[conspire] Recapping hardware discussions

[Rick Moen]

Since the prior discussion about hardware were _long_, here 
is the short version for future reference:

1.  There's a new breed of x86_64 CPUs, motherboards, and systems
that I find exciting, that have modern RAM limits (16 or 32GB) 
are very small, run totally silent or nearly so, draw tiny power, and 
put out effectively no heat with no moving parts.  Good applications
include home servers and HTPC (home theatre PC).

(For more on that, you'll need to see prior discussion in the archives.)

2.  Rick Moen is _not_ seeking noisy, power-sucking, big computers. 
He has some of those already as spares, unused because he doesn't like
them running at his house.

3.  Rick's not especially interested in ARM on account of peculiar
kernel support problems and package-availability shortfalls.

4.  Rick's desire to run a high-security infrastructure server 
_precludes_ overengineered software on it, because that makes security
doubtful.

5.  Rick isn't just out to spend the smallest possible amount of money,
so a 'good deal' (cheap) on something he doesn't actually want isn't
interesting.  Rick would rather pay what is required to get something
that meets his needs.

I do appreciate people's desire to be helpful.