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Cost Of Owning Something
Whenever I plan to buy something expensive, I go through this exercise of figuring out the cost of owning something. Remember that for most material things in life, the cost of owning it is not just the sticker price. There is more to owning it. After running through the exercise objectively if I still feel the need to buy something, I sleep over it. Gives a bit more clarity on the subjective aspects. Some things are an absolute necessity and I am not talking about those ones. Moreover, what is a necessity for me may be a discretionary spend for someone else. Finally, there is no point doing this exercise if the cost of the thing you want is cheap and doesn’t affect sustainability too much. Again, for some sustainability may be important, for others it is not.
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Accessing My Home Network From Anywhere
There are two kinds of apps that I build when I am working on my personal projects. They are either apps that are confined to my home network or ones that run on the web. Examples of apps that run on the web are my investment planning app or investment recommendation app. I can access them from anywhere. Examples of apps that only run in my home network include home automation, drip irrigation, solar power management, etc. These are apps that are running on android devices, linux PC or ESP8266 boards and are connected to my wifi. You cannot access them from outside the home network.
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Medical Expenses Inflation
I had no idea very simple medical treatment is so expensive in India! We rarely have to visit a doctor and as such I have no idea how much it costs to consult a doctor these days. I know medicines are becoming expensive but this was the first time I experienced unexpected medical charges. It all started when our daughter had a minor fracture in her elbow when she fell down while skating on the road. We did not see the accident, but apparently she was skating over some humps and perhaps due to over speeding lost her balance and landed on her left elbow. Her friends accompanied her home and we were facing a rather sad elbow condition. She was in noticeable pain but was not crying, so we did not initially think it was a fracture.
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The Most Important Thing In Life...
The title was not meant to be a click bait. I did not want the title to be too long, so had to truncate there. Aristotle supposedly said that the most important thing in life is figuring out how you spend your leisure time. I am not sure if those were the exact words, but he does write about difference between work and leisure. In today’s world, we spend too much time on work and have very little time in leisure. And any free time we have, we spend on entertainment. Leisure, unlike mere amusement, involves pleasure, happiness and living blessedly – Aristotle.
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Why I Cannot Add More Solar Panels
You might know that we currently have a sole 320W solar panel. Initially I just wanted to check if it was worth buying a solar panel. While there is a lot of talk about the many benefits of solar panels, I was not so sure. Will the panels really last a long time like they claim. Will the efficiency reduce quickly as the panel ages. Will the panels really produce the rated power because they are tested in ideal laboratory conditions of 1000 W/m2 irradiance, but in real life I was not sure if we get so much sunlight etc. Well, after owning the panel for over 2 years now, I can tell you that most of my doubts have been clarified. So I was wondering if I should add another panel.
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Where Are The Expenses?
When I write or talk about our expenses post retirement, many people want to know how I decide which expenses go into which category. Remember, I keep a record of all our expenses and categorize them. I bundle them into monthly and annual expenses. What some people have noticed is the absence of certain categories like spending on eating out or for buying clothes or shoes etc. So I thought I’d do a quick post on where those missing expenses go so there is no confusion. First lets check the categories I have for monthly expenses –
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Right To Education At Any Age
In the Indian constitution we have an article which specifies that children in the age group of six to fourteen years have the right to get free and compulsory education. It is a pretty good amendment to the constitution. But what I don’t like about it is the specific age that is mentioned. Why shouldn’t it be a fundamental right to have education at any age? Some kids or even adults may not be able to learn at a young age, and may prefer to learn at a later age. Of course no one is stopping them for learning, but it may not be free. However, with the advent of technology and internet, learning can be free at any age.
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Ignis Fuel Economy
It has been about 9 months since we purchased our new car and we are enjoying it. I was curious about the mileage figure published by ARAI for Ignis. So I decided to check out the real life mileage. Of course everything is an approximation, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Your mileage (pun intended) may vary, yada yada disclaimers apply here. Going back to the point, the ARAI number for Ignis is about 21 KMs per liter. The testing is done under laboratory conditions with different speeds under simulated road conditions. No air conditioner is used, there are no traffic signals etc. So you can think of it as ideal conditions. You should also keep in mind that they test various speeds simulating city and highway drives.
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Switched to NixOS
After using Manjaro Linux for a really long time, I finally decided it was time to switch to NixOS. Manjaro has been quite good until recently. Then there were some changes because of which my GPU hardware acceleration broke. I don’t remember all the details because it has been some time since I switched over to NixOS. All I remember is that video encoding is not able to use GPU acceleration and that was a big bummer. I tried EndeavourOS and liked it. Everything was working as expected. Yet I switched to NixOS. The reasons and more follow in this post. This is one of those posts with too many technical details, so if you prefer, feel free to skip this one.
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How Much Money Did My Solar Panels Save? - 2023 Edition
A long time ago I wrote a post on how much money my solar panel was saving me. In the post I promised to write another post in November 2022 with updates. Well, lots of things happened and I completely forgot about it until one reader reminded me requesting for an update. So here it goes. It has been more than 2 years since I installed a 320W solar panel and I have been diligently collecting data from my panel, our consumption and how much we are pulling from the grid. Very recently I finally finished my code to fetch the data, massage it and used some nice libraries to draw the graphs so I can analyze the data.
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