Alex

I've been looking through local organizations I could contribute to, and everywhere there are news of them going to all kinds of conferences. I get it, they need to share good practices among colleagues from around the world, but it's the freakin' 21st century, can't they do it on Skype or something? The cost of each member traveling is around 100$, with accommodation it's 200-300$. Add the price of organizing such conferences - another 50$ per person. I get ~300$ with a very conservative budget. But from what I've seen, a lot more is spent.

So it's that much money for each conference that could be held on Skype or any other of the myriad of meeting solutions. In my country, that's enough money for a poor family of 4 to live for 2 months or more.

How are those conferences helping those families better? Maybe I'm missing something.

Where I live, stray dogs are a big, and I mean BIG problem. They run around the city in packs of 6 to 8. Barking all night, sometimes showing aggressiveness towards people, and rarely attacking and even killing.

That is a problem, but it's just half of it. A lot of people, especially elderly, bring food to stray puppies, help them survive the winter, so they reproduce very fast.

Why it bothers me so much, is because I like (I need) going out, jugging, cycling, and I usually do it in the nearby parks. But the park is taken over by several packs, so every path I go - dogs show off their teeth at my legs, and a few times I even got bit by my shoe.

The local authorities do nothing. They don't have any hotline, they don't have services that take care of these issues. They had, but local animal protection agencies started opposing the practice of killing dogs, so nobody kills dogs anymore. Dogs die because of disease, parasites, and cars. That's it.

Mass neutering didn't help either. Those few exceptions who didn't get neutered, repopulated the city in just one year.

So what I thought about doing is to take matters into my own hands. Kill the stray dogs in the park. If somebody saw me - I'd get attacked (people would come at me yelling, trying to apprehend me, maybe even engage in a fight), I'd get on the news (like others who did this), I'd be Villain Nr. 1. So the only way I can do it is by being an assassin. Stupid. I know. I have to do it during the night, look out so that no witnesses are present, then feed them the poisoned meat, and leave them to die and rot until someone disposes of them properly.

A lot of people around me will think it's horribly wrong. I don't see it as 100% right as well. So I ask you: is it me who is sick, or the people around me are irrational? Would my actions be justified? Or I shouldn't do it at all?

Right now I've narrowed down my choices to 3 headsets.

The Creative HS-800, Creative HS-980 and the Creative Tactic 3D Sigma.

Basically what I need is to hear all sound ranges. I've listened to some ~50$ headphones reported as Audiophile class and it was awful - they had only pumped up, cut down bass without any tonality, and I couldn't hear whole instruments in some songs (listened to Koss, Philips, Beyerdynamic - all in this price range).

The only ones I've ever liked in this price range were the Creative HQ-1300, that's why I'm sticking to this brand. I also liked some of Sennheiser's headphones, but I never listened to ~50$ circumaural headphones so I don't want to risk it.

The above mentioned headsets however are headsets, which also gives me 3 advantages: Integrated high quality microphone (I play games from time to time, and I use a lot of VOIP, voice chats, conferences, etc.); On-cord volume controls; USB Audio in case I want to use a computer without a normal audio card.

Right now I am more inclined towards the Creative Tactic 3D Sigma because of the 50mm driver vs 40mm. Some reviews say it's for a big head, and mine sure is big.

What are your thoughts?

I am a newbie in this category, but very long time discussing this subject (religion).

I became shocked, how much atheists here renounce any idea which touches, just a bit, the possibility of the existence of a universal power.

This question is to both atheists and theists.

Why? What makes you think, that you know the absolute truth? Why don't you allow doubt?

OK, theists are always like that. It's because they're theists, and they believe. Belief is an irrational behavior based on emotion. We all believe in something, so no harm here.

But atheists?! You claim you don't have beliefs. So why, oh WHY do you believe you know the absolute truth, when you can't explain it? There is still a lot to be discovered in this world, accept it. Why do you so strongly believe that this, newly discovered fact, won't be something which will prove that you are wrong?

I am not saying you are wrong about God's non-existence, I am saying you are wrong about rejecting 100% that you might be wrong. You can't know. You are nobody, just puny little humans, just like I am. You are not God, which is described to be omniscient. You claim that there is no such thing. So if you say there is no such thing, then WHY? WHY do you act like you know everything?

Why don't you accept that the Universe is full of unknown things? Why deny, like you know everything which exists and you know what certainly doesn't exist?

You are atheists. You don't just disagree with Christians, you disagree with everything which our puny stupid civilization, which can't even extract energy from nuclear fusion, which can't even colonize our closest planets, which can't even treat freaking cancer; can't reproduce. You only accept that, which can be reproduced or seen by humans. Humans are nothing in this big universe. There are things we can not see, things we can not comprehend. Only 1 percent of all people even understand the meaning of time as the fourth dimension. Even fewer understand relativity. And still, you claim you know enough to say what isn't there.

Why?

I'd like to buy one of these cameras (best I found for this price). But just don't know which to choose.

I like the Fujifilm because you can zoom from the lens. I like the Canon because its screen can turn at bigger angles.

I didn't like Fujifilm because of it's AA batteries, and that when filming and zooming, the transition isn't smooth like in Canon.

Fujifilm uses CMOS sensor, which is theoretically better than Canon's CCD sensor, but I didn't see any major difference in sample photos (both gain a lot of noise at ISO800).

Fujifilm also has ISO6400, but I don't think I'll ever be using that much.

Also, high speed movies, which is great, but I'm not sure whether I'll use that.

Fujifilm shoots higher resolution videos, but in reviews people said that quality was bad. And I really liked Canon's 720p movie samples.

Canon also has better dynamic range (both shades and highlights are clearly visible).

The difference in zoom can be neglected, 30x or 35x - doesn't really matter to me.

The difference in resolution can also be neglected, 10Mpixels or 14 - no big difference actually.

The price is pretty much the same. Fujifilm would turn out a bit more expensive (gonna buy rechargeable batteries and a charger, which don't come with the camera).

So which one to choose?

I am currently using 2 computers (a laptop, and a desktop PC). The Desktop PC is a dual-boot Ubuntu/Windows7 system.

I have bought one single Personal licence of JetBrains PhpStorm. Will I be able to use this licence on all 3 systems? Or am I limited to just one?