Leap Day

 

What happens when you get an extra day in the year ? Well, the Indian Government decides to unveil the new budget. A mixed bag, this year. More taxes, more ways to take your money. Nothing given back. The trickle-down news is that cars will get expensive. Specially diesel vehicles. And specially the high end variants. They will attract a 5% additional cess under various monickers. Just after this news, they increased the price of diesel too.

But the rope-a-dope news was about the EPF withdrawals. After decades of mulling over this, the government has proposed a tax on EPF withdrawals. It will be a case of double taxation. The EPF component is part of the gross salary, on which tax is already paid. If the withdrawal is taxed, that will be the second tax on the same amount, with its interest.

Acche din.

Speaking of good days, over on the west side of the world, Leonardo Di Caprio finally won the best actor oscar after all those years of being nominated. Here is a person who found success to early, but had to wait 20 years to get the highly coveted academy award. Its not even his best acting in the Revenant. But this year, surprisingly, there was lack of competition in the category. The king of the world not ought to retire.

 

Indian Budget 2016, Oscar Leonardo DiCaprio Revenant tax SUV diesel

Throwback: Magazine CD Days

 

I was back in my home town some time back, and was going through some old ‘garbage’. You know, the stuff you are sure are useless, but you keep around anyway. And I ran into some old magazine CDs I had purchased more than 10 years ago.

They are from a computer magazine called CHIP, which they later renamed to DIGIT. The came out in monthly issues, and each issue had two CDs, one with business/work software, and the other had fun/games/videos stuff like that. During the mid nineties these magazines where very popular and sought after by computer enthusiasts. Because the internet had just hit India, but the usage rates were awefully high. Downloading a CD worth of content from the internet would take hours ,and it cost about 60 rupees per hour. So getting two CDs of downloaded stuff for 100 rupees was like a good deal, all the content was nicely documented and arranged in a searachable menu. And the CDs still work till this day !

 

 

 

The 2nd fun CD usually came with trial/shareware versions of computer games, and most of us got to play US titles in this way, without having to download them ourselves. I als digged the computer/programmer softwares they used to ship. The CDs I have are dated July 2001, and November 2002.

 

 

Digit still gives out discs, though now they consist of DVDs.Today of course the internet has become a lot more affordable, so one can stay online all day without having to empty one’s pockets for all those downloads. But its fun to think how far we have gone since then.

RocketMiles–Earn Miles by Booking Hotels !

 

Just happened to come across this service called RocketMiles which gives out free miles just for singing up, and further more for booking hotels via their site or mobile app. These miles can be used to book airline tickets. They have launched their service in India now, and lots of miles are up for grabs.

These Calculator Unboxings are Hilarious !!

 

Matt Parker is hilarious in these calculator unboxings.

 

February night sky, 2016. Planets galore.

 

If you watch the night sky in this month of February this year, you will get to see a rare sight. Early morning, around 5:30 am, you can catch five of the sun’s planets almost in a straight line. Like so.

It is an awe inspiring sight. I took some pictures, but none of them capture the beauty of this spectacle accurately. You will be able to see Mercury, Venus , Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. Jupiter rises in the east around 10pm itself. You will be able to see a very bright dot in the east which does not blink at all.