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Showing posts from October, 2022

The Best Fruit You Have Never Heard Of

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I'm referring to the hardy kiwi.  OK, some of you have probably heard of it.  Go ahead and leave an angry comment below if you have.  I had never heard of this plant until I went searching for a shade-producing vine to grow up the new pergola I built over our deck.  It met all my criteria: fast growing, survives New England Winters and had an added bonus of bearing fruit.  The hardy kiwi is like a little cousin to the kiwi fruit you are familiar with in the grocery store but with one key improvement: it doesn't have the fuzzy skin.  Instead, it is smooth like a grape and you eat it whole.  It is sooo much easier to eat than the work that goes into preparing a traditional kiwi.  Why aren't these everywhere?  I guess, like with imperial measurements, we like to do things the hard way. This the hardy kiwi shown next to an apple for size reference: In my ongoing quest to turn my suburban yard into a farm, I decided to grow some.  I bought my vines on e-bay.  I got a female Ana
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Enough with the Shaky Camera Work

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It's time for a rant.  Today's target for my ire is movies and TV shows with intentionally shaky camera work.  At best, it is annoying and at worst it makes a movie unwatchable (think the Bourne Supremacy and the Bourne Ultimatum) I take my movie watching seriously.  I want to be immersed in the film and have little patience for interruptions and distractions.  Much like in a movie theater, a BIG screen and powerful surround sound system play a key role in achieving this effect in my home theater.  The downside of a big screen is a movie with excessive camera shake (and I'll lump fast cuts in with this) ends up being physically uncomfortable to watch.   I've seen some excuses from directors for this technique.  Some say it is to create a sense of speed and action.  Or chaos.  Some say it is to make a scene more realistic.  If that's what they are going for, they are failing badly.  Very few shaky cam scenes have ever achieved this effect for me.  The only one I can
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Into the Metaverse

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How I Met Your Metaverse I had never heard of " Ready Player One " until it showed up on my Prime Video feed.  The title didn't interest me (It sounds like a gamer movie I might have enjoyed as a kid, right?)  I didn't recognize any of the actors on the poster either, so I didn't watch it.  A while later I learned it was directed by Steven Spielberg and that piqued my interest, so I finally watched it.  I loved it! The storyline was interesting, the acting was fine, the overall production was, of course, Spielberg quality.  Lots of 80's nostalgia was a pleasant bonus. But what really made the movie stand out was the vision of the metaverse it presented.  It was an entire virtual world complete with haptic hardware allowing you to truly be immersed in it.   Side note:  I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the movie was based on the book " Ready Player One " by Ernest Cline ( Purchase through this link and earn me a commission .  Why isn'
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There Are No Heroes

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  This is a topic I have been pondering for a while.  With the holiday formerly known as Columbus Day approaching it seems like a perfect time to dig into it. At any time in my life if you asked me who my heroes are, I don't think I would have an answer.  I have never been prone to hero worship, and the more I think about it, the less sense it makes to me.  To be clear, I think there are many people who do heroic things and acts of heroism big and small should be celebrated.  But the act must be separated from the person and one act (or many) does not a hero make.  Noone is a saint.  I'd speculate that even Saints weren't saints 100% of the time! Our contemporary society, with so much or our lives taking place in public on the Internet, is making this clearer than ever.  No idol can survive the magnifying glass scrutinizing their entire life.  So, let's not idolize anybody.  Let's idolize worthy actions and ideas instead! Instead of celebrating Christopher Columbus,
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My DNA Shocker

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 Did the clickbait title draw you in?  My shock may not be what you expect.  It isn't that I have some genetic condition I didn't know about or found out I was adopted.  My shock was at how primitive our current knowledge about our genome is!   Disclaimers: My readers are all intelligent enough to know this, but nothing in this blog should be considered medical advice since I am not a doctor or geneticist! Amazon links in this blog will hopefully earn me a commission .  I was going to put them in anyway so I might as well get paid for it!  A link does not necessarily mean I endorse that product.  Update: I apparently didn't drive enough traffic to Amazon, so they booted me from their associates program.  Links in this blog now earn me diddly squat. Background I read a book this summer called Healthy Heart, Healthy Brain  that presented what the authors' claim is a new way of looking at heart and brain health.  It focused a lot on non-invasive testing with specific tests
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Ryan's Wisdumb Inaugural 🥳

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Welcome!   This blog is officially born on a blustery New England Autumn day in early October 2022, but you could say it has been gestating in my head for many years.  So why start it now?  I can't say for sure what is motivating me at this moment, but I suspect it has to do with "free" time.  Life circumstances are currently allowing me to work less hours at my day job (electrical engineer) and spend more time pursuing various other interests.  A side effect of this is deep thoughts on all sorts of subjects rattling around in my head that I'm certain the world needs to hear. [Note: As my blog title might indicate, I am an unapologetic devotee of  sarcasm . But don't worry, I'm sure my brilliant and good-looking readers all have the sophisticated sense of humor necessary for ferreting out my true meaning.] About Me I plan to remain semi-anonymous for now.  Friends and family know who I am, but I'd rather not have the average Internet comment section psych
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Location: Massachusetts, USA
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Popular posts from this blog

What does a post-growth society look like?

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  A recent article in The Morning newsletter from the New York Times rekindled a smoldering ember of thought that resides in a corner of my mind.  It has never burned hot enough to inspire me to serious study on the subject, but this time it has at least motivated me enough to write about it.  The topic is growth; how our society and economy are dependent on it, why I think that is problematic, and how it can change.  My thoughts on this subject are not well formed at this time and, unusually for Wisdumb, I offer no answers, only more questions. The Times article covered the aging population of Japan and showed the chart below projecting other major economies and the world as a whole being on the brink of a rapidly aging populous. The article primarily focused on the social impacts of this aging population, in particular that Japan is running out of workers.  It posits the only solution is to bring in more immigrants.  This is what bothers me and stokes that ember in the back of my min
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Dolphin S200 Pool Cleaning Robot Drive Motor Repair

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 I've spent the past two weeks doing battle with my pool cleaning robot and want to share what I've learned so others can fix their own if they run into the same problem. My robot is a Maytronics Dolphin S200.  The internals are probably very similar or identical to other models, and I think there are even rebranded versions, so the details below likely apply to a fair amount of the population.  These robots are pretty expensive to buy, but they are, in my opinion, the best way to clean my pool.  My pool is surrounded by pine trees and they are always dropping stuff in the water, so I keep my robot in the pool and it runs daily on its timer with little intervention from me and uses much, much less electricity than my previous pressure-side pool cleaner. Rant on Robot Manufacturer Greed There is a lot of markup on these robots.  The S200 I got for $600 in 2017 (and its equivalents) now sell for more than $1000.  The exact same design.  No new technology in it.  No new R&D to
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Car Shopping in 2023: The Exciting Conclusion!

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  If you recall my August post on starting a car search, I presented a list of requirements that I wanted my new car to meet.  If you don't recall, go ahead and reread it.  I'll wait.  I had to do that to remember what I wrote as I can't remember what happened yesterday, much less four months ago! As expected, I had to compromise on some of my requirements.  After test driving most of the cars on my list of options, I ended up buying a 2018 Nissan Pathfinder Platinum, shown here after hauling a bunch of scouts up to Vermont for a backpacking trip just hours after I drove it off the lot.   Incidentally, this photo has an easter egg for a future backpacking product review. Now that I have had the car for a month or so, let's check out the score card and see how I did: Good Highway Gas Mileage (7 out of 10) Reliability (7 out of 10) Good towing capacity (10 out of 10) Cargo Capacity  >40 preferred. (10 out of 10) Wireless Android Auto (3 out of 10) Heated and Ventilate
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