Category: Side Notes

Probably No Blogging Until Tuesday

I know I said regular updates would return today but last night I received the unfortunate news that my grand father had died. The Funeral is on Monday and much has to be done before then. Likewise there is about a day of tasks for Tuesday set forth as well. Because of this updates on this site are going to most likely be completely stalled until Wednesday.

This is How it Should Be

Well my work trip has almost concluded. I’m sitting in Detroit for two hours awaiting my flight back to my secure bunker in Minnesota. My two co-workers, being experienced flyers, were able to get transferred to an earlier flight and are now gone leaving me here alone. Sounds like a rough first experience for flying huh? Well no. To make up for the fact they couldn’t get me on the earlier flight one of my co-workers handed me a pass to the Delta Sky Club lounge.

I’m sitting here enjoying free and unlimited wine, whiskey, food, and coffee. The seats are amazing and the place is unpopulated enough where I have a section to myself to do as I please. I must say if I could experience this every time I flew I’d fly a lot.

Anyways blogging should return to normal tomorrow. Now if you’ll excuse me my glass of Jim Beam is looking mighty low.

Some People Are Pricks

I know I usually don’t post on the weekend but I thought I’d do it just this once (and probably again). I got back from four and a half amazing hours at the range. Several groups came and went with all but the last one letting me keep their spent brass. Needless to say I came home with a ton of 9mm and .40 brass.

But there was one older couple who showed up. This is where I got irritated. I was irritated because the husband was being a prick to his wife. See when talking to them they said they just got into shooting. The hearing protection my amazing girlfriend bought me have microphones, which means I could hear their conversation clear as day.

Well the conversation was more the husband belittling the wife because she didn’t know what to do with the firearms. I’m sorry but I get pissed when somebody belittles another just because that person being belittled is inexperienced. Well they had a Ruger MK. III that the extractor broke on. It broke while the wife was shooting it and the husband was having a hissy fit and getting mad at her for breaking it. Now she didn’t break it, it just broke. My guess being it was a new gun is that the extractor was faulty to start with. Then he belittled her for not hitting the target with their other pistol.

This kind of shit needs to stop. Not just in the shooting community but everywhere. But being this is a gun blog I’m going to say it needs to stop in the shooting community because new shooters aren’t going to enjoy a sport when they are getting tore into all the time. I did my part by walking over there and giving them some advice, but I didn’t tell the guy to knock it off because I didn’t want him to know my headset had a microphone and I could hear them. After showing the woman how to shoot she started doing better than the man there. That really upset him and that’s about the time they left.

Needless to say that guy was a total prick and I really wish he wasn’t at my range. Shooting should be enjoyable for all, not some reason to make your wife feel bad.

Slow Day

Hey I’m just posting to let everybody know today is probably going to be a little slow here. I’m working on a major project which I’ll announce when it’s ready to go. I’ll probably get some news updates going here later today.

Stupidity in Quotations

So I’ve been talking about the people legally brining guns with them to these health care rallies. Of course I mentioned I bring my gun with me everywhere I legally can. Of course common sense went out the window because we were talking about guns near the Obamessiah.

Me: “I don’t know who there might try to cause me harm. I carry a gun so if somebody means to cause me harm they are going to have to work for it.”

Other Person: “And what are the chances of you being attacked at one of these rallies. I’m guessing pretty slim.”

Me: “The chances of me getting into a car accident on my way home tonight are pretty slim as well but I still wear my seat belt.”

And that is where the conversation ended. Seriously people just don’t grasp the concept that carrying the gun has no downside for me and greatly lowers my risk. On the other hand not carrying the gun with me has many downsides and greatly increases my risk. I swear simple math is beyond the scope of many people.

Being Cheap without Being Cheap

There are many ways to save a little money here and there. Although this may not seems like a lot of money in the end it will begin building up. One easy way to save money is by examining usage cases of products you intend to buy in the future.

What am I talking about here? It’s simple really, whenever you are buying a product conduct a survey in your head on whether or not you’ll need particular features of the “better” model or not. For example having that nice $1,000 scope on a rifle is nice but if you’re only going to be shooting at ranges with 100 yards it’s a rather unneeded item.

This topic will discuss a simple way doing a usage case can save you a large amount of money by considering the purchase of a computer. Computers usually have a notorious number of possible upgrades. These upgrades usually become exponentially more expensive as the performance increase. Let’s look at processors for an instance.

This case will be greatly simplified in that processor A, B, and C are equal in every regard except clock speed. Processor A runs at 2.5 GHz, processor B runs at 3.0 GHz, and processor C runs at 3.4 GHz. Now let’s say the cost of processor A is $100, the cost of processor B is $200, and the cost of processor C is $350. As you get more speed the cost goes up while the amount gained becomes less each time.

Going from processor A to processor B costs an additional $100 and nets you 500 MHz. Meanwhile moving from processor B to processor C costs you an additional $150 and only nets you 400 MHz. Obviously the cost to performance ratio is better when going from processor A to processor B then it is when going to processor B to processor C. Which processor should you get? Obviously processor C is the fastest.

Many people often go with processor C because they equate more speed is better. But they could save themselves $150 to $250 by decided what they do with a computer. Let’s say all you do is browse the web and read e-mail. Neither of these tasks use much in the way of processor speed and processor A will easily fit your needs. Now let’s say you want to play some high end games, you may get some advantage out of buying processor B in that case but the additional 500 MHz probably won’t be apparent to your. Likewise while playing a game you generally aren’t using other applications so the game will get optimal use of the processor.

The same thing can be said for RAM. Once again browsing the web and checking e-mail doesn’t require much RAM while playing high end games takes considerably more. But you really aren’t going to need more then 4 GB of RAM on a current game since most of them are still written to work on 32-bit platforms. This saves you money on RAM and allows you to use a 32-bit operating system that will be more backwards compatible than it’s 64-bit equivalent.

This basic principal can be applied to almost anything you buy. Yes getting a piston drive AR rifle may allow you to shoot more rounds without cleaning it but if you clean it regularly why sink the additional cost into the piston driven system? If you have a standard definition television and don’t plan on upgrading any time in the future why pay the extra money on a Blu-Ray player? You won’t notice any difference but will have paid far more money for the player and the movies.

You don’t have to be cheap to save money. Just be smart about think about what you want to do with anything you buy. Then ask yourself if you’ll really use any additional features of the more expensive model or not. I bring this up because a friend of mine was going to purchase a $4,000 computer but was able to get a $1,500 one after doing a little usage analysis. That’s a large chunk of money for simply taking half an hour to think about what he actually does with his computer.

Many people end up having financial troubles because they simply buy the most expensive version of what they want. Yes a Geo Metro may not be a good car for a family but you probably don’t need to sink all of that money into a Chevrolet Suburban either. Something int he middle would most likely best suffice. Why buy a $500,000 home when you really only need a $200,000 one? Usage analysis is a valuable and free tool, use it.

Format Change

Until now I’ve always made my posts by proving all links with the raw link. The idea here was simple, allow the user to know where they were going before they went there and no make them have to look at the status bar. Well it seems other people weren’t in agreement and I’ve told several times that not only is it unsightly but also makes posts harder to read. But it was this little tidbit which I should have thought of before that has made me decide to change things.

Although I posting the actual URL as the text for the link there is no way a person can be guaranteed that what I’m posting as the text is in fact the same as the URL without looking at their status bar. Of course I assumed people would trust me but being an unknown entity behind a computer I shouldn’t expect people to trust what I post. I strongly believe in trust no one (TNO) security, which means you simply trust nobody with your security, period.

Hence links will now be posted as they appear on most sites and a component of the story text. Furthermore I’m going to added references for further information to stories that I feel warrant further research by the reader.

Multiple Armed Men Spotted at Fogo De Chao

This just in a group of armed me were spotted at the restaurant Fogo De Chao in downtown Minneapolis. The group of approximately ten, all carrying guns, were reported to have gone into the restaurant together to eat. While being seated the wait staff incorrectly seated an innocent individual with the group. The group welcomed this unarmed individual and began chatting with him. The scary part is this innocent individual appeared to be corrupted by this group of frightening gun owners and began inquiring about also getting a carry permit.

After the group finished eating they left without incident. No people were apparently shot or in any other way harmed during this armed mob’s visit.