While we may not think that the 4G iPhone is an enormous upgrade, it’s all about the cameras, and that’s specifically the area we’re hooked on. So for some 5 megapixel camera love (plus flash and HD video recording), the new iPhone has us interested. We bought the 3GS upon release, so we should be eligible for the discounted upgrade, but… we’re not.

We pre-ordered our iPhone 3GS to replace our 2G iPhone on T-Mobile, activating it on day one of 3GS availability. About half a year later, we converted our plan to a family plan, and then added a line for our girlfriend. There was also some hooplah about converting the plan to be region-free, since we both ported numbers from different area codes. During all this reshuffling, her phone somehow became the “primary” number on the account, which was inconsequential until today.

When we checked to see if our phone was eligible for the discounted upgrade, we were told it wasn’t, and that we would have to wait until February. The second line we added, however, even though activated half a year later, was already eligible, even though the reverse should be true. Apparently, AT&T can’t fix this in the system, because even if they switch the original phone back to be the primary, that switch alone causes a three-month penalty for future upgrades. So because AT&T didn’t set things up the way initially requested (presumably because it was easier for the salesperson who set up our second phone), I now can’t upgrade at the lowest cost possible. Why AT&T can’t simply swap upgrade eligibility between phones remains a mystery, considering that both phones are on the same plan, billed to the same person.

For us, this is a major complaint against AT&T, especially since the customer sales representative we spoke to today had major attitude when we politely addressed the issue and the reason for our dissatisfaction. This from a company we’ve defended from daily onslaught by other iPhone users. Thanks, AT&T. You have one more year from us, and then you better hope you’re still the only US iPhone carrier.

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It’s bad enough when establishments charge the same price for a smaller item. Take Starbucks as an example, where a double-tall espresso drink (a tall drink with two shots of espresso) costs the same amount of money as a grande (another drink with two shots of espresso, albeit with more milk/syrup). In other words, if you want an espresso drink with two shots of espresso, you get more for your money by ordering the grande.

That’s fine if you’re okay with more milk and sugar, but let’s say you want something less filling, but with an equal amount of caffeine. Shouldn’t the double-tall drink cost less, since you get less?

Adding insult to injury, after a long wait for our drink today, the teenage barista behind the counter apologized, and told us he’d upgrade our drink to a grande to make up for it. Upgrade? By giving us a drink we didn’t want that costs the same as the one we ordered? Thanks for nothing.

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When we decided to adopt an American Pit Bull Terrier (APBT), we knew that we’d be fighting an uphill battle against the ignorant masses. Thanks to exaggerated, biased media reports that sell their stories by promoting fear-mongering, the press has demonized a number of dog breeds under the “pitbull” label. It’s unfortunate for a variety of reasons, not the least which is the euthanizing of hundreds of “pitbulls” in shelters across the United States.

While we did a fair amount of research into the APBT and related breeds, it’s since become more and more obvious to us that the media is still on its mission to place blame on the wrong parties. The Michael Vick story helped bring certain elements of the issue to light, but the damage to “pitbull” breeds was done by Sports Illustrated years ago, and the damage likely won’t be undone for many years to come, if ever. And it’s not just the media, but regular folks who regurgitate untruths because they simply don’t know any better. For the purpose of promoting facts, let’s clarify some points for those whose knowledge of “pitbulls” is based entirely on hearsay and partial information.

First off, there is no “pitbull” breed. The media lumps several breeds under this label, to include the APBT, American Bulldog, American Staffordshire Terrier, Bull Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and others. This even includes mastiff mixes and other mutts. Basically, any dog that vaguely visually resembles a stocky, yet athletic dog, similar in appearance to the APBT, is designated a “pitbull.” Interestingly, the APBT is the only breed with “pitbull” in its name, and it’s the second smallest of the aforementioned breeds. In fact, of those breeds, only the American Bulldog typically exceeds 85lb in weight. Stories of 100+lb pitbulls refer to mastiffs or mastiff mixes. The APBT, for example, maxes out at around 60lbs for a male. APBT’s on the lower end weigh as little as 30lbs. But to understand the “pitbull,” one has to know more than its size.

A little history.

One of the first things anyone will tell you about the “pitbull” is that it was bred to fight other dogs, but this is only a half-truth. To understand the whole picture, one has to go even further back in history. All of the aforementioned breeds have a common ancestor: the old English bulldog. This bulldog breed weighed 45 pounds average (the median weight for an APBT), and was a working dog that technically no longer exists. It was also the father of the modern-day English Bulldog, which is derived from a cross-breed of the old English bulldog and the Pug, and further bred for certain aesthetic elements, resulting in today’s rather unhealthy breed. Its ancestor, on the other hand, was a very powerful, agile, working dog.

The old bulldog breed was named after a sport that placed the breed in high demand: bull-baiting, a sport later outlawed. Mind you, it was also used for other working tasks of the era, to include pulling loads, working cattle, and other farmhouse activities. Nonetheless, the popularity of bull-baiting made the old English bulldog a popular breed, and it is said that the breed was derived of smaller mastiff stock, later bred with greyhounds to increase agility.

The sport of bull-baiting required two important factors, which remain with modern-day APBTs and many “pitbull” breeds. Firstly, strong jaws were required in order for the dog to grab ahold of a bull’s snout and hold on despite any movement by the bull. It is important to distinguish strong jaws and the behavior to hold on at all costs with “lock-jaw,” however, which is a myth. Where the myth of “lock-jaw” originated, we don’t know, but there is no physical mechanism for a dog to “lock” its jaws in a bite. In fact, “pitbulls” don’t have exceptionally stronger bite strength than other dogs, but merely retain the knack of holding onto a target. Most other breeds, when confronted, have a tendency to snap, gnash, slash, and tear. Secondly, “gameness” was required to confront an enormous, bucking bull. This fierce courage would become an important trait for a bulldog’s success in the “pit.” Note that the “pit” in “pitbull” refers to a hole that the bull, and bulldog, were placed into for bull-baiting. It does not refer to a dogfighting pit.

When bull-baiting was banned in 1835 by British Parliament, the bulldog’s popularity declined. Around that time, dog-fighting began to rise in popularity, and it was then that the bulldog was bred with trace amounts of old English terrier in order to increase the breed’s agility. These terriers, too, were known for their gameness. The resulting breed, still quite similar to the bulldog of old, became known in the US as the APBT, while in England, it was named the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. By the 1960s, dog-fighting was banned in most US States, with the last State signing off on the ban in 1976.

The American Staffordshire Terrier is of the same stock as the APBT and Staffordshire Bull Terrier, only bred further for the show ring (and to distance the breed from dog-fighting). The APBT and Staffordshire Bull Terrier, meanwhile, remained working dogs. While they were favored by dog-fighters, they were still used for a variety of working purposes, much like their bulldog ancestors. In fact, so respected were these dogs, that the US adopted the APBT to symbolize America: friendly, courageous, hard-working, and loyal. Indeed, the APBT was considered such a good family dog, and so good with children, than it was referred to as the “nanny dog.” The dog in The Little Rascals: yeah, it was an APBT.

How was the APBT’s reputation not marred back then, despite dog-fighting still being legal in the United States? One reason is simple: traditional dog-fighting did not tolerate human-aggression. In a typical dog-fighting ring, not only were there two dogs, but there were at least two people inside the ring as well, constantly re-positioning their respective dog’s bites for scoring purposes. With human hands in such close contact with fighting dogs, mid-fight, signs of human aggression were not tolerated. If such aggression materialized, the dogs would immediately be put down. Thus, the only fighting dogs that were further bred were those without any signs of human aggression. So it was no mystery that these same dogs, fierce in the ring against other dogs, would be very good household companions. After the ban on dog-fighting was put in place, dog-fighting naturally declined. Most APBTs involved in the sport were re-integrated in the general house-pet populace, along with their non-fighting APBT brothers, and their American Staffordshire Terrier cousins. Since, the APBT has continued to excel as a working and family dog.

Today, dog-fighting lives on, primarily in low-income, high-crime areas. Dog-fighting is linked to the drug trade and violent gangs, and it’s no surprise that most dogs used in the ring for this purpose lead pretty awful lives, not just when they fight, but in their daily lives as well. They are generally uncared for, malnourished, and never properly socialized or trained. Sadly, APBTs are often still favored for the sport, because what made them great at bull-baiting, and in the dog-fighting of earlier days, also make them great at dog-fighting today: their bite-and-hold, gameness, strength, and agility.

Regarding aggression.

Sites like dogsbite.org suggest that “pitbulls” are dangerous, but in actuality, sites like dogsbite.org lie. In this case, it’s a matter of the site owner having been attacked in the past, and now going on a rampage against “pitbulls” out of ignorance. Truth is, the “facts/conclusions” on those sites are made up, and not actually supported by purposeful studies, if any real studies whatsoever.

Based on the history above, there’s an obvious correlation between dog-fighting and APBTs, even though it’s not what APBTs were specifically bred for. Moreover, other dog breeds were used in dog-fighting too. However, the APBT’s traits have made them a choice breed for the bloodsport, in much the same way the breed excels at other working tasks: the “Superdog” title is used to describe any dog that has earned UKC titles in four areas open to all breeds, namely conformation, agility, weight pull, and obedience. Twenty of 47 Superdogs have been APBTs, and nine others Staffordshire Bull Terriers. That means over half of all Superdogs are of the same bulldog/terrier stock, illustrating just how intelligent, athletic, and flexible these dogs are. Similarly, three out of nine UKC Ultradogs were APBTs.

But back to aggression, the CDC’s Dog Bite Fact Sheet draws no conclusions based on breed.

A CDC study on fatal dog bites lists the breeds involved in fatal attacks over 20 years… It does not identify specific breeds that are most likely to bite or kill, and thus is not appropriate for policy-making decisions related to the topic… There is currently no accurate way to identify the number of dogs of a particular breed, and consequently no measure to determine which breeds are more likely to bite or kill.

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) concurs. For a longer read, The Pit Bull Placebo has additional facts supporting the CDC’s and ACMA’s claims.

Still, those who claim that the APBT is aggressive relies on the APBT’s dog-fighting past. But as the KC Dog Blog points out, it’s been over 70 years since the American Staffordshire Terrier was formalized, and with most State bans against dog-fighting being enacted in the 1860s, one can reasonably argue that there have been at least seven generations of dogs that were not bred for the ring, so even if a genetic disposition for canine aggression existed, it likely wouldn’t exist today.

And even if such a genetic disposition were scientifically proven to exist in most APBTs today (it hasn’t), it still wouldn’t indicate any level of human aggression, and if anything, would likely debunk any claims of human aggression at all, considering that the very practice of dog-fighting would have increased canine aggression at the expense of human aggression.

So then why does the media focus so highly on “pitbulls”? Well, for one, the media doesn’t care about the truth: sensational headlines sell papers. And really, if the average person can’t differentiate between breeds, what makes anyone think that a journalist can? In fact, DNA testing of dog breeds suggests that visual breed identification is only about 12% accurate. That’s why most shelters refer to any medium-to-large size, black dog as a “black lab mix,” and why “shepherd” mixes are unusually common. The reality is that aesthetic breed-specific traits are notoriously difficult to identify visually, which is why the media lumps so many breeds into the “pitbull” category, despite the fact that many “pitbull” dogs demonized aren’t even of the same bloodhound/terrier stock. This, of course, brings us again to the 100+lb “pitbull” stories, which are in all likelihod mastiff mixes, else dogs from “backyard breeders” who have spent years developing ill-tempered, unhealthy breeds for certain aesthetic characteristics (i.e. low, stocky build, bent-out shoulders, etc). For those who do argue genetics, note that most of these larger “pitbulls” were bred with mastiffs, which were not bread for any human bite-inhibition.

Don’t blame the breed.

The media isn’t just wrong to demonize based on breed, it’s wrong for forgetting what real investigative journalism is. If visual identification of breeds doesn’t work, then why not look for facts that do correlate between dog attacks? The recent killing of a two-year-old girl in Virginia has elements common to similar news stories.

1. The dog was a “resident” dog, not a family dog. In other words, it was not part of the family routine, but instead left outside and not fully integrated into the family.
2. The dog was chained up. This is generally considered a poor way to restrain a dog, is unhealthy, and yet by many dog-fighters, is considered good practice to toughen up a dog and build strength.
3. The neighborhood the incident took place in was below the poverty line, suggesting that the family likely lacked the education, and means, to raise a dog properly. In fact, the dog was probably malnourished, and was probably not routinely taken to the vet, either.
4. The family was obviously negligent. If a two-year old child can wander outside on its own and escape it’s mother’s watch, then imagine what little care the family had for the dog in the first place.
5. Given the family’s financial situation, it’s highly unlikely that there were any lineage papers for the dog, so there’s absolutely no evidence of breed identification in this case, bringing us back to the limitations of visual breed assessment. For all we know, especially since there are no pictures of the dog readily available on any site reporting the attack, the dog was a chihuahua. Aside from the dog’s age, was there anything descriptive about the dog noted, other than that neighbors (who were similarly ignorant) referred to the dog as a “pitbull”?

What all of this comes down to, like many other things, is education. If we had our way, we’d require any potential dog-owners to acquire a license before adopting a dog, to prove that they have the means, and education, to properly care for their pet. (Indeed, this should probably be extended to children also, but let’s discuss one thing at a time.) With no desire to truly incorporate a dog into one’s family dynamic, and no plans to properly train and care for a pet, one does everyone a disservice, and it’s no surprise that a child has died from these circumstances. While the investigation into this last specific case is still ongoing, I wouldn’t hesitate to pass a good chunck of the blame onto the parents here, and file criminal charges against them.

In any case, let’s stop with the stereotypes: with experts concluding that there’s no evidence to justify breed specific legislation, let’s end the “pitbull” hate.

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When the iPhone came out, we were one of the few who didn’t parade around the idea that it was the cell-phone Messiah. Heck, the iPhone didn’t do much that our Danger Sidekick didn’t, though the user experience was admittedly cleaner. But with iPhone OS 2.0 and the realization of an open AppStore (with some issues, admittedly), the iPhone user experience is as varied as the thousands of applications available. That’s why we weren’t so much taken aback by Meg Hourihan’s comment about whether or not she would purchase an iPhone 3GS: upgrading the iPhone was akin to upgrading her computer. John Gruber was quick to confirm this idea:

A decade ago, my first PowerBook was a secondary machine to the desktop anchored at my desk. Now, my main machine is my MacBook Pro, but it feels a bit like an anchor now. My mobile secondary computer is my iPhone.

And now that we have an iPhone 3GS, we too acknowledge the shift in computing gadgetry: on the very day we activated our 3GS, our MacBook Pro’s screen refused to turn back on after we set the 3GS up, and rebooted after the most recent Safari 4 patch. It turns out that the logic board needed to be replaced, since there was a known issue with the NVidia graphics card in our 17″ version of the MacBook Pro. While the repairs were done at an Apple Store an hour away, it still took a couple days to get the computer back, and in that time, we relied almost entirely on the iPhone for our internet-related tasks after work. And we weren’t very disappointed with the experience. In fact, in many ways, reliance on the 3GS versus the MacBook Pro was a relief: the device was always on us or nearby.

Now we’re hardly saying that the 3GS is an appropriate stand-in for a full-fledged computer. We still maintain that the iPhone is a poor device for inputting of most meaningful text, which is why we use the iPhone as a reader more than we rely on it to respond to people outside Twitter and SMS. But for this former purpose, the 3GS shines, because it’s snappy in most every sense of the word, and the experience of using it on the road (via 3G) is pretty much the same as using it at home on wi-fi. And that consistency makes the iPhone shine. For many, with greater storage (to hold all one’s songs, movies, and photos) and a bluetooth keyboard, the iPhone could theoretically become a replacement for the average home computer user almost entirely.

So changed were we by our forced use of the 3GS for nearly a week, we decided to offer our fixed MacBook Pro on craigslist. Not to rid ourselves of the anchor for our home computer use, but because we now find the device to be overkill for what we need to get done at home, and we see little reason not to downgrade to a smaller anchor now. Indeed, Apple’s “low-end” lineup is now ever-more attractive to us, and for the limited computer needs we have at home, we can finally agree that a 17″ monitor isn’t much of a necessity now that we’re not tied to an online game that benefits from it. Thanks in great part to AppStore apps, and the rise of mobile web pages tailored to the iPhone’s display, there’s an easy case to be made for iPhone’s replacing netbooks and many common-use notebooks/desktops. Again, the only obvious items holding the iPhone back from becoming a true computer replacement is its poor input mechanic and limited storage space, but the former can easily be remedied with technology that Apple appears to have green-lighted with better Bluetooth gadget operability.

We’re still holding out for a mid-way solution between the iPhone and MacBook, and we’re hoping that the iTablet fits the bill. But in the meantime, we’re only seeing use of our 3GS go up, while our MacBook is getting lonelier by the day.

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Looking back at the decades of games we’ve played, a handful jump out not only as among our favorites, but as enormous time and money sinks. It’s not that the dollars and time spent were wasted, because we certainly enjoyed them all, but it makes for an interesting retrospective when we consider the lengths we went to in order to maintain our addiction. The top-five titles we can recall, in order of release, follow.

The Wing Commander series: Okay, so maybe it’s not fair to give the title to a series, but our time spent playing the Wing Commander games is one big blur of space combat. The experience bled right into our time spent playing the Freespace games, as well as X-Wing and TIE Fighter, making for a slightly hazy recollection, but one certainly based on the Wing Commander franchise of old. Arguably, our love for flight simulators was born with Dynamic’s Red Baron, and quickly grew to higher destinations. While Wing Commander I and II didn’t necessarily steal our hearts right away, Wing Commander: Privateer destroyed any hope we may have had for returning to earth, introducing us not only to sandbox-style gameplay (unmatched to this day in space sims outside EVE Online), but also solidifying the love we had for the Kilrathi. When Wing Commander III stepped up to the plate with live-action cut-scenes and Mark-fucking-Hamill (we were huge Star Wars fans back then), the franchise proved even more groundbreaking than Sierra’s Phantasmagoria (also a solid title). Indeed, Wing Commander III became such a must-have for us, that we spent over $200 on new RAM just to get it to run. (The game needed at least 8MB of RAM for its future-like space graphics.) That’s dedication.

That’s not all, though – we easily spent another $200 on flight sticks, from the Flight Stick Pro, to the Phoenix, to our final multi-part Saitek model. Maybe it was more like $300.

Quake: While we were already firmly hooked on first-person shooters (FPS), Quake took our obsession to the next level. Ironic, then, that when we first picked up Quake at a computer convention, we played through it and thought little of it, wishing that the game captured a hint of the fun we faced when playing Doom 2 with a friend. But then we went to college where we discovered the joys of real broadband, and finally saw the amazing graphics that 3Dfx video accelerator cards produced, breathing new life into old games. Another ~$200 purchase later, with new accelerator card installed, Quake took on its new life with Quakeworld, and dorm-room fragging became our new past-time, eating up our time in just as bad a way as booze and late-night college parties.

Diablo 2: Again, not our introduction to a genre, but our continued obsession with it. In this case, Diablo 2 prevailed over our experience with Diablo and Darkstone, and may even have fallen into similar obscurity if it hadn’t been for the rather strange siren’s call it would produce every six to 12 months. Indeed, after playing Diablo 2 to death once, or even twice, it somehow kept wrangling us back as though we were some abused house-wife who just couldn’t will herself to get away. So it was with Diablo 2, playing first with single-player characters, then on Battle.Net a few times, and ultimately with hardcore characters who would inevitably die thanks to a bad-timed lag spike. Ultimately, this technical obstacle is what drove us away from the game, but more than once we’ve been called back to re-install the monster that influenced World of Warcraft. Indeed, if there wasn’t a problem installing Diablo 2 on the latest versions of OS X, we may be running a copy right now.

Counterstrike: What Quake was to our first year of university, Counterstrike was to every year after its release. While Half-Life didn’t really do much for us, Counterstrike took our soul and replaced it with a frag-crazed maniac. It’s the only title we can claim to have played on an internationally competitive level (we’re talking tournaments here, not just skills), and we followed the game’s development from its early betas to what we consider to have been its decline circa 2.0. By the time Source came along, we were already out of the mix, but before that, a desire to min-max our performance resulted in $100 mouse purchases (Razer Boomslang FTW!) and countless hardware upgrades. Granted, those upgrades may have been for other games as well, but it was Counterstrike that remained the prevailing force. Funny that, since this is the only free game on this list (purchase of Half-Life not withstanding). It’s also the only non-commercial game on this list, even though some enterprising folks decided to release a boxed version later.

World of Warcraft (WoW): Not only the most recent game obsession of ours, but also the one with our strongest memories of angst, aimed squarely at Blizzard for making some outright dumb decisions on the game’s evolution. But hey, they gave us Diablo 2, and much like that demonic enterprise, WoW sucked us in twice after we gave it up, so perhaps the fruit doesn’t fall that far from the tree. At the very least, it’s a solid testament to Blizzard polish that the company produced two of the games on this list. So addicted were we to WoW that we mostly ignored everything else out there, and for WoW to run adequately, we purchased at least one video card for our aging PC before dumping the system entirely in favor of pure-Apple goodness. Of course, to make this transition, we had to upgrade our PowerBook, so we effectively purchased a machine for over $2k just to have an Apple notebook capable of running the game. This, on top of miscellaneous buys like second-hand copies of the Collector’s Editions, a strategy guide, and a book of maps. These purchases combined clearly dwarf the money we spent on previous games, and that’s all on top of the huge amount of time we put into the game in order to reach, and continue playing, the endgame.

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The days of my general gaming addiction are over; I no longer have the time to jump from game to game, and when I do sit down to play something, I need it to engross me quickly and easily, and I need to see progress in order to stick with it, else I’ll feel like I’m wasting my time. Perhaps this is why I’m a fan of massively multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs), and why I occasionally entertain the idea of returning to World of Warcraft (WoW); the things I hated about the game don’t immediately come to mind, but when they do, the desire to embrace WoW a second time instantly fades. Nonetheless, the itch to play another MMORPG is still with me, and until a decent title comes our way, it likely won’t subside soon. When the time does come, I expect to be prepared, because my time playing WoW taught me a number of lessons that prepared me for my next MMORPG venture. What follows is four decisions to stick with that will make my next foray into MMORPGs much less headache-inducing.

1. The class decision. Next time around, I’m choosing a class I want to play regardless of outside influence. Certain classes may become the flavor of the month, and these classes may find it harder to find accepting groups at times, but in the end, the class I enjoy playing is the one I’ll ultimately play best. Enough with choosing a class because my friends want an ideal group and they already called dibs on certain classes; the server is full of players who need people to group with, and chances are, keeping my rate of leveling consistent with that of my real-life friends is temporary. Besides, they’ll just switch classes eventually anyway. And, while I quite enjoy hybrid classes, I’ll probably roll a class where I don’t need multiple sets of gear, can spec however I want and not suck when doing anything outside that spec, and don’t need to play contrary to my preferred style of play when I’m in a large group.
2. The guild decision. The point of a guild isn’t to make communication easy among a group of friends, it’s to enable a group of people to organize and become better players so they can tackle a variety of encounters (many of which are large-scale). Knowing this, I will never again join a small guild of real-life friends, because such guilds are packed with drama, don’t grow, and ultimately are a pain to manage. For the same reason, attempting to take charge of a guild, from any aspect, is an administrative burden I intend to stay away from. When choosing a guild, I will consider only those tolerant of casual players, have a fair raiding system, and intend to support both questing and player-versus-player gameplay. Chances are, I will only join an already-established guild, or a gamer group with a history of forming stable, supporting guilds in other MMORPGs.
3. The single-character decision. I don’t have the time to juggle characters whenever a friend decides to pick up a new MMORPG or re-roll a character. Once I’ve taken the time to explore the classes available and have found one I’m happy with, I’m sticking with it. Unless I’m at end-game and my play-time exceeds what my guild is capable of tackling, there’s no way I’m touching a second character, especially given the huge amount of repetition when it comes to leveling up all over again. Far more joy is gained from making one character the absolute best it can be, than trying to gear up multiple characters and balance one’s social life accordingly.
4. The roleplaying decision. Let’s face it, as much as I want it, roleplaying in an MMORPG, for the time being, is too primitive and rare to make a significant effort to go after. MMORPGs, for the foreseeable future, are linear affairs where players aren’t capable of affecting the world in a meaningful, lasting way. While player economies evolve, crafting, NPCs, and related factors need to grow significantly before major developers acknowledge the need and demand for better emotes, chat interfaces, and related UI improvements. Until then, we deal with griefers the old-fashioned way: PKing them.

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