Fortnightly Mailing

Follow-up links relating to Blackboard's successful patent infringment claim against Desire2Learn (updated 7 March)

Originally written 23/2/2008; last updated 7/3/2008

Yesterday a jury in Lufkin, Texas upheld Blackboard's patent infringement claim against Desire2Learn, and reportedly awarded Blackboard Inc. USD 2.5m for lost profits and USD 0.63m for lost royalties. (I believe Blackboard had been seeking USD 17m in lost revenues.) It will be a while before the full implications of the decision become apparent - other than that the decision represents a big, if not surprising*, setback for Desire2Learn, and for those of us who oppose the patenting of software in general (and the patenting of  ideas arising in publicly funded research and development, in particular). Nor do I know the result of Desire2Learn's parallel inequitable conduct case against Blackboard (this was being considered in Lufkin by Judge Clark on 22 February, sitting without a jury).  According to Matt Walcoff's piece linked to below: "In a separate procedure, Clark rejected Desire2Learn's claim that the patent is unenforceable due to information Blackboard withheld from the U.S. patent office".

Below I am including some relevant links for readers wanting to keep up with developments:

Nothing is miscellaneous

 

Ring remover. A circular saw blade on a pair of pliers?  These pliers are for removing finger rings when their owners had gained too much weight.  The slim tongue of the lower jaw is slipped between the ring and finger.  The small circular saw blade is turned with the handle, while light pressure is applied. Source: Hawley Collection web site.

Updated to correct broken links, replace lost pictures, etc, 25/11/2012; and, 28/8/2014 to include this link to a Guardian obituary for Ken Hawley, who died on 15/8/2014.

Ken Hawley, now in his 80s, ran a Sheffield tool shop for many years and has amassed a huge collection of edge-tools, hand tools, cutlery and measuring tools, tool catalogues etc, mainly from Sheffield, and now [2012] moved from housed ina University of Sheffield building to a purpose built location on Sheffield's Kelham Island.

When I visited my uncle in Uruguay in 1986 I took him some chisels bought from Ken, and with my uncle visiting Sheffield this week I was lucky enough to be shown the collection by Ken.

Ken expounded on (for example) the 5000 different types of butcher's knife that one Sheffield knife company used to produce, and the hundreds of different kinds of plough-blade. I learned about the process of forging a spade from a single T-shaped block of steel, about file cutting, about the skills of saw-straightening, and about the design of modern vibration-reduced hammers. I'd not realised that there is extensive re-use of the steel from old tools - for example saw-steel is good for spurs, or for wide flat blade production generally; old files make excellent knife blades.

The collections consists of an upstairs in which there are hundreds of boxes of tool catalogues and related printed material (was that a handwritten sign on the door to the catalogue-area saying "nothing is miscellaneous"?), a downstairs where there are shelves of hundreds of numbered cardboard boxes full of different types of hand tools, knives, files, drill-bits, artist's pallet knives etc, and racks of saws, scythes, sheep-shears etc, roughly organised by class. (I was tempted to call this post "Heidegger would have had a field day", given his interest in what qualifies a tool as a tool.) There are also two locked lorry containers on the carpark which are stuffed with a large quantity of as yet unsorted tools. [2012 update] A lot of work has been done at the new location to get these tools on display.

Ken Hawley seems to have the catalogue in his head, moving effortlessly between the shelves to grab a box of tools to illustrate a point. I was struck by the way that the meaning of an artefact like a tool is so dependent on either knowing how to use it, or by having someone on hand to explain its use, design, manufacturing process etc, and by the way that these old hand-made tools embody such a lot of tacit undocumented know-how on the part of the men and women who made them. (Is this the "meta-data of artefacts"? If yes, how can it be recorded? Here was is a partial answer [link now dead]. [2012 update] The pictures are not accessible on the new Hawley Collection web site. This is a link to a now pictureless archived copy of one of the earlier pages about Open Razors, and I have recreated some of the content from this page below.)

Anyway, the main purpose of this piece is to say that if you are ever in Sheffield, and can arrange it, you should make a point of visiting the Hawley Collection. You'll not get a better example of an old-style categorisation and cataloguing challenge; alongside this the collection is intrinsically fascinating in its own right.

See also: The externalisation of meaning about David Weinberger's "Everything is miscellaneous".

[November 2012 update]

By doing some detective work I have managed to recreate some of the pictorial and taxonomic material that was originally visible on the Hawley Collection web site. I have also been kindly sent a document with Ken Hawley's wonderful diagrams and comments on open razor design, which you can download as a 1 MB PDF.

Example One - made by James Hall and Son

Razor with scales made from a single piece of wood, by James Hall, c.1835

BLADE - MARK - struck with James Hall and Son. The 'E' has parts of the character missing and suggests much use.
BLADE - wide, full edge, straight back
BACK - quill
POINT - round
SHOULDER - single
THUMB HOLLOW - straight with diamond
TANG HOLLOW - short, thick

GRINDING - BLADE - common hollow (reground)
TANG - glazed
TANG END - glazed

HANDLE - possibly a fruit wood, slit to take the blade. Almost certainly original and most unusual. It looks 'right'. Dished iron RIVETS and iron PIN.

DATE - Hall was listed in directories 1825-1835; damaged mark punch suggests 1835.

Example two - made by John Pearce

Razor made by John Pearce, c.1830s

BLADE - MARK - struck Pearce Silver Steel
BLADE - full edge, hollow back
BACK - quill
POINT - hollow
SHOULDER - single
THUMB HOLLOW - hollow, straight
TANG HOLLOW - short, thick

GRINDING - BLADE - common hollow, glazed
TANG - glazed
TANG END - glazed

HANDLE - SCALES of clear horn, spotted, with brass latten crown pressed into mark side scale. Rounded HEAD and TANG END. Brass rose pattern RIVETS and brass PIN.

DATE - Directory entries 1817-1841. No earlier than 1824 - see Faraday's experiments on silver steel.

Example three - made by Green, Pickslay and Appleby

Razor by Green, Pickslay and Appleby, c.1825

BLADE - MARK - struck Green, Pickslay and Appleby
BLADE - full edge, hollow back
BACK - quill
POINT - hollow
SHOULDER - long cut
THUMB HOLLOW - straight with diamond
TANG HOLLOW - short, thick

GRINDING - BLADE - glazed
TANG - glazed
TANG END - glazed

HANDLE - SCALES of black buffalo. Square HEAD and spire TANG END. Iron RIVETS and brass PINS.

DATE - c1825.

COMMENTS - These makers made razors from silver steel and marked them as such, but this one isn't. Other razormakers used silver steel. Messrs Rhodes of The Wicker, Sheffield, wrote a booklet on razors in 1824 having experimented with silver steel. Note that Pearce was using this metal for his razors. The instigator of this metal was Faraday in London, who got Sanderson of West Street, Sheffield to make samples of silver steel on his behalf and no doubt sold the steel to other razormakers.

What makes Finnish schools successful?

Long, almost incredulous piece in the Wall Street Journal by Ellen Gamerman comparing the Finnish school system with the US system - via Stephen Downes. (A similar comparison could have been made with the English system, and there was BBC news coverage of this back in 2004; and here is a previous Fortnightly Mailing post about this year's PISA data.) Here is an extract:

"Finnish teachers pick books and customize lessons as they shape students to national standards. 'In most countries, education feels like a car factory. In Finland, the teachers are the entrepreneurs,' says Mr. Schleicher, of the Paris-based OECD, which began the international student test in 2000.

One explanation for the Finns' success is their love of reading. Parents of newborns receive a government-paid gift pack that includes a picture book. Some libraries are attached to shopping malls, and a book bus travels to more remote neighborhoods like a Good Humor truck."