The comparison isn't quite valid. You are looking at short term costs, but you neglect the long term costs. A business will factor in things like what it will cost to replace the VPS every 3 years. If your system isn't up to snuff in a year or two, have you put enough aside to replace it? Lets say a new system will cost you $450. That means you need to add $150 per year to factor that in. As some others have said, you ignore the network costs. There is a cost (maybe to you it is intangible) for using your home network. You can say it doesn't cost, but the cost is not $0. Maybe 10% is a better number. Anyways, these are the kinds of things that commercial companies grapple with in the pricing models.

This controversy has been settled in law for a long time.

"The first-sale doctrine is a limitation on copyright that was recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1908 and subsequently codified in the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. Â 109. The doctrine allows the purchaser to transfer (i.e., sell or give away) a particular lawfully made copy of the copyrighted work without permission once it has been obtained. This means that the copyright holder's rights to control the change of ownership of a particular copy end once that copy is sold, as long as no additional copies are made. This doctrine is also referred to as the "first sale rule" or "exhaustion rule."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

Get a lawyer.

There are many top engineering schools that are not in MA or CA. Yes, they are prominent, but there are many more in other states.

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/rankings

Why doesn't someone write a story about being a long time Linux/Unix user and going back to Windows for 2 weeks? I doubt I'd last the week without grep, bash or ssh. Doesn't it seem rather one-sided that Windows-centric people are evaluating Linux? Why not some Linux people evaluating Windows?

As for me, you can have my Linux when you pry it from my dead cold hands.

Its still old news, and the website I linked to has video and more on the OP.

https://antipolygraph.org/cgi-bin/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1229445968

There are exceptions in the Federal Government (including DOD) that allows it.

Evidently, former President George "Stalin" Bush thought it was a good idea to expand the program.

http://antipolygraph.org/blog/?p=212

http://antipolygraph.org/lie-behind-the-lie-detector.pdf

We've known the truth for years. Polygraphs are inadmissible in court for good reasons.

If you ever tried to restore a several Tb filesys, you'd know why I don't do that.

Yes, I am perfectly aware of tunefs. I stand corrected on the required fsck, but its required as far as I'm concerned. I appreciate the replies that say the fsck will be much faster.

One of my biggest beefs with ext3 in the data center is the required fsck periodically. Redhat won't support jfs or xfs (which I can get from CentOs) but some vendors won't support anything that isn't on their supported platform list (IBM Clearcase for one).

So is ext4 going to force a fsck at boot, which takes 1/2 a day with ext3 on some of my multi-Tb systems? Will Redhat finally adopt a better server filesystem? These are the questions that some of us doing professional Redhat support are asking.

Actually they have found underground copper piping used by the Egyptians thousands of years old. If copper was so fragile, there would be no copper to be found there.

Copper can be used underground and was used for many years for water supplies.

http://www.masterplumbers.com/plumbviews/1999/copper.asp

http://www.copper.com.au/cdc/article.asp?CID=58&AID=264

As noted in the articles, very few Ph and ground conditions can corrode copper, hence I object to the absolute ban of copper in the previous reply.

And yes copper is more expensive. But most plastics (PVC) cannot be used with refrigerants, so given a choice of metal pipes, copper makes sense in certain soil conditions.

With certain precautions, copper is the way to go in DX systems. I do agree with most of the above replies that closed loop is good too. I think that you have to weigh the intended use against the pros and cons, then select the best system for that application.

Ooops... typo in above post... It should be $2000 USD.

This technology has been around for some time, but it fails to generate much PR. You can get a measley $8000 US federal tax credit for installing one. A few enlightened states (not mine) will give you some additional tax credits for installing one.

The expensive part seems to be drilling the earth and laying the hose. However, what they fail to mention is that once its installed, it will last 50+ years.

The parent also mentions open and closed loop, but fail to talk about direct exchange aka DX, which would make more sense for a lot of people.

From http://www.geoenergyusa.com/technology.htm

"The direct exchange (DX) system is a series of copper tubes buried 4 to 6 feet below ground level. Refrigerant gas is then fed through these tubes creating a direct heat exchange between the temperature of the ground and the heat transfer medium, which in this case is the refrigerant gas. Because of this direct exchange feature these systems operate at considerably less operating cost than water source systems and because they do not require the additional water pumping cost and, DX does not suffer the heating or cooling loss associated with transferring the water temperature to the refrigerant as is common with these systems. DX is also cheaper and easier to install as it requires no well drilling or plumbing costs. As copper is a more efficient heat transfer medium than PVC pipe as found in water source, trenching costs are less due to less ground mass being required by DX."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CO_xM5gV48

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P0Z1Pa_Vvc