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Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Where Are They Now?It's long past time for an update. This was my original blog, and if you have landed here on the main page, you might well find interesting content if you poke around through the archives. In fairly short order, I moved Jay Solo's Verbosity to regular hosting, using pMachine to run it. Again, that remains if you'd like to explore the archives. I also hosted the home page for Carnival of the Capitalists in the same location, prior to replacing it with a Carnival of the Capitalists blog. Jotzel is a new project associated with Carnival of the Capitalists. You should be sure to check it out if business interests you at all. In late 2003, I got to know Deb Yoder, of The Accidental Jedi, a now defunct blog (which may get reproduced somewhere eventually for archival purposes). I flew to Fresno to meet her in person the night of 12/25/03, we married in Las Vegas on 1/2/04, and at the end of January I returned and we moved her across the country to Massachusetts. On 9/29/04, our lovely daughter, Sadie, was born. But I am getting ahead of myself. After we were married, we started a joint blog, named with oddly juxtaposed words from our respective individual blogs. That is where I am blogging now: Accidental Verbosity. We welcome you to visit us there.
Thursday, June 19, 2003
A Moving Experience
It's under construction still, but please go to http://www.elhide.com/solo/ for future posts, and adjust your links accordingly. Thanks!
Update:
Of all the posts to fail to publish, and have me not realize it until almost three hours later, it had to be this one! Let's see if it goes this time.
A Long Expected Interview
Maripat has finally gotten around to posting the widely anticipated, almost non-fictional interview with Lori over at Right We Are!
10,000 Watch
Well, my 1/3 Blogiversary is the 25th, 6 days from now. I'm approaching 10,000 on the meter, so I should hit 10,000 by or right at the 4 month mark. That's pretty cool. My only concern with possibly falling short is traffic has plunged this week; almost to half its previous levels. On the other hand, moving out to add a boost. If I can get the new site to load reliably.
Elhide Blues
Well, today my new site still is having speed issues. At this point, meaning it won't load at all, even with the direct URL including weblog.php at the end. Except if I hit www.elhide.com, in which case the redirector page that currently brings you to Blogspot comes up instantly, followed by the Blogspot page coming up instantly. Doh!
Something isn't right. I made no changes that should have caused such a thing. Very weird. Guess I'll go do work instead of trying to get the site live.
X2
I went to see X2 for the second time, so the nephew could see. I used a two year old free pass, which I'd not used because I always go to matinees, and the freebie is best used to avoid paying full price.
It was just as good the second time! The FX that hint about the Phoenix were more obvious this time, knowing about it and already knowing what happened. I can't wait for the next one.
I'll reiterate that Anna Paquin is just sooooo cute. Not that the rest of the women are slouches. Halle Berry was good, having much more opportunity to show what she could do this time, and the interaction with Nightcrawler, who was so cool.
Probably I'll see Hulk this weekend when it comes out. Steve Rhodes gave it only ** and thought it was too long and dull; trying to be too much of a thinking movie and not enough of an action movie. That won't stop me from going.
How Rude
I thought I might take a little while tonight to make the changeover, even though I am not really ready. Seeing how I've already been announced, so I could have the honor of the number 100 spot in the official defectors list. Speaking of which, the URL to the defectors list no longer goes right to it, but to the top of the archive page it's on; then there's much scrolling involved. Probably ought to have a page of its own.
So tonight the new site on Hosting Matters is doing the weird slow load thing BlogSplat often does, and BlogSplat is loading fine, except not loading the referrer log and the Enetation comments bring up error pages, neither of which is a Blogger problem per se. How rude, for the good hosting to act up.
Perhaps tomorrow night I can make big changes and e-mail people that it's official enough to run with.
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Frustration
Not being able to blog much. Not being able to tweak and deploy the new digs.
I have a funeral in the morning. Afterward I have to pick up my nephew, go to the office, and have a very busy afternoon and evening doing work that needs to be done. Then the nephew and I are going to see X-Men 2, so I'll be home late and probably just go to bed or be online minimally at this time tomorrow night. On the other hand, at least I'll be home at this time tomorrow night, and not just leaving the office.
Thursday ought to be a little better. At some point presumably the nephew will need to be returned home, and there's still work to do. I also expect my friend who's moving to California to bring her computer to the office Thursday so I can put in the CD burner I got as a going away present. Her old, slow one only works as a music CD player now. And we can hang out one last time, chowing down amazing barbecue chicken pizza and the world's best fries (really!) from the mom&pop hole in the wall place around the corner. Once in a while she visits me at work and we do that for lunch.
Still, Thursday night I ought to be home and able to work on the new blog. I'll do the most imperative things and then launch it before I am done tweaking every detail. That will get people to stop flattering me by publicly urging me to hurry up off BlogSplat. When I do move, I expect I will send an e-mail notifying all the blogs I can identify that have me linked, so if that's you, be expecting it.
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
9000
And the 9000th hit is...
Referred by A Gaggle of Girls (And Some Guys Who Fill In During Vacations).
On Pacific Time, at 4:18:51 PM to be exact.
With ISP of Pacbell.
Using Netscape 5.0 on Windows 98.
Ith, izzat you?
A Grin for the Den! (Attention Mapchic et al)
Spread the word!
Check out this hosting option as a Blogspot alternative. It's a wonderful thing, and slightly lower cost even than some of the other non-free options. Plus they'll setup MT or pMachine for you free, which helps give Dean a rest after the fifty MT sites - mostly BlogSplat refugees - he will have setup.
Imagine: geographica.bloghouse.net as new home for one of my favorite blogs.
Driving
Way to go Jaboobie! I could easily have written this list of driving tips myself. Well done.
Someone did item 10 to me today and I was all ready at that point to get back to the office and blog about it. And about my observation that some people don't drive "wrong" per se, but have a "rhythm" to their driving that's off from that of other people. Or off from mine, anyway. You know what I mean? It's hard to define. It's a matter of going mostly the right speeds and being acceptably safe, yet slowing and resuming speed in an odd pattern, maintaining odd distances, driving with the brake more than the gas, perhaps, but not as eggregiously as some people, slowing or speeding too much or too little or at the wrong distance when approaching a merge or intersection, coming off the highway onto the ramp too fast then driving up the ramp to slowly or vice-versa. Little things enough different to be a noticable pattern that makes you have to watch that driver extra carefully.
Then there's the guy today driving in the left lane on 93 into Boston who to all appearances was drowsing off and periodically drifting over the line into the next lane. Amazing. Anyway, enough on silly drivers.
Wow!
I've just been linked twice by Joe Katzman over at Winds of Change.
One is the article I linked to about the possibility of a low grade depression that could last many years. I consider it a real if avoidable possibility, and found the analysis interesting.
The other is a nudge to get off Blogspot. Heh. I am working on it. My basic layout is largely finished at a temporary, ridiculous URL. The posts you see are temporary, test posts, so you can comment there but the comments will go away when I delete the posts to start for real. I have a whole laundry list of mostly minor tweaks that add up to a fair amount of work, but much of it will be done after I make the move official. At a shorter URL, I hope. In a couple days, I expect.
Anywho, back to work... I have a panicky lawyer upstairs whose local Juris Timesheet database corrupted beyond repair. Need to show her how to query previously batched time that's on the server, since her old time is no longer visible through a query or diary view locally. Then I have a machine to build and another to finish installing and deploy.
Oh, duh. I meant to mention, in connection with the economic article I linked, my big concern right now is the real estate market crashing ungracefully. I mean, it's bound to slow down, and maybe that's all it will do, but I expect it to be more like at least a modest crash. I could be completely off the wall here, since that's based on nothing concrete that I could cite for you.
Rand Simberg At His Finest
Brilliant post by Rand Simberg on why it was a mistake for the Founders not to make clearer that the First Amendment was a collective right like the Second. Heh.
Funny E-Mail
You may well have seen this before. I have, a couple times before, and found it most amusing and, sadly, recognizable...
Subject A.A.A.D.D.
I find comfort in knowing that I'm not alone.... Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D. - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. This is how it manifests:
I decided to wash my car. As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the hall table. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the trash can under the table, and notice that the trash can is full.
So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the trash first. But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the trash anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.
I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only one check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.
I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over. I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.
As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need to be watered. I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning.
I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers. I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table! I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, we will be looking for the remote, but nobody will remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.
I splash some water on the flowers, but most of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.
Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.
At the end of the day: the car isn't washed, the bills aren't paid, there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter, the flowers aren't watered, there is still only one check in my checkbook, and I can't find the remote, I can't find my glasses, and I don't remember what I did with the car keys!
Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today... I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired! I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail. Do me a favor, will you?
Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember to whom it has been sent...
If this doesn't apply to you, don't laugh your day is coming!
Monday, June 16, 2003
Good Night
Well folks, I'm beat. I've been at the office waaaay too long and am leaving a couple hours later than intended. I am going home and probably right to bed without blogging. Or if I can't sleep, I'll work on the new site, moving my FrontPage design mockup to the real thing. Considering I almost ran off the road going less than a mile to Wendy's a few hours ago, as a direct result of needing sleep, I doubt insomnia will be a problem.
Perhaps I'll have something to say in the morning. But wait! This is fun spam that just arrived, trying to play matchmaker with me:
Russian Mail Order Brides
Tired of Dating Spoiled American Women?
Russian Women are Unspoiled, Devoted and Grateful!
(Browse the FREE Pictures THEY Sent In!)
We'll Post Your FREE Ad on Our Russian Site.
Let Women Come To You For A Change.
1 - Do the Russian brides look like Nicole Kidman? Now that would be cool. Or if they looked like her, for that matter (scroll down a little and you'll see).
2 - I can't very well be tired of dating American women when I haven't been. Does that mean this offer is not for me? And who says American women are spoiled? Are you women going to tolerate such maligning? I mean really. Sometimes they break, or turn bitter, but American women can be quite well preserved.
3 - Devoted and grateful? For what, bringing them to America so they too can be American women? I know what they're up to!
4 - The ad is free, but the scam will cost ya? Heh!
I think I feel lyrics coming on...
Speaking of movies...
Bend It Like Beckham still hasn't come to any sufficiently local theaters for me to go to it. Yet they're advertising it on TV. Enough for a very light viewer to have noticed. Strange. Why advertise and then make it hard to see?
Woooosh!
Film release time is almost like "Internet Time" these days.
I got a voicemail from my sister. My nephew really really really wanted to see X-Men 2, but they'd not gotten around to going. Now that it's time, they find it's playing in one theater at one time in the area. That time is 9:50 PM. Too late for her.
So the proposal is that I take him to it and then he can stay at my place for the night.
Sadly enough, I kind of wanted to see X2 again myself. As of last week it was still on the marquee of a theater it's no longer in, and there were still at least 4 screenings per day at the one that still has it at all.
They leave the theaters so fast. I miss seeing so many movies that way, especially ones that aren't "big" so they're gone in a week or two.
So I'm trying to figure out the logistics. I have no idea exactly when the funeral and wake will be, but I believe it's going to be tomorrow evening and Wednesday morning. I expect to have work that occupies me all of tomorrow, into the evening. Tonight is absolutely out; I'm barely staying awake now due to my adventure in coming to work in the middle of the night. Apparently I'm not too incoherent, as I neatly resolved a Juris Timesheet error that was caused by corruption of the local database. Which would have been easier had the error given the slightest indication that might be the problem, and had it not been too corrupt for repair and compact to work without crashing and burning. But I digress.
The days feel full enough that I pretty much have to just pick one and go for it, regardless. Chances are on Friday it'll be gone from theaters completely. I might let him tough it out until the video release, but I would like to see it again myself, so what the heck.
Geek Test
My nephew e-mailed me the URL for this Geek Test.
He scored 21.69625% - Geek, which is fairly impressive for 14 years old.
I scored 36.09467% - Major Geek. Heh.
Hey, Where'd The Gloom Go
What's up with this! I check Weather Underground to see what the upcoming weather will be, since I'd not been paying attention. Five days out of the upcoming seven are supposed to be mostly sunny or only partly cloudy. Whoa! Only one day and one night feature a chance of rain. Each day falls somewhere in the 70-80° range.
What happened? The weather deities finally decided we'd had enough and would go completely insane if things didn't normalize?
Whatever it is, I have one word that sums up my reaction: Woohoo!!
American Realpolitik
In case you've missed seeing this elsewhere, American Realpolitik needs help. Way more than Andrew Sullivan.
Now I feel bad, because perhaps a week ago I was looking at the cartoons on their site and thought "I wonder if they have permission to use these or if someone might be bothered by it." That happens to me way too often; I imagine something bad and then it happens. Sheesh.
Sunday, June 15, 2003
The Bankruptcy of America
This is a fascinatingly scary economic analysis. Link via Two--Four.
Defector List
I noticed today that Glenn has a mini-list of BlogSpot defectors going, so I sent him a reminder of the Wizbang running list of defectors, which is more effective if it gets well publicized.
Father's Day Story
Scott Chaffin has a wonderful story about his late father, in honor of Father's Day. We have in common go-getter fathers who had polio and didn't let that stop them.
Deflation
This is an excellent article on deflation and the potential for a low grade depression. It's long, so be prepared to spend some real time reading it. It's interesting and informative enough that I consider it worth the time. Link via the aforementioned Mises Blog
View Solo is Broken
Over at the Mises Econonomics Blog, it's cool of them to have a link on every post to "View Solo." They like me, I guess. Except they don't work! None of the View Solo links actually take you to my blog? Sheesh, what's up with that? Very disappointing, I must say.
Well, broken, false advertising, or whatever the reason for their failure to view Solo with the "misleading" link, at least they're worth visiting if their focus on economics is of any interest to you.
Blasting Blogger
It appears that Blaster's Blog has completed the move to MT, as of this weekend.
And Venus Is Her Name
This is a nice picture of Venus from a gravity assist flyby. Plus, it's spring in Neptune. Via Matt Scofield.
Just For The Record...
I hate the fuzzy toilet seat covers that make the seat slam back down by itself!
Great Rat Race - The Droppage
Just an observation that something I predicted has happened in a noticable way. Some of the links from the race were spurious post links, which inevitably would scroll off the main page of the blog on which they appeared. Thus Right We Are! and I could expect, even if we remain mammals, to see a big drop. Sure enough, overnight we both fell. I went from 158 to 140. I peaked at 160 total actual links (not considering the handicap that was a part of the race). RWA went from 165 to 154 overnight. Their peak was 167 (which means we moved up by an almost identical amount, start of race to respective peaks, the same similarity that prompted the idea of the race in the first place). I figure we'll both drop a little more before the post-race readjustment is done.
I think it will be interesting to see what happens when I change to my new home, which really will be soon. Then I'll be starting with nothing. Everything will depend on people switching to point to the new location.
Roman Holiday
What a great movie! Had I been the right age at the time that came out, I would have been totally smitten with Audrey Hepburn.
Of course, she was also good in Breakfast At Tiffany's. Funny thing about that is Holly Golightly made me think of girls I've known.
Until just a few years ago, both of those movies were in the dismayed "you've never seen that!?" category for me. Sad, huh? I'm so uncultured.
Speaking of being uncultured, one of my close friends grew up in a comfortably well off Jewish family in Brookline. It's always funny when she automatically assumes everyone grew up being taken by their parents to ballet, opera, and so forth. We were lucky to be able to afford to go to a movie once in a while. Movies were the drive-in, usually. The first movie I can remember seeing in a theater is The Jungle Book, at some tiny downtown theater of the type that barely exist any more, maybe in Brockton, with my brother and cousin, dropped there while my mother went off to do other things. When it actually became common to go to a theater, the closest good one to speak of was in Braintree, about a 35 mile drive. Yet there were at least five drive-ins closer that, or in the case of the Braintree drive-in, the same distance.
That same friend, who came from semi-money, is a knee-jerk lefty I can't stand being around if any discussion at all political comes up. I can never understand that. One family struggles, barely gets by, produces me. Another family does well, mother and other women with advanced degrees, father working in investments in some manner (stock broker I believe), produces a Bush is stupid, SUVs are eeeeevil (a real visceral, irrational, heartfelt hatred), shame on us for allowing the Iraq museums to be raped, to all appearances borderline socialist.
I think there's also a city versus rural outlook at play. I see it with my brother in law's family, from Dorchester. Different from my friend, being working poor types without the "but everyone's parents takes them to ballet!" line of thinking. Yet still they may as well have been from another planet, except my brother in law, who bridged the gap well. I'm truly comfortable with exactly one of the people in my brother in law's family, and that's his brother in law, who is one of the biggest black guys you've ever seen. Nicest guy you could ever meet. Sort of a geek, and the one in the family who always makes the most money, which everyone takes advantage of.
I grew up, remember, 1/3 of a mile from the nearest house, in one of the more rural areas of southeastern Massachusetts at the time, literally in the middle of the woods. I grew up perceiving the city as evil, dangerous, and - brrr - crowded. I guess while they were doing city things and being cultured, I was picking blueberrues, huckleberries, cranberries and wild strawberries, exploring the woods, wading in the brook, building a tree hut, learning how to raise vegetables, and other hick stuff.
Wow, talk about a digression. I think I just broached the dam a little on some of the childhood stuff I planned eventually to post about.
Iran Happenings
MommaBear is following the Iran news closely, and points out this site as a great source for regular updates. And as she notes, Iranian Girl is a place to watch too.
EU vs. US Constitutions
Weekend Pundit, always worthy in the first place, is really on a roll this weekend. Appropriately enough. Go there for an excellent summation of our constitution and comparison with what they're attempting to cram down people's throatsadopt in Europe.
Saturday, June 14, 2003
Nukes to Pluto
I don't know about nuking the moon, but Stryker has an excellent post about a new nuclear power unit for missions to the outer planets.
Music and Memories
Weekend Pundit joins the chorus and chimes in about music and the memory associations it triggers.
Gratuitous Niece Picture
This is my artistic niece and a cat she used to have.
Tiger Reviews
This is a cool thing to have done. Tiger reviewed in detail every entry in the Showcase for last week. Ah, and now I see he's done it again! Cool.
Poliblegger
Poliblogger needs our help! It's that 4 month blogiversary/get a certain number of hits/get mammalized thing going on. Sound familiar?
So consider linking to this purty, nifty blog, and visit there early and often in the next day. Only 103 visits to go, to make 10,000. Only something like 14 needed to make mammal, and this only needs to be temporary. You're free to stop linking and reading after the milestone has been achieved. Heh.
You want more convincing? Consider the benefits. You have posts like:
Venemous Kate is expecting. Yay Kate!
Commander of Iraqi Air Force Captured
Link to Frank J.'s tips for blogging and courting Courtney (okay, I made up that last part)
Free trade in the Americas
Amazing composite Earth picture, alone worth the visit
The whacky, confused economy and consumers who dis it
A diet post, on losing and regaining fat
Something else to blame on Ashcroft
A blogging farce
River-swimming rodents
And much more! So click on over. Link away. It's easy, and so good for you. Er, well, good for Poliblogger. You gain nothing except a few shining moments of fellow blogger gratitude.
Flag Day
Mapchic has an awesome Flag Day post over at Geographica. Chart a path on over there to read it.
Ballad of Paul Krugman
Viking Pundit, on June 13, has a song for Krugman. It's most amusing, quite well done.
Ads
I usually don't even look twice at ads on web sites, never mind click through.
However, in an example of how to be appealing, Dogpile had the cutest ad on Site Meter today, in the right column. It was their mascot dog, on top of a pile of assorted other dogs, with, if you looked, some funny looks on their faces. Very funny, appealing ad. Nice job, marketing people!
So I clicked through, did some searches, found the bone, and entered in their "win $13,000" contest. Not that I'll win, but it'd sure help. I could pay off the IRS with room to spare. Actually no; I could pay the IRS plus the taxes on the prize, and probably have nothing left. But I'd be better off.
I always liked Dogpile. Haven't really used it since Google came along though.
Spike
I missed the boat on this, as it was over a week ago, but this post on Spike is a riot.
And Another One Gone, And Another One Gone...
Dr. Frank has moved of of the evil BlogSplat.
Happy Birthday
It's Jim Treacher's birthday today!
Catching Up
Well, it doesn't always happen, but I seem to have caught up on sleep! Nine hours, with one quick break after the first six. I was having some of the most bizarre dreams ever, which if I remembered coherently and they made sense, I would describe. Imagine, though, visiting a union/mob office and taking all their Playboys, then having to get down to the floor and crawl out of the room to avoid gunfire coming in from outside. Imagine being on a yacht, zooming across the ocean in search of something indeterminate (or that I can't remember, but I think it was someone's brother, on an island), and with a couple of other guys on the trip, giving an interview in a large main room on the boat, then finding yourself imagining water spilling in the door and sinking the boat, making you feel kind of panicky. Later the yacht is riding on top of a tidal wave that's blasting down the street of a city, while you watch it from a distance. Basically it was that kind of series of things.
Now I don't really care if I do anything all day. There's a graduation party I'm supposed to attend, running from 1:00 to 5:00, for my biggest client's son. He's the one whose computer died, then I rebuilt it, then it kept refusing to work with video editing software without frame drops. It finally started working at the last minute before the video (for a philosophy class) was due, when he'd gone and finished it on a Mac.
I hate going to this sort of thing. At least, I don't like the anticipation, the nervousness at having to be social at the time and place of someone else's choosing, in large crowds of people I may or may not know. But I'll live. Most of them I actually will know, which is helpful. Plus I really like the people in question. It just makes me feel so pressured and nervous.
Which is strange, because I sometimes revel at being in a big group, or being the center of attention. And when I'm in a group situation, I have an automatic tendency to assume leadership, unless I pointedly avoid doing so. I mean, doing so is like breathing, and not doing so requires effort.
Oh well. If I keep blogging, I'll never make it there, and I also need to go to the office. Maybe I'll get more done than when I wasn't awake.
I Must Be Crazy
Those of you following along at home will recall that I woke up at 6:30 AM and spent pretty much the entire day marginally functional and needing sleep.
So here it is, 2:43 AM, and I haven't been to sleep yet. Instead I've been making my new blog look like the previously mentioned test page, only more so. I learn fast enough that from a day ago to now there's a night and day difference in my grasp of what the CSS and PHP files are doing.
The question is going to be whether to unveil and change over when it's all perfect, or while it's still under construction. Probably the latter. Sooner would appear to be better, seeing how Blogger won't speak with w.bloggar again, as happens periodically for no reason.
The main page is most of the way there. I have to decide if I want to try porting from Blogspot, and whether that's possible or practical. The main page needs tweaking; how archives are handled, decisions on what to show, links added, line up the top of the left column and the main column, etc. And the fonts are being stubborn. I thought I changed everywhere that might control the font color, but it is still the basic black pMachine defaults you to.
Comments open in their own window. I need to re-eliminate the location box. I need to make the comments page title show what post the comments are for if I can. I assume so, based on what I know of how things work.
Archive pages can wait for redesign. So perhaps the beginning of the week it'll be up and running. Last but not least, I have to make it respond to the URL of my choice, rather than www.blahblah/blah/pMachineFree2.2.1/wblog.php. Don't want to have some stupidly convoluted URL, especially only to change it later.
I may also decide to put a narrow right column. The thing is, I never used that on BlogSpot, and I don't think I'll need to here either.
Now, time to sleep! Naturally I am still rather coherently awake.
Inland Tsunami Anyone?
Conrad posts about the pending demise of the Three Gorges Dam. Yeah, that new one.
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