Of course they didn't detect any rootkits installing themselves, that's exactly what an installed rootkit would prevent them from seeing.

The reason that everyone got so excited about the Mayan end-date is that it is a major culture's doomsday prediction that is testable in our lifetime. In the Jewish tradition, the messiah is supposed to come in the year 6000 AM and rule for another thousand years until the year 7000. Thus the world lives for a cosmic week ending with a sort of cosmic sabbath of messianic reign. Now that would be a nice prediction to test, unfortunately the year 6000 in the Jewish calendar is about 2240 AD. So just like all the people before us, we won't be able to see whether anything happens or not. Here we had a prediction that was to mature in a couple of years, and these spoil sports had to ruin our fun. Of course doomsday predictions are only fun when they don't come true, so seeing when the ice caps finally melt or dollar collapses doesn't have much of a pay off when you're eventually right.

as for forums, obligatory comic: http://theurf.com/2008/07/offline-box-forums/

So Nevada has the right to a cut (they chose 0%) of all the licenses Microsoft sells to the world? I think you have an issue with licensing and not Washington.

FTA:

Looks like we'll have to keep waiting

Why should Apple remove the radio? They should demand that radio manufacturers pay for each song played on their devices. On top of the royalties the radio broadcaster already pays.

I would be more concerned about companies in the black picking their own regulations. A failing company basically has until its cash reserves run out to change the rules of the game. A successful business can patiently whittle away at the regulations imposed on it. Plus a successful business is more likely to have popular support for making the winner's life even easier.

The makers of the film or TV show had to pay for the song in the first place. The label was already paid for the use and can't extract money again from the redistributor.

No, a good science class does not waste time going over something that doesn't have anything to do with science. A history of science class will cover the theories people had before Darwin, and how they slowly reached the point at which we are today. Creationism is a modern construct that has no place in a classroom unless the class is debate or sociology.

Exactly. Even if AV companies aren't making the viruses to keep themselves in business, their PR guys are doing a great pumping out a ton of fud to keep their sales up, and apparently the click throughs of any malware that looks enough like them.

And what would be wrong with that? Everyone in this thread would clearly love to live in giant hive cities ruled over by benign by wacky technocrats