Apple Watch Defect

Several news sites have reported that apple watch has a defective part and orders are getting delayed. For one part, I totally do not understand the rush for people to get their hands onto this hardware. As an engineer in the tech industry, with so many suppliers and so many parts in each of these systems, several things can go wrong. Several folks who make sure to check imdb or other review sites before spending 10 dollars for a movie, do not care about throwing out 350 dollars for this hardware. Such is the power and craze of apple products. Of course they have gotten several releases on the dot, but I still think this is madness. 

Another example I can remember in this context is the Coin, the startup that promised to make sure your wallet is light. Some folks I know pre-ordered paying 50 dollars and wanted to wait for the company to manufacture the item and ship it. I just think this is the worst way to throwing away your money. Pre-ordering apple watch seems like a smart decision compared to this :)

Financial Personality Part 1

Financial personality of an individual greatly depends on his parents attitude and upbringing. In my case, the habit of conserving every dollar (rupee) started with my mom's habits of saving saving and more saving. Some examples include, never taking the auto to office. Even when we were going out, we ended up taking multiple bus/trains to our destination. She tirelessly convinced us every time that we can go by public transportation instead of auto or taxi. Secondly, going out and eating was a quarterly event. Luckily for her not much convincing was needed here, as it was not that common those days and we did not demand it frequently. Same goes with buying new clothes, it only happened during important festivals like Diwali and Pongal. If i think about it now, things were more relaxed and organized. We know eating out, going to movie or buying new clothes will happen in a periodic fashion and will always look forward to it.

Hence, when I started earning money as an engineer, saving for the future was my first expense. Even though it might sound funny to call saving an expense, but the terminology reflects the culture of the spend first society we live in. I always started my monthly budget with a savings target and then planning the other expenses around that. I still remember those initial days when I started tracking my total balance in all accounts using an excel sheet. Month over month it was sweet to see the total balance increase slowly but surely. We spend around 50% of our awake hours to get this paycheck, The biggest expense of all "tax" takes away more than 25% of our earnings, even before our earnings reach our hand. So I guess, it was a no brainier to plan before we spend the rest. Expenses for rent, groceries, insurance, utilities are essential and only needs a little care to make sure we are meeting it modestly, Extensive planning is a must for rest of the spending.

It was this thought which enabled me to save more than 50% of my take home pay and improve my net worth considerably over the years. The passive income from savings starts to add to your income and further increases your savings percentage. It was at this time, I came across financial independence blogs like The Money Moustache, Retireby40 and several others. The habits that these blogs advertise are sometimes pretty strict, but a majority of these was inbuilt in my system due to my modest upbringing. 

Peace-Noble for Obama

A lot has been discussed on press about Obama being awarded the noble peace prize. Please, allow me to write something on the same and restart my blogging venture. The media however, had very little to say about the other contenders, were there any deserving ones, a simple googling dint return relevant results. In my point of view, obama deserves the prize for atleast the following reason. Right after he got elected, he reached to the muslim world immediately and did huge damage control after what Bush did. Several commentators have said that is not good enough, which I too agree to some extent.

On a funny note, one of my friend commented that Obama was given Peace Prize, so he will think twice before starting any war during this regime. This will result in a peaceful world. On the same point of view, it should be given to another person, whose name pronounces like the subject of the blog.

MSV one of the best musicians of india....

Check the last 4 minutes of the video for an interesting info....

IPL and indian fab four

Well this was always a debated topic.

Would India have won the T20 world cup if the fab four batsman (dravid, ganguly, sachin, laxman) had been part of the team. You can also add kumble to the equation.

All of these senior players (bangalore, kolkatta, mumbai, deccan) teams got eliminated in the league stages of the IPL. This further strengthens the argument against these great players and tells that Dhoni's move of sacking these oldies is right.

Now the next big question is will Tendulkar stay in the team till next world cup ?

100,000 People Swallowed in a week

The cyclone in myanmar and quake in china has killed close to 100,000 people. The news shocked me and put me into deep saddening. How many helpless souls, how many orphans, shattered dreams, property losses, cant imagine how someone goes through this kind of a trauma. Hoping that the victims who died will rest in peace. Plus the survivors, who were left behind, without their loved ones, find harmony.

When I started to write this, I wanted to continue talking about how the traditional visions of life are directly contradicting to this kind of catastrophes. However, any digression will be inappropriate here. Hence, will end the post with just a prayer for the victims and the survivors of the quake and cyclone.

sivaji rajni goes the vijayakanth way

sivaji the latest rajnikanth movie in one line "zero logic, and lot of magic".
rajni is the only thing that is good abt the movie. but he is also too old and not able to move fast as he usually does, so eventhough there is some style left, his speed is defnitely missing. shankar has done a good job with graphics and comedy, but he really got confused with so much pressure coz of directing rajni. More than the story, the movie goes around rajni and his style appearance and punches. As usual he tried to tell a good message to the soceity, but the message is lost with so much build up wasted on rajni.

rajni is really acted like vijayakanth in this movie, so many illogical unbelievable events sequences with graphic effects. overall rating is that the movie is watchable as lot of bits and pieces of movie was good, great song sequencecs, great build up for rajni in a lot of places, good comedy. but overall it was defnitely a dissapointment when put together as whole movie, we were not able to sit through the second half with everything so predictable and nothing left in the story except for more illogical scenes from rajni. Also rahman should hire someone who can understand situations and give good background music. with so much fame he needs to grow up. or atleast the directors like shankar and mani shd help him with that in coming up with good ones. it really hampers the movie's mood.