Any software you find is likely just going to be a database entry/maintenance type software tool for storing your genealogical information, but itself will not give you any information; it just provides a place for you to keep track of information you do find from other sources.

If you are stuck on open-source, I'm not sure how to help you, but if all you really care about is that it is free, I can strongly recommend Personal Ancestral File from here. While it has some fields for Mormon ordinances, you don't have to use those features and it will do nicely to maintain your records.

As for doing the actual research, again I recommend looking into the Mormons - they maintain branches of their main family history library at various church buildings around the world. The volunteers who staff those branches are instructed to not proselyte, they simply are there to help you do the research. The only time you'll have to pay for something is for obvious things like using the copy machine, or if you want to have records shipped in from Salt Lake City you'll have to pay postage, but that's it.

Disclaimer: yes, I am a Mormon, so I may be biased on this matter, but as far as I've seen, the Mormons are the premier experts in the world when it comes to family history research.

I work as a student employee at my university. Over the last summer, we replaced about 500 computers across campus (most of our student lab machines). The new machines only have Display Port as their graphics interface, and we have had lots of problems with it. Lots of various software glitches, and even some significant hardware issues as well.

One issue is that the physical connector is not very sturdy. One good whap (which is not uncommon in an academic environment) and the connector gets destroyed, sometimes taking the graphics card with it. We've had to replace several graphics cards because of this. This was not a problem with our previous batch of machines, which used *gasp* VGA. There are other issues as well, such that there was actually some serious discussion at upper levels of management about the possibility of returning the whole lot of computers (remember, about 500) and demanding the replacement use either VGA or DVI. In the end, they decided that this would be more trouble than it was worth, and that we'd just deal with Display Port issues as they arise. Which, they continue to do.

As for myself, I have no intention of ever using Display Port as my primary display interface on my personal machines unless there is literally no other option. In my opinion, DVI is superior in every respect that matters, and even VGA is preferable.

I rarely watch movies in the theater. The last one was Toy Story 3, which I saw with my wife. We were rather annoyed with the fact that we had to go out of our way to find a screen showing it in 2D, as it seemed everyone just wanted to show it in 3D.

Even if it was cheaper, I wouldn't want to watch it in 3D. It's a gimmick, and one that gives me headaches at that. If there were no screens showing it in 2D, we would have skipped it and waited for it to come out on video. This will forever be true for me - if moviemakers decide that every movie should be 3D, then my days of going to the theater are done. Now that I have a nice HDTV at home, the desire to go to the theater is lessened, anyway.

I hope more producers take the stance against it that Christopher Nolan has - then maybe we'll see some sanity in the industry about it. Maybe that's a tall order, but I hope not.

Assuming a height of 5'6" (1.68 meters), the units convert like this:

3000 heights = 3.125 miles = 5.03 kilometers
6000 heights = 6.25 miles = 10.06 kilometers
9000 heights = 9.375 miles = 15.09 kilometers
12000 heights = 12.5 miles = 20.12 kilometers
15000 heights = 15.675 miles = 25.15 kilometers

Pretty much, unless you are in the city you were born in, your answer should be more than 15,000.

According to Google Maps, I am 1,234 miles by car from where I was born. I am 6 feet tall, which means I am 1,085,920 heights from my birthplace.

I've only ever purchased one Ubisoft title, and that was Beyond Good and Evil for the GameCube. I rather enjoyed this game, and am excited that a sequel is in development, though likely still a few years from being released. However, it seems unlikely that they will release a Wii version of BG&E2, which means that I was going to be dependent on getting the PC version to enjoy the game. However, if it winds up with the limitations of this draconian DRM, then I will pass on it entirely.

People have often complained about Steam doing similar things. However, in the case of Steam, it at least has an offline mode. You get authenticated against the server, and then you can play your games offline. I'm fine with the way Steam does things - my only real complaint is the lack of aftermarket sales, but I've never bought a used game anyway so it doesn't really affect me.

No single-player game should ever require an active Internet connection to play. Sure, it can be supported, allowing for saving progress on the server, but not required.

I've never been on Mt. Evans, but being from Colorado Springs (at the base of Pikes Peak), I have driven up Pikes Peak. Not as a racer, mind you, just as a tourist, in my '02 Saturn SL2.

It's not a simple road. Even going slowly, you definitely have to pay attention. Lots of loose gravel and dirt where a moments inattention can result in a skid where you go driving right off the side of the mountain. And as others have pointed out, the difference in elevation wreaks havoc on engine efficiency - going from about 8000 feet elevation at the toll gate to just over 14000 feet at the summit, my car was noticeably more sluggish near the top than it usually is (Colorado Springs, where I do most of my driving, averages at about 6500 feet). As an indication of the hazards of the road, every once in a while there is a local news report of someone driving off the road to their doom.

Every summer, there is an organized race up the mountain, the Annual Pikes Peak Hill Climb. I assume that this robot will be doing its thing during that race. I look forward to hearing about how well it does.

It's interesting to me that the only incident involving these Somali pirates and an American vessel resulted in the US Navy getting involved, a few dead pirates, and a rescued civilian Captain. I think it's great that our military took such a firm stance against those pirates and actually protected American citizens. Why don't other nations' militaries take a similar hard-line approach?

All it would take is a few more stories about how a military vessel used lethal force against pirates to protect innocent civilians, and the piracy would dramatically decrease. Heck, a single aircraft carrier in the region, launching planes to fly patrols which would respond to distress calls, would go a long way to securing the region. Why isn't this done?

I agree. I used to play Mario Kart online a lot. Several sessions a week, at least.

The cheating started slowly at first. And initially, I wasn't even completely sure if it was, in fact, cheating, or if the people playing were just getting lucky. I wasn't seeing anything that couldn't be legitimately explained through the game's normal mechanics, even if I was seeing suspicious behavior more and more often. The kicker, though, happened the last time I played, which was about a month ago: someone pegged me with a red shell right off the starting line. Well before we reached any items on the course.

I didn't stick around. When that happened, I knew for a fact that there was cheating going on. I immediately powered off the Wii, and I haven't been back into online Mario Kart play since.

I would pay money to get an update to Mario Kart Wii that removes cheating.

The parent poster has a lot of good advice. He has said a lot of the same things I would say, only better.

One thing I'd like to point out is that the books you're looking at might not be as useless as you might think. The specific examples in them might not apply to you, but the general principles probably do. What I mean is that the sports jockey who neglects his wife to follow his favorite sports/teams is not all that different than the gamer who neglects his wife to make it to that raid in WoW (just an example, if you don't play WoW, then apply it to whatever games you do play).

I'll use myself as an example: my wife thinks I play too much WoW. I don't play as much as I would like to, but I've reached a compromise with her: she allows me to raid 2 nights a week. I choose the nights, but I have to let her know in advance (at least 24 hours if possible). I've found a good guild that works with me on that, not the best but far from the worst, and it's allowed me to see most of Ulduar (up until yesterday the final raid instance in the game). If she sincerely asks me to, I would drop WoW in a heartbeat, but I don't think she ever will as long as I keep it in moderation. She knows that WoW is something that I enjoy, so she lets me play.

I have to second what the parent poster said about putting your wife first. The best, most happy and fulfilling marriages are those in which both partners do this. You can't control whether your wife does, but you certainly can control whether you do! And when you do, your wife will most likely reciprocate. Don't try to keep tabs, though - the geek side of you might be tempted to try "keeping score", but that is not healthy. Just serve your wife and let her (but don't force her) serve you.

Definately do things together. My wife and I are similiar in some ways to the relationship described in the article - she likes to read and I am a gamer. So sometimes we read together (we're working through Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time together, I've read it before but she hasn't), and I've actually gotten her to play some WoW (she's nowhere near as interested in it as I am, but she enjoys playing it together with me).

Don't listen to those who are telling you not to get married. Marriage to the right person is a wonderful thing, and you will have many years of happiness if you do it right. Yes, some marriages end in bitterness, but the best way to avoid that is to marry the right person in the first place, and then continue to treat her in the marriage the way you did while you were dating. The time to figure out if it's not going to work is before you tie the knot - if there are any significant issues make sure they are dealt with as getting married won't make them magically disappear. But also keep in mind that there will be issues - no two people get along perfectly. There's a saying that you should date with both eyes wide open, but keep one eye closed when you are married. What that means is that once you are married, don't dwell on your wife's faults. She isn't perfect, even if she might seem that way now. You will find faults in her, and her in you (possibly even some that you may not yet be aware of or even think of as "faults"). But don't use those faults against her, especially as leverage when you argue. That is bad. When the stress of daily life is getting you down and all you can think about is what is wrong, take a step back and remember the good things about her that drew you to her in the first place. In truth, part of the joy in marriage is working through disagreements because in the end, having a happy wife is worth all the trouble.

As a final thought, in case you're wondering, I am happily married for coming up on two years (my second anniversary [don't forget your anniversary date, she won't] is in less than a week). I look forward to many more years of marriage. Good luck in yours, and may you two find happiness together.

There are multiple issues that the therapists will have to overcome before they can be reasonably effective at this. They've already acknowledged 1 of them with the line quoted in the summary: "Of course one problem we're going to have to overcome is that while a psychiatrist may excel in what they do in the real world, they're probably not going to be very good at playing World of Warcraft." Related to this, and a challenge that they may not yet be aware of, is the fact that there are over 200 realms in North America alone and they have to be on the same realm as the person they are trying to help. The quoted line indicates that they are planning on actually playing the game with the addicted players, and that means that they will need a level 80 character on each and every realm that one of their patients plays on. That's a lot of time spent leveling.

If the person they are trying to help hasn't already agreed to meet with them, they aren't going to get very far. Unsolicited attempts in-game will be seen about as favorably as gold spammers and will get the /ignore. If the therapists persist and attempt to get around the /ignore (by using other characters or whatever), then they cross the line of what is acceptable under the game's Terms of Use and may find their accounts suspended if their target decides to report them to a GM. Additionally, if they attempt to hire a power-leveling service to get their therapist characters up to 80, they'll quickly find that to be very much against the rules - I've heard of cases of permanent bans with no warning for people caught doing that.

In short, I forsee this endeavor falling flat. I hope they aren't spending any taxpayer money on it.

It's an interesting contrast when compared to WoW. WoW has over 100 realms in North America alone, and they are still adding more. Maybe not on the same pace as when it first launched, but there have been 4 new realms opened just since the beginning of the year. Source

I'm reminded of a comment I saw a few months ago by a Blizzard exec (I don't have the source and don't feel sufficiently motivated to look it up) that basically said that most of the people that had canceled their WoW account indicating that they were moving on to Warhammer have since reactivated their WoW account.

I think that's pretty telling.