Mt. St. Helens gave only two month's warning before setting of an explosion equal to a 24 megaton nuclear bomb, roughly 1848 Hiroshimas. In the year preceding that explosion, there were 500,000 tourists on the mountain.
It doesn't really matter if all is well in the neighborhood today in terms of what could happen within a year. The reports amount to little more than a weather rock. A single earthquake could change everything. Catastrophic volcanic events happen fairly frequently, so all this constant reference to 50,000 year timeframes really starts to sound a bit coy.
I have Comcast cable service and it amazes me that they use a modem, which upon grabbing a valid, public address sends that address out over DHCP and turns into nothing more than a repeater.
I had Covad DSL before and they provided a router/firewall. I still ran it through a DMZ, but come on, most people will just "plug-in" and by default handing them public addresses with no firewall is just idiotic.
No. By law, the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink EULAs cannot be applied to any application that has to do with medical devices, air traffic control, military weaponry etc. Don't think that just because your word processor has a liability release that the same is true for all types of software.
That said, the software development standards that are required under the FDA essentially enforce standard software lifecycle practices that people should be adhering to anyway, with the exception that the accountability for signing off on a product release is a matter of law, not just good practices.
I'm just waiting for the greenies to demand a halt to all geothermal generation plants because of the sulfur pollution generally found in their vicinity. Clearly there is a causal link. Duh.
Never has something I would like to wholeheartedly stand behind disappointed me so often with such endlessly pointless tautologies...and I'm a registered Green. You should see their internal memos... oy gevalt.
It is dishonest because they imply the manfacturing of [some_particular_item] is different from [any_particular_item]. Absent clear explanations of terms, they might just as well say it takes 250 kilos of fossil fuels to make boxer shorts so you should recycle your underpants. No one is saying that certain overhead magically disappears, but clearly it is not very honest to say that a particular thing is significantly worse without stating the excess in relative terms. Are they including the energy expended constructing the buildings, roads, commuter trains, apartment buildings and homes for the workers etc.? Hell, as far as the article explains, they just very well might be. In this type of analysis, those definitions are essential elements of credibility and they are wholly absent from the article.
Besides, their argument also ignores the fact that the continued use of old equipment will over time produce far more pollution than the original manufacturing process through the burning of fossil fuels to create the electricity to run the devices--and most electrical generation in the United States is from coal. Since they are advocating the continued use of such devices to reduce pollution, but those devices create more pollution when used than when manufactured, it's a pretty specious piece of simplistic propaganda, not well reasoned analysis. In that sense, it is extremely dishonest.
Oh "Energy Star" -- which was government mandated, by the way, has made no difference? It's not the exception, it has been continuously legislated on for the better part of thirty years you frilling contrarian. Christ.
God damn it, I'm not arguing that there is an environmental impact. I didn't even touch that part of the analysis. What I *AM* arguing is that their figures are dishonest. They are naming a very specific item and advocating an action--on that exact item. They gave a specific _MASS_ of fossil fuels. That the amount of energy available in that mass can be directly attributed to the specific action of manufacturing something as simple as a CRT is what I am questioning.
Also, the argument to use old equipment rather than new betrays the lie. New equipment is more energy efficient. Since the bulk of the fossil fuel burning they are talking about can be attributed to electrical generation, running an old piece of shit that sucks up ten times as much juice will produce far more pollution than stuffing it in the closet and buying an LCD. THAT is the point, damn it.
Thanks for the high shool science lesson---THAT WAS MY POINT, DAMN IT. They gave a particular mass of "fossil fuels," so I chose the cheapest one, the one used most often in electrical generation, from which to judge the cogency of their argument.
As a final bracket, I chose to use another fossil fuel of equal mass. It should be noted, though, that coal is, oddly enough, also the more efficient store of energy. It turns out, the numbers don't add up. That's just WAY to much energy to say "it takes this much specifically to manufacture a 17" CRT." If they had said, "it takes this much to run the electricity necessary for the administrative offices of the company that happens to manufacture CRTs--and they produce this many of them," I'd buy it. They're not, so the argument sounds like "the actual activity of making the CRT takes this much energy," which is rather dishonest and that was my point.
Oh for christ's sake, I'm sorry to offend your sense of accuracy by rounding up a whole 4.1%. It's the general relativity of their arugment that I'm addressing. The figures just don't add up. If as many resources were devoted to the production of just one item, face it, they wouldn't manufacture them. They don't specify WHICH fossil fuels are used. I chose coal as an example because it is the farking cheapest one that exists. I could have chosen super unleaded gasoline. But I didn't, because coal gives them the benefit of the doubt and since the fossil fuels they are speaking of are no doubt related to the production of electricity, coal burning is the most common form of fuel used for electrical generation.
Geezuz...get. a. life.
As you rush to judge my figures, which came from the DOE, ypu missed the most fundmental point--the report merely stated the mass, not the type, of fossil fuel. There was not enough information to truly analyze their claims. However, given the amount of energy contained and the costs thereof in the more likely candidates, it is unlikely that their figures are entirely correct. For instance, if they are counting the energy costs that would be charged for any indoor activity, which is quite considerable. That is to say, those environmental charges that have nothinq to do with the item produced. In that they are being rather dishonest.
yes and it costs about a dollar to send that volume clear across the pacific.
The point is that within the final cost of the item in question, there is not enough to support the claims of the article. Multiply their figures out over even a modest level of production and the results become absurd.
Yes, this definitely falls into the "lies, damned lies and statistics box." They are claiming it takes 240 kilograms of fossil fuels to create a 17" CRT that currently sells for $125. Now, coal is about the cheapest fossil fuel out there and it costs about $30 per metric ton of coal. So, that's $7.50 in the price of a 17" CRT just for coal. Now, in that $7.50 1/4 metric ton of coal, there are 5.1 million BTUs of energy. Comparatively, total annual energy consumption per capita is about 250 million BTUs. So, does it really strike you as plausible that the fossil fuel energy required to make your CRT is 2% of your consumption? That is to say, if you have 5 monitors (I do), that's equal an entire month of your total energy consumption? As a comparison, it takes about 250 kilos of gasonline to drive from Los Angeles to New York City. So, they are positing that it takes as much energy to produce a CRT as to propel 1.5 tons of metal and flesh 2800 miles at 70mph. Not. Bloody. Likely.
What I find truly amazing is the number of statements about "[insert disfavored group] are causing all the problems because they are stupid, so we should limit their legals rights." More often than not it seems the people making those statements fall into at one time or another the disfavored group. So, say you cap malpractice awards at $250k (a common figure). Ok, I make $75k per year, which is more than most people in this country make, but it's a small fraction of what many doctors make. I recently had a heart catheter. Mind you, cardiac care costs about $10k per day. If that doctor had fscked up that procedure and resulted in my spending an extra week in the hospital, the unnecessary bill would already be $70k. If the mistake knocked me out of work for a year, we're already at $145,000. That leaves $105k of play for everything from being permanently disfigured, rendered a quardiplegic to outright killing me--and in the maximum, the lawyer would take $75k, leaving me with $175k. If rendered permanently disabled, that would cover less than three years of my salary, yet I have 35 years of working life left.
This whole issue is just insurance carriers trying to increase their profits. With all the malpractice suits out there now, they're still making a profit. Yet, people are thrown this red herring, and convinced that if these caps were put in place their premiums would go down. They won't.
The difference is, they're not asking for releases from the parties being investigated, nor are they securing any proof of the relationship or reason for the investigations. Some of this information (e.g. credit reports) by law requires all of this. You can't just run your neighbor's credit because you spent $15 on a business license--and this company isn't even verifying that much.
To give direct access to anyone with only statistical accountability is just negligence in the name of expedience.
These guys are going to get sued and hopefully end up in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
There's a rather substantial criminal penalty, in California at least. If you knew--or should have known--that you were being passed stolen goods for resale, you are subject to the following:
(a) For the first offense, a fine of up to one thousand five hundred dollars ($1,500) or imprisonment in the county jail up to two months, or both. (b) For the second offense, a fine of up to five thousand dollars ($5,000) or imprisonment in the county jail up to four months, or both. (c) For the third, and any subsequent offense, a fine of up to twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) or imprisonment in the county jail up to six months, or both.
Since they didn't wait for the proscribed period of time, in California 30 days (no idea as for Florida), and within that time period had the victim walk into their store saying "oy, that's mine," and they didn't bother to even register the items with the police, it's safe to say that in California they'd be up shit creek. The laws on this vary slightly from state to state, but generally they follow the same models...
Look, I'm not friggen Consumer Reports. In general terms, the price per page over the total lifetime of the machines is minimal. Sure, if you're printing nothing but full color photos, you're going to suck through ink. DUH. The point is, consumer-grade printers have basically become disposable. That's part of the pricing model. Even if you changed your cartridges ever month, over three years, that's $1,500. If that was 500 pages per month, that's still $0.08 per page. HP estimates 833 pages per HP45 black cartridge for $30, or $0.03 per page on a $249 printer. If you ran through 833 pages per month for three years, your total cost of ownership for 29,988 pages would be $1,329, or $0.04 per page. Yes, if you're printing high-saturation photos, the price jumps up many times, but then that's always been the case for gods sake. One really wonders if people see $249 and they think that the ink it takes to coat 29,988 pages is somehow a big fscking conspiracy of "hidden costs." The costs are only hidden if you're completely fscking blind.
I paid $5,000 for an HP Laserjet fourteen years ago. It still functions flawlessly. The price, while largely due to economics of scale, was also due to the difference in materials. It was designed for high-volume business use, essentially the only market for the machiens at the time, for 5-10 years of full-time service. By contrast, the toner cost about a hundred bucks, or about 1/50th the cost of the printer.
Now that every 12 year old demands a laser printer or high quality inkjet, printers use much cheaper materials, have a usable service life of maybe 2-3 years of modest use and the ink/toner cartridges cost about 50-75% of the purchase price--often 100%, but they initially cost about 97% less than they used to, primarily because they're designed to do a fraction of the work and the price is designed to be spread out over the its lifetime so that consumers don't have to buy an industrial workhorse or pay industrial prices. So, you buy a $150 printer and refill it six times at $50 over three years. So you've spent $450, or about $12.50 per month for maybe 500 pages per month, or about $0.02 per page.
Yeah, unfortunately, it sucks when you have laptops you'd like to dual-boot Linux on and you have to deal with shit drivers for ubiquitous chipsets in machines you can't just pop another card into.
I have one that uses an ATI Mobility and I'm just glad I was finally able to get 24-bit at 1024. Hardware acceleration would be great, but I've already spent more time getting it to where it is than the damned machine is worth.
Mercifully, I have plenty of other machines. However, it would be nice if there was a laptop manufacturer who really embraced Linux so we wouldn't have to bury ourselves in the specs of 150 machines every time we're in the market for one.
It's already there. It's called Visa Electron. It is already possible to use it in the United States--my grocery store accepts it, for instance. Unfortunately, you have to get your card outside the United States as no US banks issue them. How fscked up is that? The same technology is widespread in Europe and has been for years.
Re:Warning: Vaporware Company Detected
on
The Universal Card
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
...it will not be implemented because it would be far to easy to use the little bugger as a swipe-and-steal device. Even if the things were ever actually manufactured and sold, I imagine 99.99999% of vendors would not honor them. I sure as hell wouldn't. Besides, they've been circulating this idea for YEARS and they have yet to get beyond the gee-whiz idea stage.
Uhm, I have a European bank account and a smart card that goes with it. Suffice it to say, those little chips to nothing more than Visa Electron. It's for digital cash. Nothing more. Nice try, though.
...that's the point--that he fscked up. He was running a corporation. If he, as an individual, proxied that deal with his corporation and then came up with the astronomical figure of $107k per year to charge back to himself for his "donation," the corporation breaks-even and pays the minimum tax. This is called "money laundering." Where the $107k came from in the first place is a big question, but since he obviously survived for three years without any revenue from the sheriff, there be real money here somewhere and I'd bet it's in the ballpark of $300k. Obviously, this is all pure speculation, but where there's smoke, there's fire and there's a shitload of smoke in this story.
It's just too easy (and too common) for morons to cook the books like this and find themselves three years later in deep shit with the IRS and their Secretary of State to ignore it as a scenario. Really, if he was such a reasonable, selfless guy, why wouldn't he just wander in with a CD-ROM of the site and say "hey, I can't afford to do this anymore, here's your site. The hosting costs X, so if you want me to keep running it, cut me a check, otherwise take it elsewhere. Bye." No, there's a scam in here and the Sheriff smelled it, big time.
Slashdot Mirror
Mt. St. Helens gave only two month's warning before setting of an explosion equal to a 24 megaton nuclear bomb, roughly 1848 Hiroshimas. In the year preceding that explosion, there were 500,000 tourists on the mountain.
It doesn't really matter if all is well in the neighborhood today in terms of what could happen within a year. The reports amount to little more than a weather rock. A single earthquake could change everything. Catastrophic volcanic events happen fairly frequently, so all this constant reference to 50,000 year timeframes really starts to sound a bit coy.
I have Comcast cable service and it amazes me that they use a modem, which upon grabbing a valid, public address sends that address out over DHCP and turns into nothing more than a repeater.
I had Covad DSL before and they provided a router/firewall. I still ran it through a DMZ, but come on, most people will just "plug-in" and by default handing them public addresses with no firewall is just idiotic.
...that would be the process to acquire...a security clearance, n'est-ce pas, muet?
No. By law, the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink EULAs cannot be applied to any application that has to do with medical devices, air traffic control, military weaponry etc. Don't think that just because your word processor has a liability release that the same is true for all types of software.
That said, the software development standards that are required under the FDA essentially enforce standard software lifecycle practices that people should be adhering to anyway, with the exception that the accountability for signing off on a product release is a matter of law, not just good practices.
I'm just waiting for the greenies to demand a halt to all geothermal generation plants because of the sulfur pollution generally found in their vicinity. Clearly there is a causal link. Duh.
Never has something I would like to wholeheartedly stand behind disappointed me so often with such endlessly pointless tautologies...and I'm a registered Green. You should see their internal memos... oy gevalt.
It is dishonest because they imply the manfacturing of [some_particular_item] is different from [any_particular_item]. Absent clear explanations of terms, they might just as well say it takes 250 kilos of fossil fuels to make boxer shorts so you should recycle your underpants. No one is saying that certain overhead magically disappears, but clearly it is not very honest to say that a particular thing is significantly worse without stating the excess in relative terms. Are they including the energy expended constructing the buildings, roads, commuter trains, apartment buildings and homes for the workers etc.? Hell, as far as the article explains, they just very well might be. In this type of analysis, those definitions are essential elements of credibility and they are wholly absent from the article.
Besides, their argument also ignores the fact that the continued use of old equipment will over time produce far more pollution than the original manufacturing process through the burning of fossil fuels to create the electricity to run the devices--and most electrical generation in the United States is from coal. Since they are advocating the continued use of such devices to reduce pollution, but those devices create more pollution when used than when manufactured, it's a pretty specious piece of simplistic propaganda, not well reasoned analysis. In that sense, it is extremely dishonest.
Oh "Energy Star" -- which was government mandated, by the way, has made no difference? It's not the exception, it has been continuously legislated on for the better part of thirty years you frilling contrarian. Christ.
God damn it, I'm not arguing that there is an environmental impact. I didn't even touch that part of the analysis. What I *AM* arguing is that their figures are dishonest. They are naming a very specific item and advocating an action--on that exact item. They gave a specific _MASS_ of fossil fuels. That the amount of energy available in that mass can be directly attributed to the specific action of manufacturing something as simple as a CRT is what I am questioning. Also, the argument to use old equipment rather than new betrays the lie. New equipment is more energy efficient. Since the bulk of the fossil fuel burning they are talking about can be attributed to electrical generation, running an old piece of shit that sucks up ten times as much juice will produce far more pollution than stuffing it in the closet and buying an LCD. THAT is the point, damn it.
Pardon, but no, that is not where I got my figures.
r ld %20(2000)
If you look here (note, this is the 'kiddie site'):
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/infocardnew.html#Wo
You will find that if you average the use of, say, the United States and Germany, it's about 250MBtus.
Thanks for the troll, though. Just because YOUR figures aren't from DOE doesn't mean mine aren't, honey.
Thanks for the high shool science lesson---THAT WAS MY POINT, DAMN IT. They gave a particular mass of "fossil fuels," so I chose the cheapest one, the one used most often in electrical generation, from which to judge the cogency of their argument.
As a final bracket, I chose to use another fossil fuel of equal mass. It should be noted, though, that coal is, oddly enough, also the more efficient store of energy. It turns out, the numbers don't add up. That's just WAY to much energy to say "it takes this much specifically to manufacture a 17" CRT." If they had said, "it takes this much to run the electricity necessary for the administrative offices of the company that happens to manufacture CRTs--and they produce this many of them," I'd buy it. They're not, so the argument sounds like "the actual activity of making the CRT takes this much energy," which is rather dishonest and that was my point.
Oh for christ's sake, I'm sorry to offend your sense of accuracy by rounding up a whole 4.1%. It's the general relativity of their arugment that I'm addressing. The figures just don't add up. If as many resources were devoted to the production of just one item, face it, they wouldn't manufacture them. They don't specify WHICH fossil fuels are used. I chose coal as an example because it is the farking cheapest one that exists. I could have chosen super unleaded gasoline. But I didn't, because coal gives them the benefit of the doubt and since the fossil fuels they are speaking of are no doubt related to the production of electricity, coal burning is the most common form of fuel used for electrical generation. Geezuz...get. a. life.
As you rush to judge my figures, which came from the DOE, ypu missed the most fundmental point--the report merely stated the mass, not the type, of fossil fuel. There was not enough information to truly analyze their claims. However, given the amount of energy contained and the costs thereof in the more likely candidates, it is unlikely that their figures are entirely correct. For instance, if they are counting the energy costs that would be charged for any indoor activity, which is quite considerable. That is to say, those environmental charges that have nothinq to do with the item produced. In that they are being rather dishonest.
yes and it costs about a dollar to send that volume clear across the pacific. The point is that within the final cost of the item in question, there is not enough to support the claims of the article. Multiply their figures out over even a modest level of production and the results become absurd.
Airspeed is nowhere near as critical a factor as altitude and, inexplicably, color
Yes, this definitely falls into the "lies, damned lies and statistics box." They are claiming it takes 240 kilograms of fossil fuels to create a 17" CRT that currently sells for $125. Now, coal is about the cheapest fossil fuel out there and it costs about $30 per metric ton of coal. So, that's $7.50 in the price of a 17" CRT just for coal. Now, in that $7.50 1/4 metric ton of coal, there are 5.1 million BTUs of energy. Comparatively, total annual energy consumption per capita is about 250 million BTUs. So, does it really strike you as plausible that the fossil fuel energy required to make your CRT is 2% of your consumption? That is to say, if you have 5 monitors (I do), that's equal an entire month of your total energy consumption? As a comparison, it takes about 250 kilos of gasonline to drive from Los Angeles to New York City. So, they are positing that it takes as much energy to produce a CRT as to propel 1.5 tons of metal and flesh 2800 miles at 70mph. Not. Bloody. Likely.
What I find truly amazing is the number of statements about "[insert disfavored group] are causing all the problems because they are stupid, so we should limit their legals rights." More often than not it seems the people making those statements fall into at one time or another the disfavored group. So, say you cap malpractice awards at $250k (a common figure). Ok, I make $75k per year, which is more than most people in this country make, but it's a small fraction of what many doctors make. I recently had a heart catheter. Mind you, cardiac care costs about $10k per day. If that doctor had fscked up that procedure and resulted in my spending an extra week in the hospital, the unnecessary bill would already be $70k. If the mistake knocked me out of work for a year, we're already at $145,000. That leaves $105k of play for everything from being permanently disfigured, rendered a quardiplegic to outright killing me--and in the maximum, the lawyer would take $75k, leaving me with $175k. If rendered permanently disabled, that would cover less than three years of my salary, yet I have 35 years of working life left.
This whole issue is just insurance carriers trying to increase their profits. With all the malpractice suits out there now, they're still making a profit. Yet, people are thrown this red herring, and convinced that if these caps were put in place their premiums would go down. They won't.
The difference is, they're not asking for releases from the parties being investigated, nor are they securing any proof of the relationship or reason for the investigations. Some of this information (e.g. credit reports) by law requires all of this. You can't just run your neighbor's credit because you spent $15 on a business license--and this company isn't even verifying that much.
To give direct access to anyone with only statistical accountability is just negligence in the name of expedience.
These guys are going to get sued and hopefully end up in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
There's a rather substantial criminal penalty, in California at least. If you knew--or should have known--that you were being passed stolen goods for resale, you are subject to the following:
(a) For the first offense, a fine of up to one thousand five
hundred dollars ($1,500) or imprisonment in the county jail up to two
months, or both.
(b) For the second offense, a fine of up to five thousand dollars
($5,000) or imprisonment in the county jail up to four months, or
both.
(c) For the third, and any subsequent offense, a fine of up to
twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) or imprisonment in the county
jail up to six months, or both.
Since they didn't wait for the proscribed period of time, in California 30 days (no idea as for Florida), and within that time period had the victim walk into their store saying "oy, that's mine," and they didn't bother to even register the items with the police, it's safe to say that in California they'd be up shit creek. The laws on this vary slightly from state to state, but generally they follow the same models...
Look, I'm not friggen Consumer Reports. In general terms, the price per page over the total lifetime of the machines is minimal. Sure, if you're printing nothing but full color photos, you're going to suck through ink. DUH. The point is, consumer-grade printers have basically become disposable. That's part of the pricing model. Even if you changed your cartridges ever month, over three years, that's $1,500. If that was 500 pages per month, that's still $0.08 per page. HP estimates 833 pages per HP45 black cartridge for $30, or $0.03 per page on a $249 printer. If you ran through 833 pages per month for three years, your total cost of ownership for 29,988 pages would be $1,329, or $0.04 per page. Yes, if you're printing high-saturation photos, the price jumps up many times, but then that's always been the case for gods sake. One really wonders if people see $249 and they think that the ink it takes to coat 29,988 pages is somehow a big fscking conspiracy of "hidden costs." The costs are only hidden if you're completely fscking blind.
I paid $5,000 for an HP Laserjet fourteen years ago. It still functions flawlessly. The price, while largely due to economics of scale, was also due to the difference in materials. It was designed for high-volume business use, essentially the only market for the machiens at the time, for 5-10 years of full-time service. By contrast, the toner cost about a hundred bucks, or about 1/50th the cost of the printer.
Now that every 12 year old demands a laser printer or high quality inkjet, printers use much cheaper materials, have a usable service life of maybe 2-3 years of modest use and the ink/toner cartridges cost about 50-75% of the purchase price--often 100%, but they initially cost about 97% less than they used to, primarily because they're designed to do a fraction of the work and the price is designed to be spread out over the its lifetime so that consumers don't have to buy an industrial workhorse or pay industrial prices. So, you buy a $150 printer and refill it six times at $50 over three years. So you've spent $450, or about $12.50 per month for maybe 500 pages per month, or about $0.02 per page.
Do the math, people and stop yer bitching.
Yeah, unfortunately, it sucks when you have laptops you'd like to dual-boot Linux on and you have to deal with shit drivers for ubiquitous chipsets in machines you can't just pop another card into.
I have one that uses an ATI Mobility and I'm just glad I was finally able to get 24-bit at 1024. Hardware acceleration would be great, but I've already spent more time getting it to where it is than the damned machine is worth.
Mercifully, I have plenty of other machines. However, it would be nice if there was a laptop manufacturer who really embraced Linux so we wouldn't have to bury ourselves in the specs of 150 machines every time we're in the market for one.
It's already there. It's called Visa Electron. It is already possible to use it in the United States--my grocery store accepts it, for instance. Unfortunately, you have to get your card outside the United States as no US banks issue them. How fscked up is that? The same technology is widespread in Europe and has been for years.
...it will not be implemented because it would be far to easy to use the little bugger as a swipe-and-steal device. Even if the things were ever actually manufactured and sold, I imagine 99.99999% of vendors would not honor them. I sure as hell wouldn't. Besides, they've been circulating this idea for YEARS and they have yet to get beyond the gee-whiz idea stage.
Uhm, I have a European bank account and a smart card that goes with it. Suffice it to say, those little chips to nothing more than Visa Electron. It's for digital cash. Nothing more. Nice try, though.
...that's the point--that he fscked up. He was running a corporation. If he, as an individual, proxied that deal with his corporation and then came up with the astronomical figure of $107k per year to charge back to himself for his "donation," the corporation breaks-even and pays the minimum tax. This is called "money laundering." Where the $107k came from in the first place is a big question, but since he obviously survived for three years without any revenue from the sheriff, there be real money here somewhere and I'd bet it's in the ballpark of $300k. Obviously, this is all pure speculation, but where there's smoke, there's fire and there's a shitload of smoke in this story.
It's just too easy (and too common) for morons to cook the books like this and find themselves three years later in deep shit with the IRS and their Secretary of State to ignore it as a scenario. Really, if he was such a reasonable, selfless guy, why wouldn't he just wander in with a CD-ROM of the site and say "hey, I can't afford to do this anymore, here's your site. The hosting costs X, so if you want me to keep running it, cut me a check, otherwise take it elsewhere. Bye." No, there's a scam in here and the Sheriff smelled it, big time.