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Clear Thinking

December 31st, 2099 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

You are not alone if you think the world is going crazy. You are as sane as I.

Here are a few thought-provoking comments on issues which confront us every day.

If you disagree with what you see here, please Contact Me.


Why Should Blind Dates Work?

December 3rd, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

Robert Spiegel’s obituary read in part ” He was accompanied on his move by his wife, Ursula, whom he’d met on a blind date under New York City’s Washington Square arch.”

That got me thinking, wondering about how many blind dates actually pan out.

I suspect blind dates are better-than-average at leading to a long-lasting marriage for one or more of the following reasons:

(1) People who agree to blind dates share a degree of confidence in themselves and a willingness to go a little bit beyond the ordinary limits to see what’s out there; such couples are likely to enjoy exploring life together.

(2) People who go on blind dates might feel insecure, or be too shy to go the normal route of courtship. In such cases, someone who feels desperate (whether or not they ought to feel so about themselves) is likely to hold on to that for which they feel grateful.

(3) People who agree to a blind date are ready to date and build relationships; they are not one hundred percent intensely focused on their career or hobby.

Talk to Me!


Police Announcement

November 15th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

Toronto recently witnessed an outpouring of grief for a woman crushed to death under the wheels of a truck.

The outpouring of grief is correct, for a life was snuffed out, and in writing this I highlight the lack of grief for another party, and hope to spare several lives in the future.

The original news story “Woman killed when bike collides with large truck” broke eight days ago and has been followed by a series of stories:

This is a time for mourning, not for blame

Dead cyclist Jenna Morrison was a yoga teacher, dancer, mom

Cycling deaths preventable

A bike ride into tragedy

I saw nothing but bike helmets for blocks

‘Perfect partner,’ devoted cyclist mourned

Cyclist’s death prompts call for mandatory truck side guards

Police rule out charges against truck driver in cyclist’s death

The common thread through these stories is that the police have not, and now will not, lay charges against the truck-driver.

What do you think that this means?

From the news articles alone we can draw no certain conclusions, but from the news articles alone it is easy to come to the conclusion that the cyclist was at fault.

Picture a scene where a truck is stopped at an intersection, waiting to make a right-hand turn. Traffic is flowing from left to right while the truck driver waits for a break in the traffic flow.

Meanwhile, unknown to the driver, who is looking to his left, a cyclist approaches from behind, sees a gap between the truck and the side of the road, and “squeezes through” to save a few seconds.

The truck driver might even make a last-second check of the right-hand mirror before beginning the turn, but by then the cyclist has passed out of view and is in the truck’s blind spot, near the front wheels.

Only the truck driver and the police know what probably happened; and since there are no recorded witnesses, no-one can know for sure what did happen.

But whenever I see the continual disclaimer “…the truck driver … will not be charged” I figure that there was not a shred of fault ascribed to the truck driver.

In a city where cycling is promoted as a healthy alternative to powered vehicles, this seems like a case of the cyclist being at fault.

  • I am, as you may know, a driver, a cyclist and a pedestrian.
  • In my youth I drove a large fully-laden wheat truck.

Talk to Me!


The Final Word

November 9th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

If there is one thing we all learn from reading, it is this:-

  • Change is inevitable
  • Change is permanent, until the next change.
  • History repeats itself.
  • What is new under the sun is stale under the moon

So whenever you hear the word “final”, be ready to tune out.

In the final analysis, the final frontier is not finally defeated.

There has always been, will always be, a final frontier.

Anglos heading west from the Atlantic coast thought that California (Oregon, Washington) was the final frontier.

There will be no Final Solution because there will always be Another Problem. Once you have solved your most urgent problem, what was your second-most urgent problem automatically becomes your most urgent problem.

There is no “All Sales Final”, in truth, because, in truth, anyone who sells you something for coin of the realm will agree to change if you offer them enough change (a.k.a. money). It’s what people who sell for money are used to!

I promise you this: Whenever you hear someone pontificate on “The Final Analysis”, you can be certain that they are focused on THEIR local interests, and want their interests to be satisfied above all others. To their mind, THEY are the centre of the known universe.

Finally: Check it out!

Talk to Me!


Oxygen from Books

November 4th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

Margaret Atwood is one of my all-time favorite authors, not just for her position in promoting the fight against library cuts here in Toronto.

Today’s Toronto Star carries a quotation from a book printed on paper made from straw in which Atwood says “Human beings need oxygen, and forests produce it; printed books require paper, but paper need not be made from virgin forests.”

This strikes me as an odd statement to make.

My understanding of photo-synthesis is that almost all types of vegetable matter take in carbon di-oxide during the day and expire oxygen.

So straw, trees, carrots and rhododendrons all take part in creating oxygen. Swapping trees for grasses doesn’t add up to a hill of beans unless someone does the maths.

  • For example, maybe grasses, pound for pound, per day, produce more oxygen than trees.
  • For example, maybe grasses, acre for acre, per day, produce more oxygen than trees.

Discussing leaves leaves aside, of course, the whole arena of electronic books

Talk to Me!


A Device that Will Limit the Maximum Speed of Any Car …

October 29th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

You’ll see articles like this every now and then in papers like the Toronto Star.

A well-meaning but slow-thinking member of parliament gets a bit of traction in the local press.

But we can stop and think.

Who are these young hoods who are blasting along city streets at 150 KM/hour?

They are not my little-old-widow friend who has run out of smokes and is desperate to get to the corner store.

They are not the harried businessman racing home with a full bladder.

They are young guys with spare time and cash, keen to get under-the-hood and fine-tune their vehicles.

For whom removing or adjusting such a device will be child’s play once someone posts instructions on the internet.

Installing such a device will be expensive – development costs alone – and won’t be retro-fitted to cars.

On top of that the device is aimed at perhaps 0.001 percent (that’s 0.00001 as a fraction of the population) of vehicles on the road.

  • It’s a people problem, not a machine problem.
  • So the solution must be a people solution.

Talk to Me!


It’s Back to Driving School for Halton Police

October 24th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

Says the Toronto Star.

Me? I’d rather their editors started work.

The leading text of the article says it all:-

So many Halton police cruisers have been involved in crashes that the force has instituted mandatory driving training for its officers.

In the first six months of this year, police cars were involved in 70 accidents, …

Yep!

  • In paragraph one they are “crashes”.
  • By paragraph two they are “accidents”.

And note that it’s NOT about the number of events.

It’s the muddled thinking that allows us to drop into an irresponsible pit of reduced responsibility.

One again, cars don’t crash; drivers crash cars.

Paragraph three:-

Most of this year’s crashes, 41 of the 70, were classified as preventable.

I’m prepared to bet that, when the analysis is made, 100% of collisions are foreseeable and therefore preventable.

I understand the sometime-urgent nature of police calls.

I accept the speeds sometimes-necessarily above speed limits of regular prudence.

But always, police or not, they are crashes or collisions.

They are not accidents.

Talk to Me!


Another Satellite Set To Hit Earth In Coming Weeks

October 18th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

Didn’t we do this just a couple of weeks ago? The School bus fell in the Pacific Ocean, pretty good odds, 70% of the earth’s surface being covered by water (we are, after all, an ocean-planet with a half-dozen very large islands lying surrounded by water).

Now a two-and-a-half ton German research satellite (I suppose that that’s a school bus) is predicted to crash. And I suppose a significant part of it will burn up before it hits earth.

Two weeks ago I did some quick thinking, based on a refrigerator crashing to earth.

I have a refrigerator in my kitchen, and am in there far too often; I am supposed to be dieting to lose a bit of weight myself.

So I tend to park the car well away from the mall entrance and walk a bit extra across the shopping mall parking lot.

Saturday 4pm is, perhaps, the most zoo-like time here; people are frantically getting shopping done before the world comes to an end (that is, the stores close at 6pm not to re-open until 8am Sunday!), and the parking-lot is about as crowded as it ever gets.

I visualized a refrigerator dropping from the sky from a jumbo jet that was coming in to land at the airport a few miles north of here.

Admittedly dropping from a plane flying at 4,000 feet isn’t quite the same as dropping out of orbit, but there is a terminal velocity for large objects dropping out of orbit.

In the case of an out-of-orbit object (as distinct from an it-came-from-outer-space object), the refrigerator will be dropping pretty well vertically.

So I imagined a refrigerator dropping from the plane, and looked around me in the parking lot.

Crowded as it was, I figured that the ‘fridge would probably render four cars as write-offs, but looking at people walking across the parking lot, the chances of them being hit appears minimal. Something like three dozen people in five acres of land.

People in cars would be shielded from much of the debris.

There’s be shock; a few fender-benders as people stared or panicked. Much horn-blowing, but then, that’s typical on a Saturday afternoon.

All in all it seems not a great cause for worry.

P.S.

Probably the worst place for it to fall would be on the 19-lane wide portion of highway 427 nearby, where most folks seem to be exceeding the 100 Km/hour speed limit, with attendant collisions when the unexpected occurred.

Talk to Me!


Deadly Impact of Earthworms

October 13th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

I’m still getting over Farting Worms, and now this:

Worms in the Woods in which Chris Wedeles claims that earthworms are damaging his woodlot in Erin, about 60 kilometres West of where I sit and type these words. I say West, but WNW might be more accurate.

This blog is about Clear Thinking, not biology, but I admit a sense of gratitude to earthworms for eating leaf mold and making soil. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, I know, but Charles Darwin said that earthworms made our soil, and I think he had a pretty good grip on the matter.

But I digress.

In the article the following text caught my eye:-

Slow-moving animals, such as earthworms, whose natural rate of spread is only about four to ten metres per year, remained in the south. Therefore, our Canadian forests evolved in the absence of earthworms.”

Now straight off, earthworms aren’t slow movers; they fairly gallop along; my Red Wrigglers ( Eisenia fetida ) go like greased lightning when they are trying to escape from light.

Secondly, the spread of a colony of creatures is mostly independent of the speed of the critter. If a herd of elephants or a jamboree of jaguars maintains its population numbers steady, it will have no need to colonize new areas. Only if the population grows and the excess males and/or females get pushed out will the colony spread by cloning.

But then this stuck in my mind:

In virtually all of Canada and much of the northern United States earthworms were extirpated during the recent (well, recent in geological terms) Pleistocene glaciations of 11,000 to 14,000 years ago when the landscape was covered with ice sheets up to several kilometres thick.”

The Wisconsin ice-sheet crept as far as Pittsburgh, almost. The Ohio river makes two sharp turns at Rochester and at Wellsville, turned back by the ice-sheet, so we can take Pittsburgh as an good local edge of the ice-sheet.

Google Maps tells me the driving distance from Erin to Pittsburgh via Buffalo is 528 kilometres, but of course that’s not in a straight line, but of course now would the worms pack a lunch and make a bee-line for Erin.

To a first approximation we can take 528 kilometres over 11,000 years and come up with 48 metres per year, a not-impossible rate of colonization (not movement) for earthworms; well within the bounds of possibility.

But then I am struck by another thought, and it is the chicken-egg thing.

Trees grow in soil. If earthworms make soil, which came first, trees or worms? Or did they arrive together, accompanied by raccoons, robins and squirrels and … all the other things that crawl, climb, or slither in and around trees.

And where do the nematodes fit into all of this?

I have a problem with trees marching inexorably northwards, breathlessly trying to outstrip their rivals, the earthworms.

I have no problem seeing a slow and steady creep of an entire ecosystem expanding, bringing with it native hunter-gatherers.

The SUVs and shopping malls came much later, but until they did, these old-stand forests were doing very well, thank you very much.

Talk to Me !


It’s Back to Driving School for Halton Police

October 11th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

Says the Toronto Star .

Me? I’d rather their editors started work.

The leading text of the article says it all:-

So many Halton police cruisers have been involved in crashes that the force has instituted mandatory driving training for its officers.

In the first six months of this year, police cars were involved in 70 accidents, …

Yep!

  • In paragraph one they are “crashes”.
  • By paragraph two they are “accidents”.

And note that it’s NOT about the number of events.

It’s the muddled thinking that allows us to drop into an irresponsible pit of reduced responsibility.

One again, cars don’t crash; drivers crash cars.

Paragraph three:-

Most of this year’s crashes, 41 of the 70, were classified as preventable.

I’m prepared to bet that, when the analysis is made, 100% of collisions are foreseeable and therefore preventable.

I understand the sometime-urgent nature of police calls.

I accept the speeds sometimes-necessarily above speed limits of regular prudence.

But always, police or not, they are crashes or collisions.

They are not accidents.

Talk to Me !


Another Satellite Set To Hit Earth In Coming Weeks

October 11th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

Didn’t we do this just a couple of weeks ago? The School bus fell in the Pacific Ocean, pretty good odds, 70% of the earth’s surface being covered by water (we are, after all, an ocean-planet with a half-dozen very large islands lying surrounded by water).

Now a two-and-a-half ton German research satellite (I suppose that that’s a school bus) is predicted to crash. And I suppose a significant part of it will burn up before it hits earth.

Two weeks ago I did some quick thinking, based on a refrigerator crashing to earth.

I have a refrigerator in my kitchen, and am in there far too often; I am supposed to be dieting to lose a bit of weight myself.

So I tend to park the car well away from the mall entrance and walk a bit extra across the shopping mall parking lot.

Saturday 4pm is, perhaps, the most zoo-like time here; people are frantically getting shopping done before the world comes to an end (that is, the stores close at 6pm not to re-open until 8am Sunday!), and the parking-lot is about as crowded as it ever gets.

I visualized a refrigerator dropping from the sky from a jumbo jet that was coming in to land at the airport a few miles north of here.

Admittedly dropping from a plane flying at 4,000 feet isn’t quite the same as dropping out of orbit, but there is a terminal velocity for large objects dropping out of orbit.

In the case of an out-of-orbit object (as distinct from an it-came-from-outer-space object), the refrigerator will be dropping pretty well vertically.

So I imagined a refrigerator dropping from the plane, and looked around me in the parking lot.

Crowded as it was, I figured that the ‘fridge would probably render four cars as write-offs, but looking at people walking across the parking lot, the chances of them being hit appears minimal. Something like three dozen people in five acres of land.

People in cars would be shielded from much of the debris.

There’s be shock; a few fender-benders as people stared or panicked. Much horn-blowing, but then, that’s typical on a Saturday afternoon.

All in all it seems not a great cause for worry.

P.S. probably the worst place for it to fall would be on the 19-lane wide portion of highway 427 nearby, where most folks seem to be exceeding the 100 Km/hour speed limit, with attendant collisions when the unexpected occurred.

Talk to Me !


Girl, 15, Killed By Train

October 10th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

The headline reads “Girl, 15, killed by train in Melbourne while crossing tracks” and I don’t believe that trains kill.

Trains are large chunks of metals and plastic driven by humans.

Further I don’t believe the driver of the train killed the girl. My sympathies go out to the driver who is, no doubt, traumatized for ever by this incident.

Assuming that the newspaper article tells the truth, then the girl killed herself, for we read “The girl walked around a pedestrian boom gate and attempted to cross the tracks at a level crossing …”.

So there you have it.

The pedestrian boom gates are down.

We expect a 15-year old to know what that means.

If the 15-year old disregards the wisdom of elders, what is there left, except the grieving and the mourning.

You will see the same behaviour tomorrow morning as some idiot – might be you! – runs a red traffic light to save an extra 60 seconds.

  • Ask the train driver if it’s worth it.
  • Ask the girl’s parents if it’s worth it.

Talk to Me!


Poverty-Free

October 6th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

Sign outside a local church on the eve of the provincial election.

Got me thinking.

Define poverty

Most people I’ve polled say something along the lines of “below average income”, and while that’s not a correct definition, it’s what the masses thing when they see the word poverty.

So when they see the word “poverty” on a sign like this, they think immediately of folks on below-average income.

So presumably they feel urged to do something (in this case vote!) to raise the income of those people.

Immediately shifting the average and introducing a new set of people who are, by definition, on below-average incomes!

In essence it’s a never ending arms-race towards higher salaries.

And in that sense, poverty can and will never be eradicated.

Poverty and the Origins of the Third Balkan War

I read extensively on the origins of this war, almost a century ago, and I read first-hand accounts and historical novels. To do so is to be amazed at today’s standard of living, and while I confess to living in a developed country, I have a sneaking suspicion that there are cell-phones lurking in off corners of India, China and Africa.

The Christian Bible

I am in possession of a Christian bible, and I read in Matthew 26,11 and Mark 14,7 that “the poor will always be with you”.

Since the sign in the image above is sitting on church property, I’m tempted to ask the congregation how firmly they believe in their bible!

Talk to Me !


They Mean Well, God Bless Them.

October 3rd, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

An Electronic Stewardship program here in the centre of the known universe.

Sent by postal mail ($1.25) a letter thanking me for taking part in their survey about electronic waste.

Also a memory key with the PDF report which is, surprise, surprise, available for d/l from their web site!

The key casing is one-inch wide, so it bumps all other USB plugs aside.

Also I suspect it won’t fit into the backs of half the other computers I have lying around here …

The jury is still out on the strongly-magnetic plugs which hold the wooden cap to the wooden casing.

(sigh!)

Talk to Me !


Everybody Knows That!

September 30th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

The Wall Street Journal reports in “ Physicists wary of junking light speed limit yet ” that “Everybody knows that the speed limit is c, the speed of light …”

Leaving aside the fact that not everybody knows that, or that the original declaration was that the fastest speed that could be achieved was the speed of light In A Vacumn, I am left with wondering what the Wall Street Journal would have said a hundred years ago, when Einstein declared the limit.

Presumably something along the lines of “Everybody knows that there is no upper limit to how fast we can go. I mean, we all thought horses were fast, but look at trains, cars, and perhaps soon, aeroplanes …”.

Amazing!

That science discovers new truths is not news.

That science has discovered a new truth IS news, and I’m glad to learn of it.

But today’s common knowledge is by definition tomorrow’s scientific non-truth, as science continues to push back the darkness.

Talk to Me !


1-Sided Cell Phone Conversations

August 31st, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

I spent part of the weekend listening to a stranger talk on their cell-phone.

We agree it is annoying; but I began to wonder why it IS annoying.

After all, I couldn’t really care at all about the (loud-mouthed and therefore rude) stranger, less about his unseen correspondent.

If it’s not about those two, then it must be about me. After all, there are only the three of us in the scene.

What is it IN ME that is irritated? Well, it can’t be my arms, legs or kidneys. It must be in my brain.

Something goes on that irritates my brain, my thought-process.

What can it be?

I am of the conclusion that we evolved with the spoken and heard word; reading and writing is a skill; speaking and listening is an attribute.

Hard-wired into our brains, through evolution, is the business of being part of a two-party conversation. Whether we are the speaker or the respondent, or just an eavesdropper, our brains expect to hear both sides of the conversation. It’s in our ears.

And when our brains don’t receive both sides of the conversation, our brain expresses irritation at being excluded from what we need in order to function normally.

Talk to Me !


Refrigerator Blindness

August 31st, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

I mostly think that what goes on inside this 1.5 pound chunk of grey meat is more wonderful than all of everything that goes on outside of it.

So there I am yesterday morning at the breakfast buffet in The Hampton Inn in Painted Post NY .

I’ve plunked a great steaming dollop of wake-me-up extra-strong in my paper cup.

I’ve peeled back and squeezed out two French Vanilla capsules of sweetened milk-stuff.

I’ve torn the corner of a sachet of sugar, tipped half the sachet in my cup, and leant the sachet against the stand for I’ll need that for my second cup in about 90 seconds.

All I need now is one of those brown plastic stir-sticks to mix it all in, after which I’ll drop the brown plastic stir-stick into the garbage along with the two empty creamer capsules.

I can do this!

  • Eyes front; no brown plastic stir-sticks.
  • Eyes scan left then back to centre; no brown plastic stir-sticks.
  • Eyes scan right then back to centre; no brown plastic stir-sticks.

What kind of hotel puts out the most lavish breakfast buffet in NY state and doesn’t provide brown plastic stir-sticks?

Young man next to me coughs politely and asks “Can I help you with something?”.

“Yes”, I respond, for we are in the same boat and both desperate for our first coffee. “I can’t find the brown plastic stir-sticks”.

He points to the beaker right in front of me, full of candy-striped plastic stir-sticks

My brain has decided it wants a brown plastic stir-stick, and my eyes/brain are therefore looking for brown plastic stir-sticks.

Nothing but brown plastic stir-sticks can be deemed success, so I’ve glossed right over candy-pink striped plastic stir-sticks because they aren’t brown plastic stir-sticks.

Talk to Me !


To Drive, or Not to Drive?

August 31st, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

This blog is about clear thinking, not sensational high-profile news stories.

That said, consider this morning’s Toronto Star article “ Jack Tobin sentenced to three years in prison for drunk-driving death ”.

Based on what is printed in the article we read that:

  • “ … a pickup truck that Tobin was driving packed with five other friends, all heavily drunk after a night out, in a rooftop parking lot …”

And

  • “Boxall told the judge Aug. 5, noting that Tobin never intended to drive home that night …”

That doesn’t make sense to me.

Six of you are drunk in a roof-top parking lot, about as far away as you can get without some busy-body snooping around.

And you’re NOT thinking of driving yourself home?

All six of you “heavily drunk”, no designated driver.

The bottom line is this: Whoever was in control of the vehicle was drunk.

Regardless of intentions.

And that, I believe, is against the local law.

Talk to Me !


Women Who Just Want to Be Equal with Men

August 26th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

Today’s Toronto Star article “ Group denied permit to march topless ” caught my attention, as it was designed to do.

It contains a quote by Sylvie Chabot, one of the event’s planners. “We’re women who just want to be equal with men, that’s all,” she said.

Ignoring the saucy aspect of topless women, and the caveat that “Raelians see themselves as atheists, but believe scientists from another planet came to Earth and created all life. They hold liberal views on sexuality, which forms a major part of the religion”, let’s focus on Clear Thinking for a moment:-

Ask yourself about the labels “Men” and “Women” or, as it was explained to me 25 years ago “men” and “Womb-men”, that is there are men (ho-hum, boring!) and then there are men-with-a-womb (something special!) and by extension “humans” and “humans-with-a-Womb”.

We use two labels for hairless bipeds because, well, hairless bipeds fall into two distinct groups: Those with a womb (who nurture a fertilized egg for 9 months) and those without a womb (whose need is limited to just a few minutes. If that.

Now we have two labels because there are two different types of humans, and these types ARE different. We are agreed on that.

So how on earth can two groups which are, by definition, different, be equal?

A counter-counter-argument runs “Ah! By ‘equal’ we meant to say ‘be treated equally’”, but even this is not possible.

Why SHOULD we treat a human with egg-carrying, child-bearing capabilities the same as the other type? Each type has special needs. The obvious one of diet in the case of women, who, by the 9th month are eating-for-two.

Better would be to recognize the differences, account for them, and ignore the similarities.

P.S. I am fascinated by diminutive women steering a 200-ton dump truck with as much ease as the traditional beer-bellied chesty brawny 340-pound trucker. It’s all power-steering, see. We need brains in the cab, not brawn.

Talk to Me !


School of Business and Copyright

August 4th, 2011 by ChrisGreaves in Uncategorized

A recent Toronto Star article “ Direct downloads hit music, manufacturing ” contains a memorable quote by a lecturer that “I burned all my CDs to my hard drive in 2000, then gave them away to Goodwill”.

I haven’t thought about this a lot.

I don’t need to.

My understanding of copyright is that one can make copies for personal use, but not for any commercial gain, the idea being not to deny the recording artist/company the ability to make money selling copies of their CDs.

I think Goodwill is a great concept, but by burning CDs to a hard drive and then passing the CDs onto Goodwill, presumably for resale, aren’t we blatantly violating copyright?

Just as much as if I were to burn my CDs to hard disk and then give my CD collection to a friend, to save her the expense of buying CDs/

How do you feel about that?

Talk to Me !


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