While SSD may be the new kid on the block and show signs of superiority. Hard drives retain a bit of advantage over their non-moving, solid state counter parts. Hard drives can take more write overs than SSD. Flushing the cache to the actual media is still faster on HDD than SSD. SSDs are still very susceptible to static discharge versus HDD due to more surface area having sensitive parts.
I do agree with the parent. SSD are a big thing and they have some important advantages. However, let's not go putting the cart in front of the horse and say that the era of SSD is here upon us. Cost, durability, performance, and longevity are some important areas where SSD needs improvements. In some departments of each of those categories SSD wins hands down. But SSD doesn't win enough in those areas to justify the incredibly high price of the drive. So it is a bit premature to start waving the banners right now.
It shows that Microsoft actually respects the GPL and believes it to be a license that can be held up in court. Or at least, they don't want to try to test the validity of the GPL.
At any rate, it gives us some insight as to Microsoft's view on Linux, since they've been silent for quite some time about the topic.
"Hey Bob, what is that in your pocket?"
"Hmm? Oh, ummm, oh! It is one of the new iPhone 4 prototypes."
"Cool! Where did you get it?"
"Well, funny you should ask. I could have sworn that I sent all these little buggers to China just the other day."
"Looks like you forgot one. Maybe you should head back to the office and send it on over?"
"Eh, we are already here at the bar. I'm sure that it isn't that important."
"True, true. It's not like anyone died over a prototype?"
I have always wondered what were the odds of such an equality in the 2 periods.
I would put money on pretty common for satellites made the way ours is guessed to have been made. You can try this at home, take two marbles and have one just sitting there and take the other and smack the first one by rolling the second marble. It may take a few tries but if you hit the marbles the right way they orbit each other, slow down, and spin at the same rate away from each other.
To better simulate this you can take one bigger marble and one smaller marble and let the bigger one be the one that just sits there. The bigger marble will pretty much stay in place but the two marbles will spin at the same speed.
I have no idea what this is called but I am sure someone who is more gifted in physics can explain better.
Cheers!
There has never been, nor will there ever be, an Australian "great firewall".
Never said that there was a "great firewall." Just said that this intervention that the government is doing is going to hurt in the long run. Ergo, people are going to shy away from doing business on the Internet if they feel the government is going to constantly pry into things.
To equate, let us say you own a physical business and the government wants you to keep a log of all the people who buy stuff from you? I know that in reality this would be a hit or miss thing to enforce. But the idea is to, oh what is the word I am looking for(?), dissuade people from whatever it is that you sell.
It is much like gun control here in the states. The government mandates a three-day background check period. The selling point is that it will identify problematic people trying to buy guns. We all know here in the states that, that is not a true point (it is hit or miss, take a look at the Virginia Tech shooting) but the ultimate goal isn't to stop people from buying guns or just simply getting guns, just dissuade them or at the very least make them think about what it is that they are doing.
There again, people are going to do what they want, when they want to. But that is people in general. A business operates on a different standard. They could do whatever they want to, but it would not pay off in the long run to do so in a country that regulates whatever it is they do, counter to whatever wishes the government wants to dissuade.
Therein lies my point. Companies (In more specifics ISP companies) are going to really think about setting up shop in a country that dissuades rampant, unchecked Internet traffic. That is the point of this type of regulation, to drop the hint to people (companies et al.) that this sort of thing is not encouraged by the government. So, it is not a great firewall but the rabbit fence is there to make a point. We don't like rabbits and we are willing to take steps to prevent them.
As far as pricks go, last time I checked (and it is really just my honest opinion) any government that puts private interest groups (ARIA and their crew) over the best interest of the public are pricks. So yeah, we've got a lot of them here in the US as well. I think it comes with the territory of government.
Just my two pennies.
PS: How the hell did I get modded Insightful when I posted like ten minutes before going to bed? I guess dead tired people are insightful.
Hate to see you guys drop off the face of the Internet, but I guess that's what happens when you get a bunch of pricks in Parliament.
But I guess that the government will figure it out when no one wants to deal with Australia as far as the Internet goes.
that if new version of moonlight can't keep up with the updated version of silverlight...
God bless you man. However, I doubt anybody in the Mono camp would listen to you. In fact, here recently, they'll take anyone not bowing before the almighty Mono platform up to the stake to burn.
But flames aside, this is the core reason why de Icaza is way on the wrong foot with his platform. All it does is show people why the Linux platform is not the best platform to develop on, it's always five or six steps behind MS on everything.NET.
If you've never taken a car out for a pleasure drive
I would like for you to consider your target audience.
1. Amusement Park - Sorry playing WoW.
2. Beach - (I'll use my mighty logic!) Most people go to the beach to tan/grill. I can tan/grill in my backyard. Therefore, UV exposure means that I'm not at my computer playing WoW.
3. Casino - Really, with what money? Unless they accept gold.
4. Girlfriends House - Seriously?
5. ???
6. Profit!
I'm sure you make a good argument for the majority of the US's population, however. Except the people who don't own a car, or the disabled, or the blind, the homeless, the poor, the committed, those in prison, dead, just born, underage, the undead, those that lived before the car was invented, overseas, in a war zone, ostracized by the public, content to being a hermit, running from the law on foot, are currently inside, are in a coma, are on bed rest, are Amish, go places in a helicopter because automobiles are so for the under $10 billionaires, a member of green peace, prefer bikes, are currently in an area where the use of a motorized vehicle would not be prudent, an animal lacking the required limbs to operate a vehicle, are a mushroom, are an inanimate object, paralyze by forces outside those defined by the medical field, are able to fly using their minds, have been abducted by aliens, have been killed by aliens, are stuck on an island with no hope of getting off, are currently committing suicide (unless it is with a moving vehicle), have been court ordered by California to refrain from driving, are currently at the bottom of Hudson Bay with some new concrete sneakers, or are Steve Fossett.
LINQ kicks ass for just the functional aspect of it.
I hate to bring this up but LINQ isn't protected in Mono. I have a feeling that this is one of the things that are really going to hurt a lot of people when MS decides to sue.
Indeed. This will always be the case. This is why I don't put much stock in teleporters. When the photocopier jams everyone tends to just walk away like nothing ever happened. Makes you wonder how they'll act when your liver ends up in Brazil, you right arm in Paris, and your left lung on the surface of Mars.
"...We introduce instructions newdata, lddata, stdata, castdata, isdata and
switchdata to create and manipulate classunion values..." (emphasis mine).
All of those operations have been superseded by ECMA-335 4th edition. Which per the CP would be open for implementation. However, that doesn't exclude the possibility that more operations could be added without submitting to ECMA. However, the ones that you have cited are a non-issue.
I just wanted to back you up by saying that I've noticed something at state borders in the south that looks a lot like something you are describing.
I can't attest to any other region however since I don't travel west or far north very often.
For the curious out there, you can see the one at the TN-GA border on I-24 at 320 feet before the state line on the GA side going west bound (it's to the right about ten or fifteen feet from the edge of the road.) For those heading towards Chattanooga, east bound on I-24, it's about 480 feet before the state line on the TN side (it's a little harder to see on the right side close to the trees on a wooden pole about twenty feet from the roads edge.) If you are using Google street view to find these guys, the west bound one has a solar panel on it (makes it easy to spot). The east bounds one can't be seen. It seems Google picked a rainy day to photo that side.
I-59 at the GA-AL border they're in the center of the Interstate. These guys are small brown boxes about 1/2 foot in height. Much harder to see going Interstate speeds. You can't miss them, however, if some idiot over-turned his semi at exit 239 and traffic is back up behind the line. Much like the TN-GA I-24 ones you can notice the metal sensor in the road just as you're about to go over them at whatever speed. For you Google street people, you'll need to be on the south bound lane (north bound lane's pictures are horrible), as you're passing the four rounded bushes you'll see the south bound one to the right of the right bush. Forget about trying to see the north bound one.
I-20 at the GA-SC border you will find them just before the welcome centers either side. You'd think a river would have prevented them from putting one down. The east bound one is about forty feet from the SC welcome center. West bound is like right at the entrance of the welcome center. Google street view people can easily see the one by the GA welcome center. It's right behind the sign saying "Speed Checked by Detection Devices." The SC one is totally invisible to the camera, in fact were they driving through heavy fog when they took those pictures?
There is a couple of more that I've seen but I don't drive by them as often as these guys. (I haven't noticed one on I-75 at the GA-TN border, but then again I'm usually fighting Chattanooga traffic.) What they're for I've got no idea but I'm sure your idea is very similar to these guys.
Yes and Microsoft's automatic update also brought us wonderful things like IE7 which, YMMV, broke three intranets that I know of in the area in which I live.
But you're missing the point still. Microsoft touts ease. These problems should fix themselves with "ease."
If it won't fix itself with this ease that they sell managers then, I suppose, that they shouldn't market that as the strongest point of Windows.
Head over to Apple and you'll see the same slogan about their server offer. But I'm getting off topic here.
Point being is that something isn't adding up in the world of Microsoft server. They sell that the system will run and that it's the easiest thing since slicing bread. In fact I can send you some of the material that they send to my company if Microsoft's web site doesn't sell you on that point. However, the reality of it is that it is not running forever and ever as they say, it is not as easy as they paint, it is not as compatible as the make out, and it sure as hell isn't as secure as they sell. At some point this is costing someone, somewhere. The idea is if it ain't the security, then why are morons running the show on the server? It may be because Microsoft is telling managers that morons can make this software work. "you may know them as paper MCSEs" Either it's security or the hyped marketing?
With a piece of software that just sooooooo easy to keep running, why do entire IT department fail to be "...on top of the maintenance of the computers?"
Trust. Microsoft's automatic updates not haz it, to use the lolcatz of our times. People don't trust Microsoft's updates. They fear it will break what they have going. slight pause
It may, it may not, but that's not the point. The point is that the ease of manageability argument fails when we subscribe to your idea of...
it's because the IT staff obviously were not on top of the maintenance of the computers.
We can either say that IT departments need to spend due diligence with updates and security announcements with Microsoft products. (much like Unix and Linux IT departments,) or we can say that Microsoft has issues with security and trust which leads to an environment that breeds ripe servers for malware attacks.
In the end, one of these two options will cost an IT department money. True, this article looks at it from the latter point of view, but say we look at it from the first point of view and what do we have? The TCO rising because the "ease of manageability" is reduced, the two being inversely proportional per Microsoft. So even if Microsoft does patch whatever exploit it is that we are questioning, the trust is not there from the end-users and that cost something as human as it may sound.
This is so inexplicable. Words fail to capture the entire swell of absolute sadness this brings. That sadness not of joy, not of sorrow, not of any emotion plausible to the human condition. No it is the sadness of how absolutely sad this photo is and how sad of a condition one must be in to have a wedding of such (word not yet invented but four orders of magnitude larger than hair brained) as this one.
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
The feds could also levy a 20% luxury tax on any house that costs more than $1.5M.
We've got something very much like that where I live. It's a county tax based on value of home that progresses upward as the value of the home increases.
I have an uncle (he's a gun maker and photographer [I'm sure that's enough to get a Google hit]) that avoids the tax by buying several smaller houses close together and the land between them. Tears down the houses that he won't use and renovates the one that he will live in. Where the torn down houses were, He'll build a greenhouse, pool house, stable, etc... Since they're not primary dwellings, or for that manner a place to live period like the stable, those structures are not subject to the tax. So basically he's got a piece of property worth a large chuck over where the tax increases to a higher rate, but he avoids the tax by having them all separate structures and classified as non-habitable structures.
I'm sure that everyone would point out that this is a huge loop-hole. You are correct, it is. Maybe one day they'll patch it, but I'm sure he'd figure out how to get around that too.
Point being, rich people have the resources to figure out how to get around the tax system regardless of whatever tax system we choose. So we might as well just have a flat tax on wealth, not income. Most rich people avoid income tax currently by declaring their income as capital gains as opposed to income. (I can't remember right off but I think the max on capital gains is 15% and income is like 35%). Anyway, had to reply since it reminded me of my uncle.
Slashdot Mirror
While SSD may be the new kid on the block and show signs of superiority. Hard drives retain a bit of advantage over their non-moving, solid state counter parts. Hard drives can take more write overs than SSD. Flushing the cache to the actual media is still faster on HDD than SSD. SSDs are still very susceptible to static discharge versus HDD due to more surface area having sensitive parts.
I do agree with the parent. SSD are a big thing and they have some important advantages. However, let's not go putting the cart in front of the horse and say that the era of SSD is here upon us. Cost, durability, performance, and longevity are some important areas where SSD needs improvements. In some departments of each of those categories SSD wins hands down. But SSD doesn't win enough in those areas to justify the incredibly high price of the drive. So it is a bit premature to start waving the banners right now.
I for one welcome this news.
It shows that Microsoft actually respects the GPL and believes it to be a license that can be held up in court. Or at least, they don't want to try to test the validity of the GPL.
At any rate, it gives us some insight as to Microsoft's view on Linux, since they've been silent for quite some time about the topic.
"Hey Bob, what is that in your pocket?"
"Hmm? Oh, ummm, oh! It is one of the new iPhone 4 prototypes."
"Cool! Where did you get it?"
"Well, funny you should ask. I could have sworn that I sent all these little buggers to China just the other day."
"Looks like you forgot one. Maybe you should head back to the office and send it on over?"
"Eh, we are already here at the bar. I'm sure that it isn't that important."
"True, true. It's not like anyone died over a prototype?"
I have always wondered what were the odds of such an equality in the 2 periods.
I would put money on pretty common for satellites made the way ours is guessed to have been made. You can try this at home, take two marbles and have one just sitting there and take the other and smack the first one by rolling the second marble. It may take a few tries but if you hit the marbles the right way they orbit each other, slow down, and spin at the same rate away from each other.
To better simulate this you can take one bigger marble and one smaller marble and let the bigger one be the one that just sits there. The bigger marble will pretty much stay in place but the two marbles will spin at the same speed.
I have no idea what this is called but I am sure someone who is more gifted in physics can explain better.
Cheers!
Is it just me or am I noticing more cites to the Lovecraft mythos?
This article.
This one.
Then I head over to this site and see this.
Is there a sudden resurgence in Lovecraft as an Internet meme that I'm unaware of?
There has never been, nor will there ever be, an Australian "great firewall".
Never said that there was a "great firewall." Just said that this intervention that the government is doing is going to hurt in the long run. Ergo, people are going to shy away from doing business on the Internet if they feel the government is going to constantly pry into things.
To equate, let us say you own a physical business and the government wants you to keep a log of all the people who buy stuff from you? I know that in reality this would be a hit or miss thing to enforce. But the idea is to, oh what is the word I am looking for(?), dissuade people from whatever it is that you sell.
It is much like gun control here in the states. The government mandates a three-day background check period. The selling point is that it will identify problematic people trying to buy guns. We all know here in the states that, that is not a true point (it is hit or miss, take a look at the Virginia Tech shooting) but the ultimate goal isn't to stop people from buying guns or just simply getting guns, just dissuade them or at the very least make them think about what it is that they are doing.
There again, people are going to do what they want, when they want to. But that is people in general. A business operates on a different standard. They could do whatever they want to, but it would not pay off in the long run to do so in a country that regulates whatever it is they do, counter to whatever wishes the government wants to dissuade.
Therein lies my point. Companies (In more specifics ISP companies) are going to really think about setting up shop in a country that dissuades rampant, unchecked Internet traffic. That is the point of this type of regulation, to drop the hint to people (companies et al.) that this sort of thing is not encouraged by the government. So, it is not a great firewall but the rabbit fence is there to make a point. We don't like rabbits and we are willing to take steps to prevent them.
As far as pricks go, last time I checked (and it is really just my honest opinion) any government that puts private interest groups (ARIA and their crew) over the best interest of the public are pricks. So yeah, we've got a lot of them here in the US as well. I think it comes with the territory of government.
Just my two pennies.
PS: How the hell did I get modded Insightful when I posted like ten minutes before going to bed? I guess dead tired people are insightful.
Dear Australia,
Hate to see you guys drop off the face of the Internet, but I guess that's what happens when you get a bunch of pricks in Parliament.
But I guess that the government will figure it out when no one wants to deal with Australia as far as the Internet goes.
that if new version of moonlight can't keep up with the updated version of silverlight...
God bless you man. However, I doubt anybody in the Mono camp would listen to you. In fact, here recently, they'll take anyone not bowing before the almighty Mono platform up to the stake to burn.
.NET.
But flames aside, this is the core reason why de Icaza is way on the wrong foot with his platform. All it does is show people why the Linux platform is not the best platform to develop on, it's always five or six steps behind MS on everything
If you've never taken a car out for a pleasure drive
I would like for you to consider your target audience.
1. Amusement Park - Sorry playing WoW.
2. Beach - (I'll use my mighty logic!) Most people go to the beach to tan/grill. I can tan/grill in my backyard. Therefore, UV exposure means that I'm not at my computer playing WoW.
3. Casino - Really, with what money? Unless they accept gold.
4. Girlfriends House - Seriously?
5. ???
6. Profit!
I'm sure you make a good argument for the majority of the US's population, however. Except the people who don't own a car, or the disabled, or the blind, the homeless, the poor, the committed, those in prison, dead, just born, underage, the undead, those that lived before the car was invented, overseas, in a war zone, ostracized by the public, content to being a hermit, running from the law on foot, are currently inside, are in a coma, are on bed rest, are Amish, go places in a helicopter because automobiles are so for the under $10 billionaires, a member of green peace, prefer bikes, are currently in an area where the use of a motorized vehicle would not be prudent, an animal lacking the required limbs to operate a vehicle, are a mushroom, are an inanimate object, paralyze by forces outside those defined by the medical field, are able to fly using their minds, have been abducted by aliens, have been killed by aliens, are stuck on an island with no hope of getting off, are currently committing suicide (unless it is with a moving vehicle), have been court ordered by California to refrain from driving, are currently at the bottom of Hudson Bay with some new concrete sneakers, or are Steve Fossett.
One word.
Parachutes.
LINQ kicks ass for just the functional aspect of it.
I hate to bring this up but LINQ isn't protected in Mono. I have a feeling that this is one of the things that are really going to hurt a lot of people when MS decides to sue.
Cheers!
because even here in the future nothing works.
Indeed. This will always be the case. This is why I don't put much stock in teleporters. When the photocopier jams everyone tends to just walk away like nothing ever happened. Makes you wonder how they'll act when your liver ends up in Brazil, you right arm in Paris, and your left lung on the surface of Mars.
The ideal customer is one who is rich, trusting, and ignorant. The first of those three rarely goes along with the other two, unfortunately.
That's just because you get to them too late as the two latter elements tends to remove the first element.
Okay you can safely mod me down.
"...We introduce instructions newdata, lddata, stdata, castdata, isdata and switchdata to create and manipulate classunion values..." (emphasis mine).
All of those operations have been superseded by ECMA-335 4th edition. Which per the CP would be open for implementation. However, that doesn't exclude the possibility that more operations could be added without submitting to ECMA. However, the ones that you have cited are a non-issue.
Cheers.
I just wanted to back you up by saying that I've noticed something at state borders in the south that looks a lot like something you are describing.
I can't attest to any other region however since I don't travel west or far north very often.
For the curious out there, you can see the one at the TN-GA border on I-24 at 320 feet before the state line on the GA side going west bound (it's to the right about ten or fifteen feet from the edge of the road.) For those heading towards Chattanooga, east bound on I-24, it's about 480 feet before the state line on the TN side (it's a little harder to see on the right side close to the trees on a wooden pole about twenty feet from the roads edge.) If you are using Google street view to find these guys, the west bound one has a solar panel on it (makes it easy to spot). The east bounds one can't be seen. It seems Google picked a rainy day to photo that side.
I-59 at the GA-AL border they're in the center of the Interstate. These guys are small brown boxes about 1/2 foot in height. Much harder to see going Interstate speeds. You can't miss them, however, if some idiot over-turned his semi at exit 239 and traffic is back up behind the line. Much like the TN-GA I-24 ones you can notice the metal sensor in the road just as you're about to go over them at whatever speed. For you Google street people, you'll need to be on the south bound lane (north bound lane's pictures are horrible), as you're passing the four rounded bushes you'll see the south bound one to the right of the right bush. Forget about trying to see the north bound one.
I-20 at the GA-SC border you will find them just before the welcome centers either side. You'd think a river would have prevented them from putting one down. The east bound one is about forty feet from the SC welcome center. West bound is like right at the entrance of the welcome center. Google street view people can easily see the one by the GA welcome center. It's right behind the sign saying "Speed Checked by Detection Devices." The SC one is totally invisible to the camera, in fact were they driving through heavy fog when they took those pictures?
There is a couple of more that I've seen but I don't drive by them as often as these guys. (I haven't noticed one on I-75 at the GA-TN border, but then again I'm usually fighting Chattanooga traffic.) What they're for I've got no idea but I'm sure your idea is very similar to these guys.
Yes and Microsoft's automatic update also brought us wonderful things like IE7 which, YMMV, broke three intranets that I know of in the area in which I live.
But you're missing the point still. Microsoft touts ease. These problems should fix themselves with "ease."
If it won't fix itself with this ease that they sell managers then, I suppose, that they shouldn't market that as the strongest point of Windows.
Head over to Apple and you'll see the same slogan about their server offer. But I'm getting off topic here.
Point being is that something isn't adding up in the world of Microsoft server. They sell that the system will run and that it's the easiest thing since slicing bread. In fact I can send you some of the material that they send to my company if Microsoft's web site doesn't sell you on that point. However, the reality of it is that it is not running forever and ever as they say, it is not as easy as they paint, it is not as compatible as the make out, and it sure as hell isn't as secure as they sell. At some point this is costing someone, somewhere. The idea is if it ain't the security, then why are morons running the show on the server? It may be because Microsoft is telling managers that morons can make this software work. "you may know them as paper MCSEs" Either it's security or the hyped marketing?
Thank you. I will now clean the soda off my monitor and out of my keyboard.
Rolling out Windows Updates is not a difficult task
True but I would like to consider the line just before that one...
The answer is, is that it's because the IT staff obviously were not on top of the maintenance of the computers.
This statement slaps directly in the face of what Microsoft touts as their big advantage. Ease of manageability. In fact, they say that it is 60% the TCO of servers. See blue pie piece.
In fact what does Microsoft think Ease of manageability means? See first gray bubble
With a piece of software that just sooooooo easy to keep running, why do entire IT department fail to be "...on top of the maintenance of the computers?"
Trust. Microsoft's automatic updates not haz it, to use the lolcatz of our times. People don't trust Microsoft's updates. They fear it will break what they have going. slight pause It may, it may not, but that's not the point. The point is that the ease of manageability argument fails when we subscribe to your idea of...
it's because the IT staff obviously were not on top of the maintenance of the computers.
We can either say that IT departments need to spend due diligence with updates and security announcements with Microsoft products. (much like Unix and Linux IT departments,) or we can say that Microsoft has issues with security and trust which leads to an environment that breeds ripe servers for malware attacks.
In the end, one of these two options will cost an IT department money. True, this article looks at it from the latter point of view, but say we look at it from the first point of view and what do we have? The TCO rising because the "ease of manageability" is reduced, the two being inversely proportional per Microsoft. So even if Microsoft does patch whatever exploit it is that we are questioning, the trust is not there from the end-users and that cost something as human as it may sound.
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
Oh Obi-Wan, it was this wedding.
As noted by some. This also has been the most detailed fail.
Yeah I know, my goof. However, you could have also linked to the one in question.
I'm going to have to mark this bug as:
FAILURE TO REPRODUCE
I'm citing a lack of girlfriend as the cause.
Does anyone else find it interesting that Nokia is the owner of Qt?
They're also the ones who decided to LGPL it.
Go figure.
The feds could also levy a 20% luxury tax on any house that costs more than $1.5M.
We've got something very much like that where I live. It's a county tax based on value of home that progresses upward as the value of the home increases.
I have an uncle (he's a gun maker and photographer [I'm sure that's enough to get a Google hit]) that avoids the tax by buying several smaller houses close together and the land between them. Tears down the houses that he won't use and renovates the one that he will live in. Where the torn down houses were, He'll build a greenhouse, pool house, stable, etc... Since they're not primary dwellings, or for that manner a place to live period like the stable, those structures are not subject to the tax. So basically he's got a piece of property worth a large chuck over where the tax increases to a higher rate, but he avoids the tax by having them all separate structures and classified as non-habitable structures.
I'm sure that everyone would point out that this is a huge loop-hole. You are correct, it is. Maybe one day they'll patch it, but I'm sure he'd figure out how to get around that too.
Point being, rich people have the resources to figure out how to get around the tax system regardless of whatever tax system we choose. So we might as well just have a flat tax on wealth, not income. Most rich people avoid income tax currently by declaring their income as capital gains as opposed to income. (I can't remember right off but I think the max on capital gains is 15% and income is like 35%). Anyway, had to reply since it reminded me of my uncle.