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Why do meteor shower peaks always occur inconveniently early in the morning?

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  This is a question I came up with after my last two meteor shower viewing attempts in October and November left me underwhelmed.  I'm not much of a night owl so I did my viewing from when it got dark (5:30ish this time of year) until 8PM or so and only saw maybe 4 meteors in that time.  Cool, but underwhelming.  The media reported the peak times for viewing were right before dawn.  I started noticing they all have their peaks early in the morning hours and wondered why none ever peak at more like 8PM. If I were smarter, I probably could've figured this out myself.  I finally got around to Googling it and it only took 2 seconds to find the answer.  It turns out, that at dawn, the sky overhead is aimed in the direction the earth is orbiting around the sun.  As a result, the debris fields the earth is passing through that that is the source of the meteors is directly overhead at your location at dawn.  The hours just before dawn when it is dark enough to see them should therefor
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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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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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