* Posts by Dapprman

412 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Aug 2008

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Valheim: How the heck has more 'indie shovelware with PS2 graphics' sold 4 million copies in a matter of weeks?

Dapprman

World of Warcraft was never about the graphics ...

People forget that when WoW went public with it's game play (late alpha ?) is was accused of having cartoonish graphics and game play. Public access was first to the beta and USA only (and as with most betas limited access which had to be applied for and being granted to known gaming reporters and experienced MMO players). I was fortunate to have a try through the account of the US based father of a Dark Age of Camelot clan mate and at that point it did seem like a weak game and my experience mirrored the early reports - the game was most likely to be another one of the high hype but complete failures that we were seeing at the time.

I was fortunate to get in to the UK/European beta by which time the game play was much improved. Graphically it was still poor compared to it's established rivals, but the game play made it.

You can drive a car with your feet, you can operate a sewing machine with your feet. Same goes for computers obviously

Dapprman

I want to laugh but...

Actually checked firs tin case a former colleague had already posted this.

Late 1990s I worked at a district council in the UK. We had just moved the users in the revenues department across from dumb terminals to a mix PCs running Windows and modern terminals running Citrix Winframe client. One of my colleagues had a call from a very distressed lady who had just been moved across about how difficult it was to use the new system. He went round expecting to guide her through the new interface and tools to find, as with the OP, a case of the foot pedal being too hard to use .....

Cyberpunk 2077: There's a great game within screaming to get out, but sadly it was released 57 years too early

Dapprman

Re: I don't recognise the game in the negative reviews.

On most PCs it plays fine or well, problems are on the console side - on higher end ones there are a lot fewer people on the street so it does not have the same atmosphere, plus apparently the game is more buggy and crashes more. Key complaint is a senior person at CDPR saying that the game played surprisingly well on the legacy consoles about a week before launch - game in reality is meant to be near unplayable on them.

So for you, me, and other PC players it's fine or great, for older console players - a lot are asking for refunds.

Dapprman

135 hours in to the game...

Playing on a 3-4 year old PC with a GTX1080ti graphics card. Game auto set itself at 4k (I have a suitable monitor) with a mix of high and ultra settings. Post a graphics card driver update the NVIDIA FPS widget shows I play at 40-50 fps. which did surprise me. I do get graphical bugs such as cars sunk in the pavement and inanimate objects hanging in the air but I've only had two 'to desk top' crashes and two occasions where I've had to kill and reload the game. Love it - as long as you do not try to talk to the general pubic, on a PC is has all the atmosphere you'd expect. note I know you do not get the same on consoles and on old consoles .... nuff said.

The game was released at least several months too early, but for most PC players it still plays well, more so since the recent patches.

Game was seriously over-hyped and we all knew that in advance, still there are many people out to get it just because (older console players deserver to have a go at CDPR though). Funniest one for me was accusations that the implementation of the Voodoo Boys was a white person's racist view of Afro Caribeans. Thing is they were designed by the original Cyperpunk RPG create Mike Pondsmith. Have a google for pictures or videos of him and then try and work out the racism angle ... - btw don't play videos of him with your wife/SO near by as his voice gives Barry White a run for his money (and I'm straight).

Should add as a post note - I was always going to be suckered in to this one as I started playing the original RPG (not 2020) within a couple of days of it landing in the UK, roughly about 4 weeks after it's launch in the US, and I still play 2020 to this day.

Amazon's ad-hoc Ring, Echo mesh network can mooch off your neighbors' Wi-Fi if needed – and it's opt-out

Dapprman

Re: Opted out should be the default. @ gerdesj

I understand where you're coming from, however this is just using existing ring/nest connections so unlikely to touch those on paid by usage tariffs.

OnePlus 8T: Solid performance and a great screen make this 5G sub-flagship a delight

Dapprman

But did you turn off the high refresh rate?

I did and I think that's how I get 1.5-2 days out of my 7 pro.

Forget Fortnite and FIFA: India wants to develop games based on local legends

Dapprman

Surprised it took so long

Considering how well RPG and sim games based on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean tales and legends sell I'm surprised it took this long and I'd be interested to see what they produce.

Red Hot Chili Packets! New submarine cable to land in home of cult Sriracha sauce

Dapprman

Re: Sririacha sauce is Californian

He claims he invented the sauce, despite it existing in and around Sririacha since before the imperial powers became involved in his home country - which was Vietnam so not even close to where the sauce came from.

Gmail and Outlook sitting in a tree, not t-a-l-k-i-n-g to me or thee

Dapprman

Hit me this morning

Took me ages to get Outlook working with GMAIL again - found the answer by accident. I'd been looking at the security area, but under the gmail settings POP3/IMAP tab I found that while it showed POP3 had been enabled for a long time there was no option selected. I selected Allow POP3 and all worked again.

Thought it was just me as I could find no news at the time (around midday UK time) but looks like maybe Google took a simple annoying route to try and stop people using third party clients.

Grab a towel and pour yourself a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster because The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is 42

Dapprman

I can thank Blue Peter or Tomorrows World for my love of the series

Never really read books as a young kid, but either Blue Peter or Tomorrows World had a piece on Zaphod's head just before the TV series came out. I had it watch and an addiction, making more sense than the wearing of digital watches, started for me. First the TV series, then the books as they came out. Only encountered the radio series in the late 1980s when I saw the tape set in a sale (please do not lynch me) and bought them - still may favourite version.

Dapprman

Re: May the towel be with you!

I only joined ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha to buy the towel, though by then it was the Don't Panic one. Still use it as my travel towel.

RIP Freeman Dyson: The super-boffin who applied his mathematical brain to nuclear magic, quantum physics, space travel, and more

Dapprman

Re: Ringworld

Must be remembered that when Larry Niven wrote Ringworld the actual ring was a plot location. It was Jerry Pournelle (amongst others) who was working at NASA at the time and put the scientific theory behind how it could work.

Hey, fatso. If you're standing desk-curious, the VariDesk Pro Plus won't break the bank

Dapprman

Re: I worked at a place where the lead data scientist decided he needed a standing desk

Were they adjustable height or just two position.

I use one at work, it's great. I can only use it standing for about an hour, but the real advantage is adjusting the height to tailor what I'm doing. Sure much of the time it's in the same position, but that's still slightly higher than the normal desks round here. These are very good for the back.

Yo, Imma let you finish, but for the 6,000 people still using that app on a daily basis ... we have a question: why?

Dapprman

Re: Wassup!

Wassabbiiiiiiiiiii

Ok 3 days late, but it is full of preservatives.

Terrifying bug in WhatsApp allows hackers to steal files. So get patching all nine of you using it on the desktop

Dapprman

If it's Windows 10 then there is a messenger app - works well with one exception - if you've got Facebook open in a browser it recognises when messages are read from the app, but still alerts in the browser to new/updated conversations.

The BlackBerry may be dead, but others are lining up to take its place

Dapprman

Re: YAY, slider QWERTY is back!

I do and I don't. I had a TyTn (under Vodafone branding), a Touch Pro and a Desire Z and as time went on the build quality of the keyboards dropped. In some respects I do still miss a physical keyboard, but maybe not the extra weight/size, plus I can still remember keys failing.

Verity Stob is 'Disgusted of HG Wells': Time, gentlemen, please

Dapprman

Re: free emotional expression

I actually quite liked the first episode for the most part, but there again I as worried about how they were going to place a female main character in an 1890s story. The end part did confuse me, and I must admit I did assume red scene was similar to Jeff Wayne's stage show addition for why the Martians needed to invade.

The second episode, oh dear, and I really regretted completing the farce. I was left with the impression that the screen writer had never read the book, instead he had been given an overview by a management executive type who also had never read the book. After all not only did they part change the ending they also removed the whole core concept behind the book.

Hope they never consider a rendition of War in the Air, which I personally consider to be a better read, though it was also written 6 years later (1904 - and quite scary for some of it's predictions).

LG announces bold new plan for financial salvation: Trying to actually make phones people want to buy

Dapprman
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Re: LG G3

After about 6 months I rapidly grew to hate my G3. It would just eat memory resulting in a high end phone that was slower than my previous mid-end phone with the same apps (Nexus 4). It became painful to use. I'm certain it was down to the stock bloatware.

Oddly enough a few years back I dug it out, factory reset it and installed the SONOS software to use it as a replacement for the now unusable CR100. It was now completely stock, drivers and stock software updated, cellular turned off, and the Sonos controller software the only thing on it. Was like walking through treacle (or so I would imagine),

Remember that Sonos speaker you bought a few years back that works perfectly? It's about to be screwed for... reasons

Dapprman

Re: So many "negative waves"

I part wish I had done the same, but then I had a Deezer sub that was useful when friends were around, plus Amazon Music was better back then (pre Music+).

I actually quite like the One, but then I'm not a audiophile, the SONOS system for me has always been a useful way to play music off my NAS and have the option to perfectly sync it across multiple rooms (which is why I did not go Squeezebox at the time when I first started my setup).

Dapprman

Re: Hmmm - You are correct

The email did say your set up will continue to work, but you will miss out on any new features. No mention at all about the old kit going in to quarantine as they also infer your new stuff will not get updates.

I don't use any streamed services so I'm tempted to stay as is, especially as I have ZP-100 (or is it a 90 the updated pre Connect unit) and ZP-120 which will need replacing (might not on the amped unit).

Latest patent brouhaha: Sonos wheels out Doomsday device in bid to block Google Home sales.... The Register

Dapprman

Re: BYO Popcorn?

You are confusing Sonos' recent discount upgrade scheme with just selling on existing kit.

The bricking was to stop people taking benefit of the discounts to effectively trade in their kit when in reality they were left with the originals (which was arguably seen as a mistake from Sonos').

If you did not go for the offer and decide to pass on your kit - then no problem, new owner takes up the registration during part of the config process.

EA boots Linux gamers out of multiplayer Battlefield V, Penguinistas respond by demanding crippling boycott

Dapprman
Linux

It's the age old problems about gaming if you go Linux

Regardless of how good or bad you feel Linux is as an OS and whether you do or do not run it at home, the numbers who want to run games on it are just too small to make it worth while for the games producers (many of whom do not even offer MACOS versions). We've seen it in the past commercial attempts to convert Windows games to Linux and they have all failed due to financial reasons.

Emulation may be the way round things, and for single player games I can't see many producers objecting once the install is confirmed as legit (by key, etc), however multiplayer games will always be an issue as there is no way for the anti-cheat mechanisms to avoid seeing another layer as anything but a hack (or if there is then the costs of developing the ever changing ability to work with emulators will not be commercially viable). As some one who's given up on a number of MMOs FPSs in the past due to cheaters I'd prefer the software companies to prioritise trying to combat this menace over risking opening holes to allow legit software to be run in emulators.

Side note - are there any main stream MMO games out there which will run on the various Linux distributions? I thought Eve Online did - but just looking now it is Windows and MACOS only.

From Soviet to science fiction icon, the weird life of Isaac Asimov 100 years on

Dapprman
Thumb Up

Foundation and The Register

I didn't realise it was his birthday. I've actually just finished a re-read of Foundation and the Empire (actually audio book this time) as I'm going through the series once more over the next six months. Must admit it if heavy going at times and showing it's age, but still good. If memory serves me correctly the Robots series was a far easier read.

Smart speaker maker Sonos takes heat for deliberately bricking older kit with 'Trade Up' plan

Dapprman

Re: Unacceptable

You make it sound like they're doing it to force people to upgrade their kit. It's not the case. Sonos gave an offer where you could upgrade bits of your kit for a large discount. You didn't take up the offer your kit was not disabled. The whole point was to stop people taking the upgrade then keeping their old kit, or selling the old kit on.

Dapprman
Stop

Original Controller Only

Except the only device that has happened to is the original controller. Originally they gave about a year notice that it would no longer be getting new functionality and even explained it was due to lack of memory. it was about 2 or 3 years more until they ceased support for it and made it useless, before which they gave about 6 months notice and £100 credit to all owners who had registered the controller (so all owners) and filled out a form - not bad for a device that had not been sold for around 10 years.

Elon Musk gets thumbs up from jury for use of 'pedo guy' in cave diver defamation lawsuit

Dapprman
Facepalm

Greed got in the way

Vernon Unsworth got too greedy. Sure it may have started as a play ground spat, which he started, however Elon 'Paedo guy' Musk went too far with the repeated use and variations. Key thing is Unsworth could have taken Paedo Guy Musk to court locally or in the UK, but then he may only have received a token amount, instead he saw dollars, possibly was ill advised, and went to chase them.

Thanks, Brexit. Tesla boss Elon Musk reveals Berlin as location for Euro Gigafactory

Dapprman

Re: Is Musk aware of the strength of the unions and employment laws in Germany ?

@ MiguelC Perhaps a selling point for the UK is comparatively weaker unions :D

Dapprman

Is Musk aware of the strength of the unions and employment laws in Germany ?

Considering the US factories are union free and the constant rumours of poor treatment of staff and high accident rates, one would hope Musk has done decent research in to placing a factory in a heavily unionised country such as German (Netherlands, Belgium and France also have over strong unions) rather than Italy, Spain or Portugal where they are weaker, salaries are lower and land is also cheaper.

I'm still not that Gary, says US email mixup bloke who hasn't even seen Dartford Crossing

Dapprman
Facepalm

Couple of times for me as well, though in the past

One amusing, one not so.

First the amusing one. My first ISP account from through Demon and I went all HHGTTG with my domain - using one of the character names. My email address was forename followed by first letter of surname at the aforementioned domain. Putting aside the occasional accidental email from Professor Heinz Wolfe of The great Egg Race fame, I suddenly found my email address had been added to a distribution list for a group of swingers. Quite amusing at first until I started receiving photos. When I pointed out they had the wrong person I received a very apologetic response and it all went quiet (I should have asked if I could still join in ....).

The not so amusing one. One of the UK cable channels started a psychic hotline. Problem was the last two digits of the number were the transpose of my work number. It would sound funny but the calls I received were from recent widows often sounding like they were in their 70s/80s wanting to see if they could get in touch with their recently departed husbands. I would like to point out I was polite and also careful and courteous when explaining they had the wrong number. I quickly contacted the TV show and they apologised and changed the number.

700km on a single charge: Mercedes says it's in it for the long run

Dapprman

Re: Tesla Model 3 was the UK's third most popular car purchase - Not even luxury

As above, the only thing I can think of is electric - looking at the official figures Tesla come under Other Imports, not sure who else is in there, and Audi, BMW and Mercedes have way larger figures.

What will not help Tesla is the fact that within the next 3-6 months there is a whole bunch of new, mainstream manufacturer, electric cars and updated electric cars due out. The Tesla 3 was heavilly hypes and the pre-ordering meant good delivery/purchase prices July through to October/November, after which they will become reliant on regular sales against the new Mini, Vauxhal/Opel Corsa, server Peugots, updated Renault, new Mercedes, VW ID range, ...

MIT boffins turn black up to 11 with carbon nanotubes that absorb 99.995% of light

Dapprman

It was a BMW, not a Ferrari and it's Surrey NanoSystems latest version which is 'only 99.8 effective, however from any direction.

Pokemon Go becomes Pokemon No as games biz Niantic agrees to curb trespassing addicts

Dapprman
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Re: They had to go and ruin it

Not quite so - I was playing Ingres since the beta and already had been finding issues in portal (stops and gyms in PoGo) back then. I did report a few including one in the children's ward of a hospital - Niantic were not interested in doing anything about this.

Brits are sitting on a time bomb of 40m old electronic devices that ought to be recycled

Dapprman
FAIL

Article fails to cover where to recycle

I've actually looked in to this over the years. Until recently the only place near me which would take old tech charged to do so - not much of a encouragement for me. We've now actually got a charity computer recycler, but they won't touch mobile phones, so it's all well and good for these articles to talk about a problem, but they need to push for or look at a solution first.

Darkest Dungeon: Lovecraftian PTSD simulator will cause your own mask to slip

Dapprman

Re: Those crawling horrors of which we dare not speak...

It's the same going backwards in time. Years ago I took part in a Call of Cthulhu set in Roman times. We realised seeing a goat rent apart by a large monster (having made sanity checks for the beastie) would hardly phase some one used to the various entertainments of the arenas and circuses.

Dapprman

Santiy in RPG Games

The sanity stat was introduced by Chaosium for The Call of Cthulhu, I'm not aware of other RPGs, certainly for a long time, that also had a similar function - actually as I write - the humanity stat in Cyberpunk could be used a similar way.

Netflix wants to choose its own adventure where Bandersnatch trademark case magically vanishes

Dapprman
Holmes

Re: Scott Adams not a precedent??

"They'd best not. Choose Your Own Adventure was published in 1979, before the examples you give."

Actually T&T is older - 1975

Liz Warren: I'll smash up Amazon, Google, and Facebook – if you elect me to the White House

Dapprman
Coat

Surely all you need to do is ....

....start spreading rumours round that Google and Facebook are looking to kill off Twitter and I'm sure Trump will try and get a 280 character policy in place within decatweets.

Pokemon No! Good news: You can now ban the virtual pests, er, pets to stop nerds wandering around your property

Dapprman

Abut time

As a UK based Pokemon Go Player and also formerly an Ingress Player, I was always annoyed at Niantic's attitude to badly placed stops/portals/gyms, never mind Pokemon themselves in bad places. In the pre-Pokemon days an Ingress portal was placed a children's ward at a nearby hospital (Harefield). I contacted Niantic as it did mean 'strangers' were wandering in to an area they really should have been blocked from. Result - nothing. In the end I repositioned the gym outside (which at the time you could do - you could move gyms to correct their positions within reasonable distance).

To be honest, some of it is also the owners of the property. I don't know about now but in the early days of Ingress, before the increase in levels a player could obtain and the new portal approval process was put in place, there was a rash of house owners finding 'sites of interest' in their gardens and houses so they could have a portal they could always tap. Any left by the time PoGo started would have become stops and gyms, along with spawn spots for pokemon ....

The eulogising of The Mother Of All Demos at 50 is Silicon Valley going goo-goo for gurus again

Dapprman

Let us not forget that Englebart's pre-ARPA experimentation used mechanical levers in a cabinet.

BTW was it not Joseph Licklider who was a big influence on Englebart's funding and career? - I'm asking as my memories are fuzzy but I first read about the pair and work leading up to the Mother of all Demos back in the mid 1990s, when there was a lot less hype.

I was once one of you, F1 star Lewis Hamilton tells delighted IT bods

Dapprman

Re: What a knob

Suzy Wolf is a bad example as well if you followed her career - she was just there for PC reasons. I watched her first 3 seasons og DTM, the final one of which included a new rookie driver, Paul Di Resta. During her first season she did well and only did not move up a grade (finishing top of the 2 year old car group) because Mika Hakkinen had come in to the series, taking the only spare place in the top group (new cars), meaning there was no progression up. The next two seasons she struggled, though was not necessarily any slower, she just had better competition at her car level. 4th season Paul Di Resta took a seat in the 2 year old car group. He was considerably quicker, so much so he was beating new car drivers (2 groups higher). To say he was a quicker drive than Suzy Wolf (or Stoddard as she was back then) was an understatement. Note Paul failed in F1 as he was consistently slower in qualifying and races than his team mate Adrian Sutil, who was only a mid paced driver.

Happy 10th birthday, Evernote: You have survived Google and Microsoft. For your next challenge...

Dapprman
Unhappy

Re: Good product, questionable quality control

I stopped using Evernote about 6 months ago having used it for around 7 years due to a combination of the QA and also the fact they kept changing how things worked, making it frustrating to use. Additionally the desktop, Android and iOS clients all had different options, ways of working, and functionality, which again made it frustrating to use (I had it running on my personal PC, my work laptop, my android phone and my iPad). I gave up on it and migrated to OneNote. The lack of tags can be annoying, but aside from the version in built in to Windows 10, it's the same on every device. It's also easier to use (believe it or not) and more reliable <twlight zone music>. Actually there's one other area where Evernote is superior to OneNote - sync speed. Evernote syncs a lot faster, or rather does when it works. One of the bugs I got fed up with was failed syncs and version clashes.

BTW I was a paying Evernote user after they brought in the limits on the free account, and have lost none of the flexibility and number of devices by using OneNote.

Google-free Android kit tipped to sell buckets

Dapprman
FAIL

Still a solution looking for an answer

I actually do own and use a smart watch - a pebble, but I was aware of what little it really would do for me before I bought it. It works for me. I'm also a geek. makes me a very small sub-set of smart phone user base. For most people out there, smart watches offer nothing, so there's no point to them. Note I consider fitness watches to be a side branch with an actual market, but that group is still small.

Where Apple have managed to get it to work is by playing on their 'luxury brand' image. The Apple Watch has now replaced the Rolex among the younger generations as a sign of 'I have made it', along side the Montblanc fountain pen and the Porsche car. Sure there's plenty of people who get good use out of an apple watch (probably a lot on here) but it's still small fry numbers.

Foolish foodies duped into thinking Greggs salads are posh nosh

Dapprman
Thumb Up

Re: Have always liked Greggs

Club baguette for me - not much where I work but I prefer that over the Subway, WH Smiths and Costa that are my alternatives

UK.gov: Here's £8.8m to plough into hydrogen-powered car tech

Dapprman
Thumb Up

While in Japan ....

There are now two commercial cars, not just the Toyota Mirai, but also one from Honda (based on the chassis from their hybrid car), with the latter having slightly greater range and looking like a normal car. Also I seem to remember the aim is to have around 200 hydrogen filling stations around Japan by the time of the Olympics, so over there it is a viable car. As to transporting the hydrogen, I believe that the stations are also the production plants (if I'm wrong, they have been talking about taking that route), removing the risk of transport.

I've also been informed that the hydrogen used by the Toyota and Honda systems does not need to be as pure as used in industry with the result that a lot less power is required to produce suitable quality - which maybe why they can produce at the POS.

Dapprman
Thumb Up

Re: ' Current industrial production of hydrogen gas'

Toyota have already thought about the safety angle in a way many a geek could appreciate. What they did was take a number of full petro...hydrogen tanks from the Mirai to an army range and got them to shoot the sh*t out of them. The tanks happily survived 20mm auto-canon as well as assault rifle and battle rifle rounds, so one would suspect they'd be fine in a collision, or the ricochets from trying to stop Godzilla.

Nokia tribute band HMD revives another hit

Dapprman

Miss my old 8110i

To this day it was the most comfortable phone I've ever had or used to hold and to, err.., use.

Tempted by this - use as a phone with an android device hung off it's hot spot for errrr PoG..Ingress (honest guv)

Julian Assange to UK court: Put an end to my unwarranted Ecuadorean couch-surf

Dapprman

Re: Kafka lives

Doesn't matter whether the original charges were followed through or dropped, or if he was found innocent or guilty, bail jumping is a completely separate criminal offence and unrelated to the reasons behind the arrest. I still can't believe that the bail holders were let off the hook and not charged the bail money they pledged (which they should have been).

Yet more British military drones crash, this time into the Irish Sea

Dapprman
Joke

Perhaps the drone was asked to wash it's stored data ...

... and saw a very big pot of water to do it in ....

Photobucket says photo-f**k-it, starts off-site image shakedown

Dapprman
Thumb Down

As a paying Photobucket subsciber ...

I've never been that impressed by their service.

I originally used WebShots, as they were the first photo hosting site where the limit was number of pictures, not data capacity, plus their limit increased the longer you were a member. Think it was +100 photos per month for leachers (like me) and 1000 for subscriber. Alas their business model (prints, mugs, etc) obviously did not work and so they changed their system completely, right down to removing all albums (glad I never paid). I went to Photobucket as they seemed decent and I wanted to keep my flickr account just to my 'arty' shots - I used WebShots for holiday and group photos. Even took out a lower end subscription for more capacity, which I've had for about 4 years now. Always found the website slightly clunky and iOS and Android apps refuse to show photos in the correct order (always doing date reverse), but it worked for my purposes and I could cross link photos to forums if I liked.

Now that little used, but useful functionality has been removed from me it does make me wonder if I should drop my subscription and look else where (I need albums and the ability to restrict access to some - such as for photos from friends weddings).

Oddly enough, for general fomu posting I've always used imgur.com.

Is Britain really worse at 4G than Peru?

Dapprman

Just spent the afternoon in central London ...

And while getting there on the tube I saw and had 4G, once I got out of Liverpool St Station, around that area (which is always quiet at a weekend) and then around Green Park and Piccadilly, I struggled to get anything above HSDPA, and even then the signal was low.

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