Please join me in remembering a great icon of the entertainment community. The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71.
 
Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The grave site was piled high with flours
 
Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded. Doughboy rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times he still was a crusty old man and was considered a positive roll model for millions.
 

Dubbed HECToR (for High-End Computing Terascale Resource), the Cray-built rig packs the equivalent power of 12,000 desktop PCs, or enough to perform some 63 million calculations per second, which'll apparently be used to study everything from climate change to new medicines -- or, as the researchers responsible for the computer put it, "push forward the boundaries of knowledge."
 
full story and picture: http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL1154155020080114

Chances are you probably missed last week's appearance of Sunspot No. 10,981 on the surface of the sun.
full story: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4120698&page=1

Nothing has been announced, but Variety is reporting that the last two major studios backing HD DVD — NBC Universal and Paramount — are opening the door for a switch to Blu-ray.
 
full story: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/hd-dvds-fall-like-dominoes/?ref=technology

The $4 billion acquisition of Countrywide Financial rescues the U.S.'s largest mortgage lender. BoA chief Ken Lewis calls it a "rare opportunity"
 
full story http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jan2008/db20080111_790414.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_top+story