Archive for January, 2009

Measuring the speed of your Internet connection and figuring out just how your ISP handles certain types of traffic has always been difficult to do accurately. That is until Google, which has always been interested in Net neutrality, is stepping in with a solution to the problem.

Google isn’t doing it alone either. It’s bringing friends, including the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, the PlanetLab Consortium, and academic researchers. The group has created Measurement Lab, or M-Lab, which Google describes as an open platform for which Internet measurement tools can be developed.

What makes the Google effort potentially powerful, though, is that Google is offering up servers in diverse locations to make the measurements to users’ computers. Over 2009, Google will provide 36 servers in 12 locations in the United States and Europe.

Plus, Google says it will make all the data collected available to other researchers for further enhancements. The effort is really in keeping with Google’s philosophy that more information is a good thing, and by collecting the data and sharing it, we could end up with a better understanding of how the Internet is actually working. That understanding could lead to large-scale improvements.

Sourced and modified from: www.networkworld.com

An Australian soldier, Trooper Mark Donaldson, doesn’t think himself as a hero. But most of Australia do.

Trooper Donaldson, 29, was awarded the VC medal, the nation’s highest military honour, for rescuing a coalition interpreter during fighting in Afghanistan last year. This was after he had drawn fire from Taliban troops to lead them away from his unit which had sustained injured. Showing great personal risk for others is the mark of a true hero Mark.

The Special Air Service (SAS) soldier is the first person to receive the Victoria Cross for Australia, which was established in 1991, to replace the Imperial VC awarded previously to 96 Australians.

Trooper Donaldson was travelling in a coalition convoy in Oruzgan Province on September 2 when it was ambushed by enemy forces.

In the chaos that followed, Trooper Donaldson ran, under machine gun fire, across nearly 100 metres of open ground to rescue a wounded interpreter.

He also deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire to draw attention away from injured soldiers.

Trooper Donaldson said he acted on instinct and didn’t think about the danger.

“I just saw him there, I went over there and got him, that was it.”

In keeping with military protocol, defence force chief Angus Houston, saluted Trooper Donaldson during Friday’s ceremony.

“As the highest-ranking member of the defence force, there has been no current serving member that I salute, until now,” he said.

“Tradition holds that even the most senior officer will salute a Victoria Cross recipient as a mark of the utmost respect for their act of valour.”

Mark, we salute you, for your bravery under fire and the true value of mateship you’ve shown.

US President George W. Bush may be passing out of the White House and into history, but he has bequeathed to the nation and the world volumes of unforgettable quotes.

Herewith are some of the more memorable “Bush-isms:”

JUST A TEXAS COWBOY

“They misunderestimated me,”

— Bentonville, Arkansas, November 6, 2000

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on … shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again,”

— Nashville, Tennessee, September 17, 2002

“I want to thank my friend, Senator Bill Frist, for joining us today … He married a Texas girl, I want you to know. Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me,”

— Nashville, Tennessee, May 27, 2004

“I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office,”

— to Israeli journalists in Washington in an interview published May 12, 2008.

ON WAR

“I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace,”

— Washington, June 18, 2002

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we,” — Washington, August 5, 2004

“You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war president. No president wants to be a war president, but I am one,”

— Des Moines, Iowa, October 26, 2006

FRIENDS AND FOES

“For a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times,”

— Tokyo, February 18, 2002

“I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep on the soil of a friend,”

— on the prospect of visiting Denmark, Washington, June 29, 2005

“Thank you, Your Holiness. Awesome speech,”

— Washington April 16, 2008 to Pope Benedict XVI.

“I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office,”

— Washington, June 26, 2008

ECO-BUSH

“I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully,”

— Saginaw, Michigan, September 29, 2000

DOC BUSH

“Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across the country,”

— Poplar Bluff, Missouri, September 6, 2004

“It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber,”

— Washington, April 10, 2002

THE EDUCATOR

“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”

— Florence, South Carolina, January 11, 2000

“You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test,”

— Townsend, Tennessee, February 21, 2001

THE ENFORCER

“Those who enter the country illegally violate the law,”

— Tucson, Arizona, November 28, 2005

AND ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE

“We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them,”

— Washington, September 11, 2001

“The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war,”

— Washington, September 12, 2001

“I can hear you. I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon,”

— New York, September 14, 2001

“I want justice. There’s an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, “Wanted: Dead or Alive,”

— Washington, September 17, 2001

“Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,”

— Washington, September 20, 2001

“States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world,”

— Washington, January 29, 2002

“My fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended … The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free,”

— USS Abraham Lincoln at sea off the coast of San Diego, California, May 1, 2003

“There are some who feel like — that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring them on,”

— Washington, July 2, 2003

“I’m the decider, and I decide what is best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense,”

— Washington, April 18, 2006

Source: news.ninemsn.com.au