I was working at a startup that was being acquired and as part of due diligence they sent someone to do a "walk through" of our "data center," which was tricky because it was in fact a small coat closet with 2 beige tower PCs stacked up in it.

The future of the economy is everyone owning 4 data centers

I actually wish I could round up every computer in my home, stick them in a 19-inch rack, and put that rack someplace where I can't hear it. That would be my "data center". It will be fed with a fat power cable and a nice fiber uplink, and it might even run some "AI" from time to time.

What about a single beefcake server that runs dumb terminals throughout your house with a lightweight shim between each device and server. Sexy monitors just sitting there quiet AF. Mega room for coffee cups and niknaks across the desk. Ports for days. This is my dream. I'd keep it by my feet so I could pet it and say good job.

Do this before you reach your 40s, because ageism will put a damper on your disposable income.

I once had plans like this...

That would work if every family member were okay with dumb terminals. Unfortunately, some of them require dedicated GPUs.

Routing thick black DP cables and bright blue USB throughout the house feels a lot less natural than just installing ethernet ports in each room. :(

I run my workstation PC with a dedicated GPU in a rack in the shed. I use Sunshine on the workstation and Moonlight on the client to access it. I can game like that, use blender for modelling, anything that needs more juice than my old laptop. It feels local. Even over WiFi I quite often forget I am on a remote machine. Moonlight runs on pretty much anything and everything too.