NASA discusses the Spirit rover flash RAM glitch in detail....

And you'll never guess the culprit.  Once again, Microsoft technology bites something really important in the ass.

"I want to restore the kind of government that our founders bequeathed us..." -- Badnarik

The Augusta Free Press interviews Michael Badnarik, Libertarian Presidential candidate:

AFP:  Mr. Badnarik, the federal government has grown three times the size of the Democratic administration of President Bill Clinton.  Who's to blame?

Badnarik:  "Who's to blame?  Who's in the White House?  Who controls Congress?

"Over the last four years, the Republican administration and the Republican Congress have grown government like LBJ on a crack binge.  They got a one-party government for the first time in 40 years by claiming that they'd cut government back.  Now they're fresh out of excuses."

AFP:  What steps are needed to control the rate of growth for the federal government?

Badnarik:  "I don't propose to 'control the growth of the federal government.'  I propose to prune it until the pile of dead branches is bigger than the shrub.  The steps needed to do this are simple: Cut operations, cut taxes and cut spending.  As president, I'll slash the executive branch by eliminating all of its unconstitutional functions, I'll veto any budget bill that doesn't include elimination of the income tax, and I'll veto any budget bill that spends more money than reasonable projections say we'll have."

[Finder's credit: atuttle]

Privilege elevation

Goose asked to have some more games installed on her recently-rebuilt computer today.  So we pulled down the CDs, went through them to find which ones she wanted, and started making and mounting VirtualCD images (we try to avoid letting the kids have the physical CDs, because they don't take care of them and the CDs end up scratched or broken) and installing games.

Or, as it turns out, not.  When I recreated Goose's account, I set her up as a "power user" with the privileges to install software.  She could only install one of the games she'd picked out; all the others demanded administrator privileges in order to install.

Now, we're talking about children's educational games here.  Big Thinkers, Spy Fox, Clue Finders, this kind of stuff.  Humongous Entertainment, The Learning Company, Brøderbund, Richard Scarry, and the like.  What on EARTH can these games possibly be doing that requires they be installed with administrator privileges?!?  HELLO?