Cisco Acquires Social Networking Company

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), whose core business is selling the routers and switches that direct data traffic over computer networks, said it has acquired a small social networking company that allows businesses to create MySpace-like communities on their Web sites.


Cisco said Friday that it was paying an undisclosed amount to acquire privately held Five Across Inc., an 11-person San Francisco company whose software allows companies to add user-interaction functions and multimedia-sharing capabilities to their Web sites.


Five Across' publishing platform allows users to create personal Web pages and post photos, videos and audio clips, much like the proprietary system used by News Corp. (NWS)'s MySpace.
Cisco said the acquisition, its 116th since 1993, is the company's first in the social networking space but likely not the last. The deal is expected to close within the current fiscal quarter.
Analysts said the acquisition helps further Cisco's expansion beyond its role as purely a network equipment provider and into helping distribute the media that drives bandwidth consumption and even more network upgrades.


Danielle Levitas, a senior analyst at market researcher IDC, said the Five Across acquisition could help Cisco win greater access to a wide range of companies, particularly those in media and entertainment, looking to upgrade their Web sites to connect with customers.
"I actually see this as benefiting their core business - if they can promote users using their broadband more, that's huge for them," Levitas said.


Cisco has profited mightily in recent quarters from surging sales of its routers and switches as service providers and other companies scramble to upgrade their networks to prepare for the next generation of video and other bandwidth-intensive downloads.
Cisco, which was sitting on nearly $21 billion in cash at the end of the second quarter, has been rapidly expanding by acquiring companies that capitalize on the products and services that utilize the network itself.


The company's largest recent acquisition was its $6.9 billion purchase last year of Scientific-Atlanta Inc., the world's second-largest cable television box seller.
Last month, Cisco also announced it was paying $830 million in cash and stock to acquire IronPort Systems Inc., a maker of anti-spam and antivirus security products. That deal is also expected to close in the current quarter.


Investors have cheered the San Jose-based company's robust earnings growth, sending its shares up 45 percent from a year ago and creating more than $51 billion in additional shareholder wealth.


Cisco's stock closed up 5 cents to $28.14 on Thursday before the acquisition was announced.


Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO, SEHK: 4333) is a global company headquartered in San Jose, California, USA, that designs and sells networking and communications technology and services under three brands: Cisco, Linksys, and Scientific Atlanta. Initially, Cisco manufactured only enterprise multi-protocol routers, but today Cisco's products can be found everywhere from the living room to the enterprise to service provider networks. Cisco's vision is "Changing the Way We Live, Work, Play and Learn." Cisco's current tagline is "Welcome to the human network.".





Corporate history


Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner (Bachelor of Science from California State University, Chico, Masters in Econometrics from Claremont University, Masters in Statistics and Computer Science from Stanford University), a married couple that worked in computer operations staff at Stanford University, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally written by William Yeager, another staff employee who had begun the work years before Bosack arrived from the University of Pennsylvania, where Bosack had received his bachelor's degree.


While Cisco was not the first company to develop and sell a router (a device that forwards computer traffic between two or more networks), it did create the first commercially successful multi-protocol router to allow previously incompatible computers to communicate using different network protocols. As the Internet Protocol (IP) has become a standard, the importance of multi-protocol routing as a function has declined. Today, Cisco's largest routers are marketed to route primarily IP packets and MPLS frames.


In 1990, the company went public and was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Bosack and Lerner walked away from the company with $170 million and later divorced.


During the Internet boom in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corp., a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, for about $7 billion. It was the most expensive acquisition made by Cisco at that time. The only bigger acquisition is Scientific Atlanta.


In late March 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, Cisco was the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalisation of more than $500 billion. In 2007, with a market cap of about $165 billion, it is still one of the most valuable companies.


Using acquisitions, internal development, and partnering with other companies, Cisco has made inroads into many network equipment markets outside routing, including Ethernet switching, remote access, branch office routers, ATM networking, security, IP telephony, and others. In 2003, Cisco acquired Linksys, a popular manufacturer of computer networking hardware and positioned it as a leading brand for the home and end user networking market (SOHO).
Cisco has set up Cisco Networking Academies in 150 countries aimed at teaching students to design and maintain computer networks.


Cisco provides certifications to professionals in the networking field. These include:
CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert)
CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional)
CCDP (Cisco Certified Design Professional)
CCIP (Cisco Certified Internetwork Professional)
CCSP (Cisco Certified Security Professional)
CCVP (Cisco Certified Voice Professional)
CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate)
CCDA (Cisco Certified Design Associate)
CCSI (Cisco Certified Systems Instructor)


The company has its corporate headquarters in San Jose, California, and also many outposts in other countries. The company was a 2002-03 recipient of the Ron Brown Award. Origin of the Cisco name

Cisco Logo used until 2006





The name "Cisco" is an abbreviation of San Francisco. According to John Morgridge, employee 34 and the company's former president, the founders hit on the name and logo while driving to Sacramento to register the company -- they saw the Golden Gate Bridge framed in the sunlight.


The name cisco Systems (with the lowercase "c") continued in use within the engineering community at the company long after the official company name was changed to Cisco Systems, Inc. Users of Cisco products can still see the name ciscoSystems occasionally in bug reports and IOS messages.
The company's logo reflects its San Francisco name heritage: it represents a stylized Golden Gate Bridge. In October 2006, Cisco publicly launched a new logo that is graphically simpler and more stylized than the original.


A partial list of products


Hardware
Application Network Services
Broadband Cable products: uBR7100 series, uBR7200 series, uBR10012 CMTSes. A line of Cable Modems, the uBR900 series and CVA122 series, were also made in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but have since been discontinued.
Clean Access Server
Content Networking
DSL & Long Reach Ethernet
Interoperability Systems
Cisco LocalDirector load-balancing appliance
Optical Networking series: 15xxx Series: 15302, 15305, 15310, 15327, 15454, 15600, 1580x, 15900(wavelength router, but end for sale)
Routers: SB107, 700, 800, 1000, 1600, 1700, 1800, 2500, 2600, 2800, 3600, 3700, 3800, 4500, 4700, 7000, 7100, 7200, 7300, 7400, 7500, 7600, 10000, 12000, and CRS-1
Security & VPN products: Anomaly Detection and Mitigation Appliances, Cisco AVS 3110 Application Velocity System, Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances, Cisco PIX 500 Series Security Appliances, Cisco VPN 3000 Series Concentrators, Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series/7600 Series WebVPN Services Module, IPSec VPN Services Module (VPNSM) for Cisco Catalyst 6500 Switches and Cisco 7600 Series Routers
Server Networking & Virtualization
SPA Phone Adapters
Storage networking
Switches
Catalyst series: 500 Express, 1200, 1600, 1700, 1900, 2000, 2100, 2800, 29xx, 3000, 35xx, 37xx, 40xx, 45xx, 5xxx, 6xxx, etc..
Metro Ethernet ME 3400 Series Access Switches
MGX 8800 Series Multiservice Switches: MGX 8830, MGX 8850
MDS 9000 Series Multilayer SAN Switches
Universal Gateways & Access Servers
Video
Voice & IP Communications: 7900 Series IP Phones: 7936, 7906G, 7912G, 7911G, 7920, 7921G, 7911G, 7921G, 7931G, 7940G, 7941G, 7941G-GE, 7960G, 7961G, 7961G-GE, 7970G, 7971G-GE and 7985G
Wireless: Wireless Integrated Switches and Routers,Wireless IP Telephony, Wireless LAN Access, Aironet Wireless Bridges and Workgroup Bridges, Cisco Wireless LAN Client Adapters, Wireless LAN Controllers, Wireless Network Management, Wireless LAN Management, Wireless Security Servers, Wireless IP Phone 7920
Software
Cisco CallManager
Cisco Emergency Responder
Cisco IP Transfer Point (ITP)
Cisco Multimedia Conference Manager (MCM)
Cisco Fabric Manager
CiscoView
CiscoWorks Network Management software
IP SLAs
Cisco Intelligent Contact Management
Cisco Secure Access Control Server (ACS)
Cisco Access Registrar (AR)
Cisco Security MARS (Monitoring, Analysis and Response System)
Cisco Clean Access Agent, Cisco Clean Access Manager, Cisco NAC Appliance
Content Loadbalancers (acquired from Arrowpoint)
Content Engine
Wireless LAN Solution Engine
VPN Concentrator
Packet Tracer
Cisco IP/TV
Cisco IP/VC
Cisco CallManager Express (CCME)
Cisco Unified Contact Center
Cisco MeetingPlace
Cisco Unity
Cisco Unity Express
Cisco Secure Desktop
Cisco Security Manager
Cisco Transport Manager
Cisco Router and Security Device Manager
Cisco Enhanced Device Interface
Wireless Control System

Juniper Networks, Cisco Networks

Juniper Networks

I fear for Juniper that they may have opened pandora's box.

This recent lawsuit came to me an email yesterday from a colleague as well as from as well as in my personal email email. Apparently, Juniper Networks is attempting to sue anonymous users.

"The Sunnyvale, Calif., company filed a lawsuit in the California Superior Court of Santa Clara on December 14 claiming that it had been defamed and libeled by up to 10 persons unknown.

Read the full story from Light Reading. I admire how Light Reading is responded to this, although they are not the target, it attacks their credibility. (and the rest of the internet) They sent out a poll and posted results, which I participated in. This has been heavily discussed at Slashdot, there are over 250 comments.

I don’t have the time to scour light readings bulletin boards to find out exactly how harmful this was, (nor does it matter) but companies need to be realistic about attempting to censor opinions, it just doesn’t work, and could create a backlash.

Recommendations to Juniper
Without knowing more, I would suggest to Juniper to listen to this buzz from detractors, acknowledge their opinion, ask them to public ally state their opinion and stance, then address it like a responsible company should.

Every company will have detractors and defamers, this is the biting realism that today's open communcations provides. Most importantly, how a company responds to a bad situation is what is measured.

Juniper is not alone, read how other companies have been responding to bad press. (there are and will be many more)

It did cross my mind that this could be just a message from Juniper to detractors to please sit down, and it could even be a clever 'back-buzz' technique to generate buzz, doubtful, but possible.

In my opinion only, the internet/blogs/message boards are incredible resources for companies to listen to consumers, collaborate and then build better products. No matter how bad you're defamed on the web, you can control the situation, perhaps create a corporate blog where you can defend on your own ground.

by the way, blogs are a lot cheaper than lawyers.

These persons, referred to as "Does 1-10" in the court complaint (as in "John Doe," or anonymous), are being accused by Juniper of posting harmful statements about the company and its executives on Light Reading's message boards."

Juniper Networks Showcases High-Performance Network Infrastructure at Interop Las Vegas

Product Demonstrations, Speaking Engagements and Partner Activities Highlight Why Customers Leverage Juniper Networks to Fuel their High-Performance Businesses

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – May 16, 2007 – Juniper Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: JNPR) today announced the company's high-performance network infrastructure will be showcased at Interop Las Vegas, May 20-25, 2007. At booth #539 and throughout the show floor, attendees will learn how the Juniper Networks enterprise routing, security and application performance solutions create a responsive and trusted environment for accelerating the deployment of services and applications from a single network.

Juniper experts in the areas of application performance, controlling access and threat management will participate in the following speaking sessions at Interop Las Vegas:

• Sunday, May 20 at 11:30 a.m. PT (Breakers F): Michael Banic, senior director of product management, will give a presentation at the Interop Data Summit titled, "Data Center Initiatives for the Real-Time Enterprise."
  
• Tuesday, May 22 at 11:30 a.m. PT (Breakers F): Michael Banic, senior director of product management, will participate on a panel titled, "Optimizing the Network for Branch Efficiency."
  
• Wednesday, May 23 at 3:30 p.m. PT (Lagoon F): Karthik Krishnan, senior product line manager, will participate on a panel titled, "The Truth about NAC."
  
• Wednesday, May 23 at 12:15 p.m. PT: Karthik Krishnan, senior product line manager, will give a presentation titled, "Beyond Layered Services."
  
• Thursday, May 24 at 8:00 a.m. PT (Breakers F): Michael Peachey, product line manager, will participate on a panel titled, "Connecting Islands of Enterprise VoIP."

Juniper Booth #539 – Solutions for High-Performance Businesses

Innovative businesses view the network as critical to their success. Unfortunately, they struggle to keep up with escalating demands and risks that compromises their effectiveness. Unlike the competition, Juniper Networks' open infrastructure delivers greater choice and control in quickly meeting high-performance business requirements while reducing costs. Juniper Networks' enterprise security solutions help customers more effectively mitigate threats in the increasingly extended enterprise, safeguard and improve the performance of mission-critical applications and enable a comprehensive access control infrastructure. Juniper Networks' solutions that will be on display at Interop Las Vegas include:

• Enterprise Routing: J-series Service routers
  
• Security: Integrated Security Gateway with Intrusion Detection and Prevention (ISG with IDP) firewall/VPN and intrusion prevention platforms, Security Services Gateway (SSG) as unified threat management (UTM) devices, Secure Access SSL VPN appliances, and Unified Access Control (UAC)
  
• Application Performance: DX application acceleration and load balancing platform and WX appliances for managed WAN acceleration solutions

Cisco Acquires Social Networking Company

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), whose core business is selling the routers and switches that direct data traffic over computer networks, said it has acquired a small social networking company that allows businesses to create MySpace-like communities on their Web sites.


Cisco said Friday that it was paying an undisclosed amount to acquire privately held Five Across Inc., an 11-person San Francisco company whose software allows companies to add user-interaction functions and multimedia-sharing capabilities to their Web sites.


Five Across' publishing platform allows users to create personal Web pages and post photos, videos and audio clips, much like the proprietary system used by News Corp. (NWS)'s MySpace.
Cisco said the acquisition, its 116th since 1993, is the company's first in the social networking space but likely not the last. The deal is expected to close within the current fiscal quarter.
Analysts said the acquisition helps further Cisco's expansion beyond its role as purely a network equipment provider and into helping distribute the media that drives bandwidth consumption and even more network upgrades.


Danielle Levitas, a senior analyst at market researcher IDC, said the Five Across acquisition could help Cisco win greater access to a wide range of companies, particularly those in media and entertainment, looking to upgrade their Web sites to connect with customers.
"I actually see this as benefiting their core business - if they can promote users using their broadband more, that's huge for them," Levitas said.


Cisco has profited mightily in recent quarters from surging sales of its routers and switches as service providers and other companies scramble to upgrade their networks to prepare for the next generation of video and other bandwidth-intensive downloads.
Cisco, which was sitting on nearly $21 billion in cash at the end of the second quarter, has been rapidly expanding by acquiring companies that capitalize on the products and services that utilize the network itself.


The company's largest recent acquisition was its $6.9 billion purchase last year of Scientific-Atlanta Inc., the world's second-largest cable television box seller.
Last month, Cisco also announced it was paying $830 million in cash and stock to acquire IronPort Systems Inc., a maker of anti-spam and antivirus security products. That deal is also expected to close in the current quarter.


Investors have cheered the San Jose-based company's robust earnings growth, sending its shares up 45 percent from a year ago and creating more than $51 billion in additional shareholder wealth.


Cisco's stock closed up 5 cents to $28.14 on Thursday before the acquisition was announced.


Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO, SEHK: 4333) is a global company headquartered in San Jose, California, USA, that designs and sells networking and communications technology and services under three brands: Cisco, Linksys, and Scientific Atlanta. Initially, Cisco manufactured only enterprise multi-protocol routers, but today Cisco's products can be found everywhere from the living room to the enterprise to service provider networks. Cisco's vision is "Changing the Way We Live, Work, Play and Learn." Cisco's current tagline is "Welcome to the human network.".

A partial list of products


Hardware
Application Network Services
Broadband Cable products: uBR7100 series, uBR7200 series, uBR10012 CMTSes. A line of Cable Modems, the uBR900 series and CVA122 series, were also made in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but have since been discontinued.
Clean Access Server
Content Networking
DSL & Long Reach Ethernet
Interoperability Systems
Cisco LocalDirector load-balancing appliance
Optical Networking series: 15xxx Series: 15302, 15305, 15310, 15327, 15454, 15600, 1580x, 15900(wavelength router, but end for sale)
Routers: SB107, 700, 800, 1000, 1600, 1700, 1800, 2500, 2600, 2800, 3600, 3700, 3800, 4500, 4700, 7000, 7100, 7200, 7300, 7400, 7500, 7600, 10000, 12000, and CRS-1
Security & VPN products: Anomaly Detection and Mitigation Appliances, Cisco AVS 3110 Application Velocity System, Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances, Cisco PIX 500 Series Security Appliances, Cisco VPN 3000 Series Concentrators, Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series/7600 Series WebVPN Services Module, IPSec VPN Services Module (VPNSM) for Cisco Catalyst 6500 Switches and Cisco 7600 Series Routers
Server Networking & Virtualization
SPA Phone Adapters
Storage networking
Switches
Catalyst series: 500 Express, 1200, 1600, 1700, 1900, 2000, 2100, 2800, 29xx, 3000, 35xx, 37xx, 40xx, 45xx, 5xxx, 6xxx, etc..
Metro Ethernet ME 3400 Series Access Switches
MGX 8800 Series Multiservice Switches: MGX 8830, MGX 8850
MDS 9000 Series Multilayer SAN Switches
Universal Gateways & Access Servers
Video
Voice & IP Communications: 7900 Series IP Phones: 7936, 7906G, 7912G, 7911G, 7920, 7921G, 7911G, 7921G, 7931G, 7940G, 7941G, 7941G-GE, 7960G, 7961G, 7961G-GE, 7970G, 7971G-GE and 7985G
Wireless: Wireless Integrated Switches and Routers,Wireless IP Telephony, Wireless LAN Access, Aironet Wireless Bridges and Workgroup Bridges, Cisco Wireless LAN Client Adapters, Wireless LAN Controllers, Wireless Network Management, Wireless LAN Management, Wireless Security Servers, Wireless IP Phone 7920
Software
Cisco CallManager
Cisco Emergency Responder
Cisco IP Transfer Point (ITP)
Cisco Multimedia Conference Manager (MCM)
Cisco Fabric Manager
CiscoView
CiscoWorks Network Management software
IP SLAs
Cisco Intelligent Contact Management
Cisco Secure Access Control Server (ACS)
Cisco Access Registrar (AR)
Cisco Security MARS (Monitoring, Analysis and Response System)
Cisco Clean Access Agent, Cisco Clean Access Manager, Cisco NAC Appliance
Content Loadbalancers (acquired from Arrowpoint)
Content Engine
Wireless LAN Solution Engine
VPN Concentrator
Packet Tracer
Cisco IP/TV
Cisco IP/VC
Cisco CallManager Express (CCME)
Cisco Unified Contact Center
Cisco MeetingPlace
Cisco Unity
Cisco Unity Express
Cisco Secure Desktop
Cisco Security Manager
Cisco Transport Manager
Cisco Router and Security Device Manager
Cisco Enhanced Device Interface
Wireless Control System

$20 customizable laptop stand

i've featured a few laptop desk and stands before. haymon adds this neat idea to the list.



"i bought slinga brackets for $9 each, a wooden bar for $2 and screwed them together as a stand for my macbook.

the big advantage is that you can customize it exactly to the size of your laptop."

hack bedside tables into music studio racks

paul from the uk has been hacking ikea furniture for years to use in his music studios. the rast bedside table makes a snug rack for music machines.



"over the years i've used their tables recut to make groovy desking, their tv stands to make drum machine plinths, but the main use i have at the mo is that every desktop rack unit i use is made from the bog-standard £9 ikea rast bedside table!



i usually drop the lower shelf a little just to fit more rack units in, but that's pretty easy. a couple of strips of racking later and they just fit a 19" rack module perfectly!"



click to see more photos of paul's music studio.

Notebook Parts: Dell, IBM, COMPAQ, Notebook Batteries & Accessories

NB Components.com is your online source for Notebook Parts, Replacement Notebook Batteries, and Accessories. Need a notebook battery, ac adapter, port replicator, keyboard, or any other notebook accessories? Find the lowest price on these notebook spares here. We specialize in Dell notebook parts, IBM notebook components, as well as Acer, Toshiba, Sony, HP/COMPAQ, and Gateway notebook spares

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• Dell Latitude D810 Keyboard - $49.00

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• DELL Latitude C840 Battery - $78.00

• Li-Ion Battery for Toshiba Satellite 200 Series - $65.00

• Dell Inspiron 5000 Port Replicator - $50.00

• HP Compaq AC Adapter 65 Watt 384019-001 - $40.00

• Li-Ion Battery for Dell Latitude L400 - $89.00

• DELL 0R334 PA-8 AC Adapter - $37.00

• HP Compaq Adapter for Presario V2700 Series - $49.00

• HP Compaq 135Watt AC Adapter - $65.00

• Dell 312-0315 Battery - $105.00

• Dell 6P890 Keyboard - $49.00

• DELL 5P171 Secondary Modular Bay Battery - $89.00

• HP Compaq Presario 2700 Series AC Adapter - $35.00

• Dell DVD C3284-A00 - $149.00

• Intel TrueMobile Wireless LAN MiniPCI Card - $49.00

• Dell Inspiron 9400 Li-ion Battery - $75.00

• HP Compaq Adapter for Presario B3800 Series - $49.00

New Products

• Sony VGP-AC16V8 AC Adapter - $82.00

• Sony VGP-AC19V10 AC Adapter - $85.00

• Dell D5561 71Whr Battery for Inspiron 700M/710M - $79.00

• 312-0416 Dell Lithium-Ion Battery - $89.00

• Dell CD-RW/DVD-ROM Drive Module - $129.00

• IBM 73P4485 72W Slim AC/DC Combo Adapter - $95.00

• Dell Latitude 120L Li-ion Battery - $89.00

• Sony VGP-AC19V15 AC Adapter - $85.00

• Dell Inspiron 1300 Li-ion Battery - $79.00

• Dell 9 Cell Y5180 Li-Ion Primary Battery - $106.00

• Dell Inspiron B130 Li-ion Battery - $79.00

• Dell Inspiron B120 Li-ion Battery - $79.00

Testing Laptop Batteries

During their working life, rechargeable batteries in a laptop are repeatedly re-charged after they have been drained. The charging is accomplished by applying externally supplied electrical current through an adopter. The electrical current enters in the laptop battery and reverses the chemical process which occur in the battery while it is in use. Devices to supply the appropriate current are called notebook battery chargers.

Most of today's laptop computers are powered with li-ion batteries. Rechargeable notebook batteries have a tendency to self-discharge. This means they discharge even while not in active use. This self-discharging process accelerates at higher temperatures. It is not advisable to leave them unused for long time, due to their poor shelf life.

Under good conditions, a typical li-ion battery can supply around 500 discharge/charge cycles, which is equivalent to 2 to 3 years of service, from the time the battery goes through the production process. As a battery is put into regular use, capacity loss occurs as a result of increased internal resistance caused by cell oxidation. Eventually, the resistance becomes so high that the battery can no longer deliver the needed energy to the laptop, even though the energy is still present in the notebook battery. This usually marks the end of the useful life of a battery. It is believed that there are no remedies to restore the battery capacity when it is worn out. Heating the battery will improve its performance only momentarily and can not be considered a long term solution.

There are many free utilities available on Internet and from software developers that help in the testing of battery status. A typical utility constantly revises its estimate of remaining battery life, by measuring the time it takes to run it down. Such utilities are particularly useful when batteries read 100 percent when fully charged, but only run a few minutes before they run out completely. A power center would accurately show a 100 percent charge but it would also show about 5 minutes of time left.

Laptop Battery provides detailed information on Laptop Battery, External Laptop Batteries, Laptop Battery Chargers, Cheap Batteries and more. Laptop Battery is affiliated with Cheap Cell Phone Batteries.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com Richard Romando

A curriculum without content delivers students without knowledge

How bad is the state's new education curriculum, soon to be enforced in all schools public and private right across the country? When even the teacher unions know that things "have gone too far" with the state-enforced education curriculum, then it might just be possible that things really have gone too far.



It is quite literally the curriculum you have when you don't have a curriculum: it is explicitly a curriculum without content. The new curriculum "will teach pupils how to hold a conversation or ask for help rather than remember facts, historic dates or periodic tables."

The new curriculum, to be released in November and introduced in 2009, focuses on the process of learning, rather than content.

For example, social science students will be marked for taking action to make their community a better place to live, rather than remembering facts about a society on the other side of the world. Science students might be tested on whether they know how to design an experiment, rather than whether they remember what the result should be.



Mary Chamberlain, overseeing the project for the Education Ministry, says that although people are "rattled" by the changes, "there's no use (students) being little knowledge banks walking around on legs. We've got computers, we don't need people walking around with them in their heads... People just have to get used to that."

Mary Chamberlain is an example of the educational model she proposes: someone who has nothing at all in her head. Miseducating a whole new generation in her image is not the answer; removing her and her ilk from the miseducation of NZ children is clearly urgent.



Even the teachers union, the PPTA, called this "a paradigm shift that has gone too far." Roger Moses, principal of Wellington College, explains why: with its focus on "skills" rather than knowledge, this will he says see New Zealand children growing up ignorant.



But none of this is new: the process has been going on for years -- this latest promise of miseducation simply continues a process that has been under way for years. Writing in 'Free Radical #76,' George Reisman summed up the Chamberlain view: "With little exaggeration, the whole of contemporary education can be described as a process of encumbering the student’s mind with as little knowledge as possible."



Nonsense like Chamberlain's does not emerge fully grown. In the following excerpts from his article, Reisman explains where this nonsense comes from, and what has already been the result. Settle back and read his incisive dissection of modern miseducation. It's good:

It is sometimes observed that most of today’s high school and college graduates have very little education in science and mathematics and thus do not understand and cannot properly appreciate modern technology. There is considerable merit in these observations, but the problem goes much deeper. Namely, from the earliest grades, the prevailing methodology of contemporary education systematically encourages irrational skepticism ...



To explain how this is the case, I must briefly digress into the history of philosophy.



At the end of the eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant foisted on the intellectual world a distorted version of what reason is, namely, a faculty divorced from knowledge of the real world and limited to awareness of a world of mere appearances created by the human mind itself. ...

For many years now it has been Kant's distorted 'Romantic' version of reason that has been foisted upon students worldwide. Ms Chamberlain and her comrades now wish to make that explicit. Reisman explains how the undercutting of education is explicitly based upon the undercutting of knowledge espoused by 'Romantic' era philosophers.

Romanticism ... follows on the direct foundation of Kantianism... In its essentials, the philosophy of Romanticism is the guiding principle of contemporary education. Exactly like Romanticism, contemporary education holds that the valuable portion of our mental life has no essential connection with our ability to reason and with the deliberate, controlled use of our conscious mind—that we possess this portion of our mental life if not in our sleep, then nevertheless as small children. This doctrine is clearly present in the avowed conviction of contemporary education that creativity is a phenomenon that is separate from and independent of such conscious mental processes as memorization and the use of logic...



Now, properly, education is a process by means of which students internalize knowledge: they mentally absorb it through observation and proof, and repeated application. Memorization, deduction, and problem solving must constantly be involved. The purpose is to develop the student’s mind—to provide him with an instantaneously available storehouse of knowledge and thus an increasingly powerful mental apparatus that he will be able to use and further expand throughout his life. Such education, of course, requires hard work from the student. Seen from a physiological perspective, it may be that what the process of education requires of the student through his exercises is an actual imprinting of his brain.



Yet, under the influence of the philosophy of Romanticism, contemporary education is fundamentally opposed to these essentials of education. It draws a distinction between “problem solving,” which it views as “creative” and claims to favor, and “memorization,” which it appears to regard as an imposition on the students, whose valuable, executive-level time, it claims, can be better spent in “problem solving.” Contemporary education thus proceeds on the assumption that the ability to solve problems is innate, or at least fully developed before the child begins school. It perceives its job as allowing the student to exercise his native problem-solving abilities, while imposing on him as little as possible of the allegedly unnecessary and distracting task of memorization.



In the elementary grades, this approach is expressed in such attitudes as that it is not really necessary for students to go to the trouble of memorizing the multiplication tables if the availability of pocket calculators can be taken for granted which they know how to use; or go to the trouble of memorizing facts of history and geography, if the ready availability of books and atlases containing the facts can be taken for granted, which facts the students know how to look up when the need arises. In college and graduate courses, this approach is expressed in the phenomenon of the “open-book examination,” in which satisfactory performance is supposedly demonstrated by the ability to use a book as a source of information, proving once again that the student knows how to find the information when he needs it.



With little exaggeration, the whole of contemporary education can be described as a process of encumbering the student’s mind with as little knowledge as possible. The place for knowledge, it seems to believe, is in external sources—books and libraries—which the student knows how to use when necessary. Its job, its proponents believe, is not to teach the students knowledge but “how to acquire knowledge”—not to teach them facts and principles, which it holds quickly become “obsolete,” but to teach them “how to learn.” Its job, its proponents openly declare, is not to teach geography, history, mathematics, science, or any other subject, including reading and writing, but to teach “Johnny”—to teach Johnny how he can allegedly go about learning the facts and principles it declares are not important enough to teach and which it thus gives no incentive to learn and provides the student with no means of learning.



The results of this type of education are visible in the hordes of students who, despite years of schooling, have learned virtually nothing, and who are least of all capable of thinking critically and solving problems. When such students read a newspaper, for example, they cannot read it in the light of a knowledge of history or economics— they do not know history or economics; history and economics are out there in the history and economics books, which, they were taught, they can “look up, if they need to.” They cannot even read it in the light of elementary arithmetic, for they have little or no internally automated habits of doing arithmetic. Having little or no knowledge of the elementary facts of history and geography, they have no way even of relating one event to another in terms of time and place.



Such students, and, of course, the adults such students become, are chronically in the position in which to be able to use the knowledge they need to use, they would first have to go out and acquire it. Not only would they have to look up relevant facts, which they already should know, and now may have no way even of knowing they need to know, but they would first have to read and understand books dealing with abstract principles, and to understand those books, they would first have to read other such books, and so on. In short, they would first have to acquire the education they already should have had.



Properly, by the time a student has completed a college education, his brain should hold the essential content of well over a hundred major books on mathematics, science, history, literature, and philosophy, and do so in a form that is well organized and integrated, so that he can apply this internalized body of knowledge to his perception of everything in the world around him. He should be in a position to enlarge his knowledge of any subject and to express his thoughts on any subject clearly and logically, both verbally and in writing. Yet, as the result of the miseducation provided today, it is now much more often the case that college graduates fulfill the Romantic ideal of being “simple, uneducated men.”

Such a process of miseducation is so far advanced that few now really see it, particularly not those already miseducated. Ms Chamberlain and the other writers of this proposed 'curriculum without content' are banking on the miseducation of earlier generations to blind everyone to what's happening right in front of their nose. Continues Reisman:

Contemporary education is responsible for the growing prevalence of irrational skepticism. The students subjected to it do not acquire actual knowledge. They have no firm foundation in a base of memorized facts and they have not acquired any solid knowledge of principles because their education has avoided as far as possible the painstaking processes of logical proof and repeated application of principles, which latter constitutes a vital and totally legitimate form of memorization. Such students go through school “by the seat of their pants.” They are forever “winging it.” And that is how they go through life as adults. It is impossible for them to have genuine understanding of anything that is beyond the realm of their daily experience, and even of that, only on a superficial level. To such people, almost everything must appear as an arbitrary assertion, taken on faith. For their education has made them unfit to understand how things are actually known. Their failure to memorize such things as the multiplication tables in their childhood, makes it impossible for them to understand whatever directly depends on such knowledge, which, in turn, makes it impossible for them to acquire the further knowledge that depends on that knowledge, and soon. With each passing year of their education, they fall further behind.



Ironically, their failure to memorize what it is appropriate to memorize ends up putting them in a position in which to pass examinations, they have no other means than out-of-context memorization—that is, memorization lacking any foundation in logical connection and proof. Because they have never memorized fundamental facts, and thus have no basis for developing genuine understanding of all that depends on those facts, they are placed in the position in which to pass examinations they must attempt to memorize out-of-context conclusions. It is because of this that a growing proportion of what they learn as the years pass has the status in their minds of arbitrary assertions. They are chronically in the mental state of having no good reason for most or almost all of what they believe. Thus, in their context of actual ignorance masked by pretended knowledge, they are prime targets for irrational skepticism. To them, in their mental state, doubt of everything can only seem perfectly natural.



Such students, such adults, are easy targets for a doctrine such as “environmentalism.” They are totally unprepared intellectually to resist any irrational trend and more than willing to leap on the bandwagon of one that caters to their uncertainties and fears. Environmentalism does this by blaming the stresses of their life on the existence of an industrial society and holding out the prospect of an intellectually undemanding and thus seemingly stress-free pastoral existence, one which is allegedly “in harmony with nature.”



The destructive work of contemporary education carried on against the development of students’ conceptual abilities from the earliest grades on is compounded, as their education advances to the higher grades, by the teaching of a whole collection of irrationalist doctrines that constitute the philosophical substance of contemporary liberal arts education... These doctrines constitute a systematic attack on reason and its role in human life...

If one wishes to use the expression “intellectual main stream,” and borrow for a moment the environmentalists’ alleged concern with the cleanliness of streams and such, these doctrines may justifiably be viewed as intellectual raw sewage comparable to what can be seen bobbing up and down in a dirty river. They and the methodology of contemporary education have totally fouled the “intellectual mainstream.” The kind of education I have described—-if it can still be called education, consisting as it does of an unremitting assault on the rational faculty and every rational value—-is responsible for the hordes of graduates turned out over the last decades who have had no conception of the meaning and value of the Constitution and history of the United States, of the meaning and value of Western civilization itself, or indeed of the meaning and value of membership in the human race. It has been responsible for the decline in the quality of government in the United States, as, unavoidably, many such mis-educated graduates have found their way into the halls of Congress and the state legislatures, and into major offices in all the other branches of government, and, of course, into all the various branches of the news media and publishing...



Thus, in what may prove to be the greatest tragedy in all of human existence, we see at the end of more than two centuries of man’s most dazzling success, the proliferation of heirs who as adults possess less than the mentalities of children. We see a culture of reason and science being transformed before our eyes into one which more and more resembles a culture of primitive men.

Such a transformation is not inevitable, but as long as the fundamental tenets of the miseducators remain largely unchallenged, it will continue.

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - New Scans

Check out the new scans from Famitsu magazine of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, possibly the most exacting and detailed racing videogame ever created. The Gran Turismo 5 Prologue gives you an online-enabled sampler of the GT5 experience.

TGS 2007: New Images of GT 5 Prologue

Here are 8 new images taken from TGS 2007 showing off more of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, possibly the most exacting and detailed racing videogame ever created. The Gran Turismo 5 Prologue gives you an online-enabled sampler of the GT5 experience.

FIFA 08 - New Screenshots

EA has released 7 new screenshots showing off more of FIFA 08, the forthcoming installment of their popular series of football video games. For the first time ever, fans playing FIFA 08 will face the pressure to improve their game that real-world players endure every day. The screenshots are from Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.

MGS 4 Video Captures

Here are 30 video captures taken from TGS 2007 GameSpot HD trailer showing off more of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of Patriots. Set across stages including the Middle East and South America, the now aged Snake has been asked to assassinate his old adversary, Liquid Ocelot. He must make his way through a series of battlefields, using his legendary stealth abilities and all-new OctoCamo suit to avoid detection and to reach his target. With series favorites such as Meryl Silverburgh, Raiden, Hal 'Otacon' Emmerich, Eva and Roy Campbell returning, and with all new gameplay features including a remote-controlled Metal Gear Mk. II and enhanced CQC (Close Quarters Combat) system, Metal Gear Solid 4 rounds out the Metal Gear saga with a fittingly cinematic and gripping final outing.



Credit goes to member EviLore from NeoGAF forums.