We Feel Fine

I think Jonathon Harris did good job promoting the project through his talk, but I myself find it to be a little pointless. While it is an interesting concept, I don't think you're finding out how the world is really feeling (and I also don't know why you would want to know). This may be fun and interesting for a short while, but in the long run, I don't see this being useful in any way. On the other hand, the system of pulling a keyword and its context out of a blog is a very interesting idea. It could be put to use in other, more helpful, ways. Off the top of my head...I can't think of anything...but it seems useful! Well, say you are a company that wants to hear your customers' opinions on your latest product. You could use the WeFeelFine system to search the world's blogs for the product name, pulling out what people have said about it. With this you could then update your product to suit your customer's wants. I think this would be great, because not everyone who has an idea for a product will voice it to the company, but they may do so on their blog.

$2000 to Spend...What to Buy?

I would choose to buy simply from Dell, as I have done in the past and had a good experience with. They have always been fairly customizable, and the last time I built my own computer, it didn't end well. My specs are as followed:

Processor - Intel® Core™2 Q6600 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB)

Operating System - Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition with re-installation CD

Memory - 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 DIMMs

Hard Drive - 500GB - Seagate 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache

Optical Drive - Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability

Video Card - Dual 256MB nVidia GeForce 8600 GTS

Sound Card - Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

Media Card Reader - 13 in 1 Media Card Reader

TOTAL: $1909

I know that a few items are missing, such as a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers; the reason for this being that I already own them. I don't know if this is cheating, but I'm fine with my present 22-inch flat panel Dell monitor, my wireless mouse and keyboard, and my Logitech 2.1 (yes, lame) speakers. You might also wonder, "Why only a 500GB hard drive?", but that is also because I already own a TB in external space.

My uses for this computer would vary, from video editing to gaming. I believe that this is sufficient enough and will suit my needs for a while (maybe 6 months as technology is always rapidly changing XD).