And so it starts...

Just short of 8 am, Greenwich time, a Soyuz TM31 launch vehicle lofted the first ISS crew toward a "permanent human presence in space."

Now, the work really starts. (Good thing I got some vacation time in. :^)

Cheers...

On the other tentacle...

From an item posted on today's SPACE.com, talking about MirCorp, an Amsterdam-based company trying to commercialize the Mir space station:

"...[A] survey this year by Boston-based Marttila Communications Group found that 69 percent of Russians polled think the West wants their economy to collapse. Eighty-seven percent believe the United States is taking advantage of Russia's current weakness to expand its global influence. Only 13 percent regarded the U.S. as a friend or ally; 28 percent described it as an enemy."

Assuming these folks in Boston know their stuff when it comes to polling, this is not good news.

Cheers...

Just in time for Halloween...

Just when you thought you'd seen it all, the Chandra X-ray telescope captures this image of the Perseus star cluster. The red and orange represent X-ray emitting gas in the cluster.

Yeah. Right.

Cheers...

Customer...service?

Why am I overwhelmed with the feeling that customer service in general is going straight down the toilet?

I've been calling the folks who formerly hosted my galexi.com domain for the past few days, and have keet running up against the "hold" wall, where estimated hold times are announced as 15 minutes or so.

Well, tonight, I decided to wait them out. They won anyway.

First, you have to understand that these folks - Mindspring for the unwary - have a selection for discontinuing service that is announced by their voice robot when you call their customer service number. Beware...if you make this selection, a cheerful voice informs you that to discontinue your service, you have to...call the customer service number...and it turns out to be the one that you just called.

When I finally got through to a human voice, I was told - after a fruitless search for my account - that Mindspring had bought out Netcom (the folks I'd originally set up service with) and that therefore, my name was in a "different database," and thus, I'd be transferred to someone who could help me.

Pardon my if I don't hold my breath.

Said someone, it turns out, didn't handle my kind of account, which is not a simple dial-up account, but a so-called "Identity Pack." You guessed it...another transfer. But this third individual couldn't open the right database, and would I mind if he put me through to the business department?

What the hell, why not? I figure the more people I speak to at Mindspring, the better chance I have of stumbling across someone who knows what they're doing.

Said business department's phone robot announced a 15 minute hold time, and I settle down to wait. In between passable sections of baroque instrumental music, I was (repeatedly) informed that Mindspring is traded on the Nasdaq, that I can buy an extra 5 MB of storage for only $4.95 per month, or an extra e-mail address for only $5.00 per month, and to "hang on." Nothing, though, on how to get any kind of customer service from them. Pity.

An hour later, the battery on my portable gave up the ghost, and thereby lies another customer support tale.

Cheers...