(no subject)

Dec. 4th, 2025 02:58 pm
maju: Clean my kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] maju
3. What is your favorite fictional story? (novel, movie, fairytale, etc.) Too many to count really, but I guess one of my favourites is the whole Anne of Green Gables saga, which follows Anne through her life from when she was adopted from an orphanage at 11 years old to when she was an older woman with several adult children.

4. Where or who do you turn to when you need good advice? I used to turn to S as well as looking online; now I'm more likely to just look online or perhaps talk to my daughter.
[syndicated profile] lemire_feed

Posted by Daniel Lemire

“We see something that works, and then we understand it.” (Thomas Dullien)

It is a deeper insight than it seems.

Young people spend years in school learning the reverse: understanding happens before progress. That is the linear theory of innovation.

So Isaac Newton comes up with his three laws of mechanics, and we get a clockmaking boom. Of course, that’s not what happened: we get the pendulum clock in 1656, then Hooke (1660) and Newton (1665–1666) get to think about forces, speed, motion, and latent energy.

The linear model of innovation makes as much sense as the waterfall model in software engineering. In the waterfall model, you are taught that you first need to design every detail of your software application (e.g., using a language like UML) before you implement it. To this day, half of the information technology staff members at my school are made up of “analysts” whose main job is supposedly to create such designs based on requirements and supervise execution.

Both the linear theory and the waterfall model are forms of thinkism, a term I learned from Kevin Kelly. Thinkism sets aside practice and experience. It is the belief that given a problem, you should just think long and hard about it, and if you spend enough time thinking, you will solve it.

Thinkism works well in school. The teacher gives you all the concepts, then gives you a problem that, by a wonderful coincidence, can be solved just by thinking with the tools the same teacher just gave you.

As a teacher, I can tell you that students get really angry if you put a question on an exam that requires a concept not explicitly covered in class. Of course, if you work as an engineer and you’re stuck on a problem and you tell your boss it cannot be solved with the ideas you learned in college… you’re going to look like a fool.

If you’re still in school, here’s a fact: you will learn as much or more every year of your professional life than you learned during an entire university degree—assuming you have a real engineering job.

Thinkism also works well in other limited domains beyond school. It works well in bureaucratic settings where all the rules are known and you’re expected to apply them without question. There are many jobs where you first learn and then apply. And if you ever encounter new conditions where your training doesn’t directly apply, you’re supposed to report back to your superiors, who will then tell you what to do.

But if you work in research and development, you always begin with incomplete understanding. And most of the time, even if you could read everything ever written about your problem, you still wouldn’t understand enough to solve it. The way you make discoveries is often to either try something that seems sensible, or to observe something that happens to work—maybe your colleague has a practical technique that just works—and then you start thinking about it, formalizing it, putting it into words… and it becomes a discovery.

And the reason it often works this way is that “nobody knows anything.” The world is so complex that even the smartest individual knows only a fraction of what there is to know, and much of what they think they know is slightly wrong—and they don’t know which part is wrong.

So why should you care about how progress happens? You should care because…
1. It gives you a recipe for breakthroughs: spend more time observing and trying new things… and less time thinking abstractly.
2. Stop expecting an AI to cure all diseases or solve all problems just because it can read all the scholarship and “think” for a very long time. No matter how much an AI “knows,” it is always too little.

Further reading: Godin, Benoît (2017). Models of innovation: The history of an idea. MIT press.

Wildlife

Dec. 4th, 2025 01:17 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Raccoon goes on drunken rampage in Virginia liquor store and passes out on bathroom floor

The masked burglar broke into the closed Virginia liquor store early on Saturday and hit the bottom shelf, where the scotch and whisky were stored. The bandit was something of a nocturnal menace: bottles were smashed, a ceiling tile collapsed and alcohol pooled on the floor.

The suspect acted like an animal because, in fact, he’s a raccoon.

On Saturday morning, an employee at the Ashland, Virginia-area liquor store found the trash panda passed out on the bathroom floor at the end of his drunken escapade.


Read more... )

Today I...

Dec. 4th, 2025 07:01 pm
beccaelizabeth: my Watcher tattoo in blue, plus Be in red Buffy style font (Default)
[personal profile] beccaelizabeth
Listened to Torchwood audio Child Free.
I don't think I liked it. The plot rolled along by Suzie just knowing things and guessing right first time? I feel like they needed a bit more handwavium in it. Honestly I'd have been fine with it if they did more bleepy monitor readings noises before she drew her conclusions, which they did plenty of at key moments so I guess I mean it didn't draw me in to believing she'd figured it out. Other than that the bits with the baby didn't seem to say anything new and didn't seem funny to me. I think this story just missed me.
Mostly it made me feel it has been A Very Long Time since Torchwood, and then I was feeling a bunch of stuff about time passing and not much happening in it, and honestly, the problem may well not lie with the audio.

So then I started a Hard play through of Wrath of the Righteous, but I feel like I've screwed up my build already so that's... stressful. I'm playing arcanist again and I picked Holy Water jet but it'll be a couple of levels before I need Holy Water so, you know, oops. I just figured I'd be chucking cantrips around for ages. But I keep missing. By Hard level the odds of hitting are not on your side. I haven't made it to Neathholm yet but I have used up all the Cure Light Wounds potions and spells. So I am quitting and pindering if I'll go after the wand. Hard fight, but good reward. ... probably I'll try and have to reload a bunch.


Previously I have been listening mostly to 6th Doctor audios. I am very close now to having listened to the whole Monthly Range, only a few years late. Memories of a Tyrant, Emissary of the Daleks, Plight of the Pimpernel. Got a theme going there, they meet someone who may or may not have done terrible things, for what they felt were important reasons, and have to sort out what they feel about that and how to respond. There's also chances for the Doctor to play dress up and be not quite himself. Actors having fun being layered characters. There's good stuff in them. And I liked the bit in Pimpernel about the power and danger in escapist stories. Plus the compare contrast on literary hero and science fiction versions. People trying to rewrite their own stories.

If I'd written this closer to the listening I'd have more to say about details in each but I went on to the next, and so here's an overview on interesting commonalities and a note to self to review things and not just open a notepad page that says Review at the top and the title.



I am hoping to get more sleep tonight, which numerically speaking should not be hard, and then I shall have another go at reading listening watching playing being interested.
goodbyebird: Buffy: Buffy in her office, balancing a cup of pencils on her forehead. (BtVS hardly working)
[personal profile] goodbyebird
+ Had vague plans of doing something useful today, but ended up playing an absurd amount of Crusader Kings 3 and the most recent update instead. CK3 having this reputation of being the murder incest simulator, meanwhile I spent two whole lives reading books, being beloved by all, and tending a garden. Zero intrigue until the game notified me I didn't have an heir and it would be game over... at which point my 57 year old chaste scholar dude was sent to slut his way across the kingdom. I died with eight legitimate heirs and several bastards lol.

After I've eaten I'll be setting off with my 22 year old, sitting on great stats and a pile of gold. By which I mean: studying and pilgrimages BOYAH. (I may not be the intended audience for this game? Or maybe that perception is warped by fun streamers? bc I want to write books and have a nice garden.)

+ Fingers crossed Pluribus drops before I get sleepy. It's really got a hold of me.

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Rec-cember Day 4


Gideon the Ninth
Skin Flick by [archiveofourown.org profile] JeanLuciferGohard (2,618 words). Oh, this is pitch perfect in every way, and the visual language! So tasty.
Harrow undresses like somebody stripping an engine for parts, shedding layer after of black with a choppy, vindictive momentum. With all the eroticism of somebody prepping a taxidermy specimen. Like a case study of all possible conjugations of the verb “to flense”.

And, no, as it turns out; no, Harrowhark Nonagesimus is not, in fact, wearing anything under all that, nothing at all interrupting the faintly ridged shadow of her spine. There’s a lot of shoulder action happening, a lot of sweeping, shallow curves that look longer than they are, a lot of feral skinniness that you’d need a certain kind of palate to appreciate.

So call her a fucking sommelier, because Gideon’s palate is
developed , apparently.

She whistles.

Things that didn't happen...

Dec. 4th, 2025 01:44 pm
maju: Clean my kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] maju
I'm reading a book in which a family from Atlanta, Georgia is visiting another family just outside of Anchorage, Alaska, for Christmas. The daughter of one of the families is attracted to the son of the other family (and it's mutual). However, parts of the story seem implausible. In one scene, the woman has been working late at night and goes outside around 1 am to clear her head, throwing on a coat and a pair of boots before she goes out, plus picking up a blanket. Just the coat and boots doesn't seem like enough warm outerwear for after midnight in Alaska in December to me. But then she finds the man she's attracted to outside, apparently also clearing his head. At one point he stands up and stretches, and she gets a tantalising glimpse of his flat stomach. Okay then, but that makes it sound like he is dressed very inadequately for after midnight in Alaska in December, doesn't it? Out of curiosity I checked the weather forecast for Anchorage Alaska for the next week, and it seems that the overnight temperatures will be ranging from about 0F to about 6F. That's -18C to -14C. Would someone from Atlanta Georgia be hanging out outside in the middle of the night in those temperatures? It seems highly improbable to me.

Small gratifying memories are fun.

Dec. 4th, 2025 01:04 pm
feng_shui_house: me at my computer (Default)
[personal profile] feng_shui_house
I went to the grocery store a few days ago and celebrated the presence of milk by making waffles. A little batter dripped out, and I immediately flashed back to many years ago.

My brother bitched at me because ‘the waffle batter you put in the fridge was no good’. He pointed to the waffle maker surrounded by a puddle of *goop*.

I was??? ‘I didn’t put any waffle batter in the fridge’

“Yes you did! I got the Tupperware right here.”

‘Um, I put leftover chicken GRAVY in the fridge.’

“YOU should have marked it!”

I took the Tupperware lid out of the sink. Showed him ’CHICKEN GRAVY’ written on it.

***SILENCE***

Misc boring bits then... news!

Dec. 4th, 2025 09:16 am
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[personal profile] susandennis
When I lie on my side in the bed, my eyes look out on Barbara's terrace. Barbara lives in Assisted Living. She's a lovely lady with very little vision left. Someone has hung a VERY bright set of icicle lights on her terrace rail. I can practically read by the damn things in bed. I thought about asking her to turn them off at night but then decided, fuck it, I can wear the eye shades that I wear in Summer. They aren't uncomfortable and do the job so problem solved.

Laundry day. I have the process started. I forgot to turn on the lotion warmer before I left for volleyball so it's warming now. The paint roller enables me to apply a layer of lotion all over my back and then get dressed without oiling up my clothes.

There are a lot of seasonal activities planned around here and 99%, maybe even 100%, make me want to lock the door of my apartment with me inside. I have never been a fan of holidays but this year, I am really not. Don't know why and don't particularly care. Happily, I don't even have to explain myself to people. I can be what I want to be.

I got a really interesting email this morning from a French artist asking permission to use me in an AI art piece - specifically in an upcoming exhibit in a French High School. I cannot even believe that sentence. What a wonderful time we live in.

His name is Matéo Picard and his note was delightful. He was, oh so very respectfully, asking my permission to use my data. Of course, all of the stuff is out there for the world to see, no permission needed. He gave me a wide runway for landing a response of 'oh no, that's too creepy' which I really appreciate but do not need. I think it's fascinating. I have more than 25 years of daily journal entries, and photos back to the beginning of Flickr and Tweets and Bluesky posts and that autobiography I wrote and of course my now very old website. I mean there's a shit load to scrape from. It would be fodder for an artificial dummy but artificial intelligence could really go to town.

What amazing fun. And I love his website.

Ok the lotion is warm. Time to get greased up and dressed.

20251203_195114-COLLAGE

Fixing A Reaction

Dec. 4th, 2025 12:11 pm
[syndicated profile] in_the_pipeline_feed

Some chemistry today, drawn from real life (mine, anyway). I was setting up a short series of palladium-catalyzed couplings the other day (Buchwald-Hartwig type, C-N bond formation), and since there were very close precedents to my structures in the chemical literature, I naturally just borrowed the known conditions. There was nothing out of the ordinary about them; it seemed as if they’d work about as well on my starting aryl bromides as it did on the ones already described.

Well, they didn’t, of course. Which is the way of such metal-catalyzed couplings, which is why there are fifty gazillion ways of running them in the literature. They work until they don't! You can vary the catalyst ligands, first off, and boy are there are lot of them out there. You can change up the solvent, and the base needed for the reactions to go. There are other additives to try, and you can even vary the source of the palladium. (These days, if you know the system well enough and have some money to spend, you can order “pre-cat” materials where the ligand/Pd complex is already formed for you). In fact, here’s a recent Organic Process Research and Development paper that investigates that last variable in great detail: some catalyst systems don’t seem to care where their palladium comes from, while others care very much indeed, in case you were wondering.

But I had no desire to wander off and try a whole list of reaction conditions. In the manner of discovery biopharma chemists everywhere, I didn’t want to perfect my reaction - I just wanted it to make a reasonable amount of product so I could get on to the important stuff! I was staring at my compounds and trying to think about what made them different from the known examples, and the main thing was that I had an extra functional group at the other end of the molecule. I hadn’t thought it would be a problem, but I wondered if it was perhaps sensitive to the base I was using (which was good ol’ cesium carbonate). So I was very interested indeed when I saw this new JACS paper from the Hartwig group themselves.

It goes into great detail about the use of a base that I’d heard of but never actually tried, potassium 2-ethylhexanoate (K-2-EH). That might be an obscure-sounding reagent (along with the starting 2-ethylhexanoic acid) unless you’re a Real Industrial Chemist. Those compounds show up in a lot of polymer, coating, formulation, and materials science applications, and the acid is one of the largest-scale compounds of its kind produced industrially. So you can buy big ol’ bottles of the sodium and potassium salts relatively cheaply, and the potassium one is especially notable for dissolving in all kinds of organic solvents (where a lot of other potassium salts and carboxylates may not).

The Hartwig group found that it’s an excellent choice in the C-N couplings that bear the name, partly because of that solubility and partly because it’s a much milder base than many that people reach for. I read up on that, checked our inventory, and found a bottle of the stuff one floor below me. A milder base was about the only idea that I had to fix my problem, so it seemed like a good opportunity to try it out.

And by golly, I checked this morning and the reaction is making beautifully clean product, as opposed to the mixture of dark gunk I got with the cesium carbonate conditions. It is relatively rare that we get to actually figure out what’s going wrong with our reactions (unless you’re a process chemist, in which case that is your entire job!) But it’s also rare to fix things cleanly on the first shot - I can count the number of times I’ve been able to turn things around like this with one change on the fingers of my hands. Maybe just one hand, and that’s after forty years at the bench. 

That’s not as grim as it sounds, because remember, over most of that span I’ve been in the world where (as I like to say) there are two yields for reactions: Enough and Not Enough. Most of the time, even a relatively crappy conversion, the sort of thing a process chemist would not put up with for ten seconds, has been Enough, and I move on. But when all your starting material turns to gorp, you don’t have that option. Honestly, I would have settled just for a better product/gorp ratio, but what I got was the cleanest coupling reaction I’ve run in a long time. So thanks to Hartwig and collaborators, and those of you troubleshooting Pd reactions, try a K-2-EH run and see if it helps! 

Now I can move on (after another step or two) to the real reason I'm making these compounds, which is to do something very odd to an unsuspecting protein, and sadly I can't talk about that. But without making the needed compounds, you can't test out those weirdo ideas, can you? I'm glad these are now unsnarled.

Disadvent 4

Dec. 4th, 2025 12:08 pm
psocoptera: ink drawing of celtic knot (Default)
[personal profile] psocoptera
Cans to recycling, a semi-routine task I still like to give myself credit for actually doing. :)

Cowboys, YA, & More

Dec. 4th, 2025 04:30 pm
[syndicated profile] smartbitches_feed

Posted by Amanda

Ravished

Ravished by Amanda Quick is $2.99! This is a historical romance with some Beauty and the Beast vibes, which many readers loved. However, other readers felt the heroine’s characterization was a bit inconsistent with constant mood changes. Have you read this one?

From the cozy confines of a tiny seaside village to the glittering crush of the a fashionable London soiree comes an enthralling tale of a thoroughly mismatched couple . . . poised to discover the rapture of love.

There was no doubt about it. What Miss Harriet Pomeroy needed was a man. Someone powerful and clever who could help her rout the unscrupulous thieves who were using her beloved caves to hide their loot. But when Harriet summoned Gideon Westbrook, Viscount St. Justin, to her aid, she could not know that she was summoning the devil himself. . . .

Dubbed the Beast of Blackthorne Hall for his scarred face and lecherous past, Gideon was strong and fierce and notoriously menacing. Yet Harriet could not find it in her heart to fear him. For in his tawny gaze she sensed a savage pain she longed to soothe . . . and a searing passion she yearned to answer. Now, caught up in the Beast’s clutches, Harriet must find a way to win his heart–and evade the deadly trap of a scheming villain who would see them parted for all time.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

Immortal

Immortal by Sue Lynn Tan is $1.99! This fantasy romance was released in January and was mentioned on Hide Your Wallet. Tan’s books always have beautiful covers.

A stunning, standalone romantic fantasy filled with dangerous secrets, forbidden magic, and passion, of a young ruler who fights to protect her kingdom, from bestselling author Sue Lynn Tan and set in the breathtaking world of Daughter of the Moon Goddess.

“What the gods did not give us, I would take.”

As the heir to Tianxia, Liyen knows she must ascend the throne and renew her kingdom’s pledge to serve the immortals who once protected them from a vicious enemy. But when she is poisoned, Liyen’s grandfather steals an enchanted lotus to save her life. Enraged at his betrayal, the immortal queen commands the powerful God of War to attack Tianxia.

Upon her grandfather’s death, Liyen ascends a precarious throne, vowing to end her kingdom’s obligation to the immortals. When she is summoned to the Immortal Realm, she seizes the opportunity to learn their secrets and to form a tenuous alliance to safeguard her people, all with the one she should fear and mistrust the most: the ruthless God of War. As they are drawn together, a treacherous attraction ignites between them—one she has to resist, to not endanger all she is fighting for.

But with darker forces closing in around them, and her kingdom plunged into peril, Liyen must risk everything to save her people from an unspeakable fate, even if it means forging a dangerous bond with the immortal… even if it means losing her heart.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

Change of Hart

Change of Hart by Bailey Hannah is $1.99! This is book three in the Wells Ranch series and features a second chance romance. Have you read this series?

In this spicy romance from the author of Alive and Wells and Seeing Red, a jaded woman reluctantly returns to her hometown—and to the cowboy who broke her heart and drove her away.

She spent years trying to forget. He’ll do anything to make her remember.

Wells Canyon is the last place Blair Hart wants to be. Yet when her mother falls ill, she has no choice except to return to the hometown she’s avoided for over a decade. In a town so small, she knows there’s no way she can avoid the cowboy who tore her life to pieces all those years ago, but that doesn’t mean she’s prepared for the way Denver Wells can turn back time with a single smile.

Since Denver’s world came crashing down thirteen years ago, he’s somehow managed to keep his demons at bay…that is, until Blair Hart’s return knocks him from his saddle. But if he wants her back, he’ll have to prove he can be the man she needs—the same one she used to love.

Throwing herself into the role of caregiver, Blair doesn’t have the time to sift through their messy history even if she wanted to. And Denver’s going to need a lot more than his usual cowboy charm to convince Blair he’s worth a change of heart.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

The Bone Houses

RECOMMENDED: The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones is $1.99! I really liked this one. It has elements of Wlesh mythology and role reversal of sorts: the heroine brandishes a giant axe and fights the undead, while the hero is a scholarly cartographer. It was mentioned in our previous Goth Rec League. 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Sky in the Deep in this bewitching, historical horror novel, perfect for fans of Holly Black and V.E. Schwab.

Seventeen-year-old Aderyn (“Ryn”) only cares about two things: her family and her family’s graveyard. And right now, both are in dire straits. Since the death of their parents, Ryn and her siblings have been scraping together a meager existence as gravediggers in the remote village of Colbren, which sits at the foot of a harsh and deadly mountain range that was once home to the fae. The problem with being a gravedigger in Colbren, though, is that the dead don’t always stay dead.

The risen corpses are known as “bone houses,” and legend says that they’re the result of a decades-old curse. When Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker with a mysterious past, arrives in town, the bone houses attack with new ferocity. What is it that draws them near? And more importantly, how can they be stopped for good?

Together, Ellis and Ryn embark on a journey that will take them into the heart of the mountains, where they will have to face both the curse and the deeply-buried truths about themselves. Equal parts classic horror novel and original fairytale, The Bone Houses will have you spellbound from the very first page.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

Good Spirits

It’s Sarah, dropping in with one more sale book!

RECOMMENDED: Good Spirits by B.K. Borison is $5.99! This is a newer book – released October 21 – and is on a few readers’ best-of lists.  Shannon Stacey said, “Good Spirits was my fave read of the year. I actually bought a shelf copy to lend to my sisters, lol. That’s rare.”

It’s got a 4.26 (!!) rating on Storygraph, and folks who reviewed it say that it’s cute, but with real stakes and a lot of character development. My favorite review is from mariahstieve, who wrote, “Ghost spice was everything I never knew I needed.” – SW

The USA Today bestselling author of Business Casual, B.K. Borison is back with a whimsical new holiday romance—this time with a magical twist—that will have everyone falling in love with the Ghost of Christmas Past.

He’s the Ghost of Christmas Past. She’s not exactly Scrooge.

Ghost of Christmas Past Nolan Callahan intends to spend this holiday haunting like every other—get in, get out, return to his otherwise aimless existence as a ghost awaiting the afterlife. But when he’s faced with Harriet York, the sweetest assignment he’s ever had, he suddenly finds himself wishing for a future.

Harriet York has no idea why she’s being haunted. She’s a good person—or, at least, she tries to be. A people pleaser to her core, she always does what’s expected of her. But as she and Nolan begin to examine her past, they discover there are threads that bind them together— and realize there might be more to moving on than expected.

With the deadline of Christmas Eve fast approaching, will they find the key to their futures in each other’s pasts? Or will they stay firmly in the present, indulging in their unexpected, spirited connection?

Filled with magic, mayhem, and cozy holiday charm, this swoony romance is B.K. Borison’s best yet!

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

File Permissions?

Dec. 4th, 2025 04:22 pm
ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
When I replaced my Windows box earlier this year I kept the hard drive from the old Windows 10 computer on the assumption that I might at some stage need to access some file or use some software that isn't on the new machine. Documents should have been OK because I did copy everything across. But yesterday this actually came up - I needed a document that I couldn't find, put the drive into an external holder, then discovered that I couldn't get into the documents on the hard drive because it's looking for permissions which are long gone. I'm guessing that if I booted from that drive on a suitable machine I'd be able to read it, but that's not likely to happen.

Fortunately I did eventually find the file on my current PC, I'd been looking in the wrong directory with a slightly wrong file name, but I'm now wondering if there is some way to fix this if it happens again and I really do need to open documents. Any suggestions?

runpunkrun: combat boot, pizza, camo pants = punk  (punk rock girl)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
Photograph of the aurora borealis taken in Norway, text: Amnesty, at Fancake. The northern lights are a bright green scribble that stretches over the horizon, along a snowy mountain ridge, and up into the starry night sky.
At the end of another long year, [community profile] fancake's theme for December is, as always, amnesty. This month you can make recs for any previous theme—from any year—as long as it hasn't already been recced for that theme.

I posted a rec for [personal profile] thefourthvine's sexy and fun We Better Make a Start, an everybody lives/nobody dies Stranger Things fic with Steve & Robin friendship and Steve/Eddie makeouts.

If you have any questions about this theme, or the comm, come talk to me!
[syndicated profile] flowing_data_rss_feed

Posted by Nathan Yau

Reddit user ViKoToMo scraped Costco receipts from his account and made a dashboard that shows spending for the past two years.

This short script by Ankur Dave was used to access Costco receipts. I’m not sure how long that’s going to work, but there you go, in case you also would like to see how many thousands of dollars you spend on organic chicken thighs, bananas, and street tacos.

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