Microsoft, Intel to build two college computing centers

Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. are giving a combined $20 million to build computing research centers at the University of Illinois and University of California.

The Universal Parallel Computer Research Centers (UPCRC) will attempt to accelerate development of parallel computing, which involves using multiple computer cores, or engines. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), for example, has worked on an 80-core research processor.

Officials at Redmond-based Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) said multi-core processors represent a "revolution in the computer industry."

Microsoft, Intel to build two college computing centers

Hockey club named national champions

What an amazing season! GO ILLINI!!!

A dream season came to a perfect end for the Illinois hockey club at the American Collegiate Hockey Association National Championships in Rochester, N.Y. A 4-2 victory over No. 2 Lindenwood in the tournament finals on Wednesday night secured the Murdoch Cup and an unblemished 38-0-0 record.

Senior center Drew Heredia scored twice in his final game as the Illini won their second national championship and first-ever perfect season.

The championship game was the fifth meeting between the two teams this season and the third time the top-ranked Illini have played the nation's No. 2-ranked team.

In their bid to upset the nation's top ranked team, it was the Lions who struck first in the tournament final, as Lindenwood forward Larry Kopecky scored 10 minutes into the first period.

Illinois would storm back, however, rattling off three unanswered goals to assume a 3-1 lead, which lasted until a late second period goal from Lions forward Travis Bokina, keeping the game close entering the final 20 minutes.

Neither team found a clear advantage in the third period until a precise Johnny Liang pass to Tom Connell set up a backhanded shot that found the net and gave the Illini a 4-2 lead.

From there, Illinois kept its conference rival at bay, as goaltender Mike Burda and the Illini defense preserved the two-goal lead despite the Lions desperate attempts to score in the final minutes with their goaltender pulled.

The mostly pro-Illini crowd erupted after the final buzzer sounded, chanting "38-0!" as the Illinois players stormed the ice.

Heredia, the team's captain, was named the tournament's most valuable player after the victory, while Brad Hoelzer and Liang were named to the first all-tournament team and Burda earned second all-tournament team honors.

Head coach Chad Cassel won his second national title in his 11th season with the team, the first coming in 2005.

Hockey club named national champions: No. 1 Illinois beats No. 2 Lindenwood to finish season undefeated, 38-0-0

Illini Hockey - Undefeated 2008 ACHA National Champions!

March 05, 2008 - First it was CSCHL Regular season champs for the Illini, then CSCHL playoff champs,and now you can add undefeated, 38-0-0, ACHA Division I National Champions to their title. From the start of the season the Illini had their eyes on the prize of being national champs, and tonight after a long hard fought season, that prize is theirs to enjoy.

The perfect end to the perfect season

Y-Basketball: Bulls 28, Spurs 10

The Bulls completed another fine Y-Basketball league season with a solid 28-10 victory from the Spurs last Saturday morning at the Champaign County YMCA.

Balanced scoring was the rule for the Bulls in this contest: Henry, George and Joe set the pace with 6 points each, while Tobin added 4 and Michael, Jarron and Luke each added a bucket. Rory and Nathan also played, but did not score.

Solid defense again keyed numerous fast-break opportunities for the Bulls. And the Bulls enjoyed another strong performance from their backcourt: good ball-handling, good passing and few turnovers resulted in another outstanding ballgame.

Congrats to the Spurs' Max and Johnny, who played great games on Saturday as well. Max led all scorers in the game with 8 points and Johnny added the other 2 for the Spurs. It's always difficult playing (and coaching) against your friends.

And so the Bulls finish the Winter 2008 league with a 6-1 record and high hopes for more success in the future. The nucleus of this team - including George, Joe, Michael, Tobin, Luke and Nathan - has posted the following (unofficial) won/loss Y-league records over the past twelve months:

Winter 2008:  6-1   0.857
Fall 2007:    7-0   1.000
Winter 2007:  7-0   1.000
-------------------------
Total:       20-1   0.952

When you consider that the only loss this team has taken in the last twelve months was by just two points (and that game could have easily ended in a tie), you might agree that there are good reasons for optimism going forward. Winning consistently is difficult to achieve, especially when you're talking about 6- and 7-year-old kids who are still learning the fundamentals of the game. Certainly, this group of St. Matthew first graders will be a force to be reckoned with when they grow to be fifth graders and wear the green unis for the St. Matthew Raiders. Meanwhile we're enjoying our journey into the future with this team.

I should mention that the Champaign County YMCA does not condone keeping score or declaring winners or losers in our basketball games at this level. But a year ago, when we started to come together as a team, we coaches noticed that this group of kids was special. Our team seemed to gravitate to success rather quickly. It was this success that prompted me - and several other team parents - to start unofficially tracking game scores. Most parents seem to want to know if we're winning or losing anyway. It sure is nice when you can inform them that we're winning.

Y-Basketball: Bulls 28, Suns 18

Tobin's 10 points in the paint carried the Bulls to a 28-18 victory from the Suns this morning in YMCA Youth Basketball at the Champaign County YMCA.

Tobin got things going early in his breakout game for the Bulls, positioning himself in the paint and taking advantage of a porous Suns interior defense. At the other end of the court, the Bulls played another typically strong defensive game and coasted with comfortable leads throughout the first three quarters, leading 26-10 after three periods were complete.

But poor ball handling and some rushed shooting by the Bulls in the fourth quarter allowed the Suns to cut into the lead with an 8-2 run.

Henry had another strong game in the paint, adding 6 points for the Bulls. George and Joe each had 4, and Michael and Nathan each hit a basket for 2 points apiece to round out the scoring for the good guys, who improve to 5-1 with the victory. Henry, Tobin, George, Joe and Michael did a solid job rebounding in the game. And Nathan and Joe provided excellent ballhandling skills throughout their three quarters of action.

Next up for the Bulls: the final game of the league season against the Spurs at 9 AM this Saturday at the Champaign County YMCA.

Crimson and sour cream: Indiana heads for a fall

For Indiana basketball, there have been a few moments of glory during this decade. There was the remarkable win over Duke in the 2002 NCAA Tournament. There was the overtime win against Maryland in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge the following season. There was Tuesday’s home victory over Purdue to put the Hoosiers within striking distance of the 2008 Big Ten title and send Kelvin Sampson into “retirement” as a winner.

OK, so it’s not a long, long list.

It’ll have to do.

There will not be many more moments to cherish with Indiana basketball for a long time. The descent has only begun. The challenges will become greater, the solutions less accessible. It may be years before we again recognize this program, even if the Hoosiers stick to those candy-stripe warmup pants.

...

Whoever becomes coach probably will encounter a program nearly as empty as Cincinnati was a couple of springs ago. Players willing to consider walking out on a season will not hesitate to consider transferring when that season is done. The two best players, D.J. White and Eric Gordon, will be gone regardless. And IU can forget about the recruiting class promised last fall. Those guys will be asking for releases.

It will be years before we recognize Indiana basketball as the power with five national champions. If you think about it, maybe offering the job to Bob Knight wouldn’t be such an awful idea. He might be the only qualified coach willing to take it.

Crimson and sour cream: Indiana heads for a fall

Sampson out at Indiana; Hoosiers head to Northwestern with Dakich as coach

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP)—The long legacy of Indiana basketball began a new chapter Saturday.

One day after coach Kelvin Sampson accepted a $750,000 buyout and jilted players threatened a boycott, interim coach Dan Dakich found a pleasant surprise at Assembly Hall: Every player, including senior captain D.J. White, was on board the team bus.

The smattering of fans who showed up, shook hands with players and coaches, wishing them well for Saturday night’s game at Northwestern. All hoped to move beyond the embarrassment created by Sampson’s alleged NCAA violations.

Sampson out at Indiana; Hoosiers head to Northwestern with Dakich as coach

Illinois Memorial Stadium Rededication Set for Sept. 6

Feb. 13, 2008

The University of Illinois Division of Intercollegiate Athletics has announced plans for the rededication of Memorial Stadium to take place on Sept. 6 in the home opener against Eastern Illinois. The Fighting Illini will wear throwback jerseys honoring the Dick Butkus era. Also, the DIA will honor the greatest Illinois gridders that played at Memorial Stadium during eight timeouts throughout the game.

"This is a must see, once-in-a-lifetime event for Fighting Illini football fans," said Assistant Director of Athletics Chris Hanna. "We believe fans will get chills seeing many of the history makers, who made Memorial Stadium such a revered venue, standing side-by-side at one timeout after another. This is an event that will be talked about for years to come."

A fan vote will be held on fightingillini.com/CoachRonZook.com that establishes the top 10 players at the following positions: quarterback, running back, receiver, offensive line, defensive line, linebacker, defensive back, and specialist. Fan voting will begin on Monday, March 10 and conclude on Thursday, Apr. 10. The results of the fan balloting will be announced soon thereafter.

Players will appear on the ballot if they earned first or second team All Big Ten honors or if they played at least four years in the NFL. Harold ³Red² Grange, Dick Butkus, Tony Eason, Jeff George, Howard Griffith, Kevin Hardy, Dana Howard, Ray Nitschke, Rashard Mendenhall, and J Leman will be among the names fans can support for this tremendous distinction. Illinois will make every effort to have as many living members of this elite group as possible appear on the field Sept. 6.

The Butkus Era throwback jerseys will provide another special touch. The jersey will be very similar in look to the Fighting Illini jerseys of that time--blue with orange numbers. The helmets will also be made to resemble the Butkus style, featuring bold player numbers.

"Nike creates very few throwback jerseys each college football season," Hanna said. "We are excited Nike chose to create the Butkus Era jersey for us to both honor one of our great legends and make the Rededication Game that much more special."

Illinois Memorial Stadium Rededication Set for Sept. 6: Illini legends, throwback jerseys create special event

Indiana gets list of alleged violations related to phone calls

Well, well, well... I guess former Hoosier basketball greats Kent Benson and Ted Kitchell were justified in returning their Hoosier season basketball tickets after all.

It's called karma, IU fans. Your pathetic athletic director hired a known cheater, and now not only is coach Cellphone Sandscum's job in jeopardy, Greenspan's job is under scrutiny too.

The house of cards that is Cellphone Sandscum's IU basketball team is coming down - soon.

Too freakin' bad, Hoosiers. But enjoy the rest of your tainted season. Oh, and by the way, give EJ Gordon and his fine family our regards and well wishes as Junior moves away from all the impending trouble in Bloomington and on to the NBA next year.

We Illini fans are loving every minute of this. Oh, and so are Purdue fans, Ohio State fans, Notre Dame fans...

Sampson had been sanctioned after making impermissible phone calls while he was the coach at Oklahoma. Indiana then revealed more bad calls while Sampson was at IU. Multiple sources told ESPN.com that the NCAA was looking into whether Sampson did not tell the truth about those calls, resulting in the allegations of major violations.

This new information that helped result in a major violations tag could leave the Hoosiers' season, and Sampson's career, under a cloud of uncertainty.

ESPN.com made multiple efforts to reach Indiana athletic director Rick Greenspan over the past week and he never returned calls. Sampson didn't return a message Tuesday.

Indiana gets list of alleged violations related to phone calls

NCAA: Sampson misled IU about calls

NCAA allegations

NCAA letter to IU

New tires for our Lexus: Goodyear Eagle featuring ResponsEdge Technology

Well, kids, it's about time to install new tires on our 1999 Lexus ES 300. I narrowed my final choices down to two Goodyear tires: the Assurance featuring TripleTred Technology and the Eagle featuring ResponsEdge Technology. And after extensive research - including information on design specs and customer product reviews at TireRack.com - I have settled on purchasing the Eagle with ResponsEdge Technology for our Lexus.

Twin City Tire, one of Champaign's certified Goodyear dealers, is going to install these tires and complete a four-wheel alignment on the car, which has been handling extremely poorly for a few weeks now. At first I thought all the vibration in the steering wheel was coming from cruising the crumbling streets of Champaign-Urbana, but the vibration has only intensified and worsened in the last week. I just don't trust the old (original!) Michelin MXV4s that are currently on the car anymore - they're toast.

I'll post here again with my impressions after I have a chance to drive the Lexus with the new Eagles installed...

ISU hockey loses twice to Fighting Illini

27-0!!! GO ILLINI!!!

Feb. 4 — (UWIRE) AMES, Iowa — The Cyclone hockey team is picking up the pieces after two eerily similar losses.

The No. 11 Cyclones (24-10) gave No. 1 Illinois (27-0) all it could handle over the weekend, but came away with two identical 3-2 overtime losses.

Not only were the scores the same, but the ways the teams scored were similar. The first period ended without a single goal, then the Cyclones took off in the second, taking a 2-0 lead into the final period. In the third, the Illini were able to tie the game and win in overtime.

Overtime periods are played four-on-four, instead of the five-on-five play seen in regulation — so when the Cyclones got a penalty early in the overtime period of the first game, they were skating three-on-four when Illinois scored the winning goal. On Saturday, Illinois sophomore defender Brad Hoelzer made a nice move and a difficult shot into the upper right corner of the net for the win.

"We’ve got a lot of overtime experience, and four-on-four opens the ice up a little bit — typically that is to our advantage," said Illinois coach Chad Cassel.

He was quick to give Iowa State credit, however.

"Iowa State played great all weekend — they outplayed us and outplayed us badly at times, but we just continued to battle and, fortunately, both nights we found a way to win the game," Cassel said.

...

ISU hockey loses twice to Fighting Illini

Y-Basketball: Celtics 14, Bulls 12

The one-year-plus winning streak is over.

It was great fun while it lasted, but the Bulls couldn't get the job done against the upstart Celtics this morning and took their first loss of the league season, 14-12.

Luke scored the first basket of the game for the Bulls and we took a quick 2-0 lead. But that was our only lead of the game as the Celtics scored six straight to grab a 6-2 advantage. The Bulls were forced to play catch-up for the remainder of the contest and the Celtics' biggest lead was 12-6. The Bulls made a nice run in the end, outscoring the Celtics 6-2, but it wasn't enough to gain the victory. Ironically, George made a 10-foot jumper just after the third quarter buzzer sounded that would have tied this game at 14.

We coaches decided to try teaching and running a stack offense for this game: But the Bulls players struggled mightily with this offense and ultimately, that confusion likely cost us the game. Everyone was just too mechanical out on the floor trying to run the stack, and it was clear that there was too much thinking going on and not enough intuitive playing or having fun. In fact, the Bulls got to the point of frustration, running more one-on-one than any other team offense. There were far too many long jumpers going up and clanging off the rim. The good news is that the YMCA refs are letting us play run-and-gun: This is our bread and butter as our tough defense creates easy scoring opportunities for us.

Michael and Joe paced the Bulls with four points apiece. Michael played very hard again, grabbing rebounds and loose balls and hustling on defense. Henry and Luke each added a basket to round out the scoring for the good guys.

The Bulls continue on with a 2-1 record. Next up: a game against the Heat at 9 AM at the Champaign County YMCA.

Council concerned about possible Amtrak delays

CHAMPAIGN – The city council doesn't want the Canadian National Railroad's plans to purchase a suburban Chicago rail line to bypass downtown Chicago to hurt local passenger rail service.

To that end, council members voted unanimously Tuesday night in support of a resolution expressing opposition to any possible changes in Amtrak service that might increase route times or cause delays.

Council concerned about possible Amtrak delays

No future for FutureGen?

MATTOON – The proposed $1.8 billion FutureGen clean coal power plant scheduled to be built in Mattoon may not be built after all, and politicians are claiming it's a victim of partisan politics.

Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told much of the Illinois congressional delegation Tuesday morning that his department plans to disband the FutureGen Alliance and move in a different direction.

The FutureGen Alliance was a combined effort among 13 energy companies from around the world and the Department of Energy.

"The Department of Energy has turned its back on us," U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Urbana, told The News-Gazette. "This is like changing the rules after the final score has been posted on the scoreboard. To me, Secretary Bodman's response this morning was a slap in the face.

"This is the worst form of bureaucratic arrogance and insensitivity that I have seen in my 40 years in politics."

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., echoed Johnson's anger and frustration, saying the Illinois delegation will take the fight directly to the president.

No future for FutureGen?

Illini Hockey sweeps Ohio in dramatic shootout

The #1 Illini remarkably improve to 25-0 on the season...

Hockey sweeps Ohio in dramatic shootout

Y-Basketball: Bulls 32, Spurs 8

This one started out UGLY. Both teams got out to lackadaisical, sloppy starts. Turnovers were everywhere. No one could hit a shot. The (unofficial) score was 0-0 until the 2:45 mark of the first quarter, when Joe converted a short jumper for the Bulls.

But the Bulls found their stride, posting an easy 32-8 victory from the Spurs in Champaign County YMCA Hoops last Saturday.

Henry, a newcomer to the Bulls team this season, paced the winners with 10 points - all of which he scored in the paint; he also came up with a bunch of rebounds. George had a nice game with 8 points (he made one basket from half-court at the final buzzer!), Joe added 6 points, Nathan also played a great game and had 4 points, and Michael and Luke each added a basket for 2 points apiece.

While diving to the floor for a loose ball in the first quarter, Michael fell on his left knee and bruised it slightly. He was a little gimpy for the rest of the game, but he continued to play hard through his discomfort.

The Bulls improve to 2-0 in the league. I cannot remember when we last lost a Y-basketball game - I do know that it was sometime in the Fall 2006 league.

Next up: a game against the Celtics this Saturday at 9 AM at the Champaign County YMCA.

Y-Basketball: Bulls 18, Suns 4 (3 quarters)

Michael got the 2008 Winter YMCA Youth Basketball season started with another baseline jumper - only this shot came from the right side of the basket and not his favorite left side.

His shot came just seconds into this contest: It was, undoubtedly, the first basket of the Winter Y-league season. And it was one of two baskets Michael converted in the first quarter, as the Bulls coasted to an easy 18-4 victory in a shortened, three-quarter game at the Champaign County YMCA on Saturday, January 19.

Michael not only scored, but he hustled. He rebounded, he dove on the floor for loose balls, and he played in-your-face defense for the one quarter he played in this contest. I only wish he could have played another quarter: He was scheduled to play in the fourth period, but the game was called due to time constraints.

Joe led the Bulls with 6 points, George had 4 points, and Nathan and Tobin each added a basket for 2 points for the good guys.

The Bulls start the winter league at 1-0. Next up is a game against the Spurs at 9 AM on Saturday, January 26 at the Champaign County YMCA.

Cramuh was right five months ago...

...when he melted down on CNBC's "Street Signs" program with Erin Burnett.

Our new digital SLR camera: the Canon EOS 40D

And here are some reviews of the digital EOS 40D:

• Amazon.com customer reviews


• BobAtkins.com


• Camera Labs


• Camera Labs compares the EOS 40D with a few other DSLR cameras


• CNET


• CNET Asia


• DCRP


• dpreview.com


• Imaging Resource


• photo.net


• PhotographyBLOG


• The World According to Roland

Another Head set to commit to Illini basketball

As has been expected for several weeks, Rich South sophomore guard Crandall Head plans to announce he will attend Illinois.

Head, the brother of former Illinois star Luther Head of the Houston Rockets, will announce his plans at Sunday's Illinois-Penn State basketball game in Champaign, Rich South coach Scott Ritter said.

Another Head set to commit to Illini basketball