One year of Not-Ship: Finding clarity in uncertain times
It's Not-Ship's first birthday! To celebrate, I'm aiming for 30 new paying members by Nov. 3. Let's go!I'm also making an important change, so make sure to get to the end.
I won't spam you: Free subscribers will only get three extra emails in the next two weeks. Also, a special welcome to the loads of new readers who joined us from Hacker News. Enjoy!
💙 Amanda
Happy birthday to us!
One year ago, I sent the very first Not-Ship dispatch. It was about uncertainty. I was really feeling it — I had left my job at the Washington Post, celebrated a milestone birthday and gotten a tattoo.
And then I found out everyone else was feeling it, too.
When Not-Ship launched, global uncertainty was spiking
World Uncertainty Index, Jan. 2008 to Sept. 2026.
The World Uncertainty Index measures how often the word “uncertain,” or its variants, appears in Economist Intelligence Unit country reports, as a share of the total word count. (It's rescaled, so higher values mean more uncertainty.)
That spike makes sense. Years of Covid, a war kicking off in Ukraine, and the reality of a second Trump term — it was all too much. Technically, the index captures economic and political uncertainty, rather than public sentiment. But when experts are uneasy about what's coming, sooner or later the rest of us feel it, too.
Global uncertainty is lower now than when Not-Ship launched, but it's still much, much higher than before Trump's second term.
I started Not-Ship as a way to combat that uncertainty, and the overwhelm and helplessness that come with it. My goal was to tackle our messy world with the best tools I've got: good data and smart charts.
And that's exactly what I've been doing.
Over 47 issues of Not-Ship, we've covered a possible new class of hurricane, challenged extinction math, and asked whether birds can save our sanity (tl;dr kinda!). We asked what Wikipedia can tell us about ourselves, scrutinized Olympic budgets and found the wealthy (they're hiding in the shade). All of it was backed by more than 300 sources, and plenty of charts.
Not-Ship has published 167 charts or diagrams over the last year
Number of graphics in each weekly issue.
A year later, I wouldn't say my world is any more certain. But I have found some clarity:
Our beliefs don't always stand up to the data: Blue walls won't make you feel calmer, and the US isn't as exceptional as it likes to think.
Things that feel inevitable often aren't: Helsinki went a full year without a single traffic death, and the UK found a way to end smoking.
Things that keep us well are often small and close to home: Watching birds can ease stress, a view of three trees is becoming a standard for healthy cities and your local pub matters a lot.
And not all numbers deserve our attention: That "regular price" during a sale? It's often a fiction. And the chance of AI wiping us out is just a hunch dressed up as data.
In year two, Not-Ship will keep bringing you data that informs and delights, with even more focus on the stories behind the statistics. But to keep going, I need to make a change.
What's next for Not-Ship
For the past year, I've worked hard to keep Not-Ship free for everyone. A group of you kept it going by becoming paid subscribers. You have my enormous gratitude! I wanted that model to work because I believe we could all use more data, and good journalism that makes data accessible is hard to find. But, realistically, asking people to pay for what's already free is a tough sell. If I want Not-Ship to keep going — to keep putting out useful, data-backed analysis about our messy world — that model needs to be tweaked.
So here's the change: Starting in November, some Not-Ship stories will be for members only. I will still publish one or two free dispatches every month, though the timing will vary, so don't unsubscribe!My mission hasn't changed: Get more data into more people's lives, and the free stories are how I'll do that. But only paying members will get to read everything Not-Ship puts out. All pieces published over the last year will remain free.
To ease the transition, I'm offering 20% off an annual membership if you join by Nov. 3. That's $72 for your first year instead of $90. (Prefer monthly? .)
I'm really proud of what we're building here. Let's keep going!
FROM ELSEWHERE
Here's what I found interesting, important or delightful this week:
How sad is this chapter? This crowdsourced website promises to help you "find out how emotionally devastating a chapter is before you read it." The site is only a week old, so many books don't yet have ratings.
The catalogue of imaginary beings. I recently came across this incredible collection of fantastical collages by artist Johanna Goodman. I'm obsessed!
"Why am I like this?" Grace Yeoh, a friend of mine, wrote a lovely piece about living with ADHD and being "high functioning." I don't like to share paywalled articles, but if you put in your email, you should be able to read it for free.
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