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  • Marginal Revolution features a critical if friendly review of the new Emmanuel Todd book, Lineages of Modernity.

  • Marginal Revolution considers the problems of excessive consumer activism, here.

  • Marginal Revolution notes a new book looking at natural gas economics in Europe, here.

  • Marginal Revolution notes new evidence that YouTube algorithms do not tend to radicalize users, here.

  • Marginal Revolution notes the few countries where the average person was richer in 2009 than in 2019, notably Greece and Venezuela.

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  • Charlie Stross at Antipope shares an essay he recently presented on artificial intelligence and its challenges for us.

  • P. Kerim Friedman writes at {anthro}dendum about the birth of the tea ceremony in the Taiwan of the 1970s.

  • Anthropology net reports on a cave painting nearly 44 thousand years old in Indonesia depicting a hunting story.

  • Architectuul looks at some temporary community gardens in London.

  • Bad Astronomy reports on the weird history of asteroid Ryugu.

  • The Buzz talks about the most popular titles borrowed from the Toronto Public Library in 2019.

  • Caitlin Kelly talks at the Broadside Blog about her particular love of radio.

  • Centauri Dreams talks about the role of amateur astronomers in searching for exoplanets, starting with LHS 1140 b.

  • John Quiggin at Crooked Timber looks at what is behind the rhetoric of "virtue signalling".

  • Dangerous Minds shares concert performance from Nirvana filmed the night before the release of Nevermind.

  • Bruce Dorminey notes new evidence that, even before the Chixculub impact, the late Cretaceous Earth was staggering under environmental pressures.

  • Myron Strong at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about how people of African descent in the US deal with the legacies of slavery in higher education.

  • Far Outliers reports on the plans in 1945 for an invasion of Japan by the US.

  • L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing gathers together a collection of the author's best writings there.

  • Gizmodo notes the immensity of the supermassive black hole, some 40 billion solar masses, at the heart of galaxy Holm 15A 700 million light-years away.

  • Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res writes about the issue of how Wichita is to organize its civic politics.

  • io9 argues that the 2010s were a decade where the culture of the spoiler became key.

  • The Island Review points readers to the podcast Mother's Blood, Sister's Songs, an exploration of the links between Ireland and Iceland.

  • Joe. My. God. reports on the claim of the lawyer of the killer of a mob boss that the QAnon conspiracy inspired his actions. This strikes me as terribly dangerous.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at a study examining scholarly retractions.

  • Language Hat shares an amusing cartoon illustrating the relationships of the dialects of Arabic.

  • Language Log lists ten top new words in the Japanese language.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the dissipation of American diplomacy by Trump.

  • The LRB Blog looks at the many problems in Sparta, Greece, with accommodating refugees, for everyone concerned.

  • Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting the decline of the one-child policy in China has diminished child trafficking, among other crimes.

  • Sean Marshall, looking at transit in Brampton, argues that transit users need more protection from road traffic.

  • Russell Darnley shares excerpts from essays he wrote about the involvement of Australia in the Vietnam War.

  • Peter Watts talks about his recent visit to a con in Sofia, Bulgaria, and about the apocalypse, here.

  • The NYR Daily looks at the corporatization of the funeral industry, here.

  • Diane Duane writes, from her own personal history with Star Trek, about how one can be a writer who ends up writing for a media franchise.

  • Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections considers the job of tasting, and rating, different cuts of lamb.

  • The Planetary Society Blog looks at a nondescript observatory in the Mojave desert of California that maps the asteroids of the solar system.

  • Roads and Kingdoms interviews Eduardo Chavarin about, among other things, Tijuana.

  • Drew Rowsome loves the SpongeBob musical.

  • Peter Rukavina announces that Charlottetown has its first public fast charger for electric vehicles.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog considers the impact of space medicine, here.

  • The Signal reports on how the Library of Congress is making its internet archives more readily available, here.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers how the incredibly isolated galaxy MCG+01-02-015 will decay almost to nothing over almost uncountable eons.

  • Strange Company reports on the trial and execution of Christopher Slaughterford for murder. Was there even a crime?

  • Strange Maps shares a Coudenhove-Kalergi map imagining the division of the world into five superstates.

  • Understanding Society considers entertainment as a valuable thing, here.

  • Denis Colombi at Une heure de peine announces his new book, Où va l'argent des pauvres?

  • John Scalzi at Whatever looks at how some mailed bread triggered a security alert, here.

  • Window on Eurasia reports on the massive amount of remittances sent to Tajikistan by migrant workers, here.

  • Arnold Zwicky notes a bizarre no-penguins sign for sale on Amazon.

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  • The BBC takes a look at Pontic Greek, a Greek dialect that survives precariously in exile from its homeland in Anatolia.

  • Klaus Meyer writes at The Conversation about how Hitler, in his rise to power, became a German citizen.

  • Low-income families in the Toronto area face serious challenges in getting affordable Internet access. CBC reports.

  • Jeremy Keefe at Global News takes a look at Steve Skafte, an explorer of abandoned roads in Nova Scotia.

  • In some communities in British Columbia, middle-class people have joined criminal gangs for social reasons. CBC reports.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares images of galaxy M61.

  • Centauri Dreams looks at a proposal for the Solar Cruiser probe, a NASA probe that would use a solar sail.

  • D-Brief notes the discovery of bacteria on coasts which manufacture dimethyl sulfide.

  • Bruce Dorminey writes about some facts about the NASA X-15 rocket plane.

  • The Dragon's Tales reports on the strange nuclear accident in Nyonoksa, Russia.

  • JSTOR Daily reports on the recent uncovering of the ancient Egyptian city of Heracleion, under the Mediterranean.

  • Language Hat looks at 19th century standards on ancient Greek language.

  • Language Log notes an ironically swapped newspaper article subhead.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the role of Tom Cotton in the recent Greenland scandal.

  • Marginal Revolution glances at the relationship between China and Singapore.

  • The NYR Daily looks at how the car ride played a role in the writing of Jacques Lacan.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog shares an index on state fragility around the world.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why Jupiter suffers so many impacts from incoming bodies.

  • John Scalzi at Whatever reports on what seems to have been an enjoyable concert experience with Iron Maiden.

  • Window on Eurasia reports a claim that, with regards to a border dispute, Chechnya is much more unified than Dagestan.

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  • The city of Fredericton hopes a new strategy to attracting international migration to the New Brunswick capital will help its grow its population by 25 thousand. Global News reports.

  • Guardian Cities notes the controversy in Amsterdam as users of moped find themselves being pushed from using bike lanes.

  • Guardian Cities looks at how many in Athens think the city might do well to unbury the rivers covered under concrete and construction in the second half of the 20th century.

  • The Sagrada Familia, after more than 130 years of construction, has finally received a permit for construction from Barcelona city authorities. Global News reports.

  • Evan Gershkovich at the Moscow Times reports on how the recent ousting of the mayor of the Latvian capital of Riga for corruption is also seem through a lens of ethnic conflict.

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  • Architectuul takes a look at "infrastructural scars", at geopolitically-inspired constructions like border fences and fortifications.

  • Centauri Dreams notes what we can learn from 99942 Apophis during its 2029 close approach to Earth, just tens of thousands of kilometres away.

  • D-Brief reports on the reactions of space artists to the photograph of the black hole at the heart of M87.

  • Dangerous Minds shares the first recording of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart.

  • The Dragon's Tales notes that Germany has begun work on drafting laws to cover space mining.

  • Gizmodo reports on what scientists have learned from the imaging of a very recent impact of an asteroid on the near side of the Moon.

  • io9 makes the case that Star Trek: Discovery should try to tackle climate change.

  • Joe. My. God. notes that Verizon is seeking a buyer for Tumblr. (Wouldn't it be funny if it was bought, as other reports suggest might be possible, by Pornhub?)

  • JSTOR Daily reports on a 1910 examination of medical schools that, among other things, shut down all but two African-American medical schools with lasting consequences for African-American health.

  • Language Log asks why "Beijing" is commonly pronounced as "Beizhing".

  • Simon Balto asks at Lawyers, Guns and Money why the murder of Justine Ruszczyk by a Minneapolis policeman is treated more seriously than other police killings, just because she was white and the cop was black. All victims deserve the same attention.

  • Russell Darnley at Maximos62 shares a video of the frieze of the Parthenon.

  • The NYR Daily responds to the 1979 television adaptation of the Primo Levi novel Christ Stopped at Eboli, an examination of (among other things) the problems of development.

  • Peter Rukavina is entirely right about the practical uselessness of QR codes.

  • Daniel Little at Understanding Society points readers towards the study of organizations, concentrating on Charles Perrow.

  • Window on Eurasia notes the argument of one Russian commentator that Russia should offer to extend citizenship en masse not only to Ukrainians but to Belarusians, the better to undermine independent Belarus.

  • Arnold Zwicky shares photos of some of his flourishing flowers, as his home of Palo Alto enters a California summer.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the many galaxies in the night sky caught mid-collision.

  • Centauri Dreams reports on the plan of China to send a probe to explore near-Earth co-orbital asteroid 2016 HO3 and comet 133P.

  • Gizmodo reports, with photos, on the progress of the Chang'e 4 and the Yutu 2 rover, on the far side of the Moon.

  • Joe. My. God. notes that Bill de Blasio hopes to ban new steel-and-glass skyscrapers in New York City, part of his plan to make the metropolis carbon-neutral.

  • JSTOR Daily notes a critique of the BBC documentary Planet Earth, arguing the series was less concerned with representing the environment and more with displaying HD television technology.

  • Language Hat notes the oddities of the name of St. Marx Cemetery in Vienna. How did "Mark" get so amusingly changed?

  • Language Log looks at how terms for horse-riding might be shared among Indo-European languages and in ancient Chinese.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the grounds for the workers of New York's Tenement Museum to unionize.

  • The NYR Daily notes the efforts of Barnard College Ancient Drama, at Columbia University, to revive Greek drama in its full with music and dance, starting with a Euripedes performance.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel shares some iconic images of the Earth from space for Earth Day.

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  • This map at r/imaginarymaps imagines what might have been had the unlikely Scottish colonial project in Panama, the Darien Scheme, had succeeded.

  • This r/imaginarymaps map imagines an Islamic Greece.

  • This r/imaginarymaps map imagines a revisionist Afrikaner state in eastern South Africa.

  • What organized crime networks might have sprung up in an independent Confederacy? This r/imaginarymaps post considers.

  • The organization of a Europe unified under Napoleonic hegemony in 1820 is laid out in this r/imaginarymaps map.

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Over the past week, I've come across some interesting news reports about different trends in different parts of the world. I have assembled them in a links post at Demography Matters.


  • The Independent noted that the length and severity of the Greek economic crisis means that, for many younger Greeks, the chance to have a family the size they wanted--or the chance to have a family at all--is passing. The Korea Herald, meanwhile, noted that the fertility rate in South Korea likely dipped below 1 child per woman, surely a record low for any nation-state (although some Chinese provinces, to be fair, have seen similar dips).

  • The South China Morning Post argued that Hong Kong, facing rapid population aging, should try to keep its elderly employed. Similar arguments were made over at Bloomberg with regards to the United States, although the American demographic situation is rather less dramatic than Hong Kong's.

  • Canadian news source Global News noted that, thanks to international migration, the population of the Atlantic Canadian province of Nova Scotia actually experienced net growth. OBC Transeuropa, meanwhile, observed that despite growing emigration from Croatia to richer European Union member-states like Germany and Ireland, labour shortages are drawing substantial numbers of workers not only from the former Yugoslavia but from further afield.

  • At Open Democracy, Oliver Haynes speaking about Brexit argued strongly against assuming simple demographic change will lead to shifts of political opinion. People still need to be convinced.

  • Open Democracy's Carmen Aguilera, meanwhile, noted that far-right Spanish political party Vox is now making Eurabian arguments, suggesting that Muslim immigrants are but the vanguard of a broader Muslim invasion.

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  • Centauri Dreams extends further consideration the roles that artificial intelligences might play in interstellar exploration.

  • D-Brief notes that the genes associated with being a night owl also seem to be associated with poor mental health outcomes.

  • Far Outliers looks at the lifeboat system created on the upper Yangtze in the late 19th century.

  • Kashmir Hill, writing at Gizmodo, notes how blocking Google from her phone left her online experience crippled.

  • Imageo notes that, even if halted, global warming still means that many glaciers well melt as they respond to temperature changes.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at the racism that permeated ads in 19th century North America.

  • Language Hat looks at how some Turkish-speaking Christians transcribed the Turkish language in the Greek alphabet.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how utterly ineffective the Trump Administration's new refugee waiver system actually is.

  • The LRB Blog looks at the film and theatre career of Lorenza Mazetti.

  • Marginal Revolution notes, in passing, the import of being a YouTube celebrity.

  • Molly Crabapple at the NYR Daily writes about the work of the New Sanctuary coalition, which among other things waits with refugees in court as they face their hearings.

  • The Speed River Journal's Van Waffle looks for traces of the elusive muskrat.

  • Towleroad shares footage of New Order performing the early song "Ceremony" in 1981.

  • Transit Toronto notes that Metrolinx now has an app for Presto up!

  • At Vintage Space, Amy Shira Teitel looks at the Soviet Moon exploration program in 1969.

  • Window on Eurasia notes the new pressures being placed by rising Islamism and instability in Afghanistan upon Turkmenistan.

  • Arnold Zwicky considers, briefly, the little is known about the lives of 1980s gay porn stars Greg Patton and Bobby Pyron. How did they lead their lives?

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  • Chantal Hébert at the Toronto Star notes how the chaos and uncertainty around Brexit is doing much to deter support for (what I think is a better-planned) separatism in Québec.

  • Ronan McCrea at Euronews suggests that, without a shift in British public opinion on Europe, there might well be many in the EU who would not welcome an end to Brexit.

  • This Ekathimeri opinion piece makes the point that a final settlement of the Macedonia name dispute will allow people in Greece, North Macedonia, and elsewhere to enjoy normality across borders, hopefully within the EU.

  • Atlas Obscura notes the case for making a new national park in the interior of eastern Angola, and the background of human suffering that made the park possible.

  • David Fickling writing at Bloomberg suggests that some of the autarkic policies favoured for China by Xi Jinping might keep China from escaping the feared middle-income trap.

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  • The Hamilton Spectator reports that landlord applications for above-guideline increases in rent have been growing sharply in number, driven by growing demand and by the aging of the housing stock.

  • CBC Ottawa shares seven maps of Ottawa and its area which trace the city's development over the previous century and a half and look towards the future.

  • The Sun Life Building of Montréal recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. Global News reports.

  • VICE shares photos taken by Jacob Fuglsang MIkkelsen in the early 1990s of the contemporary New York City nightclub scene.

  • Guardian Cities reports on how the Greek capital of Athens is conducting a survey of its populations of ring-necked parakeets, to see how many of this newly-arrived species are present.

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  • Quartz notes that Japan this year is hoping to regain two of the Kuril Islands from Russia.

  • This sad report looks at how the wild horses of Chincoteague island, off the coast of Virginia, are endangered by an infectious fungus.

  • Guardian Cities notes how an energetic resistance in Heraklion, chief city of the island of Crete, helped drive out Golden Dawn.

  • Conservative Home shares an article noting that hopes for a tourism boom in the isolated South Atlantic island of St. Helena have come to naught because weather makes regular flights prohibitive.

  • Bloomberg reported last April that Fisher Island, off Miami, zip code 33109, is the richest zip code in the United States.

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  • Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber praises Candice Delmas' new book on the duty of resistance to injustice.

  • D-Brief looks at how the designers of robots took lessons from wasps in designing a new robotic swarm that can pull relatively massive objects in flight.

  • Dead Things notes new evidence that the now-extinct elephant birds of Madagascar were nocturnal.

  • Far Outliers notes how the reeducation of Japanese prisoners of war by Chinese Communists helped influence American policy towards Japan, imagining a Japan that could be reformed away from imperialism.

  • At the Island Review, Alex Ingram profiles--with photos--some of the many different people who are the lone guardians of different small isolated islands removed from the British mainland.

  • JSTOR Daily notes how asteroids can preserve records of the distant past of the solar system.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money has contempt for Pence's use of Messianic Jews to stand in for the wider, non-Christian, Jewish community.

  • At Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen considers the consequence that a decline of art galleries might have on the wider field of modern art.

  • The NYR Daily considers the lessons that Thucydides, writing about Athens, might have for the United States now.

  • Anjali Kumar at Roads and Kingdoms writes about a meal of technically illegal craft beer served with raw shrimp in Bangkok.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel illustrates the six different ways a star can end up in a supernova.

  • Window on Eurasia notes that official Russian efforts to reach out to the Russian diaspora do not extend to non-Russian minorities' own diasporas, like that of the Circassians of the North Caucasus.

  • Arnold Zwicky, starting by noting the passing of Dorcas, she who invented green bean casserole, looks at different pre-prepared foodstuffs.

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  • The Inter Press Service notes that the vulnerable islands of the Caribbean can survive only a modest increase in temperatures.

  • La Presse reports that the new premier of Québec, François Legault, says he has no plans to open up Anticosti island, in the Guilf of St. Lawrence, to exploration for oil.

  • VICE interviews some workers on a Greek party island to see what their lives are like. (Rarely does it feel like a vacation.)

  • The recent Hurricane Walaka has done terrible damage to some of the most remote islands of Hawai'i, destroying low-lying East Island entirely. Global News reports.

  • CNN notes that although the more remote islands of the Federated States of Micronesia might seem idyllic to tourists, local populations are emigrating from these isolated locations in large numbers.

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  • National Observer argued, before Bernier broke, that his stances on immigration and multiculturalism bode ill for Canada, here.

  • If a Canada that needs immigration to sustain its workforce turns against immigration, that would be the real crisis. Global News reports.

  • The Golden Dawn movement of Greece, this essay argues, set precedents for alt-right movements across the developed world with its engagement with locals. The Conversation has it.

  • Canada, despite everything, is still one of the most socially mobile countries in the world. MacLean's reports.

  • Andrew Coyne wonders why Maxime Bernier chose to break from the Conservatives now, over at the National Post.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes evidence that white dwarf Gaia J1738–0826 is eating its planets.

  • Crux takes a look at the stars closely orbiting Sagittarius A* at the heart of the galaxy like relativity-proving S2.

  • D-Brief notes a recent proposal for an unmanned probe to Uranus and Neptune.

  • Dangerous Minds shows the eerily decomposing sculptures of YuIchi Ikehata.

  • Bruce Dorminey explores the provocative idea of era in the early Moon where it was briefly habitable.

  • Far Outliers explores the reasons why George Orwell has become so popular lately.

  • Hornet Stories notes that Tom Daley has recently posed nude for a painting by the celebrated David Hockney.

  • JSTOR Daily explores the reality behind the imminent arrival of the laser gun into militaries worldwide.

  • Language Hat notes that the Austrian state of Vorarlberg sponsors an interesting contest, of performances of songs--including pop songs--in local dialect.

  • The LRB Blog notes the severity of the forest fires in Greece, aggravated by climate change, systematic corruption, and recent austerity.

  • The Planetary Society Blog shares photos of asteroid Ryugu taken by the Hayabusa2 probe.

  • Roads and Kingdoms reports on a T-bone steak heavy breakfast lasting twenty hours in Bilbao.
  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps notes a joke political party in Hungary that wants to make the country smaller.

  • Window on Eurasia notes how the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Moscow is caught between its Ukrainian goals and its Russian links.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes a new image showing the sheer density of events in the core of our galaxy.

  • Centauri Dreams notes the discovery of 2MASS 0249 c, a planet-like object that distantly orbits a pair of low-mass brown dwarfs.

  • D-Brief notes the discovery of many new moons of Jupiter, bringing the total up to 79.

  • Far Outliers looks at the appeasement practiced by the Times of London in the 1930s.

  • The Frailest Thing's L.M. Sacasas contrasts roots with anchors.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the controversy surrounding surviving honours paid to Franco in Spain.

  • The LRB Blog looks at how the question of Macedonia continues to be a threatening issue in the politics of Greece.

  • The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer suggests the new Mexican president is trying to create a new political machine, one that can only echo the more far-reaching and unrestrained one of PRI.

  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps looks at the shifting alliances of different Asian countries with China and the United States.

  • Window on Eurasia reports on the Russian reactions to a recent Politico Europe report describing Estonia's strategies for resisting a Russian invasion in depth.

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  • D-Brief notes a new study examining the evolution of giant planets.

  • Cody Delistraty has a nice essay about the power of coincidence in the human mind.

  • Dead Things reports on the possible discovery of hominin remains in China dating from 2.2 million years ago.

  • Language Hat notes the discovery of an ancient tablet in Greece dating from the 3rd century CE containing the earliest extract of The Odyssey so far found.

  • Language Log notes the importance of the language skills of a multilingual teen in leading to the rescue of the boys trapped in a Thai cave.

  • Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution imagines what friendship would be like in a world of telepathy.

  • The Planetary Society Blog's Jason Davis shares images taken by the Hayabusa2 probe of the asteroid Ryugu.

  • At Spacing, John Lorinc notes how the Ford government's opposition to the clean energy policies of Wynne may well lead to the return of noticeable air pollution.

  • Window on Eurasia reports on Russian government actions intended to suppress what seems to be the spectre of separatism in Kaliningrad.

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  • The Conversation takes a look at the fierce repression faced by the Macedonian language in early 20th century Greece.

  • Creating an Inuktitut word for marijuana is a surprisingly controversial task. The Toronto Star reports.

  • The representation of non-whites in the Afrikaans language community--the majority population of Afrikaans speakers, actually, despite racism--is a continuing issue. The Christian Science Monitor reports.

  • Far Outliers considers the question of just how many different Slavic languages there actually are. Where are boundaries drawn?

  • The Catalan language remains widely spoken by ten million people in Europe, but outside of Catalonia proper--especially in French Roussillon--usage is declining.

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