The awesome part of having a conversation with Kali:
1) What the heck to all those squiggles mean?
2) *google*
3) Ahh that's what it is. Where's the wikipedia entry? Ohhh! A website... pretty colors...
4) That makes more sense now, kind of, maybe. I think I'm on the same page for the minute (or am I just kidding myself?)... no we're good (I think), at least until the next post...
Anywho... we've got in the habit of buying 8-core boxes from dell that can handle most of our stuff pretty quickly and cheaply. I suppose we're lucky that way as other people expect us to do their analyses. Software is the stickler though. We can get 2-3 computers for the price of a single license, and the open source stuff is a whole different problem. You'll know how it works at least, but getting help if you have a question means tracking down the ex grad student for the lab that left 5 years ago and doesn't care about the project anymore.
Also good luck on the thingy. May all your smarts prove more than adequate.