Relativiti

Document your extended family, set up random gift exchanges, and see how you’re all related to one another.

Why This Even Exists

This is, admittedly, a somewhat complex application. It grew out of my need to solve two distinct problems at two different times.

First, there was the extended family gift exchange. This is a way for the extended family (which is kind of big, and geographically dispersed) to stay in touch and for everyone to get a present at the holidays without anyone going broke by having to ship out zillions of presents. There are rules, too: you don’t get the same person two years in a row, kids get kids and adults get adults, you don’t get siblings or parents or offspring or partners, and you don’t get anyone you live with – after all, you are already getting those people a present, because you are not a horrible person. We used to do this with a paper slips in a hat “random” draw, but that was kind of a pain and when my sister in law asked if I could write a program to do it, of course I could.

Second, and several years later, my wife idly wondered, “I know that (redacted) is my cousin, but are they my second cousin, or first cousin once removed, or what?” I looked up what that means, and got the answer but unless you’re doing this kind of relationship figuring all the time, it’s not the kind of algorithm or knowledge that is worth keeping loaded in one’s brain. But it turns out that the way to figure it out requires the same kind of data structure that is needed for the gift exchange rules to work on, so I got these crazy features together.

At first, this was an online service so I could send automatic emails to people with their gift assignments, and then so that different people could collaborate on updating the relationship database, but that comes with a bunch of overhead costs, not to mention the need for privacy and security when you’re dealing with real people and their families and relationships in, you know, the world we have today. So I got rid of the server and made this a document based application; if you want to collaborate with someone, you can save the document and email it to them, just like we did in The Old Days.

Data Collected

If I collect data, then I have to store it, I have to secure it, I have to tell you about it, and I have to be prepared to delete it. That’s way too much work. Rather than do that, I don’t collect anything, and my life is better for it. Frankly, so is yours. You’re welcome.

Support

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