Published on December 29, 2020December 29, 2020 by Nayar

Anyone else got shocked by Mauritius Telecom Bills? Rs 600 increase!!! (MyT)

How the hell did our MyT bill become so high all of a sudden? We used to pay around Rs 1,000 per month. But now, it has become around Rs 1600!

We don’t have the “Smart Box” thing. How the hell did they start charging so much? Plus, on the website, the 4K package is at Rs 1200 per month. Where does Rs 1,316 come from? VAT is added before the total again.

The aim of this article is to raise awareness of such issues. Now we need to mentally prepare to go fight these people for our rights 🙁

Published on December 26, 2020 by Nayar

How much does your car really cost you per month in Mauritius?

I have had 2 cars till now: a Volkswagen Polo 1996 and a Honda Jazz 2008. Which one is cheaper to run and operate? I have logged every expense which I had to carry out on both of them on a Google Spreadsheet.

I bought my VW Polo at Rs 72,000 in November 2015 and I sold it for Rs 40,000 in February 2019. But, as you know, cars come with lots and lots of other expenses such as registration tax, road tax, insurance, repairs and maintenance. In all, the money to acquire and run the Polo for 39 Months was Rs 142,000 (excluding fuel). I drove 39,144km during this time. If we add fuel too, the total spent was Rs 275,000.

TCO per month for VW Polo: Rs (142,000 – Rs 40,000)/39 month = Rs 2615

TCO per km for VW Polo: Rs (142,000 – Rs 40,000)/39,144 = Rs 2.61/km

Total cost per km for VW Polo: Rs (275k – 40k) / 39,114 = Rs 6.00/km

I bought my Honda at Rs 210,000. With all other costs taken into consideration, as of today 22 months later, the total money spent was Rs 257,000. I estimate the resale value to be Rs 190k. I drove 24,280km with it till now. With the fuel added, it is Rs 331k

TCO per month for Honda Jazz: Rs (257k – 190k)/22 month = Rs 3053

TCO per km for Honda Jazz: Rs Rs (257k – 190k)/24,280 = Rs 2.77/km

Total cost per km for Honda Jazz: Rs (331k – 190k) / 39,114 = Rs 5.82/km

Summary

Cars cost a lot to buy and maintain. The more expensive and exotic, the cost can be drastically higher than mine.

Published on November 30, 2020 by Nayar

Unique plant only found in Mauritius. It will shock you!

We had a little walk at Coline Candos where we discovered some unique plants in Mauritius.

Can you identify this fruit?

It’s a unique fruit of Mauritius. Still can’t guess? Let’s zoom in a bit.

Ahan! It’s a Blue Marlin fruit.

So, what colour does this fruit become when it’s ripe and falls to the ground? Can you guess?

Do you know this colour? Share with your friends to see if they know it too!

Published on October 28, 2020October 28, 2020 by Nayar

AMD vs nvidia vs Intel

2020 is kinda exciting year for computer hardware. AMD has been killing it.

But would I recommend an AMD for a laptop? Hmm, I’ve been looking at eGPU systems lately. It does require a thunderbolt port to work with. Unfortunately thunderbolt is an Intel exclusive technology for now. You will thus not be able to use your ultra light AMD laptop as a real gaming monster. I don’t know if USB4 works with eGPUs. Anyways, always confirm that your Intel laptop does have a thunderbolt port. My Asus Zenbook has no thunderbolt.

On the GPU side, the 6900XT seems to be on par with the RTX 3090. But most machine learning libraries such as tensorflow are optimised to be running on CUDA/nvidia. I hope the machine learning community start using AMD GPUs as well. Maybe it is AMD which is keeping some APIs close or something. But I hope machine learning takes on AMD GPUs as well. It’ll be awesome.

Will I be able to afford all these techs? I don’t think i’ll be building a PC anytime soon as I don’t have the money and space in my house to be able to get a huge TV for entertainment.