered how many interesting facts I have about myself I could credibly make without cracking. Once you get to the “making-stuff-up” phase like Jennings did, you also enter a realm which serves as the basis for an icebreaker game called “two truths and a lie,” where you share three “facts” about yourself and the person you just met has to correctly identify which one of the three is actually a lie. (To be clear, the other two are supposed to be true.)
The list below — straight from the archived site, plus five additions — has 25 facts (beyond my name, status as a husbands and father, and curse of Mets fandom). Twenty of the 22 true ones are from my old site — archived here — so you can see if you’re correct (with links to some source material). The status of the other five I’ll reveal at a later point, but your guesses are welcome.
One hint: I’m not playing the “technically false” game here, where the fact is fundamentally right but has some tiny detail (e.g. a year that’s off by the real year) that is wrong to throw you off. That’s not fun. “Technically false” is true in my book.
Here’s the list — good luck on the guesses. (I don’t think this is going to be particularly hard.)
I have an email newsletter with more than 50,000 subscribers. It’s about trivia. Pee-Wee Herman once tweeted about it.
In 2013, I wrote a book.
My forehead is in a YouTube video with more than 20 million views.
I once had a startup, but I sold it to the founder of Wikipedia. I didn’t make nearly as much money as the press reported.
I’ve made important public statements concerning Big Bird’s bedtime.
I’ve read all of the Harry Potter books at least twice.
I’ve never seen a Batman movie.
I can vibrate my eyes.
I’ve never eaten bacon.
I’ve fed cookies to Cookie Monster. I am now the proud owner of a fragment of the remainder of one of those cookies.
I once started a petition which ended up with more than 150,000 signatures.
I’m a recovering lawyer.
I’ve been to more than a dozen NFL games at different NFL stadiums.
A plumber once paid me to fix my own toilet.
In 2014, I wrote another book.
I created a legal argument that went to the Supreme Court (and the Court rejected).
I ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to create a YouTube channel (yay!) but the YouTube channel wasn’t so successful (boo!).
I went to Tufts. And Cardozo.
I’ve been the New York Mets Designated Driver of the Game four times.
Despite being a die-hard Mets fan, I do not own a single Mets cap.
I’ve won a Clio, two Webbys, and a Shorty Award.
In 2019, I wrote another book.
I’ve raised more than $25,000 for non-profits like charity: water, Kiva, and ProLiteracy.
I was once publicly accused of trying to steal someone’s shoe.
I am the Connecticut State Magic the Gathering Champion (1997) in both Limited and Standard formats. I am somewhat embarrassed by this.
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The Now I Know Week In Review
Monday: I Should Have Reminded You to Set an Alarm: Why some Finns woke up wet this Monday.
Tuesday: Sleeping With Secretariat?: The $50,000+ bed I really want to try, but it’ll probably ruin me for all other beds.
Wednesday: America's Most Wanted's Strangest Capture: I realized afterward that all the possessive apostrophes in this title make it hard to parse.
Thursday: Jeopardy! is Full of Lies*: I don’t like airline food, for what it’s worth.
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And thanks! — Dan
Long Reads and Other Things
Here are a few things you may want to check out over the weekend:
1) “Ping-pong sponges, ‘black smokers’ and floating somethings: the secrets of the deep sea” (The Guardian, 20 minutes, June 2026). The subhead: “The bottom of the ocean has barely been explored, but every journey to the deep reveals wondrous new lifeforms. As underwater mining gains momentum, we risk destroying one of the Earth’s last great wildernesses.”
2) “The Renegade Bank Robbers Who Stole Back Their Own Money” (Narratively, 16 minutes, June 2026). Two career criminals convinced themselves that the banking system had been stealing from ordinary people for years, so they tried to steal it back.
3) “We’re Thinking About Darkness All Wrong” (Harvard Magazine, 12 minutes, June 2026). The author argues that artificial light is pretty bad for us, and we need to spend more time in the dark. I don’t know if I agree, but who knows.
Have a great weekend!
Dan