Almost exactly a month ago we asked you for questions to put to the Mythbusters, hosts of the Discovery show that explores urban myth and legend. The response was huge, with dozens of worthwhile questions posted to the story. Today, we have answers back from Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage. They've obviously taken some time to answer your questions, and discuss everything from their shot at the moon to Creative Commons. Read on for their answers, and many thanks to both gentlemen for their thoughtful and interesting responses.

kale77in asks: "I've become a big fan of Ruby over the past few months, but I'm not at all sure about Ruby On Rails. Automatic code generation sets of alarm bells in my mind; so that, to RoR's promise of 'Web Development that Doesn't Hurt', I automatically add '...until you have to maintain it'. On the other hand, some writers and coders I respect (like the Pragmatic Programming mob) seem to be fans. I've mainly written generators in Python, to produce PHP/SQL/Java from SQL files, but I've always gone back to well-constructed objects, where extension and overloading offers more precise and maintainable customization than auto-generation allows. So is Rails just a nice RAD tool for disposable, cookie-cutter apps (which have a place, of course)? Is high-level generation just a bad OO substitute? And what has your experience of Rails' maintainability been?"

Heembo writes "CNN is reporting that Google just acquired a 5% stake in AOL for $1 Billion, shutting Microsoft out of the deal." Under this new agreement, among many other things, Google Talk will now interface with AOL's instant messenger according to the announcement on Google's site. From the announcement: "Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said: 'AOL is one of Google's longest-standing partners, and we are thrilled to strengthen and expand our relationship. Today's agreement leverages technologies from both companies to connect Google users worldwide to a wealth of new content.'"

Tyler Too writes "Is there more to last week's story about President Bush authorizing wiretaps without court review? Ars Technica writes about what's going on behind the curtains with the National Security Agency's technology: 'When the truth comes out (if it ever does), this NSA wiretapping story will almost certainly be a story not just about the Constitutional concept of the separation of powers, but about high technology.'"

miahrogers writes "The IRS Scam from a few weeks ago was not the the usual canned phishing attack; it exploited a vulnerability in the IRS benefits website to make users think they were at a government site. Also, according to Infoworld, eBay's own fraud team was tricked into thinking a phishing email was legitimate eBay correspondence. Mix the above IRS exploit with a phony email and you have misplaced trust that foils even professional fraud teams. Interestingly enough, the newest addition to my bookshelf predicted these attacks in full detail. From chapter 4: 'Combined with vulnerable Web servers allowing the "trusted" domain to launch the attack, it will be harder to determine whether the email is or isn't legitimate. When a person turns in the e-mail to question its legitimacy, due to the known marketing campaign a tech support representative may overlook the fraud report and tell the customer that XYZ company did send out such a marketing e-mail and it is OK to click the links.' Are phishers using this book as a tool, or is it a legitimate prediction? As an IT professional, what efforts should our corporate IT department be making to proactively to eliminate these vulnerabilities?"

Nate writes "Linux Format magazine has an interview with Larry Wall, the eccentric linguist and coder behind Perl. Larry discusses some of the new Perl 6 features ready to rock the world, and if you're not planning to move from Perl 5.8, he has a few musings on that too."

brainee28 asks: "I work in the IS department for a manufacturer in Arizona (a one-man-show). I do mostly everything; from systems, to networks, to procurement, to implementation. I can't mention who I work for since we deal with government contracts. My problem is this: The company didn't start out with an IS department. Up until 6 years ago, a few computers were scattered around, but processes and business was still being done the old-fashioned way (with paper). When the IS department was started, it was started by a hobbyist (he was named IS Manager before I showed up), who knew nothing about management or any of the major issues that befall a traditional IS dept. I joined 6 years ago (I have 5 years of IS Management experience, and 15 years of experience with IS in general) with the idea that I would be managing day-to-day operations. That has still not come to pass. The hobbyist left the company 4 years ago, and I've been on my own ever since." What is the best way for new IS managers to convince their superiors of the need for widespread change?

dafuchs asks: "Colemak, a new keyboard layout claims to be better then QWERTY and Dvorak. While i'm not certain if I should switch, it looks neat. It is better for hacking then Dvorak, and best of all, the 'l' is not in the right top corner. What do you think? Is it worth a try?"