Dina presented her poster, "Creating Access to Data of Worldwide Volcanic Unrest", at the AGU 2003 Fall Conference (in San Francisco) today.
I sent the following email to Design Witin Reach. It's opinionated, making an almost drunken attempt to spray bile at manufacturers and retailers in various markets--but they have each failed in mediocre fashion, so I'm maintaining my position.
From: Stephen Hahn Date: Tue Nov 18, 2003 21:52:05 US/Pacific To: sales[@]dwr.com Subject: Telephones? DWRians, A class of items I would like to see offered by DWR is modern, design-conscious telephones, philosophically similar to the Modern Fan Company ceiling fans you've offered: a high quality, appropriately featured phone for the small/home office. Other vendors' products have limitations: - Bang and Olufsen have generally overpriced models that are occasionally elegant but can be awkward, even clunky. The materials and colors are uninspired. - The "retro" models from Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, and the like, are minimally featured and only rarely well made. - The consumer electronics companies are pursing a button-based roadmap (more buttons: better phone?) and are almost exclusively cordless. - I'll skip the "my entire office should be made of wood" manufacturers who entomb helpless telephones, laser printers, and computers in a cherry shell. Something like an updated version of the Taurus telephone (Andy Davey for Browns Holdings, 1988), with a caller ID display and a headset jack. Perhaps an aluminum base or a stainless steel handset, like Vertu/Nokia is offering in the mobile space. (If you know of a manufacturer who is already producing such items, but you don't believe the product fits in the DWR catalog, please pass along a link or other contact.) Thanks for listening, StephenDWR responded promptly, promising to be on the lookout. But I hypothesize that someone must be already making such a telephone--so I open up this topic for comments, suggestions, and links to manufacturers of a modern design telephone.
I've reformatted the software:dockables page to bring it in line with the site's general format; it's still one of the more active entry pages for blueslugs.com (along with the grammar entry in Ben's ABC collection).