So long and thanks for all the fish: So yeah, Think Secret has ceased publishing as of today. And understandably, the Internet's taking it pretty hard. After all, just over a week ago Blackfriars co-founder and principal analyst Carl Howe estimated that the buzz generated by speculation on Apple's next moves is about equal to $700 million of free marketing every year. Here's what some other bloggers and Internet journalists are saying:

John Paczkowski writes on All Things D: "[Apple] would never consider a suit against analyst Gene Munster, who's essentially Piper Jaffray's version of Think Secret."

Larry Dignan writes on ZDNet: "A shutdown sets a bad precedent."

Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim: "This action once again proves that Apple has no desire to embrace social media."

Matthew Ingram: "Apple comes off looking like some power-crazed South American dictator."

Travis Hudson of PC World: "Think Secret can't take all of the credit for the Apple explosion, but the buzz it created didn't hurt Apple, even if the company thinks otherwise. ... [Think Secret founder Nick] Ciarelli deserves recognition for not throwing his insider source or sources under the bus to save himself."

That he does, and hopefully he's laughing all the way to the bank.

More Mac Expo predictions: Wired predicts that "2008 could be a very big year for Apple TV." The blog post floats as possibilities: movie rentals, HD content, an optical drive, DVR functionality, and more storage. And Loop Rumors and MacNN point to patent filings that hint at a new iPod boombox.

Vulnerability stats vulnerable? We reported earlier that ZDNet.com blogger George Ou did a statistical analysis with data from security research company Secunia and found that Mac OS X had more vulnerabilities reported in 2007 than Vista and XP combined. Ou said that security had improved with Vista and Leopard this year. But now another ZDNet blogger, Ed Burnette, points out the valid concerns about his colleague's analysis. As Homer Simpson once wisely stated: "People can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forfty percent of all people know that."

The future of batteries: Some supersmart scientist types have developed a new kind of lithium-ion battery that could power a laptop for 20 hours. That's 10 times longer than current models. (Um, yes please.)

And just for fun: John Gruber rips apart a piece called "All Eyes on Apple" by Adam Penenberg, which was the cover story for the December issue of Fast Company. Check it out, it's a nice Macalope-style evisceration.