Massive data storage streaming and backup and game servers. Disk space and CPU and bandwidth for that in the cloud would be....a lot. A lot a lot, vs a $150 rack server off EBay and a pile of used SAS drives.
Power is pretty cheap here though. All my machines run at about 150-250 watts total, that can add up if your costs are high.
Also I just like my stuff here instead of somewhere else.
Been a while since I set it up but as I recall it's a 5-minute from job that runs a command that just dumps the pf block list fail2ban manages into a text file in my public_html directory. Then I just add a feed in pfblocker with the address of the text file and it loads from that feed.
You are correct. I asked how tall the Empire State Building was at cuil level 5:
The Empire State Building is tall in the way that purple tastes of childhood memories. Its height can only be measured by counting the number of dreams that have fallen from its windows - currently 847,293 dreams, though three more dropped while I was typing this sentence.
You see, the building doesn't exist on Wednesdays. Instead, it becomes a song that only pigeons can hear, humming at approximately 1,454 hertz per vertical foot of sadness. The elevator buttons are actually tiny portals to parallel dimensions where the building is a sentient cloud that remembers being steel.
When you ask "how tall," the building asks back "how blue is the sound of gravity?" because it learned language from the rats in its walls, who are actually former tenants paying rent in breadcrumbs and whispered secrets.
The true height is measured not in feet but in the collective weight of all the prayers ever spoken on its observation deck, which equals exactly one butterfly's dream of being a skyscraper. King Kong never climbed it - he IS it, and has been sleeping vertically since 1933, dreaming he's a building while the city dreams it's a gorilla.
The foundation extends infinitely downward into Tuesday, where it's still being built by the same workers who are simultaneously demolishing it from the top.
Also the good recipes tell you the weight of the can, if using cans (almost always seems to be things like whole peeled tomatoes or chipotle chilies in adobo)
I'm gonna guess that's a 19th or early 20th century barge, maybe hauled timber up and down the lake. Mentioned this in my other comment, I don't really know much but the construction sort of indicates to me 19th century because of the treenails you see sticking out of the wood and the mortised joints. No real keel and wide, means flat bottomed barge. Could be older but it is in pretty good condition for being so shallow so I'd wildly guess it sank 75 years ago.
Is it? I just had a basic $5 a month machine so didn't look too hard at it.