45Doll

Even the Newton DMV in Sussex County had lines around the entire parking lot. (Scroll through.) In 90 degree heat and humidity. Great plan there guys. By the way Murphy announced you'll have to wear masks outdoors as well, if not alone or 'socially distanced'.

Well I had to look up ONYX RIP. Interesting. I spent a couple years in the production end of newspaper publishing, and needless to say back then things were much more primitive. I think my last word on this subject will be to reference this article. I know we can all do research, but this one gets right to my main interest, and concludes that MTBF may not really be a useful measure to compare SSDs to hard disks. There's other good info in there too. I just bought another Dell refurbished OptiPlex in light of this little expedition, to either upgrade my personal machine or serve as a backup box. Not sure yet. But the new one came in configured as UEFI instead of legacy BIOS boot. Never configured a PC that way before, so I've got my next continuing education topic to bone up on. When I was in commercial land, I pitched myself as a just-in-time-consultant. I'd learn what I needed to know when I needed to know it. Somewhere in the late 80's I realized I was wasting my time learning everything down to the lowest levels, because by the time I got there everything changed again. That worked well. But now that I'm retired there's a lot less I want to learn!

So I'll keep using SSDs for everyday performance, and make sure my backup schedule is robust in case my natural life exceeds the lifespan of my SSDs. You could of course treat SSDs like your car batteries. Know what the warranty period is and replace them just before it ends. You know the failure is coming, because the manufacturer told you.

He who dares... loses!

I'll have to look into this a little bit. I don't do this for a living any more but I'm still interested in it. The performance gain on a PC is so large I can't ignore it. Whatever the comparative MTBF turns out to be I'll live with it. In any case I would retain my frequent backup schedules and multiple paths. I've seen what having no backups can do to someone's life. Or business!!! I did find this article on the topic. Not sure if it's definitive, but it's a place to start. My SSDs are Samsung, and starting with the 860 series Samsung Magician will provide information on performance and health. I just installed that yesterday.

I wonder how many are new gun owners for NJ.

I thought I'd share this little troubleshooting story, since the culprit was the last thing on my list of possible suspects. I have two identical Dell PCs running Windows 10 Pro, one for my daily use and one for R&D. Been using them for over five years. Monday, suddenly, my personal one starts beeping out the notification tones periodically. Like a notification has popped up, or new mail has arrived. Can't find or see why. Then the next day, in addition to beeping, the PC intermittently freezes. Mouse cursor frozen, screen activity frozen, everything. For 10 to 30 seconds. Then the Num Lock light will blink, the PC beep and everything moves again. Goes on all day. Just updated to the 2004 release 10 days ago. Is that the reason? Then by Wednesday when trying to do backups to cover myself (I found the scheduled ones had failed), I'm getting the BSOD DPC Watchdog Violation. Research that, and lots of possibilities but most likely disk related. Do all the file system checking, DISM, SFC etc. No errors found. Finally I get a clean backup to complete, so I can start looking deeper. On my personal PC the power indicator is dark when the PC is on, instead of glowing white. So I suspect some hardware issue. I have an iSCSI drive attached to a server used for File History. I check that and there's an old target trying to connect in the initiator. And there's a lot of iSCSI warnings in the logs. Is that the problem? The odds say the DPC violation is a disk error, and to the PC the iSCSI drive is a disk. Delete the obsolete target. Nope, still BSOD'ing. I'll skip the next several hours of BS and cut to the chase. I move the system SSD over to my R&D PC, and the problem moves with it. So it's not the PC chassis. Order a new SSD, copy the image to it, install and boot from it, and the problem is gone. The OS image is OK. The Samsung EVO SSD was apparently burping. It's just over four years old. I put in SSDs first and foremost for performance, but also because they're not subject to mechanical problems like classic disks which are in the top two reasons for PC failures. Now I'm a witness to their electronic failure. And not a hard failure mind you, just enough to piss you off!

Well here's the June report. Boom! An all time record. There are multiple stories out there about this. For instance: 2nd Amendment Utilization is Coming

I happened to stop by my FFL yesterday and they had a sign up that there were over 1,200 requests in the queue stretching back to Friday. After the St. Louis self-defense incident the clamor for guns and ammo is only going to get worse.

Now there's a goal for an entire lifetime!

Wicked Witch: "So... you want to play ball Scarecrow?"

Just for laughs I checked, and the last .45 ACP I bought was 230 gr. FMJ Remington UMC in April of 2019. At 26.5 cents a round.

Lowest (non-steel case) price available at TSUSA is Speer Lawman at .40/round.

Yes SG Ammo is also fine. I have ordered from them too. The main reason I use TSUSA most of the time is that when they ship I have the order the next day from CT.

If you're not going to reload, TargetSportsUSA. Of course they are not immune from the ammo shortages, and their prices reflect that. But they don't gouge.

And my stapler is pneumatic full auto!!!

Just for comparison... When applying for handgun permits in Madison in the late 70's the first question was 'why do you want a handgun?'. After I got past that and submitted the application it was about three months of waiting. Then finally, after calling for about the fifth time and getting the runaround I asked to speak to the Chief. After a brief hold the answer was 'you can pick them up this afternoon'. After moving to Randolph about three years later, I applied for permits and had them in my hand in less than 10 calendar days. Several times. Chief Booser understood his oath and responsibility and didn't play politics. Up until about three years ago I experienced permit delays anywhere from three to ten months out of NJSP Sussex Station. Then a new firearms trooper was installed and the wait time dropped to about four to six weeks. I believe some changes were also made in the Firearms Unit in Trenton over time which improved the process a little bit more after that. And now of course the permits come through already extended so they're good from the get-go for 180 days. So in my experience the primary factor is the people involved, not the system they use.

I can personally attest that the firearms trooper at any particular barracks can make a huge difference in the response time. The trooper at Sussex Station is efficient, alert and conscientious. The main problem has always been funneling everything (printing) through Trenton. Regardless of their effectiveness or ineffectiveness at any point in time, they are not staffed up to handle the normal demand in a 30 day timeframe, let alone the current crush of applications. For us without local police the state is the local PD. Wayne, like most other local PDs, processes and prints their own permits. They don't go through Trenton.

OK. My update is through Sussex Station.

Which barracks do you go through?

For anyone involved with the NJSP permits the word I got this morning is the delay is now somewhere between two and three months, from submission to printing.

It's in the Pork Roll First Amendment Lounge.

Rush made an interesting point this afternoon. When progressives are appointed to the SCOTUS they NEVER put down their progressive credentials. And they never give up an opportunity to advance progressive causes by judicial fiat. Conservative justices on the other hand frequently go out of their way to avoid any perception of conservative tilt. Or at best stick to a literal interpretation, thereby avoiding any conservative progress. So you know what that means. They never serve as a counterbalance to the progressive block. This is why we will continue to 'lose'.

I went to Tractor Supply and got a section of 1/4" rubber mat designed for horse stalls. You can buy it by the foot. That's sandwiched between the bottom of the safe and the basement floor to prevent moisture migration. You can cut it to fit the safe footprint, and it complicates trying to get a prybar wedged in underneath. It worked well and didn't complicate bolting the safe to the concrete floor.