Telefon

Sună telefonul.

-- Alex, răspund.
-- Ah, mă scuzați, zice vocea.
-- Pentru ce?!
-- Păi aveam numărul ăsta notat.
-- Și de ce să vă scuz? Nu voiați să sunați la mine?
-- Da' cine sînteți?
-- Alex Deva, zic eu de bună credință.
-- Alex și mai cum?

Suspin.

-- Deva. Serios.
-- Aaa, nu, mă scuzați.
-- Nu-i nimic. La revedere.

Calculul pensiei

Altă chestie
E scoaterea la pensie
Astăzi eşti funcţionar
Însă mâine pensionar.
Poate te interesează
Pensia cum se calculează.
Ei, uite cum se calculează:
Din 35 de ani servici
Care vor fi socotiţi
Scazi primii ani de şcoală
Şi absenţele de boală,
Zilele de sărbătoare,
Orele suplimentare,
Plus un an şi patru luni.
Tragi o linie şi aduni.
Pe urmă împarţi la cinci, apoi
Ce-ţi dă înmulţeşti cu doi,
Scazi anul când te-ai născut,
Adaugi tot ce-ai scăzut
Şi la cifra ce-a ieşit
Pui un zero la sfârşit.
Anii pentru însuraţi
Se vor socoti dublaţi
Adică ani de război
Socotind că-n vremea asta
Te-ai războit cu nevasta.
La totalul obţinut
Pui trei zero la-nceput
Scazi anii de celibat
Ridici restul la pătrat
Şi-astfel într-o primă fază
Afli sumele de bază.
Apoi le extragi la toate
Rădăcinile pătrate
Şi la suma dobândită
Aplici cota cuvenită,
Care nu trebuie să fie
Mai mare de 5 la mie.
Din suma rămasă brută
Scazi 4 şi 8 la sută
Trei la mie la pompieri,
Impozitul pe averi.
Supracota respectivă,
Taxele pentru colivă,
Cinci la sută pentru dric,
Pe urmă nu mai scazi nimic.
Din totalul rezultat
Verşi 2/3 la stat
Şi restul ţi se cuvine
Nu ştiu dacă mă exprim bine!
Sună cunoscut? Cred și eu. Da' știți ce? Poezia e din repertoriul lui Constantin Tănase (1880-1945).

Matei Răzvan Deva


Born on Sunday, April 18th, 2010 at 21:43, weighing 3.45 kg (7.804 lbs) and measuring 52 cm (20.47 in). Now happily home.

Suunto Service vs. the World



My new Suunto X10 wristwatch broke.

Skipping over why it broke in the first place, I'll just say that I eventually decided to have it serviced.

This was a tough decision as I was almost sure that Suunto would reject my request, given that I'd got the thing from eBay (thanks, sis!) and it came with no warranty.

So I went to Suunto's website and followed the steps to register a problem.

I got an answer within a few hours (from a human) instructing me how to fill in a service request. And by "instructing" I mean I got a printable PDF with graphics even a monkey can understand.

I filled in a simple form, and I dialed a Romanian DHL number which Suunto also provided.

The next morning the yellow DHL dude rang the front door and I gave him the wristwatch. (Technically it's called a "wrist-top computer".) No original box, no warranty papers, no cables, nothing.

1 week later I got an email from Suunto apologizing that it'll take more than the promised 7 days.

A couple of days later I got another email with a DHL tracking link and then the yellow DHL dude rang again and handed me back the device like new.

Total effort: 5 minutes (filling a simple form, making a phone call).

Total cost: 0 (zero).

Conclusion: Suunto wins.

By comparison, having my Apple laptop serviced within warranty implied me going to Bucharest on my own budget, locating the Apple service center, making an appointment, explaining the hows and whys, having all paperwork inspected and wasting an incongruous amount of time and cash. Apple loses.

Yes, Macs rarely ever break. Yes, the Suunto device was new and the fault was not rare and it was obviously at their door. But that these things work is normal, not a merit. The true merit of a hardware vendor lies in how they deal with the abnormal events, like a break-down or factory faults.

In all my experience with serviced products, I have never been as satisfied as I am now with Suunto.

Mine is longer than yours

Given that I am shorter than the average male height at my age by about 0.055 m, and taking into account the relativistic effect of gravitational time dilation computed using the Schwarzschild metric, time flows slower for me than for most of you, because my brain is closer to Earth than yours is.

Therefore my observed second is longer than your observed second.

By how much? Irb gives me a factor of 1.39065833056035e-09, which means that during 50 years, I experience an extra 1.19279005562756 seconds compared to someone of average height.

Of course, that number is actually higher given that I live on the first floor and I lean down a lot to help my kid.

So if you play basketball and you live on the 10th floor and you fly a lot... sorry.

(Yes, of course I was talking about my second.)