A few months ago, I read about a research project being conducted by National Geographic. You submit your DNA sample, they do an analysis of the Y chromosome, and then they will tell you the route your oldest ancestors took to leave Africa. It sounded interesting to me, although I didn't really understand everything about the project, but I purchased a kit and submitted my sample.

What I didn't know until I looked into this project, is that there is a significant piece of DNA, through the Y chromosome, that is passed almost unaltered from father to son. So scientists have the ability to go back many, many generations along the male line - father, to father, to father, and so on forever. Every once and a while, a slight mutation enters the line, but that's evolution in action.

Incidentally, there are female genes passed from mother to daughter called mtDNA.

For the record, I am a member of Haplogroup I. I might be a member of subgroup I1a, but I'm not totally sure. I'm still doing research on that.

So what does that tell me? Not much. I share a common ancestor with almost every person alive today - “Eurasian Adam” - the common ancestor of every non-African man alive today (the M168 DNA marker). He wasn't the first man alive, so he's not the biblical Adam. But he's the only one with ancestors that left Africa and survived.

After leaving Africa 45,000 years ago (the M89 marker), most likely my ancestors settled in southeastern and central Europe about 20,000 years ago (the M170 marker).

I've signed up to get my genes analyzed further. Hopefully, it will allow me to find relatives in Canada that I didn't know I had. But I'll talk about using DNA to research my family tree another time.

Hopefully, everyone is aware of the terrible flooding that has destroyed parts of Louisiana. Strong forces of nature such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, and tsnuamis come along every once and a while - and leave human suffering in their wake. Not to sound callous, but “it happens”.

Often when this happens, the people affected band together to help each other. Resuce operations are launched. Volunteers stream in from places far and wide. Donations are collected. The community comes together.

But sometimes, the opposite happens. What we're hearing about the flooding in the Southern U.S. is a prime example. For instance, today in New Orleans the following happened:

• three shootings
• looting
• a number of attempted carjackings

From CNN:

Hundreds of people were looting businesses downtown, throwing rocks through windows and hauling away goods from stores. Some looters were brazenly trying on clothes in the street. Police said the looting was happening citywide.

To which all I can say is: what the f$%* is wrong with people these days?

Some of the most anticipated components of Visual Studio 2005, the tools known as Team Foundation, are being delayed from their initial launch date of Nov 7 to Q1 2006. Microsoft will instead offer one more beta to developers. Team Foundation includes tools such as integrated bug tracking, version control, reporting, and automated builds.

I saw this over at Digg, and had to try it. It's a version of Linux that you can burn to a CD, and boot the computer from the CD. Basically, a “no install” OS.

So I have downloaded the ISO, burnt the CD and attempted to boot my laptop with it.

If it works, I'll post a quick review of it here. I might have to try 2 or 3 “boot from CD” linux distros to get it to work.

Update: After getting a few error messages, it booted successfully. Screen shot is below.

My main problem now, I guess, is figuring out what to do with Linux now that it's loaded. It doesn't come with a web browser, so I might have to find one. And it took about 30 minutes to load. It's nice to see it work, though. Cool!

I'm sorry I haven't been posting to this blog as often as I should. I will try to get back into a regular habit.

One reason this is so is because I haven't had much to say. There are many reasons behind this:

* Family stuff
* Addicted to Star Wars: Galaxies online game
* Stopped working on my Visual Studio 2005 book

Anyways, the “family stuff” is now taking much less time (for now). And I am thinking about giving up SWG. That should give me more time. I hope.

You have to hand it to Apple. I mean, when they get something right, and the market responds with millions of units sold, they deserve all the money and accolades that come along with it.

I am now the proud owner of a brand, spanking new iPod. I guess my wife got tired of me staring at them lustfully in Best Buy and decided it was time to just buy one already.

My one problem right now is that I have been purchasing music in Windows Media format from PureTracks. And the only way to get that into my iPod is to burn it to CD, and then rip the CD to MP3. (Or buy it again from iTunes.)

I own a license to the music, but it's damn difficult to get it into iPod...

I am actually starting on a Visual Studio 2005 project at work. The thing is barely in Beta 2, but enough people here are excited about the new features in the .NET Framework that we've been told to use that as the platform for our next project.

(Of course, it will have a SQL Server 2005 back end.)

I. Can't. Wait.