Ahhhh, speculative hypercredulity-- the official affliction of the Post-Stevenote Doldrums! C'mon, you know the drill by now: you spend weeks and weeks leading up to Macworld Expo bathing in an ever-increasing torrent of Mac rumors, the magical day finally arrives, you oooh and aaah over the new gear, and then bam-- gravity gets tripled, the air flees your lungs, and you're adrift in a staticky void in which the Mac rumormongering had dropped to near-zero. After the Expo, everyone knows full well that no new major Apple product intros are likely to surface for a while, so the speculative whispers practically disappear for a few weeks until some real post-Expo news starts to surface.

Unfortunately, lots of us get addicted to the ever-increasing amounts of dirt pouring in as the Stevenote approaches, and when we're forced to go cold turkey after the big event, speculative hypercredulity sets in. That's when we seize upon the flimsiest shreds of rumor, disregard any concerns about "reliable sources" or the feasibility of the described scenario (whatever it may be) and just believe like there's no tomorrow. Case in point: faithful viewer Isaac informed us that The Register is actually going on about what must be the imminent launch of the PowerBook G5, just because some third-party ad-tracking code on the PowerBook page links in a graphic with the filename "apple_g5_powerbook."

Here's the "logic" at work: since the Power Mac and Xserve pages link to separate ad-tracking graphics whose filenames correctly identify the processor used in those two products, it's therefore unlikely that the PowerBook one just happens to be wrong. If that argument makes sense to you and it never once crossed your mind that the "apple_g5_powerbook" filename might simply contain a typo, beware: you probably have an acute case of speculative hypercredulity! Drink lots of fluids, get plenty of rest, and stay away from traveling salesmen and late-night infomercials until the illness has passed, or else you may wind up with more Ab Twisters and George Foreman grills than you can count.

Seriously, we're just not buying the theory that Apple stuck a real PowerBook G5 tracking counter on its PowerBook page because it's "preparing 'before' and 'after' stats" in advance of a product intro coming sooner rather than later. After all, Apple has already corrected the filename to read "apple_g4_powerbook"-- and besides, everyone knows that the PowerBook G5 won't surface until WWDC, where it'll make its debut with quad 3.0 GHz processors, a solid Adamantium enclosure, and an active cooling system consisting of dozens of teensy elves with paper fans. It's true! We heard it from some guy. And why would some guy lie to us about that?