Recently in Briefly Explained Category

Accidentally stumbled on this word in wikipedia.. Tontine.. an interesting word to know.

It has an interesting meaning.
Actually two meanings.. one a software tech word, another as a finance scheme name.

First the techy: Tontines are secret programs that generate many secret keys (or codes) to be given to as many people protecting a particular data/information in digital format, locked with the program.. and if more than one person who has these codes come together, they can use their keys to unlock the program and see the actual information.

As wikipedia says it: a tontine is a secret sharing algorithm which allows n people to share secret data, such that any k of them can reconstruct it by combining their keys.

This was interesting, because I have always heard of only one person entity, or two person entity holding the secret code to protected information in software.. so knowing that 'n' person entity could hold keys, though two of the keys would be enough to unlock the information that is protected, was interesting.

Second the finance scheme: Tontines are financial schemes that work like this - All members of the scheme put in a capital amount and get paid dividends every year until their death.. and the capital is never paid. And on death of members the dividends paid to others adds up with proportionate value of the divdend that would have been paid to the dead if they were alive.
After many many revisions and transitions of this, 'pension' schemes were invented it seems.

It is named Tontine, or Tonti-ne, after the person Lorenzo de Tonti who is credited with inventing or popularizing the sceme first in France.

The wealthy Tontine scheme:
The Tontine scheme had many variants.. one of the popular variant was this: Apart from the normal dividends payment of the scheme, the total capital of all investors in the scheme is paid to the last surviving investor.. and eventually the last survivor becomes very wealthy.

This variant of the scheme has been popularized much by novels and stories that use this wealthy variant as the plot for murder mysteries where all investors of the tontine are killed to get all the money to the last survivor.

Why don't we have this scheme today: Looks like this scheme or its variants was mostly used by governments in early days (something like 17th century or 18th) to raise funds for wars, and big expenses... and governments or marketers inherently allowed young people also to become investors on the scheme whereby a 5 year old girl can invest some 300 Livres(one of many currency types used in ancient France) and reap dividends till she dies.

Government started feeling the costs of surviving the scheme go up and up because people lived longer.. also girl children were chosen by parents for the scheme because women were known to live longer than men in those days.

Other than this, private companies or agencies who ran tontine schemes mostly made a scam of it. The scheme was more attractive and easy to swindle a lot of money which many did use of well. This led to the England and American governments banning the scheme in those days itself.. so it never came to more recent centuries.

They say, there are tontines even today in the underworld.

Read more on Tontines at: Tontine - wikipedia

I loved reading the history of coffee here (barista.co.in).. especially I liked the part which read "Attempts to ban the coffee". The website's content writer seems to have a good stylish flair for his/her words and the presentation. But yes, the history page was too long in a way, and the last bit of technical know-how's made me stop tasting the content and click some other link.

Other than that, that site of barista was a good read... may be because I like them a little too much. I love the saffron orangish color barista gives to its outlets.. and their ambience all done to some simple perfection to the volume of the music (so it doesnt disturb your conversation), to the position of the TV (so it doesnt distract you if you dont want to watch it), to their mild air-conditioned ambience (so you dont feel that you are some place different than where you can talk freely), etc.,

I thought barista was a multinational coffee chain.. reading through the site, I found its first outlet was in new delhi and it covered all over india's major cities.. and atleast one outlet in all important cities. In chennai they have a lot of outlets, what even inside Taj coromandel hotel you have a barista outlet.

For the drink.. I am not an experimentor at coffee, neither a coffee-addict though I love the coffee whenever I drink it... and at Barista or elsewhere I either just take a normal filter coffee or a cappucino.

If you want to make your cappucino(yes you get cappucino coffee mixes at supermarkets to try) barista style.. then try this old post

I am an Airtel customer..

Oh I feel so unfortunate to put that as the first line here, because Airtel's customer service people are not skilled enough, neither are their technical system good.

For instance, if you raise a compalint, any complaint it be, they will send at least 6 sms after the complaint, ... and no no,..none of the sms will be anything useful to you. it wont say the status of the compalint or its resolution.. it will stupidly be message like "we hope you are happy with your interaction with us", "thank you for your interaction.. your complaint number is xxxxxx", "if you are satisfied with the answer send YES or NO to us".. and all such useless messages immediately after you raised the complaint and well before the service team actually gets back to you with any resolutions.

And then, you take the pain of clicking menus to delete all these junk messages.

I even raised complaints/suggestion with them to stop junking like that. The stupid personnel just said, "there is no way we can do that, but it is very useful for you to receive these messages"

I told him.. "i know what is useful for me.. you please take this as a suggestion to your IT dept if not as a complaint". He said he will and took it as a new interaction, and I got all the junkload of messages for that also.

My recommendation:
Don't expect common sense with these guys. (sometimes you must not even expect a resolution.. very often they close calls, a lot of them, indirectly saying it is not possible to correct it).
They just probably use a stupidly, badly created software system for complaints, and rather than improving that system, they are happily pushing that bad quality to customers who raise complaints.

Once, I got very irritated with the way the courier service airtel uses, throws my airtel bills on the lawn... and make me go searching and pick it. Ignorant at their best.. they mean they are very busy and can't bother to insert it into your letter box sticking on your gate.

And this courier guy was coming in odd timings so I could never catch him and tell him to do it properly. .. so I called customer service and told them this.

Not surprisingly, the customer service guy said, "for these things we can't take a complaint sir.. we don't have those options for selecting the type of complaint here".. they humiliated me a further more for calling them for a problem like this.

And after I insisted enough over about 45 mins, they got me on to a supervisor who took it as a complaint and took details of the region of my house to find out their courier service guy.

It didnt get resolved, I was out picking my bills again, or worser, the stupid person delivered my bills in somebodys house, and somebody's bill in my house. I went back to them, the customer service people, and asked them to change the options to email my bills.. they simply adviced me to do it online at their website... though i had taken the time to call, they wanted me to first try it there.

I did try... their website rocks.. rocks the negative way.
Nothing will work, and all information they provide regarding help documents or contact emails, will all point to the same intelligent thing... "the customer service team". The website will ask you to email complaints to 121@airtel.in, or something like that, but that email only gets automatically raised as a complaint with the stupid team. and again, all those junkloads of messages.

After a few attempts, I finally got my bill emailed. ha, great I thought.. but how can they help you so easy.. they are gods who read books like "101 one ways to screw your customer's happiness". The email had the bill as a pdf which was password protected.. security it seems so that nobody else reads the bill in MY mailbox.

The email message said, send "ebill pass" to xxxxx to get your password. :o) Can you imagine.. I cannot imagine any better stupid system.. I think they unanimously should be given the award for "worst automation system" for 4-5 years in a row.

And, yes, I sent "ebill pass" to get my password.. you know what.. i got an instant reply.. i eagerly opened to read the message, and it said, "thanks for your query,.. but we are unable to service you at this time.. try later" :o) ha ha..

You might think i am exaggerating things here.. you must be an airtel investor. But all these are true experiences I have had for the one year I am subscribed with them... these days, every time i think that i should contact customer service to find out something, i get doomed thinking of the process ahead.

If you thought.. "all these things are small problems.. happens with any company.. and i am only cribbing.. ".. then I am 100% sure you must be indian.. because that is normally indian attitude. we indians have an infinite quality to tolerate anything.

Anyways, after those experiences.. I have not had an instance where i should call them again.. until today.

This is what happened today..

Khul ja sim sim
I have a motorola v3i phone.. with airtel as my service provider.. (this time i dont want to start the line the bad way.. so i put motorola first).

Trying the phone's security settings... to set a sim password, i entered a wrong password once. and the phone said "SIM BLOCKED". usually this happens only in the third attempt.. blame it on the phone's software, or the sim card's make, or the service provider.. finally it is my phone connection that is screwed up.

I pray with Google and try to search information.. almost all websites said "contact service provider", and i really searched again because I couldn't imagine calling my service provider.

I call up Airtel, and the guy says he will give me something called a PUK number(Pin unlock key it means).. and i enter it when my phone asks for it.. I said,"It never asked, it just says SIM BLOCKED".. He started repeating the same theory again and gave me the PUK number and asked me to use it and solve it.

After more conversation explaining things, he said, "if it says SIM BLOCKED, it just means you have to take your vehicle and drive to airtel office, and ask for a duplicate SIM card and the problem is solved.."

The catch here was, Airtel charges 150 rupees for a duplicate SIM card, and all information on your old SIM card is possibly irrecoverable..

yes yes, I later found out that things are not that bad.. but this is the kind of information that the customer support guy had, and I told him how bad sense it is to make use of such things to earn money from customers, and how airtel should really do it the common sense way to help customers by providing all this security information during service registration rather than just giving registration receipt alone.

He took that as a complaint.. and gave me an interaction number. Junkload of messages arrive, as usual i delete them later.

I learnt from some friends that there are other service providers who were worser.. a friend once said "atleast he gave you the PUK number for free.. my provider asked me to come to his office, pay him 25 rupees and then tore a rough sheet of paper, wrote down the PUK number and gave it alongwith with a receipt for 25 rupees as service charges"

Hard nuts these companies are.. I prefer to use the term "Money mongers"... always and ever looking at everything as an opportunity to make money.. like the government always looks for ways to tax people.

No wonder why even though Airtel is so big in india, it has nothing outside india.. not even a scrap business. Only indians will sit silent and pay up .. for all that attitude and infinite tolerance we seem to have.

Ok.. no use talking about either.. indian people and indian companies.

The solution I found out from a website with more search was.

If you use motorola v3i, and it says SIM BLOCKED, then try this:

Before doing this, take the PUK number from your service provider. You can also change the PUK number to something you remember so that you don't have to call your wonderful service providers for it later if this happens again.

Unblock SIM pin code:
**05*PUK*newpin*newpin#

1. Key in **05*
2. Your phone will recognize that gsm code and ask you to enter puk code.
3. Enter puk code, and it will unblock your sim.
4. Type new 8 digit puk code. so that the change overwrites the provider set puk code with your new puk code. next time this happens you will enter your PUK code.

That's it.. about unlocking sim on your motorola mobile.
More gsm codes at: http://www.mobileshop.org/usertech/gsmcodes.htm

Are you drinking enough water, or some kind of energy fluids to hydrate your body??

Water is an important source of energy for the body, be it human body or your pet dog. Though not given so much importance in gyms and excercises by normal people. only sports people understand the importance of water and the banana. Yes, banana is one of the fruits that convert into energy usable by the body the fastest.

Everyday we lose water from our body through sweat and perspiration, through urine, and by even breathing. And this loss has to be replaced. When not regularly replaced, the body makes you feel thirsty.

How much water?
Depends on your weight, your energy usage in physical activity over the day, and importantly the temperatures you put your body through because more temperature means more loss of water through sweat and perspiration. So, in summer you will drink atleast 40% more water than in winter.

If you thought you are drinking the right quantity of water, and if you never checked that against some standards, then here is a website that helps calculate your daily hydration(or water) needs.

You can key in details like weight, workout you do, age, and get to know how much water you should be drinking, atleast ideally...and if you are not drinking other energy fluids

Hydration Calculator

You can find more information on fluids and energy and why people drink special fluids like gatorade etc., why water itself may not be enough, through 'make every drop count'.

I found the above links accidentally going through, the coca-cola website. The website has an interestingly squeezed world map out of a bottle thing on its website...artistically a good concept for their homepage. I would have liked to see it in their print adverts... hey, I just remembered, have these cola companies stopped advertising on the print media...its been a long time.

Making a simple pizza at home could be fun.. especially when you realize its actually easier than all those other indian dishes to make.

When we say 'easy' we are not under-estimating the process.. Everything is easy to do in cooking as long we don't want to be perfect, not bother about nutritional facts, and when we know we are only cooking to make a meal and are not actually trying to out do the experts at the pizzarettes.

To be a good cook, you need practise and importantly observe how other people do it. That probably can be said for becoming good in most things actually.

So to do a good pizza, the below process, and some instructions or cookbooks that you can find on the internet or your local store can give you a start.

Try this link below for a starter.
Make a pizza

What pizzarettes' use to cook is an high-temperature oven (which supports a maximum of 500 degrees centigrade).. but this we may not have at our homes.. and normally we are reading how to cook a pizza only to make one using our new microwave oven. In that case, keep your pizza size small. Also, if you bought a pizza base which is like bread rather than flour, then you cook for as long as the bread doesn't become roasted and hard. Using more cheese and oil can help this.

In india, home-made pizzas aren't the order of the day, and hence you may not find mozerrella cheese or a home-cooked tomato sauce at the stores.
You can though, get a ready-made pizza base, and probably Cheese for pizza from your local food store. Also, bottled tomato sauce can be used, but make sure how much you use, because bottled sauces are generally strong and as Indians we are not used to bulk consumption of bottled sauces.. that might upset your stomach.

Pizza is not a healthy food.. its probably the most bad junk food around, because of lots of cheese, oil, sauce and a lot of all the junk foods put together. So, you should only be eating one a month and also working out regularly at the gym to keep your body from becoming lazy.