# I know I'm a nerd because....



## CodeBlock (Dec 2, 2009)

Stolen from the Arch Forums, why do you know you're a nerd? 


I own quite a few home-servers, networking gear, etc. but no rack to house it in.
I rent two VPS's, but neither of them will run BSD (they are OpenVZ )
I use (and love) a tiling WM, but most people experience a big "what?!" moment when I show them.
I live for learning new things; This includes programming languages, logic, networking stuff (I know how to subnet, know the Ethernet color code, etc)
I own some old stuff that 'normal' people would throw away, like a 750Mhz computer, which runs Arch+WMII+Synergy.
I would do anything for a dual-monitor setup, but don't want to spend money on another video card .
I want to learn how to play nethack over Christmas break.
I am hoping to have at least 300 posts on here by the new year.


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## graudeejs (Dec 2, 2009)

that last sentence explains quite a lot. lol


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## CodeBlock (Dec 2, 2009)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> that last sentence explains quite a lot. lol



What's that supposed to mean? , I try to keep my posts short, but to the point and informative or opinionated. I don't just post for the heck of it, so what does it matter?


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## graudeejs (Dec 2, 2009)

I'm just joking... didn't mean to offend you


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## CodeBlock (Dec 2, 2009)

Nah, didn't offend me, was just curious because I try to keep my posts sane/informative/etc. I don't generally post one-or-two word responses.


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## Beastie (Dec 2, 2009)

CodeBlock said:
			
		

> old stuff that 'normal' people would throw away, like a 750Mhz computer


750Mhz is old? You're kidding me, right?


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## CodeBlock (Dec 2, 2009)

Beastie said:
			
		

> 750Mhz is old? You're kidding me, right?



In this society, no, 750mhz is old. Go ask everyone in my high school how fast their computer is. Sans the 95% that will have no clue, I doubt any of the remaining 5% will say anything less than 2ghz.

Anyway; lets here some of your nerdities.


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## mickey (Dec 2, 2009)

...


I have a 39U 19" rack in my corridor
I run some ~13 yrs old server system
My bills for electricity are ~5 times as high, as energy providers estimate for a normal 'household'


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## Ruler2112 (Dec 2, 2009)

CodeBlock said:
			
		

> ...I try to keep my posts sane...



That right there is your problem...  :e


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## graudeejs (Dec 2, 2009)

You're a true nerd if you install and use:
* When you install vimperator


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## Voltar (Dec 2, 2009)

mickey said:
			
		

> ...
> 
> 
> I have a 39U 19" rack in my corridor
> ...



Me too! Although I've yet to get my hands on a rack. 

I have a plethora of machines here, rarely need to use the heater in the winter time too. Summer sucks though .


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## saxon3049 (Dec 2, 2009)

CodeBlock said:
			
		

> Stolen from the Arch Forums, why do you know you're a nerd?
> 
> - I own quite a few home-servers, networking gear, etc. but no rack to house it in.
> - I rent two VPS's, but neither of them will run BSD (they are OpenVZ )
> ...



I have6 servers in my house, not including VM's.

I have 2 dedicated servers in a collocation centre 1 FreeBSD an 1 Windows.

I can't stand not knowing something, I read read and read and I am always doing at least two home study qualifications, atm Network+ (recert) and at the moment my other one is a Military law degree (I am a army reserve member {TA if you want to be technical}) 

I collect old computers or parts of, I have a wheel from a enigma machine (Granddad traded it from a polish soldier during the war for a Luger and some tinned rations) but the oldest microprocessor I have is a Intel 8080 in a trade display mount. 

I have a single 28in 1080p monitor on this machine but if you count the ones I have in the shop I have a 8 monitor workstation 2 of them are 32in TV's I have displaying stuff I am selling in my shop window.

On a privet invite security forum I have over 20K posts, it's a local only forum and most of it is arranging what pub to meet up in or a description of what is what when it comes to local issues like sourcing spair parts at a decent rate that day etc.

I am a massive SciFi fan not Starwars or StarTrek but the intelligent stuff or one off books.

I am a Zombie film buff.

I also write my own books not fan fiction but my own work, I hope to some day see my Proxima book published, it's a odd story and would take 3 pages to explain but I will post a sample here some time. 

I run a Industrial / Goth night in my town.

I also play at said night with my own group, being multi lingual helps as I can sing in more than one language and we covered a Spanish band recently.


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## jrick (Dec 3, 2009)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> You're a true nerd if you install and use:
> * When you install vimperator



What? Real nerds use something like surf or uzbl.


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## graudeejs (Dec 3, 2009)

jrick said:
			
		

> What? Real nerds use something like surf or uzbl.



Well then.... I'm good...
What is uzbl and surf?


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## jrick (Dec 3, 2009)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> Well then.... I'm good...
> What is uzbl and surf?



http://surf.suckless.org/

http://www.uzbl.org/


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## mickey (Dec 3, 2009)

Voltar said:
			
		

> Me too! Although I've yet to get my hands on a rack.
> 
> I have a plethora of machines here, rarely need to use the heater in the winter time too. Summer sucks though .



Actually it's two racks, there's another 15U rack under my desk, where my workstation lives in :stud

Heater is just unnecessary equipment.


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## expl (Dec 3, 2009)

mickey said:
			
		

> ...
> 
> My bills for electricity are ~5 times as high, as energy providers estimate for a normal 'household'



Do you get visits from police department to check if you are not growing cannabis at home?


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## mickey (Dec 3, 2009)

expl said:
			
		

> Do you get visits from police department to check if you are not growing cannabis at home?



Nope, but indeed, I do grow some fine E. Cordifolius and E. Parviflorus, which also contributes to my energy consumption :e


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## Dru (Dec 3, 2009)

Did someone say rack?




.



.



.




Bought the large DL380 for a machine to use to remote in with my phone some yrs ago, then once I got it home, and plugged it in, I then realized how loud rackmounts are.

Soon wanted exchange pushmail for the same mobile phone, so I bought the drive array, and built the 5 1U's for a load balanced front end, and a clustered back end. Completely overkill, and ridiculously noisy.

Stuck it in a relatives basement..never cold down there anymore, can still hear it through the floor. Been debating lately on getting rid of it all, and just buying a 64 bit tower, with SATA RAID 5+, and running exchange on it instead, but I havent a clue what I would do with all of this leftover.

Anyhow, I dunno if I would call myself a nerd, I just like to learn new stuff that interests me. A little old, and a little new.


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## SirDice (Dec 3, 2009)

I'm not a nerd. I don't have a social anxiety disorder, my therapist said. So I'm a geek


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## roddierod (Dec 3, 2009)

Dru said:
			
		

> Did someone say rack?



Nice Rack!



			
				SirDice said:
			
		

> I'm not a nerd. I don't have a social anxiety disorder, my therapist said. So I'm a geek


Me too!

Being a geek I keep a 500Mhz PIII ThinkPad running OpenBSD under my bed just in case. My wife always unplugs it which is irratating when I have to wait for it to boot up in the middle of the night.

I have 2 Alpha Servers in the basement and I want more and I can't wait for DEC to rise from the dead...


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## foldingstock (Dec 3, 2009)

CodeBlock said:
			
		

> In this society, no, 750mhz is old. Go ask everyone in my high school how fast their computer is. Sans the 95% that will have no clue, I doubt any of the remaining 5% will say anything less than 2ghz.
> 
> Anyway; lets here some of your nerdities.



What most "average joe/jane" computer users don't take into account is power saving and CPU throttling. A standard 2ghz dual-core can be throttled down to ~900mhz when on battery power. This is configured automatically on most out-of-the-box machines. 

My eee PC (701, 8GB model) is clocked at 600mhz. It can be overclocked to 900mhz, but with my mugen battery if I stay in the 600mhz range I average 7hrs of battery life under normal use. 

I wouldn't want to do any real heavy work on it, but for daily tasks its fine. I have even been doing my C++ homework on this machine with no trouble. FreeBSD + fluxbox/conky is awesome on this tiny beast. I doubt it would run Vista very well, though.


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## SirDice (Dec 3, 2009)

Anyway, I'm a geek. I still have an Amiga 500, 1200 and 4000. I also have 2 C-64s, a ZX-Spectrum and an Apple IIgs.


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## Ruler2112 (Dec 3, 2009)

Not quite my home... yet! :e


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## Penel (Dec 5, 2009)

I know I am a nerd because.....

I love Star Trek


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## MG (Dec 5, 2009)

Penel said:
			
		

> I know I am a nerd because.....
> 
> I love Star Trek



Me too, but it started sucking when Voyager and DS9 came. First Contact is a masterpiece.
- I have an IBM 5155 'laptop' and a Olivetti M24 XT. It is forbidden to touch them.
- A fishing company uses DOS-programs I wrote in Pascal when I was 16. I still support them.
- I disabled the functions of my modem/router and do it myself with an old computer trying to defeat previous uptime records.

Does this make me a nerd?


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## Carpetsmoker (Dec 6, 2009)

MG said:
			
		

> Me too, but it started sucking when Voyager and DS9 came. First Contact is a masterpiece.



Funny, DS9 is generally considered to be the best Star Trek series. I agree Voyager is crap though. I also disliked Enterprise but to be honest I haven't seen that many episodes, I hear it got better in the 3rd season. I have my doubts though since I think the series is fundamentally flawed and has stupid/unrealistic characters ...

The new Trek movie, meh, I think it's bending over backwards while traveling through 8 dimensions ... I would rather have they invent some new stuff instead of going back 40 years and doing that old stuff again.


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## Carpetsmoker (Dec 6, 2009)

Oh, and I think my last post was what is called a "point in case" regarding the original thread question


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## Ruler2112 (Dec 16, 2009)

I thought of another one when coming into work today.  I know I'm a nerd because I know what the hesmata this dren of a sentence frelling means.

Kahplah, dokh et?




(For those who do not match me in nerd-dom, the first part is Farscape speak and the second is Klingon.  IOW, you know you're a nerd when you know more words from languages made-up for sci-fi series better than any real-life foreign languages.)


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## oliverh (Dec 16, 2009)

Carpetsmoker said:
			
		

> Funny, DS9 is generally considered to be the best Star Trek series. I agree Voyager is crap though. I also disliked Enterprise but to be honest I haven't seen that many episodes, I hear it got better in the 3rd season. I have my doubts though since I think the series is fundamentally flawed and has stupid/unrealistic characters ...
> 
> The new Trek movie, meh, I think it's bending over backwards while traveling through 8 dimensions ... I would rather have they invent some new stuff instead of going back 40 years and doing that old stuff again.




TOS and to some degree TNG. Period


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## hitest (Dec 17, 2009)

You know you're a nerd when you start jabbering excitedly to your co-workers about some new software/hardware oddity that you've discovered and they go glassy-eyed and stare at you blankly.


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## Ruler2112 (Dec 17, 2009)

Carpetsmoker said:
			
		

> Funny, DS9 is generally considered to be the best Star Trek series. I agree Voyager is crap though. I also disliked Enterprise but to be honest I haven't seen that many episodes, I hear it got better in the 3rd season. I have my doubts though since I think the series is fundamentally flawed and has stupid/unrealistic characters ...



I'm really surprised to hear you say that DS9 is supposed to be good - I found DS9 to be the weakest of all the series by far.  (It's the only one I don't own on DVD and have no plans to get.)  TNG was the best IMO, followed by TOS.  Voyager is next, though I haven't watched the last few seasons yet.  Watched a few Enterprise episodes and some were really good, but the early ones are crap.  (Just how many ways can the crew 'forget' about something that's copied from the later series???  They encountered borg before Q-Who and lived, plus the borg didn't come to assimilate us???)  I heard that Rick Berman had less influence in the later seasons and this is the reason they got better, but that's just a rumor - no idea if it's true or not.

DS9 violates the very premise of star trek, namely the trek part - it's a space station, hence very little trekking.  It was just way too political and PC for me.  (It's like the captain of the station couldn't do anything because he was black.  Something would happen and there was Cisco, much too busy being black to be of much help.  I know that being black takes an awful lot of effort, but come on...  :OO )  The episode where NCC1701D visits and Cisco & Picard have a confrontation about Picard 'assisting the borg' at Wolf-359 was fantastic and IMO the very best of the series.




			
				hitest said:
			
		

> You know you're a nerd when you start jabbering excitedly to your co-workers about some new software/hardware oddity that you've discovered and they go glassy-eyed and stare at you blankly.



I'm familiar with that look... my boss has it when I talk to her all the time.


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## Zare (Dec 18, 2009)

...i have my first computer ever, Olivetti M19(XT), it's in perfect working condition. I have Atari 1040STe, i still do a bit of my music work on it, i have Olivetti Modula 200 which sits on my balcony so i can seamlessly play old DOS games. 

And i love Star Trek.
And i have Intel Core Quad placed in 15 year old computer case.
And i'll never stop mourning about good'old era, when we were shivering over 1 megabyte of graphics ram, 'cause you could go SVGA in your games.


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## roddierod (Dec 18, 2009)

Zare said:
			
		

> And i'll never stop mourning about good'old era, when we were shivering over 1 megabyte of graphics ram, 'cause you could go SVGA in your games.



That made me remember shopping for my first PC with my mom. There were to computers one had CGA and the other EGA. I picked to one with CGA because it was an XT Turbo and had a 40M HD. My mom asked me what EGA was. I said, "that means you get more colors, but who cares about colors." HA HA...good old days.


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## Eponasoft (Dec 20, 2009)

I must not be a nerd...I've never touched a server rack, though I've touched plenty of other ones... 

Well, I figure you must be a nerd if you understand the significance of "wheel". I sure don't.


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## SPlissken (Dec 20, 2009)

I know i m a nerd because of this


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## fronclynne (Dec 20, 2009)

*The "B" is for our Spaniard friends who always do that with "V"s*



			
				Ruler2112 said:
			
		

> . . . DS9 . . . TNG . . . TOS.  Voyager . . . Q-Who and lived, plus the borg . . . Cisco . . . The episode where NCC1701D . . . Cisco & Picard . . . Wolf-359



I must not be very much of a nerd, because the writing & acting for Start Wreck makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out and stop up my ears with epoxy.  _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ is science fiction.  _Solaris_ is science fiction.  Star Trek is just a bad high-seas narrative in outer space.  With Bogons.


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## saxon3049 (Dec 20, 2009)

fronclynne, that hit the nail on the head.


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## Uniballer (May 13, 2013)

fronclynne said:
			
		

> ...Start Wreck...



And here I thought it was Star Dreck...

Remember the Star Trek animated series?  It was years before I realized that the "Slaver Weapon" episode was a repackaging (i.e. self-ripoff) of Larry Niven's "The Soft Weapon" from his Known Space series.

I know I'm a nerd cause I can post stuff like this, with references and everything...


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## sossego (May 13, 2013)

I bought the two Sunblade 1000's to put FreeBSD- and then OpenBSD on it.
Building a studio system for a friend with FreeBSD currently. There is a small possibility that OpenBSD and NetBSD may be part of the system
 Collect books by authors such as Petronius, Huxley, Silverberg and then give them away. The process is started again.
 Taught myself Castillan by comparison with Portuguese.

But....

 I listen to Brazilian and Spanish styles of Reggae, Rap, et al. 
 I'm into intellectual/artistic rap.
 I do flagging, other construction work, and simple physical labor.
 I grew up in the sticks and streets.


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## Uniballer (May 13, 2013)

'Cause I walk around with pictures like this on my cell phone.


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## ChalkBored (May 13, 2013)

Uniballer said:
			
		

> And here I thought it was Star Dreck...



Even though it wasn't what @fronclynne meant when he said it, Star Wreck is a parody that has taken on a life of its own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qo3C_yIaw8&list=SPCBA2610726132EBE


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## SirDice (May 14, 2013)

Because I have this on my back window? :e


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## nekoexmachina (May 16, 2013)

> Real nerds use something like surf or uzbl.


While nerdohispsters still use surf or uzbl, real (I mean it, REAL) nerds use butterflies.


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## ChalkBored (May 16, 2013)

nekoexmachina said:
			
		

> While nerdohispsters still use surf or uzbl, real (i mean it, REAL) nerds use butterflies.



They're called margarinemoths when using Debian.


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## Crivens (May 17, 2013)

I know I am a nerd because I look at this and I have this mixing of wanting to cry, shouting "me too!", reading up on the details and marveling at the whole. And no question about the "what's the point?" at all.


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## ShelLuser (May 19, 2013)

I prefer geek myself, but even so I guess I do somewhat fall into the category. I dare say my post even proves as much because well...  A nerd post without any mentioning of Ghost in the Shell? Or for that matter the Stand Alone Complex series which uses such catching titles such as Solid State Society for the spin-off movie.

Nothing like this at all, in the entire thread? Oh my....


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## freesbies (May 20, 2013)

Real nerds use the old school vi editor. So I consider myself a real nerd, for sure !


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## Sebulon (May 20, 2013)

ShelLuser said:
			
		

> Nothing like this at all, in the entire thread? Oh my....



Happy?

/Sebulon


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## ColdfireMC (May 20, 2013)

freesbies said:
			
		

> *Real nerds use the old school vi editor*.
> 
> So I consider myself a real nerd, for sure !


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## roddierod (May 20, 2013)

http://www.ninisworld.com/oddsends/justforfun/50realprogrammers.html


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## kpa (May 20, 2013)

They did that in 1940's.


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## ShelLuser (May 21, 2013)

Sebulon said:
			
		

> Happy?
> /Sebulon


OMG, Warai Otoko (I'll try to resist the urge to cram Kanjii in here)!

No, I'm not happy, not happy at all. Because now I know that there's someone out there who can easily gain access to all my (FreeBSD) servers (and beyond) without being able to even notice what's going on.

Yeah, this sheds a whole new light on that glitch I got last week. I was sure it couldn't have been the error in my script; there was more to it than that. Hmm, better reformat all the servers just to be sure then 

While it maybe a complete waste of time it might also raise my position on the nerd ladder a bit :e


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## sossego (May 21, 2013)

I realized that one does not need meta tags for a page.

$Complete_URL_of_Page_or_Post AND "Search terms in quotes" works. Using different terms from the page or post adds that page to the results which have the same quoted terms.

https://www.google.com/#output=sear...80,d.eWU&fp=9deb35a4864e0689&biw=1189&bih=645


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## Erratus (May 22, 2013)

Hope all of you using the term nerd are aware of this:

A nerd is considered to be an individual who possessed substantial knowledge and expertise in a specific field, particularly those related to computers and technology, and who often had significant difficulty engaging in normal social interaction, as well as intimate interaction of a romantic or sexual nature. The operationalization of nerds for the current study was achieved through the researcherâ€Ÿs observation of individual characters in the programs included in the sample, with characters being coded for the presence or absence of nerd characterization based upon the following criteria. The researcher coded for 1) difficulties engaging in normal social interaction (specific behaviors include stuttering, being unable to speak, talking inappropriately, ignoring other individual(s), and appearing nonplussed by the behavior of others); 2) difficulties engaging in intimate romantic or sexual interaction (specific behaviors include stuttering, being unable to speak to a potential partner, appearing nonplussed by behavior of a potential partner, implication of poor sexual performance, and retreat from romantic or sexual interaction); and 3) identification as a nerd (or geek) by themselves or other characters. Characters identified as nerds by themselves or others were automatically considered nerds for the purposes of this study.

http://dr.archives.pdx.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/psu/8506/Cardiel_psu_0180E_10567.pdf?sequence=1


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## Crivens (May 22, 2013)

I know I am a nerd because I find this amusing.


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