Boy, we'll say one thing for last January's Pismo No-Show debacle: it's sure made the prognosticators gunshy. Before that fun little disappointment, everybody with a web page and a Magic 8-Ball would blithely predict all manner of new product announcements and surprises, and then commit their prophecies to the virtual semipermanence of digital ink. But ever since the new PowerBook failed to materialize at San Francisco's Macworld Expo, the pros seem more than a little hesitant in their prognostications. Remember Jason O'Grady's humbling experience, first telling MacWEEK readers that Pismo would definitely show up at the January expo (it didn't) and then cautioning that it probably wouldn't surface at the Tokyo show the following month (it did)? We're not slamming O'Grady; he's a professional, and his example only shows just how tricky the Apple prediction business really is. So it seems that people are a mite worried about looking foolish, which is why "maybe" appears to be the word of the day.

Take next week's Worldwide Developers Conference. The word on the street is that Apple will take that opportunity to introduce a new line of Power Mac G4 systems with multiple processors under the hood. The chances seem extraordinarily good, since a dual-processor Power Mac has recently popped up in CompUSA's inventory system; with odds like that, we'd rather bet on Howard Stern winning the next presidential election than bet against a multiprocessor G4 product intro next week. (Well, maybe. Does anybody remember if Pismo product codes had shown up in CompUSA systems before the January expo?)

And yet, there's still a cautious, tentative air surrounding most discussion of next week's show. In particular, we note that Mac OS Rumors is claiming that reports from "Apple sources" are casting doubt on the whole multiprocessor gig: "at present the most realistic scenario given these reports is that Apple will demonstrate MP G4 prototypes," but may hold off on shipping the zippy little puppies until Mac OS X can crank 'em up to full speed. Okay, true, dual G4s running on Mac OS 9 wouldn't be quite as impressive as a fire-breathing, symmetrically-multiprocessing Mac OS X box, but hey, if Macs with two G4s can shave a few more seconds off of Photoshop benchmarks, we say ship 'em now. The high-end graphics mavens will chew up any speed Apple can throw their way, and they'll just get even more power once Mac OS X ships later this summer. So, as a blow against hesitance, we at AtAT are taking a firm stance: Apple will introduce dual-processor G4 systems next week. Probably. If Steve feels like it.

Sometimes we just have to wonder if the so-called "news" sites do any research at all. It's one thing when we at AtAT deliver information that's "accuracy-challenged," because we're not making any promises; heck, we've been known to make stuff up because it's funnier than the truth-- or because looking up the real facts would interfere with our strenuous Olympic training regimen. (We're representing the United States in the vaunted 100-hour channel-surfing event; gotta get that remote-clicking thumb up to speed.)

Look, everyone knows that Macs are basically immune to the ILOVEYOU virus, right? At least, any semi-reasonably-informed Mac user did a little digging to ensure that, as usual, the latest PC virus to bring down half of the civilized world is about as harmless to a Mac as a water balloon is to a Sherman tank. Yes, if you're running PC emulation software you could be affected, or if you've set up your Mac to be a network file server to an infected PC you might be kissing all your JPEGs goodbye, but in the vast majority of circumstances, ILOVEYOU was just one more reason to pity your PC-using friends.

So why, faithful viewer Pete Cassidy asks, is CNN using a picture of a Mac to dress up its coverage of the ongoing ILOVEYOU saga? And it's not just a Mac, it's a Classic-style Mac-- one that certainly wouldn't be able to run VirtualPC, and is less than likely to be used as a file server on a PC network. In short, CNN picked one of the least-susceptible computers on the planet, stuck a big, red Valentine's heart on its screen, and christened it as their international symbol of ILOVEYOU and the horrors it represents. So the question remains: was it just sheer cluelessness on their part, or is it some kind of anti-Apple smear conspiracy that's merely masquerading as sheer cluelessness? We won't know for sure until CNN covers the next catastrophic earthquake; if the shock is measured on the Richter scale but the death toll is reported in "Steves," you'll know something's going on.

And speaking of the ILOVEYOU virus, given the sheer number of you who wrote in about it, we have to assume you've heard what our old friend Bill Gates said in this week's issue of Time Magazine, right? Faithful viewer Noah Daniels was the first to tip us off to Bill's latest... well, we're not quite sure how to describe it. If he were any other guy, we'd probably classify it as a "psychotic rant," but he's the richest man in the world (or thereabouts), so we believe the proper term to use is "eccentric viewpoint." Hey, this is America; having mountains of cash can offset any number of personal quirks and foibles, insanity being the least of them.

Anyway, as you pore through Bill's plea to avoid a Microsoft breakup, you may notice a few interesting concepts. For example, he claims that his company is working on a tablet PC, but "under the government's plan, ... Microsoft's tablet PC simply won't happen." Why? Because a breakup would put Microsoft's operating system developers in one company, and its applications developers in another. As we all know, it's impossible for a company to write applications unless it's also developing the operating system on which it's running, which is why the only applications software available for Windows is all written by Microsoft. Similarly, creating hardware that works with a particular operating system requires that the OS be developed alongside the hardware, which is why every Windows PC sold today is manufactured by Microsoft itself. It all makes sense, right? (If you ever find yourself face-to-face with Bill and he starts going on about this, don't make any sudden movements; just smile, nod, and back away slowly.)

But the really goofy stuff comes towards the end, when Bill predicts what The Register calls a "Love Bug apocalypse" if Microsoft is broken up. Bear with us for a second, here: his argument is that the best defense against virus writers is a "continually evolving" operating system; if Microsoft is broken up, there will be less "innovation" in the OS, and therefore virus authors like the ones who gave us ILOVEYOU will have a field day learning and exploiting the static holes in the system. We can only assume that Bill wrote this piece via voice dictation software, because it's tough to type while you're in a straitjacket and pumped full of Thorazine. (Believe us, we know.)

Meanwhile, conspiracy-minded folks realize there's more to this article than meets the eye. ILOVEYOU only hit, when, last Thursday? And mere days later, Bill's got an impeccably well-timed (if slightly foaming-at-the-mouth) article playing on people's Love Bug fears, saying that this sort of thing is exactly what we all can look forward to if Microsoft is split in two. Hmmm... has anyone checked Bill's bank records for large sums of money wired to the Phillipines in the last few months? Because the timing of this whole thing has us wondering whether Bill's talk of a viral armageddon is a prediction-- or a threat. How many virus writers do you suppose you could keep on retainer for fifty billion dollars?