Here's My Story

You know how listed companies are required to have their accounts audited independently by external auditors? This is to prevent their accounts from being audited by parties with vested interest in the financial statements of the companies (i.e. conflict of interest). For example, it is in the interest of the CEO of a company to present good results from its financial statement and therefore an audit by him or anyone close to him is likely to be biased or at least perceived to be so. Now, given that for an insurance company, the largest liability is the policy liability i.e. reserve set aside to meet expected future insurance claims, why the position of Actuary is not independent? Currently, either the Actuary is a permanent staff of the insurance company or a consultant hired to act as the company's Actuary. Either way, he is the company's Actuary and is not required by regulation to be independent. Of course there are constraints on the Actuary to ensure he act "inde...

Yay! Another bot was reviewed (second bot after White Reinhardt ). This time it was Double Mega!, reviewed by TheFrowningLizard. Actually, this bot is named Double M in my garage but I changed its name to Double Mega! when uploading it to the CRF because it sounded more more attractive hehehe. He gave 4/5 stars for Combat and 5/5 stars for Style although he did say he normally give full stars because he's nice :) He commended the triforcing and suggested one improvement: move the Mega Plasma by 2 or 3 blocks to minimise further gun clipping. That's a good suggestion. I'll try to do this. Thanks TheFrowningLizard for your valuable feedback!

Recently, my sister asked me the cost of making my usual bread, following the " sponge & dough method " taken from her recipe book. So I did a very rough costing: High protein flour - 1kg RM3.30 - need total 180gm and so cost = RM0.59 Wholemeal flour - 1kg RM3.60 - need 60gm and so cost = RM0.22 Plain wheat flour - 1kg RM1.70 - need 60gm and so cost = RM0.10 Organic soymilk powder - 700gm RM41.00 - need 12.5gm and so cost = RM0.73 Egg - 10 eggs RM5.30 - need half egg and so cost = RM0.27 Sugar - 1kg RM2.95 - need 60gm and so cost = RM0.18 Salt - 1kg RM0.90 - need 5.7gm and so cost = RM0.01 Yeast - 11gm RM0.70 - need 4.7gm and so cost = RM0.30 Olive oil - 1L RM23.00 - need 37ml and so cost = RM0.85 Total thus far is RM3.24. I have no idea how to estimate cost of water (total 145ml), electricity for the breadmaker (total 1hour), and gas for the oven (25mins at just below power "5"). If I conservatively estimate cost of these ...

(continue from Part 1 ) Here are the dividend yields on cost for shares that have paid out dividends equivalent to at least a year: There are now 6 share counters with dividend yield below my desired 5%. Gosh, I'm so tempted to sell the remaining small number of SBS Transit shares since I had held them for many years already. As for the other 4, I'll continue to monitor, especially ST Engineering. The overall dividend yield on cost weighted by invested amount remains 6.0%. Hope it'll at least stay that way or, better yet, improve. Here's the breakdown of my portfolio according to percentage of amount of investment in each share counter: Clearly, Sembcorp Industries stands out the most. Hopefully it'll be in the black soon for me to sell off some shares. Not comfortable with any counter with more than 10% of the invested amount. Here is the average cost of each share counter compared to its then prevailing price as at 16 April 2016: Share marke...

A number of changes since the last update a year ago . This time, let's start with divestment: (1) Ausnet Services: due to a restructuring exercise, a new single company was established to replace the then current triple-stapled structure. Since I'm an overseas shareholder, they sold my shares and gave me the proceed. (2) SBS Transit: despite invested in this share counter for more than 6 years and had plowed in more when its price fell, its dividend yield (on average cost) remains just above 3% i.e. well below my preferred minimum yield of 5%. I placed sell order for all my holding but there are still some remaining due to lack of buyers. I'll just hold this small amount while seeing through the Singapore government's restructuring exercise of the public bus transport. (3) Saizen REIT: they sold all their properties in Japan en bloc and so now they are a cash-only entity. They have returned most of the capital to shareholders (on top of providing dividend...

One night, Ban, his brother and I decided to try CBTL's meals for dinner. I had eggs benedict with ham, bread and salad. As expected, it wasn't enough for me and so after deliberating for some time, I had Shilin's fried chicken. I was reluctant because I already had fried chicken 2 days before and I need to watch my cholesterol level . That night, I felt my throat parched. The next day: bam! in came the set of symptoms " sorethroat, phlegm, cough " (nicknamed "SPC"). Yes, exactly the same as that I experienced towards end of last year but with fever appearing at the start and sneezing is rare. As expected, the first night was horrible: couldn't sleep at all due to phlegm accumulation and cough. Managed to get sporadic amount of sleep after taking medicine (saw doctor the morning after). So I'm guessing: fried chicken -> acid reflux -> scalded throat -> infection -> SPC. I just want to sleep...

As a follow-up to the financial salvos I've been hit by, the Singapore Inland Revenue recently reviewed the taxes I paid for the years 2011-2014. After receiving my response to their queries, they designated me as "non-resident" for tax purpose because I hadn't resided or worked in Singapore for more than 183 days in each of those years. What's the impact? Monstrously huge! Consider the following income tax rates for the year 2016 i.e. Year of Assessment 2017 (sourced from IRAS's website ) A resident pays no tax on the first $20k net income (after relevant deductions) and then 2% on the next $10k. So based on, say, a net income of $25k, the amount of tax is 2%*5k = $100. A non-resident pays a flat tax rate of 22%. So, the amount of tax on the same net income as above is 22%*25k = $5,500. Now, multiply that by 4 years due to the retrospective assessments. I had always thought PR pays the resident tax rate and IRAS's previous 4 years assessment ...

I somehow must have miscalculated the 3-month period of taking medicine  because I finished my last dose recently @@ Gosh, maybe I still have a box of atorvastatin somewhere in the house... Anyway, I decided to take a lipid profile test again (this time from BP Lab) and the results are:                                  Apr 2016             Ref. range           Total cholesterol           3.5                      < 5.2                 HDL ("good")               1.4                     > 1.0               LDL ("bad")                  1.5     ...

I have uploaded a non-premium version of Dark Reinhardt  in the CRF and renamed it as White Reinhardt. From time to time, I have put my bots' names for youtubers to review them (when they requested viewers to do so). Recently, HollywoodScotty reviewed White Reinhardt :) He gave 4/5 combat rating and 4/5 for style. The main thing I was interested in was that he said that the replacement of a single laser with a nano gun would have pushed the combat rating past 5. I will give this a try. Thanks for your review and feedback, HollywoodScotty!

I saw this bot in a TDM match: I was playing my self-built Double M, in its latest incarnation (the black & red bot above). The bot that caught my eye was this cute rabbit! Jumped like one too. Pure healer, I believed. Fascinated, I search the roboshop for it. At first, I used the keyword "bunny" but no hit. I then succeeded with the keyword "rabbit": It's called "Rabbit of Caerbannog" by Ketmol. I was told that it was a direct reference to a certain rabbit in Monty Python. In case it's not clear, the description by the designer is as follows: "Place missile launcher as a rabbit's tail (req lv 100) and poop on your enemies. Surprise awaits when you take damage." (fixed grammatical error). What is this surprise? My initial guess was that the cubes inside are coloured red, signifying blood. I am correct on that account but I didn't expect a ribcage! Yes, there is a ribcage inside, made of aerorods. Lol....