Since you're asking this question, I'll assume that you have the freedom to do whatever you want with them. We'll assume they're your servers, personally. In that case, keeping them at the ready in case your cloud solution turns into a hurricane is a great idea that was mentioned previously.

Otherwise, a couple of things come to mind:
1) Start a web hosting company, using Linux and cPanel
2) Start a Private VPN service
3) Beowulf Cluster! (this is slashdot, after all...) or the modern version: OpenStack
4) Profit!

Long live slashdot!

I could not agree more. For the first time in my life, I live out in the real woods in a forest and far away from the city. To go outside and look up, and see... *everything*. Its really fantastic, and it really starts the brain thinking. It wasn't long before I started thinking "bigger". Its a wonderful experience.

I don't know if I should be amused or terrified. This is strikingly similar to my own Windows 8 experiences.

This is exactly what happened with Apple a couple of years ago. The DNS Changer virus

http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/trojan_osx_dnschanger.shtml

It infected OSX machines and logged in the users router using the biggest "back door": admin/password. Then it changed to some DNS servers in Russia, and any device on the network was getting redirected to death to all sorts of sites.

Yes, this is a big back door, but no bigger than the admin/password admin/admin default credentials that 99% of people never changed. Thankfully, these days the routers come with better defaults.

$50, not $15!! Silly brain.

They've lowered the street price of used laptops enough that I can buy a workable 15" laptop for $15 and install CrunchBang Linux on it and use it for everything I could need, save for gaming. The project that I did this with is working out beautifully, even using it for work:

http://www.tidbitsfortechs.com/2013/12/project-5050-a-low-budget-linux-laptop/

Then again, Tablets Are Not Computers. Not yet, anyway.

http://www.tidbitsfortechs.com/2013/12/fictional-currencies-popular-scifi-tv-movies-literature/

I looked up the ones I didn't know, thought I'd share (link).

And I can't get up!

Agreed. You can feel the difference when banging away at the linux shell. *that* is the reason it matters to me.

I can't tell if this is satire or not, but I'll bite anyway. What does the modem matter? 1.5 down, 896 up, does't matter at the modem level. The rest is irrelevant. My ISP won't sell me higher speeds and nobody out here has another terrestrial solution, literally.

Thanks! I do appreciate that quite a lot :)

Streaming isn't the only thing we do here- with my work from home, latency matters, as it does with the gaming we do. Perhaps I should have made it clearer that we're trying to fit 5mbps of usage into a 1.5mbps line.

I was afraid folks would think that. I removed the ads, they're all but ineffective for revenue anyway. I'm sorry you didn't like my solutions, but that's how it goes. If one person benefits from something I wrote, that's enough for me. Plus, I just like getting my stuff out there and being *read*.