The DeLorean wasn't taken seriously when Back to the Future was released either... it looks like a cool car now, mostly because of the movie, but back then it was considered a joke of a car and the company went bankrupt less than two years after it began production.
Yeah I could totally see a similar trajectory for the cybertruck. I think it will be more popular in its death than it was in its life. Every elementary aged boy I know thinks it's really cool.
The Cybertruck will never be looked back on as a cool car, since it's existence is inextricably linked to doomed social and political movements. Like the ideology it represents, it's presence is impossible to ignore, but in the worst way possible. Plus it's a shitty truck.
It can never shake the "Ugh, get a load of this guy" factor.
Revolut needs a way to proactively notify users when their cards aren’t working. It’s so frustrating having to go to Reddit just to find out that Revolut is down.
Unless it materially moves the needle, it’s a waste of the company’s resources. On paper, Atlas Browser and Sora seemed to have greater potential than this and yet, they’ve been discontinued.
Apple killed support for three generations of Apple Watch hardware with its latest OS update: Series 6, Series 7, Series 8, and the original Apple Watch Ultra.
So much for its commitment to the environment, perfectly capable hardware is being sent to the bin.
There's literally no new features on the watch. Adding in AI nonsense.
Application developers generally don’t support outdated or unsupported OS versions. It’s only a matter of time before updates stop being released or apps start to break.
Am super salty about them killing support for the original Apple Watch Ultra. I, along with many others, bought it on launch day as both an Apple tragic / early adopter and to support what I thought was going to be an exciting new platform.
Instead we barely got a new feature over the 4 years since it launched, and now its been killed (from a software support pov) way ahead of schedule of the vast majority of other Apple devices.
The Stripe Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition (formerly the BT Young Scientist) is Ireland's biggest school science competition, held every year in Dublin.
The winners are often kids whose parents happen to be experts in some domain.
There are certainly some genuinely bright kids in the mix, but it feels a bit unfair on those who don't have parents "helping" them.
"Therefore, we’re asking everyone, including Jason and me, to refrain from using our company Basecamp or HEY to discuss societal politics at work effective immediately."
it has been a while since I read what DHH wrote but now it appears that he mostly writes against wokeism, migration, climate hysteria, how Tesla is the pinnacle of capitalism, etc. Yuck.
"When wolves get out of control, you shoot them. When gypsies take over public spaces, you deport them. This isn't hard, it isn't cruel. It's the basic logic of self-preservation."
Regarding your link I'd question any blog post written by a CTO. This is just fodder for their next job.
"Productivity is the efficiency with which resources (like time, labor, and capital) are converted into useful goods and services"
So they increased productivity "number of PRs".
Shipping more does not guarantee shipping better or more impactful features.
Many orgs are constrained by product decisions, not engineering speed.
If there was so much value to unlock through AI then why did Intercom/Fin sell to Salesforce?
It’s the same broken promise every year. All I want is for Siri to set an alarm and open my blinds. That’s enough for me. Makes you wonder how much money Apple has poured into Siri over the years.
A few years ago, the ability to do anything other than a timed walk on my watch with Siri broke. I used to be able to do things like say, “start a 3 mile walk” or “start a 200 calorie walk” and then the latter stopped working and then the former stopped letting me do non-integer numbers of miles and then nothing at all and now I cannot do anything other than start an unmeasured walk or a timed walk with siri and I’m still pissed about that. I don’t want to have conversations with my watch or my phone, I want it to handle simple basic tasks reliably.
“Shuffle playlist _____” broke a few years ago too. Now it consistently takes that to mean “Play other music similar to the playlist.”
If I specify “Shuffle playlist _____ in Apple Music” somehow that works right, even though it’s still using Apple Music in the first example when it plays the wrong music.
We’ll see if they managed to unfuck it with the new Siri update, or knowing LLMs perhaps they’ll make it non-deterministic so sometimes it works and sometimes it plays music you didn’t ask for.
I only really use Siri for music control while driving so I haven't tried those (since there's a physical pause/mute button), but I'll have to try that and see if it's the same for me.
Pretty bad if simple one-word commands to system APIs don't work, we had better voice control capability with "Speakable Items" on classic Mac OS.
I can no longer control my lights with Gemini assistant. It'll tell me "I can't do that" or "here's how to turn your lights on" or, in at least one instant, play Ellie Golding's Lights at 2x speed.
So now I just use the Google home app and it works as expected.
Jokes aside, I have been using siri to control my smart home and set my alarm for nearly ten years now. I haven't really had problems with basic stuff like this.
I'm too paranoid to ever want a home snitch device, so I'm not their target audience, but it always struck me that if it took even ten minutes to debug a problem like that it completely destroys a year's worth of time allegedly saved compared to just walking over to the room and hitting the switch.
It's not about time efficiency more about convince. It sounds trivial but sometimes it's really useful to be able to do things hands free/without having to move - worth spending the time to install/setup all of this once.
I'm in the middle of remodeling a new apartment and all my switches are smart. I won't even have physical switches for some fixtures like window rollers.
true, but also there is no debugging, right? it's apple's software either it works or it doesn't. (i guess other than connectivity issues)
idk if most of my home assistant automations have actually saved me time since i def had to debug them, but the level of satisfaction when they do work is def worth it for me, since i created (and debugged) them haha
Home Assistant automations for me are rarely about saving time, they're about saving mental energy. I no longer need to think about turning off the bathroom lights, my coffee machine is already warm when I go to make my morning coffee rather than standing around waiting for it, and when the washing machine is done I'll get a note reminding me to go empty it.
> Siri turn off the main light in children's bedroom
This is a fascinating example. You would initially assume it's just inconvenient versus flipping a switch--this can't be labour-saving by default.
The only way it makes sense is if you're doing it remotely; from another room, you're putting your children to bed. That's even weirder though, because you're taking what should be a moment of connection/care and trying to automate it. I guarantee your children would value you taking the time.
It's a use-case that is either inefficient or inhuman, and I find it really odd that it's one that you value.
Maybe you want to put your kid to bed, they want the light on while they're falling asleep. Twenty minutes later you're back in your room and you don't want to disturb them, so you turn off the light remotely.
I also have a "go to bed" scene that turns on a couple lights so I can see the stairs and turns off most lights around the house.
I don't really need AI to do it, I can just use the app, but Alexa usually gets the job done and I don't need to look at my phone.
We buy technology for the convenience it gets us. When we can't rely on technology doing what it promised for us then we complain because we spent money on something that doesn't work as advertised. Even worse when it did work before and no longer does.
In any case, OPs reasons for wanting to turn off any light in any of their rooms are unknown to us.
Maybe they took their kids out to breakfast and realized they forgot to turn the lights off while they were driving. Good thing they bought those smart lights that can be controlled with siri! Oh no! It doesn't work the way it was advertised!
There's no reason to imply OP is a bad parent just because they want to turn off a light remotely.
The OP has already given us context that makes your contrived example unlikely: they want to turn off just the main light, and in a specific bedroom. My extrapolation was reasonable, yours is a reach.
There's no reason to hunt for a poor parallel to shut down discussion.
I'm not sure what is being discussed? OP is a bad parent for wanting to turn off exactly one light in his child's bedroom? If so, yes, there is plenty of reason to shut down this discussion.
It's hard to read your comments as in good faith or compliant with the HN guidelines [1]. If you not sure what's being discussed, then you should consider not jumping in and trying to deflect.
I'm not quite sure how I'm deflecting? I originally thought we were discussing OP wanting to use Siri to turn off a light in a bedroom. Somehow you started using this simple desire to as a way to tell the OP how to parent better, which imo is not something worth discussing on a forum of anonymous internet users who have zero context on someone's family life.
So you tell me, what are we discussing?
BTW, the very HN guidelines you link to say that if you think something violates the guidelines, flag and move on without engaging.
Its always frustrating when people describe a tech issue, and the response to that is not to discuss the issue itself, but just point out ways in which the person reply doesn't agree with what they are assuming is the original posters lifestyle choices.
Why waste time and effort just picking apart what someone else does with their free time? I can only assume becasue they disagree with the issues relevance, but that only goes to show the intent of the person replying. They dont care about the tech issue and just want to show why they think they are better than the person with the problem.
Tech issues don't exist in a vacuum; the idea that tech--a thing we use to enhance our lives, in a discussion literally about doing that--can only be considered from a purely mechanical standpoint is a thought-terminating cliché at this point.
Considering the uses and impact of tech is part of talking about it; you can't limit discussion just to the wires.
There's a difference between a simple disagreement and a judgment on a person's use of technology based on a rather mundane task.
> That's even weirder though, because you're taking what should be a moment of connection/care and trying to automate it.
"weirder" has a pretty negative connotation, hard not to see its usage as denigrating.
"what should be a moment or connection" is an assumption on what the moment actually is. All OP mentioned is that they want to turn off one light in one bedroom. Your comment invented a narrative about what that must mean and then made statements on the narrative that exists only in your mind.
I don't think anyone is trying to "tone-police" you I think people just disagree with your take.
You're literally focused on tone, critiquing connotations rather than substance.
It's difficult to have a discussion if a bunch of unrelated people jump in not to add but to quibble about phrasing. If you don't want to discuss anything, just don't involve yourself.
I have dimmable lights I need the main light at 20% to read a book and it's useful to whisper to my assistant instead of walking across the room. I really don't get the comment - just because you can't envision a usecase doesn't mean it's not useful to me. Wife was a total skeptic about smart home stuff but having alexa control the bedroom lights while changing diapers or preparing bottles at night for her to switch to using it constantly.
I would have preferred Siri because one less provider but it's just unbelievably bad for this day and age.
I’ve wondered for years if this is what’s happening. They saw the mad scramble and hype bubble when gpt3 was released, and decided to sit it out until LLM tech was a bit more mature and commoditised.
Huge call if so, given that missing the bus on AGI (if AGI happened) is a universal existential risk, but it turned out to be the right one.
I'm not sure it is, if your primary business is selling hardware. People are still going to need a 5" wide screen and battery in their pocket in order to do things.
I’m using Eve Blinds. They integrate really well with HomeKit. They’re a bit on the pricey side, but the setup is straightforward and they’ve been very reliable for me.
I don't know why they bother. Clearly, nobody using Apple products cares enough to jump ship. Apple is never going to surpass Google, especially now that they are trying to build their own assistant on top of Google with one hand tied behind their back.
There's never going to be a situation where a heavy Google Assistant user switches over to Apple for Siri. Anyone who would have switched from Apple to Google for their assistant likely would have done so by now. Siri just isn't a very important feature. It doesn't bring people to Apple's platform nor does it steer them away. It might bother users that it sucks, but it doesn't bother anyone enough that it hurts Apple's bottom line. Frankly, continuing to pour money into that bottomless pit does more damage. I wonder why they do it.
All I want is for iPhones to have physical keyboards. That's enough for me. Makes you wonder how much money Apple has poured into touch screens over the years.
If this knowledge is genuinely valuable, it should be transferred deliberately rather than by chance. If part of your job requires understanding what the accounts team does, you should spend time shadowing them and getting proper context, not rely on overhearing conversations at lunch.
The argument that important knowledge is best acquired through incidental office interactions sounds more like nostalgia for office culture than an effective approach to knowledge sharing.
> Ritter filed a lawsuit in November that alleged Schmidt, a former chief executive and chairman of Google, “forcibly raped” her while on a yacht off the coast of Mexico in 2021.
> She also claimed they had sex without her consent during the 2023 Burning Man festival in Nevada.
Trying to wrap my head around how one can still be around someone in 2023 after what happened in 2021. This confusion no way justifies what happened nor am I blaming anyone. I just don't understand it.
Staying with your rapist husband/boyfriend is the norm. He might beg for forgiveness and say he won't do it again. He might say he didn't understand you when you said no. He might threaten to kill you if you open your mouth one more time. He might do all of those in the same five minute span.
Almost every women I am close to has been raped or assaulted.
What part of this do you specifically not understand?
People have different abilities. It’s often hard for people to not understand why something that’s natural to them isn’t natural to others. In some lights, humans are very similar; in other lights they can be wildly different.
I have cut multiple toxic people out of my life, even very close relationships and family, and it was easy as farting for me. It’s alien to me to not be able to do that. However it’s easy to recognize different people have different capacities in this regard.
A lot of people walk away from physically, mentally, or emotionally abusive relationships. I know many.
Reading the question generously, the person is asking why someone stays instead of leaves. Two of your 3 examples are emotional manipulation (big red flag, run away) and the last one is a threat to your life (big, big red flag, run away).
I think it is reasonable for someone to not understand why a person would choose to stay in that situation.
Of course, life is more nuanced than that, and the rash of pro athletes lately that have been exonerated from these accusations further muddies the waters.
it's a great last line; when trying to explain something to someone it behooves someone to ask a follow-up so they can clarify anything not yet answered.
Every abuser in my personal life whom I've learned about--most of whom I'd also met and spent time with before learning of their deeds--are extremely charismatic people who make active efforts to both isolate their partner from their social circle as well as do things externally that increase their reputation amongst both their peers and the peers of their partner. The people who batter, violate, and terrorize their partners are, with unusual frequency (in my experience), the same people who pick up the tab for everyone at the bar, who reliably buy people gifts, and who offer trusted advice and counsel in trying times.
Now, as to why these abusers are like this, that's a more complex thing. I'm not qualified to speak on it, but in the examples I've seen in my life, they're often people who have narcissistic personality disorder, where they're extremely attached to being seen in favorable lights by those around them, and as a result, react viciously to those who challenge that (oft fictitious) image. (This isn't always a conscious process--to put yourself into their shoes, imagine you're inextricably convinced that everyone is trying to defame you, abuse you, and tarnish your reputation at all times (which is probably true for the abuser, because in trying to prevent such fiction, they do monstrous things that fulfill that exact prophecy), so you need to constantly prevent it from happening by becoming trusted and loved by every means necessary, or else.) However, in an effort to maintain this image, they become very well-regarded by those around them, which makes the victim of their abuse sound insane when they try to call them out.
These people also frequently attach high-value people (such as the children they have with the abused) to them so that they are more difficult to harm, hold accountable, or separate from. I have never, ever heard of an abuser who didn't actively maintain an external factor that made them incredibly difficult to prosecute ("but he has kids, and the kids adore him" / "but he donates so much of his time and money to local charities" / "but he's putting X through college", etc). Putting the abused OR people the abused cares about in financial dependence with them (paying for school / rent / resources for them or their lives ones, isolating the abused from avenues to financial independence, etc) is also very common, if the abuser has such resources. Then, the abused trying to get help is made to become someone who's trying to "defame" the abuser, "rob" their loved ones of financial assistance that they depend on, "steal" the children from their father "whom the kids so love". In the abuser's mind, if their being imprisoned means someone is immediately put in harm's way by their absence, they are safe.
The opportunities for the abused to be made to feel completely insane by the world the abuser has created around them are innumerable; the goal of the abuser is to make the victim sound like a monster for trying to challenge the abuser's authority, and usually, by the time the abused catches on to the situation they're now in (during which time the abuser has been nothing but sweet and caring), the abuser has already completed the process, and that world now has extreme consequences if the abused tries to escape it. They're no longer leaving their partner--they're leaving their entire family, their friends, their finances, their entire support network, because the abuser has ingrained themselves into all of it, and done all they can to make their authority unchallengeable (or, at least, convinced the abused of such).
Combine that with the abuser very often making a habit of encouraging the abused to doubt their own judgment, telling them they're stupid or worthless (in words subtle enough that you or I would believe them), or finding people from the get go who already lack such confidence (which the abuser may not even realize is what they're doing--they're just looking for someone who doesn't seem like a threat to them, while simultaneously being incapable of believing that they, themselves, might be that threat, as a result of being blinded by their own narcissism. Which is another factor--how do you convince someone they're being harmful when they're incapable of believing that they have the capacity to harm? The abusers often believe the same lies they tell their victims, and tell them with unwavering conviction.)
Do you have anyone in your life who you hold in very high esteem, whom you are very close to, who you've also heard ill of? When has your gut response been to believe the person speaking ill of them, instead of your trusted, caring, friend, who you've known for years, who would "never do such a thing"? It might be someone so close to you that believing their victim would feel like buying into a conspiracy theory--which is exactly the circumstance that the abuser is trying to maintain.
There is an equally impressive ability of abusers to rewrite history to put themselves in the role of the victim. That comes along with justifying all sorts of behavior. The classic "if you didn't make me so angry I wouldn't hit you" is logic that adds up to them.
If you are curious enough to read a book about this and related questions, Unspeakable Things by Brooke Nevils (who accused Matt Lauer) really opened my eyes on this.
It turns out that rapists like to enter relationships with damaged people, and damaged people have trouble leaving violently abusive relationships. I know understanding isn't a strength of yours, but hopefully this helps.
>nor am I blaming anyone
Saying this doesn't immunize you from valid criticism of victim-blaming. Your question is basically "Why would the victim let it happen again?". I know you're "just asking questions", but we all get the message you are sending here.
Like you, I am not much of a fan of victim-blaming, but you're reading the post in an extremely negative light. The poster literally concludes with "I just don't understand it." A more charitable way to interpret this statement is "please help me understand."
The first part of your response is informative, and I thought "interesting response." The second part is just nasty and I thought "wow, what a **." Do you want the poster to understand or do you just want to score points?
No, you're projecting your own arm chair therapist thoughts here. The victim may have perfectly valid reasons that they justify for themselves. That does not mean that I will understand it. Lots of things can be justified while at the same time not making rational/logical sense. Emotional decisions rarely do. I've never been in a relationship with physical violence, but I have been in relationships that have been toxic and mentally/verbally abusive on both ends. I now recognize them much faster with age and ruthlessly end them as soon as the fog of new relationship allows it to be recognized. Days since most recent end of relationship: 3
81% of women have been sexually harassed, at least 20% have been raped. Yet, weirdly, that hasn't changed the allocation of capital in the United States in their collective favor.
But let's see what kind of person you actually are. Do you have a problem with suing, post-rape? What kind of society would you consider ideal?
Keep in mind that the current criminal case closure rate of rape cases is 25% and has been dropping for the last 10 years.
Uh huh. Or just noting Cash Rules Everything Around Me. Which I doubt was a fact lost on the complaintant - which if the crime occurred, might indeed make the circumstances worse eh?
Which, notably, none of what you are saying even addresses eh?
Do you think Trump has gotten where he is because these things are not happening?
> Do you think Trump has gotten where he is because these things are not happening?
I don't even understand what you're trying to claim here. As best I can figure out, it sounds like you're saying that Trump made his money from suing people for sexual assault, but that's so absurd I can't even imagine someone trying to claim that as a troll.
Even ignoring that, your argument seems to be "people in general are motivated by money, therefore this specific instance of a person acting where money could plausibly be a motivation is the only possible explanation". It informs quite a bit about how you view the world, but it's not a particularly compelling explanation.
People with a lot of money often get away with things for several reasons, including;
1) people sometimes attack/slander/harass others for arbitrary reasons hoping to get some of it (even if they never have to actually pay them!)
2) ability to hire people to professionally defend them (lawyers, PR people, etc.)
3) their often extensive networks among people in power (often in groups #1 and #2!), which can result in decisions going ‘their way’ even without having to take explicit action - but if they want, allowing them to take explicit action.
4) their ability to absorb extensive financial penalties without actual harm to their style of living, allowing them to be more risk tolerant.
5) they often own things (like newspapers, media outlets, companies), which can make most peoples lives hard if power is applied.
This means most people are hesitant to cross them, as normal folks can likely be crushed. This includes many people like police, public prosecutors, journalists, civil servants, etc. It’s ‘leverage’, and ‘power’.
So for most people, especially if they keep getting what they need, it’s not worth rocking the boat. You’re more likely to just get steamrolled/destroyed if you try. some people will even actively encourage it, as long as it seems like it will pay out. most people caught in this situation will ‘grin and bear it’, hoping to get out ‘alive’ and avoid further contact.
If you’re already being pushed out/fired, you’re already more in the direction of being ‘destroyed’, so the additional consequences of trying to fight are less. And at that point, it’s clear it won’t pay out as much going the other direction.
It’s sex realpolitik + money - and I’m sure anyone in that circle is quite familiar with it. Both the complaintant, and the defendant. Why make a scene if it’s in your financial/safety interest not too, after all? Especially if you’ll likely lose.
If you have not as much to lose, why not make a scene?
If you are a victim of an actual crime or not is a lot less tangential to this calculus than anyone wants to think about, but it’s true.
Notably, a LOT of people will also retroactively cast consensual behavior into non-consensual later, if it is also in their financial or social interest, which further muddies the waters.
After all, were you there when this event potentially happened? Was it rape? Sexual harassment? Was it a half sprung trap?
Good luck knowing for sure if you weren’t, or sometimes even if you were!
> So for most people, especially if they keep getting what they need, it’s not worth rocking the boat. You’re more likely to just get steamrolled/destroyed if you try. some people will even actively encourage it, as long as it seems like it will pay out.
> ...
> Both the complaintant, and the defendant. Why make a scene if it’s in your financial/safety interest not too, after all? Especially if you’ll likely lose.
This is what I'm still stuck on. You're making a strong claim about of what a specific individual's mindset was about a traumatic event based on broad generalizations of social dynamics. It's hard to imagine how you could have such high confidence that someone you've never met has an exact combination of motivation from money and self-preservation to end up acting in ways you'd predict, rather than any number of other plausible explanations.
Seriously, I just skimmed that LA Times article and wondering why isn't HN discussing this claim made by her?
quote: "She further alleged that Schmidt had built a “backdoor” to Google servers with a team of company engineers that allowed him to spy on her and anyone with a Google account."
It's a common issue. When you got everything you could possibly want in life or have enough money to buy whatever you want... then for quite a lot of people of either gender, the illegal and illicit becomes the next thing to obtain.
For some, it's an increasingly worrisome amount (and type of) drugs, for others, it's women, and for a select few it's children.
> When you got everything you could possibly want in life or have enough money to buy whatever you want... then for quite a lot of people of either gender, the illegal and illicit becomes the next thing to obtain.
But with a society that empowers men more than women, and relative power disparities of all types lending themselves to behavior like this (plenty of people who don't have everything still have enough power to exploit those they have power over). In the abstract, sure, it might not be something inherent to men, but it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that in practice women are victimized by behavior like this at a system level that men are not.
To any men who are dubious about this, I'd genuinely suggest asking the women who you have close enough relationships with to be comfortable having tough discussions if they'd be willing to tell you about experiences they've had where men have behaved poorly towards them in ways that wouldn't have likely happened to a man in their circumstances; I'm guessing that pretty much all of them will have experienced far more than you'd imagine. As a man, I'm relatively certain I can't recall any instance of ever experiencing the reverse of this though, and that's my point: going out of your way to try to frame this as a gender-neutral issue basically emphasizes theoretical concerns at the expense of the actual distribution of problems that people face in real life. When things are so slanted that in practice almost everyone in one group has experienced it but relatively few from another group has had the same experience, framing it in terms of that is important.
> But with a society that empowers men more than women, and relative power disparities of all types lending themselves to behavior like this (plenty of people who don't have everything still have enough power to exploit those they have power over). In the abstract, sure, it might not be something inherent to men, but it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that in practice women are victimized by behavior like this at a system level that men are not.
A valid and important point, yes. But then there's Ghislaine Maxwell. By all accounts, she is just as guilty as he was, some say even worse because she actively recruited victims for him.
The fact that society gives less women that kind of power reduces the absolute number of women that abuse their power - but the level of depravity they can sink to those that do rise to power is just as bad as men's.
I feel like the existence of victims of women doesn't detract from the overall point I was making, which is that overall the distribution of people who exploit people like this is overwhelmingly tilted towards men being the dominant source. The fact that you can point to specific counterexamples as a distraction from this is exactly what I'm trying to argue against being useful. For any significant source of mistreatment of an oppressed group in history (which I won't bother calling out examples of because they will readily come to mind), there were likely some members of the oppressed group who took part or at least didn't stand up for the others, but equating that with being the overall source of the mistreatment is at best misguided and at worst actively muddying the waters.
Why can't that ever be talent, or wisdom, or passion? So many filthy rich people. Seem to instantly go "hmm, what's some illegal stuff I can do despite so many legal things available to me".
I'm sure all the above happened back in the day too, but: rich people of previous centuries would go to the arts to find meaning. Being part of an orchestra or theatre troupe or artist alley was a peak achievement. Now we just have boring dystopia where rich guys literally build bunkers for the end of days they are personally bringing about. What the hell happend?
There is no proof. She can retroactively at any point say she did not give consent to extract money. She was with him two years after the first time she was “raped”. She’s the only one that has made any such claims about him.
At least the claim of Eric having a secret backdoor to Google servers letting him spy on whoever he wants seems unlikely. If he was spying on her putting spyware on her devices seems much more likely.
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