My oh my, strong hypothetical words from the Mac Conspiracy. They present an entirely hypothetical situation in which a hypothetical Mac news website hypothetically "shuts down" without reason, inciting suspicion of intervention by the Man, then suddenly (and hypothetically) reappears, with no explanation as to why they were down. (Not even a hypothetical one.)

The reason for this hypothetically-staged shutdown? One word: Traffic. In the Conspiracy's hypothetical scenario, the hypothetical website's mysterious plight is covered by all the major nonhypothetical Mac news sites, and even some platform-nonspecific entities like WIRED news (who has never been known to be hypothetical). Hypothetically speaking, it would be a devious ploy to increase traffic to said hypothetical website.

AtAT reserves judgment on this one. We don't deal in hypotheticals. But if any of this were actually to take place in real life, we'd agree with the Conspiracy that it'd be really, really tacky.

Hypothetical. Hypothetical. It's lost all meaning.

Another take on the MacInsider drama is MacCentral's amazing coverage, and they're not dealing in hypotheticals. Read the email they received, revealing that MacInsider is not run by ex-Apple employees whom Apple pressured into silence by threatening the jobs of their still-employed friends (pity, we rather liked that scenario-- lots of drama). Rather, MacInsider is allegedly run by Computers Plus, an Apple dealer who violated its non-disclosure agreement with Apple by posting confidential dealer information to the 'net. When Apple found out who MacInsider really was, it was shutdown time-- and Apple was 100% legally and ethically in the right.

If this is all true (and it seems extremely likely, given the evidence at MacCentral, including DNS registration information from InterNIC showing MacInsider and Computers Plus both registered to the same zip code), MacInsider has taken us all for a ride. The author of the posted email is right in saying that MacInsider has been "severely deceptive" to the site's advertisers, to Apple, and to the readers like you and me.

MacInsider has, as of a few hours ago, decided once again to shut down. Their page includes "clarifications" that deny the above allegations, but we find their sudden decision to re-retire extremely suspicious under the circumstances. (They do admit that they were never forced to shut down, lending credence to a certain hypothetical theory we've read somewhere...) Sometimes life is just plain icky.

Poor beleaguered Microsoft... Seems they have no end of troubles these days. First, Sun Microsystems, in a heavily-publicized lawsuit, sues them for breach of contract because of the incompatible version of Java in MSIE 4.0. Then consumer advocate Ralph Nader started to kick up dust. And now, Janet Reno and the U.S. Department of Justice have leapt in to take their shots.

The DoJ has noticed that Microsoft is requiring that PC hardware manufacturers include Internet Explorer with every system that they ship with Windows 95. That's right-- in order to license Windows 95, Gateway, Dell, et al must agree to include MSIE as well. The DoJ says this is a violation of a 1995 consent decree in which Microsoft agreed not to use its OS monopoly as leverage to set up yet another monopoly.

Microsoft, predictably, has argued that MSIE is part of the Windows operating system, which we could believe-- if we were wearing Bill-colored glasses. The DoJ will have none of it, though; they, like the rest of the semirational world, realize that a web browser is an application. So, in ten days it'll be up to U.S. District Judge Thomas Jackson who's right and who's wrong. If the judge sides with the DoJ, Microsoft may be fined $1 million a day.

Sun, Nader, and the DoJ: Pig Pile on Microsoft! Who's next?

Hey, it's our one-month birthday! Thanx to all of our faithful viewers for making our pilot a success; with Nielsen Ratings of over 30,000 viewers, AtAT's been picked up for another season. :-)

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Thanx again for tuning in!