Free Republic

Soaring demand for guns and ammunition comes from a range of demographic groups Just two companies, Vista Outdoor and Olin Corp, meet the bulk of America’s demand for ammunition, and chiefly through two long-established brands. Remington, part of Vista, was founded in 1816, and Winchester Ammunition, owned by Olin Corp, started in 1866. Because of soaring demand for bullets, both firms are enjoying the sort of heady growth that only new businesses usually enjoy. Three times a day, queues of pick-up trucks appear outside Remington’s ammunition plant on the outskirts of Little Rock, Arkansas, to bear away the fruits of...

Explanation: Which way up Mount Sharp? In early September, the robotic rover Curiosity continued its ascent up the central peak of Gale Crater, searching for more clues about ancient water and further evidence that Mars could once have been capable of supporting life. On this recent Martian morning, before exploratory drilling, the rolling rover took this 360-degree panorama, in part to help Curiosity's human team back on Earth access the landscape and chart possible future routes. In the horizontally-compressed featured image, an amazing vista across Mars was captured, complete with layered hills, red rocky ground, gray drifting sand, and a...

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 to support the Trump administration’s lawsuit against California over laws that the state passed last year to limit its role in immigration enforcement. The county will file an amicus brief at the first available opportunity, likely on appeal, said Kristin Gaspar, supervisor for District 3 and chairwoman of the board. “We’re talking about people who are crossing the border illegally, coming into this county and committing a crime and them being let loose probably to commit another crime,” said Dianne Jacobs, supervisor for District 2. “That creates a public safety issue...

Yesterday I attempted to install the latest Windows Update, after my computer went rogue and started freezing, as it does every time I ignore the Update. It runs Vista because I've refused 8, 9 and 10. The Progress Bar spun at "Downloading" for over an hour. I got out and went looking for a solution. One that made sense was "Complete any other update then try again" so I did. The system was then stuck at "searching for updates" and would only last a few minutes before crashing. I got to the Microsoft site and found the correct update, 32...

Congress has approved a measure that will allow makers of three-wheel cars to receive funding for fuel-efficient auto technologies, according to published reports. The bill, which still needs to be signed into law, could be a boost to companies developing alternative car designs, notably Aptera Motors and Elio Motors. Both companies have argued that their three-wheel cars deserve federal funding meant to promote more efficient vehicles. The legislation, passed late last week, would overturn an Energy Department rule that limited funding to four-wheel vehicles meeting emissions and fuel-economy benchmarks, Automotive News reported on Friday. The new guidelines will now allow...

The browser will keep working, but users of unsupported operating systems won't get updates. Windows XP will be getting even less secure next year, when Google stops updating Chrome for users of Microsoft's nearly geriatric operating system. The company announced today that PCs running XP and Vista will be able to keep using Chrome after April 2016, but Google will cease providing updates to its browser, including security-focused patches. That same deal goes for Mac users running OS 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8. Google said it was turning off the updates because the makers of all five OSs had stopped providing...

The woman who called herself "Sam" for months now knows her real nameNearly five months after showing up in a San Diego-area emergency room without any recollection of her name, age, family, or friends, a woman who calls herself “Sam” finally has an identity. Ashley Menatta, 53, never married and has sisters in Colorado and Maryland. She was born in Pennsylvania, lived in Flagstaff, Arizona and several years ago found her way to Southern California living in La Jolla, Vista, and Carlsbad. The woman’s plight captured world wide attention after our NBC 7 post went viral with a Facebook...

Typically, today’s budget PCs come with 4GB of RAM. A mid-range configuration may offer double that, and high-end gaming systems and workstations go as high as 16GB or more. There’s no doubt which way the wind’s blowing, either: Windows 8 supports up to 128GB of physical memory (assuming you’re running the 64-bit edition), while Windows 8 Pro can go up to 512GB. Does anyone really need this much RAM? Memory isn’t as expensive as it used to be, but there’s obviously no point paying for gigabytes of RAM from which you’ll receive no material gain. Does more equal faster? Many...

My old laptop running vista is having the cpu max out when no programs are running I have been cleaning up the hard drive from all old programs, too, stopped almost everything from starting up, but my cpu just maxes out running the resource monitor, my rundll32 is using 90% and more of the cpu how do I find out which tsr or stray program is doing this? I need to know what to shut off or just outright delete...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has told Vista volunteers and other AmeriCorps workers that their government-provided health coverage does not measure up to the standards of the new health care law, and that they may be subject to financial penalties unless they obtain insurance elsewhere. The notice has surprised and worried workers in AmeriCorps, the federal community service program that is often described as a domestic version of the Peace Corps. Mary Strasser, the director of AmeriCorps’ Vista program, described the changes in a bulletin to members on Dec. 16. The coverage provided by the agency — the AmeriCorps Health...

So, here I am again, the technologically challenged FReeper, with another "life or death" question. My husband is ready to throw his PC through the window. It is slower than molasses in January, it freezes... We used to blame Vista for it. But lately I've noticed something when I run Microsoft Security Essentials on both his and my pc. Even though I have lots of pics in my pc, class notes, power points... it scans right under 650,000 items in less than an hour. My husband does not have ANYTHING installed, except the OS, IE, and Microsoft Office. But at...

CHULA VISTA, Calif. - A woman faced a judge in a Chula Vista courtroom Thursday two days after her pit bull allegedly mauled a 4-year-old girl. Brittany Morgan Gardiner, 22, was arraigned on one count of having a dangerous dog that caused great bodily injury. It’s a felony charge with a maximum sentence of three years. ... Deputy District Attorney Mary Loeb Gardiner might be a flight risk and asked for her bail to remain at $25,000. “After this attack happened,” said Loeb. “This four year old girl is sitting there with her face torn up, bleeding everywhere and the...

Gunmen driving a van packed with gas canisters firebombed the Athens headquarters of Microsoft on Wednesday. Fire gutted the ground floor of the blue four-story HQ of the U.S. software giant, blackening its walls with flames, on the eve of yet another European summit seeking a solution to a regional debt crisis first unleashed by Greece. At least two attackers were involved in the sophisticated assault at 4.45 a.m. in Maroussi, a northern suburb of the sprawling Greek capital, police said. Brandishing pistols and an automatic rifle, they kept security guards at bay and set fire to the van carrying...

Microsoft's past operating system woes might have some people living in the past While many computer lovers eagerly await the arrival of Windows 8 and Mac OS X Lion, a massive segment of users takes a decidedly slower approach when it comes to embracing new operating systems. According to an uber-detailed infographic by blog Manolution, 40.7% of users still run Windows XP on their computers. XP, which was released way back in October 2001, has since been succeeded by both the not-so-well-received Windows Vista, as well as Windows 7. In that same time frame, a half-dozen new versions of Apple's...

I was reading on the internet when all of a sudden my screen went blue and said it was shutting down. My computer restarted fine and the error for this said: "Download updates for PX Engine PX Engine has stopped working properly. To solve this problem, go to the Roxio Software website to download and install the update" I have never seen or heard of such a thing. My kids burn CD's, etc. but I have no clue what this is! Thanks for your help. Dell Inspiron Windows Vista Home Premium All AV and Malware programs updated daily

A 60-year-old Vista man who allegedly attempted to shoot his brother accidentally shot himself instead, according to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department. During an apparent alcohol-fueled argument, Terry Brill pointed a double-barreled, .38 caliber, derringer-type pistol at his brother, 59-year-old Michael Brill, and pulled the trigger, said Sgt. Rob Smith. The gun, pointed at the man's face, failed to discharge. When Terry Brill tried to figure out why the gun misfired, he shot himself in his left hand, Smith said. Deputies who examined the two-shot pistol found that one round had been fired and one unexpended round, Smith said....

A top Microsoft executive today compared Apple's iPhone 4 to his own company's problem-plagued Vista operating system. "It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I'm okay with that," said Kevin Turner, Microsoft's chief operating officer, in a keynote speech at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), which runs through Thursday in Washington, D.C. The successor to Windows XP, Vista launched in early 2007 and was heavily criticized by users, and in a series of e-mails that became public during a class-action lawsuit, even by the company's own senior executives. The consensus, deserved or not, has become that...

Over the last 24 hours, I have been getting a Java Up-date pop-up for Ju Check. I have heard this is a virus but at the same time, read that this is not. Anyone familiar with this?

I think I did something really stupid. I was messing around in the admin. settings and I was listed as the admin and do not have a password to get into anything because my computer is at home. I changed myself from admin to regular user or whatever it was called and now I am unable to change back to admin. It asks me for a password and when I attempted to put one in, it said it was a bad password. I do not want passwords. I need some help getting out of that mess, too. Thanks!

When my computer attempts updates, I get the Error Code 8000FFFF. It means that registry values are blocking all updates. There is a Fix It link for this but I am so skeptical because I do not understand how to correct such problems. If you have had this problem and have downloaded the fix for this, can you let me know if it fixes this on its own?