Dog Breeds and You

How to choose the right breed of dog for you and your family

The importance of choosing the most suitable type of dog breed for your personal circumstances, preferences and limitations simply cannot be stressed enough. While dogs are like people, in the sense that no two dogs have the same personality, it is also true that different breeds exhibit different behaviors and, in fact, are often bred in such a way as to heighten these particular traits. Therefore, it is possible to have a fair idea of how a potential pet will react to different situations on the basis of the breed chosen. A true dog lover will make a special effort to take into consideration all factors to ensure that the breed selected as their pet adapts well to their needs.

Anyone for a Dalmatian?

The first thing to bear in mind is that the type of dog chosen must fit in with your current - or projected - lifestyle. The Dalmatian can serve as a good example. This breed is well known for producing cute little puppies, but what many dog owners don't realize is that they're going to need a great deal of exercise and playing even well into their mature years. So, if you choose this breed, you have to be aware that your dog is going to need the attention and love of a master, or mistress, that has the time for it. It's going to need plenty of physical exercise and mental stimulation to be a truly healthy and happy pet. As you can imagine, this is no easy task.

Considerations

Before you decide on a breed of dog, consider the following questions, as a minimum:

How much time can I, or my family, spend with the dog or puppy?

How often will the dog be left alone, and for how long?

How big is the yard or exercise space?

Is it fenced?

Do I want the dog to be inside the house or outside? For how long?

How much time do I have to walk or exercise the dog?

Do I want a dog that is playful and friendly with everyone or one that is a good watchdog?

How often am I prepared to groom and maintain the dog's coat?

How much time can I spare to work with the dog for training and obedience?

Will there be any small children around the dog?

Are their other pets in the family?

How much money am I prepared to spend on getting - and maintaining - the dog or puppy?

Once you've answered these questions, and any more that may be relevant to your particular situation, you can then start looking at the different dog breeds and their characteristics, in the knowledge that your choice will be based on sound reasoning.

Make sure you get it right

If you're planning to get a new dog or puppy, the breed chosen definitely does matter, both for you and for your future pet. If you spend the time and effort to ensure a good match, you can be much more confident that both you and your pet will be happy - make sure your dog can fit easily into your lifestyle, so that you can give it, in return, the lifestyle it deserves and needs.

Terry Roberts has always been interested in dogs and the way people and their pets get on.

Russian Attitudes Toward Money

Lynn Visson's "Wedded Strangers" explains:

For Russians, the ultimate sin is being stingy. Americans are viewed as being tight fisted.

Russians and Americans have vastly different views of money. This is understandable considering that Russians were raised under the Soviet system and Americans were raised under a capitalist system.

Under the Soviet system, Russians had money in their pocket, but no place to spend it. Jobs, medical care, apartments, pensions the basic necessities that one needed for life were provided by the state.

The problem was that the State decided what to produce. Choice in goods was unavailable. That was if the product was even available. Goods were scarce. You couldnt comparison shop even if you wanted to.

You didnt have to worry about spending too much money because there werent too many goods to spend money on.

There are stories to illustrate life during the Soviet times. When you walked down the street and you saw a line of people, you got in line, even though you didnt know why the line was forming and what you were waiting for.

Whatever it was, it was scarce and people wanted it, so it was better to get in line before you missed out.

Conversely, Americans have more money, but they have a thousand choices on how to spend that money. The whole American consumption system is designed to get you to spend money on whatever product is advertised. They supplement the myriad choices with easy credit.

The trick in the American system is to figure out what it is that is really important to you. It becomes important to make wise choices because there are so many choices available. Shopping for bargains and good value becomes imperative to survive American capitalism. Your choices are virtually unlimited. You could spend hundreds of thousands times your income in America without giving it a second thought.

The problem is that you would soon find yourself wallowing in consumer debt.

Americans value their ability to negotiate a good deal and to find a bargain. They brag about the great deals they get. They are proud of their ability to get the most for their money. To live at the highest standard of living possible is the goal of Americas consumer society.

For that same reason, American men are proud of their success and the assets they have accumulated. They think that they can attract a Russian woman by telling her about their ability to provide for her.

They brag about their income and their wealth to impress her and then they turn around and tell her about what a good negotiator they are in exacting the best price for things.

These traits are valuable in American society. But all that talk about money makes them sound like Ebenezer Scrooge to the Russian woman they are trying to impress.

To a Russian, who earns one dollar for every fifty dollars an American earns, an American sounds incredibly cheap when they talk about what a hard bargain they have driven to buy something.

You sound more like a miser to them.

When you talk about how you got a great price on the airline tickets to see her, it takes the romance right out of the picture, as far as she is concerned. Your meeting takes on the air of a commercial transaction rather than a romantic interlude.

To a Russian, you either have the money or you dont. You can either afford something or you cant. You dont brag about how you whittled someone down in price. You dont talk about money. Its considered bad taste.

First, they brag about how much money they have and then they complain about the prices, the Russian women say. How they count their money!

America is a merchant society. Talking about money is normal to them.

Russians know that Americans make much more money than them. But they dont understand anything about the types of expenses that the typical American has.

Russians have monthly expenses of rent, food, telephone, hot water, and heat in the winter. These expenses maybe cost them fifty to one hundred dollars per month.

When you tell them you make three thousand dollars per month, for example, they mentally subtract one hundred dollars for expenses, and they think they have twenty nine hundred dollars to spend money on the things they want.

Russians have no idea about the types of payments that Americans make every month. They dont understand that recurring payments like mortgages, car payments, insurance, cable, telephone, and other expenses add up to a large portion of their monthly check.

The average American family has a standard of living, which is accessible to only the top income class in Russia.

Russians dont pay personal income taxes and they dont realize that you must pay as much as twenty five to thirty five percent of your income for income tax, plus property taxes, sales tax, and other excise taxes.

A Russian woman is definitely interested in your financial situation. She want to know that you have a stable job and are able to take care of her and any children you may have. Tell her that you own your own home. Tell her that you can take good care of her and her children.

Tell her about the shopping and cultural amenities where you live. Tell her about the restaurants and cafes. Tell her about the weather and the local recreational facilities. Tell her about television, movies, and other lifestyle considerations.

Tell her about the schools. Tell her what you like about your job, your family, your home, and the community where you live. Tell her why she will like it too.

Just dont go into a lot of financial details. No matter how much you try to explain, she just wont understand. Dont talk about money unless you have to.

John Kunkle has been married to a Russian women for over five years. He has travelled the path from finding her, to traveling to Russia, to bring his wife to America, and adjusting to married life. He will show you step by step how to do this yourself.

E! True ZX Games Story: Boulder Dash

Boulder Dash, released in 1984, is in no way balderdash. Please do not take the "we do not like pun" high horse here as in terms of this article it has to do with the history of invention.

Here is couple of quick facts about the Boulder Dash story:

* Peter Liepa, who is credited as the game creator, studied Physics just like Douglas Smith (http://www.zxgames.com/en/loderunnerstory.shtml).
* Unlike Lode Runner's creator, Peter did not become quick- and super-rich.

So, here is the story

* Game Inventors: Peter Liepa, Chris Gray
* Occupation at the time of invention: Peter Liepa - unemployed; Chris Gray - unknown
* Location at the time of invention: Canada.

The game concept and its realization seem to be simple (at least in terms of modern technologies). However Boulder Dash's cookbook is composed of one man's versatile interests and another man's idea.

Fascination with animation

Born in 1953 in Ottawa, as a kid Peter aspired to be an animator or special effects designer on the one side, and a particle physicist on the other. He had to drop the latter as he found it too practical and fuzzy and thought there was vague future for particle Physics. The incentive for animation, on the other hand, lived with Peter until there was the right time to let it out.

Fascination with computers

When in high school, Peter was sent to the National Research Council of Canada for a week as part of an internship program. He had to work in a physics lab, Peter's supervisor had a shiny new Wang Calculator and it arrested the young intern's attention. In the same week all interns were taken on a tour of the Council's computer center. Amazed by what he saw, Peter asked to spend the rest of his internship time there. At the computer center there was an interactive terminal, which in those days was something similar to Teletype or IBM Selectric hooked up to a central mainframe. Peter quickly learned to program it, but after the end of week's internship there was no opportunity to study computers for a long time. In those days, the concept of personal computers was unimaginable.

Peter started off in Physics in university, but soon switched to math. His summer jobs were in computer programming, and he spent a lot of time playing early things like Conway's Game of Life, which printed results on paper and had not digital screen whatsoever.

Fascination with human nature

After graduating in math, Peter drifted around studying subjects like human memory and perception. He received a master's degree in Control Theory. Both Control Theory and knowledge of human nature are another key points in what was later to become the cult game.

Another man's idea

When Peter was in his late twenties, he visited a friend of his, who was deeply into electronic toys and had a large screen TV and an Atari 400. Peter spent several evenings playing games, and then had a "I can do this" flash. He went out and bought an Atari 800 to start writing games. But rather than just starting to write a game, Peter thought it would be prudent to contact a local game publisher to see what sort of game might be in demand.

The publisher put Peter in touch with Chris Gray, who had submitted a game in Basic, but did not have the skills to convert it into machine language. The game was similar to an arcade game called The Pit, but after examining it more, Peter found that the game had very few game play variations - too much of it was predetermined.

The development

Not satisfied with Chris' game algorithm, Peter started playing with basic elements of dirt, rocks and jewels and within a couple of days had built the basic "physics engine" of what was to become Boulder Dash. He realized that using a random number generator one could generate random caves, and that by controlling the density of rocks and jewels one could get some interesting game play. The game play fascinated not only from a puzzle standpoint, but it also appealed to various emotional drives - the obvious psychotic ones like greed (collecting jewels), destructiveness (dislodging rocks and killing fireflies) and the neurotic ones like cleaning all the dirt out of a cave.

Chris and Peter lived quite far apart, so that their meetings were infrequent and involved a long drive. It turned out quite quickly that their design goals and methods were fairly incompatible. Peter was developing a game quite different from Chris' original, and did so just about completely on his own. Peter designed all of the elements, physics, caves, the game play, the graphics, the music, and the title. Chris helped out with a few odds and ends - he suggested, for example, how to make the graphics for the game title by composing big letters out of the Atari character graphics. In the end, there was a lot of debate as to how exactly Chris should be credited and what his share of royalties should be.

The working title of the game for a long time was Cavern Raider, and several other variants like Cavern Crystals. Eventually Peter came up with the name Boulder Dash, which is a takeoff on the word balderdash. Coincidentally, a board game named Balderdash was also published in 1986.

The game's main character - Rockford.

Originally, in the early physics engine stage, Rockford was just a static shape similar to a cross. When one moved the shape, it dug through the earth and absorbed jewels. In fact, the graphics were very simple, and elements were all single characters in a 24x40 character display. There was no scrolling in the early versions of the game. It was Chris who suggested that the digging shape should be a "man", and together they came up with a simple human shape. When Peter showed an early version of the game to a potential publisher, they pointed out the "the man" was way too small and needed to be a more recognizable character. But it was not possible to make "the man" more prominent without making everything larger as well. So this was where the hard work began of converting the game from one that ran on a 24x40 character display to one that scrolled over a much larger region.

Now that the game elements were bigger, Peter was able to add much more detail, including making "the man" more recognizable. He built a character editor to work out the pixels and the animation. It was at this point that the Rockford character took shape. Rockford was not supposed to be any particular kind of human or animal, he just evolved in the pixel editor. Since Peter used to be interested in animation, he worked out the character to make Rockford blink his eyes and tap his feet. This was an innovation that added a lot of depth to the character.

The result

Overall, it took Peter about 6 months to finish the first version of Boulder Dash with no more than 2 hours of actual work per day.

Even though Boulder Dash was finished in half a year, it took another six months to find a publisher and work out a publication agreement. By this time Peter was already full time employed at a company that developed word processing software.

And so, the rest is history - Boulder Dash was eventually published by First Star in 1984 and was an instant bestseller.

Having survived for over two decades on the market, the game is still here to fascinate us. You are always welcome play our remake of Boulder Dash (http://www.zxgames.com/en/boulderdash.shtml), which is as close to the original as possible and needs no emulators to run.

Where is Chris Gray now?

We have no idea.

Where is Peter Liepa now?

Peter works in software development at a company named Alias, which produces 3D software for design and entertainment.

Mikhail Zhilkin of ZX Games (Sales, Support and Public Relations). Apart from being ZX Games founder, Mikhail is doing his post-graduate study in Physics, lives in Tokyo, Japan and expresses his extreme pacifism by not doing compulsory military service in his home country. Mikhail enjoys playing soccer and ZX Spectrum games.