In North America, and perhaps many other places, the end of August and early September is a time for that last summer vacation, moving back to school, moving your kid(s) back to school, back to school shopping, and several weeks of awful commuter traffic.

There are other lulls corresponding to American Thanksgiving, Winter Holidays (Christmas, New Year's, etc.), Chinese New Year, spring term resumption, Spring Break, Finals Week, and Summertime In General.

It's amazing how many people are indirectly affected. Even the extra hour of commuting until the masses figure out a more efficient traffic pattern will affect time available for real work.

I wonder how many volunteers were seasonally impacted?

Perhaps someone can run a histogram of CPAN uploads by day of the year? Ah, well, there are probably more important things to do...