It seems as if every contemporary identity conforms tightly to passively consuming the dismal excretions of this benighted age. Wherever you look, there are people insisting that what they are consuming is correct and necessary to a happy life. There is always the insistence that 'my kind need X too' (as if it were a surprising epiphany) and other ridiculous rhetoric such as inherent uniqueness. These beliefs have always been enthusiastically embraced, ruthlessly mocked, or completely ignored depending on the relative wisdom and maturity of the observer. There is one sort of contemporary identity that excels at absorbing all others and is generally 'on the make' as they say.
In 2007 there began an incredible shift in the behavior of Ur Hipsters, and/or they were found to possess certain interests and traits that, innocently enough, bordered the long dormant cultural powerhouse sometimes referred to as 'nerd culture'. Suddenly the coolest individual at the bar who liked the right music, played on the most epic amateur sports team, fucked the most attractive people, and partied the hardest was busy painting W40K miniatures as a hobby, played D&D on Sundays, and knew how to code. By 2013 there is a weird sense in the air that 'nerdy' pursuits and habits are necessary just to communicate.
It is as a certain bad 80's movie had prophesied. Like any decent historical inevitability, the rise of nerd culture was complex and in many ways self-fulfilling. The smart, awkward kid getting bullied in the 70's and 80's grew up into a normalized yuppie or yupster or suave po-mo individualist making good money doing engineering work or intense research or crucial computer work. Good or bad, they acted as the lifeblood of modernity. Their progeny, the current generation of 'young nerds' and/or the current 'nerd wave' movement, is an entirely different animal. Arguably, despite the surprising population of well-adjusted and balanced nerds, there is evidence to suggest that the much of the modern wave is quixotic, dysfunctional, and generally disinterested in aging measures of success such as social popularity, physical fitness, conformity, and party intensity.
I always get the idea that the mainstream nerd movement left the rails completely in the early 2000s. I get this idea because of the link posted above, wherein (and you might have missed this) a reality TV show tailored to nerds actually existed. The comicbook-style text boxes were so tasteful, so apt. There never was a nerd movement as such (as it was anecdotal to many other factors), but the word itself has gained such traction with increasing numbers of people, that one might rightly be said to exist at this point. And to be perfectly blunt, from the perspective of the modern identity fetish, it was probably a long time coming. Also completely inevitable. Mind you: I am no expert on nerd history, nor would I ever claim to be one.
Showing posts with label entropy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label entropy. Show all posts
11/19/12
Identity and its Discontents; Exceptionalism and You
There was a time I'd have considered someone a hipster just for using the word 'bromance'. That day is long past, but the feeling remains that too many people dance a bit close to the sociocultural archetypes they claim to hate. Not that I'd care about it at this late juncture. It's just one of the few calming thoughts I'm allowed each day. Goddamn, but I'd let them have it. And there were plenty of girls who, as soon as you and her boyfriend were smoking pot together three times a week, or playing some stupid console game together, would pronounce the entire thing a 'bromance'. It was embarrassing each time. It was just a word that had caught far too much momentum, but I never quite managed to get away from it. It was always there, lurking in someone's brain where it was least expected.
Then the term hipster gained an insane amount of weight overnight. One day it was limited to the actual people one would term hipsters, and the next day it was in everyone's mouth, like saliva. Years of ubiquity and overuse have made this word so resonant that it doesn't even really mean anything anymore. This is partly because the original hipsters died more than a century ago, for the most part, and this tenth wave lacks coherence. Nobody can say that Oscar Wilde wasn't a hipster and he wasn't even [critically un-hip] England's first. Dandies were probably third-wave hipsters, even. All of which goes to say, the term is misused constantly even by people who should know better, and the critical ignorance surrounding the term or its history (1950's highpoint anyone?) just makes it an embarrassing statement on our era's ideas concerning identity.
Mostly hipster is a brand thing, now. If you think the epitome is Vice you're probably right, but then again if you didn't know that you are part of the problem. Rich people have already invested in it, celebrities pay huge sums to appear more 'hipsterish', politicians probably use 'hipster' as shorthand for politically disengaged drunks and 'creatives'. There is an aggregate concept of an hipster. He typically wears flannel and, if nothing else, a mustache. She is typically wearing one piece of denim and often a toque. Everything else is overstated but vague. Random. Hell. It's not the worst social camouflage. These days you could get by on it. But of course, no matter who you are, you are going to be called a hipster by someone you know. It doesn't matter how carefully you cultivate your interests and it can happen even without a record player.
There are few things so fearsome as the current accepted models of politics and their adherents. Anarchists are largely undisciplined and immature. Conservatives are all gerontocrats, paternalists, and varying shades of militarist. It goes without saying that almost everyone is infatuated with or ignorant of the implications of continued statism. Liberals are preoccupied with everything, like they're cats and personal rights and privileges are catnip. But really these archetypes don't exist anymore. Probably they were never true, but everyone needs some reductionism or else things become difficult to consider. You have: people who are angry, people who are downtrodden, people who are doing what they are told, half-assed people, people who have disconnected in various ways, and people who think they know what the fuck is even happening and I don't know who to blame. I don't particularly like anybody's spiel right now.
Heh, Israel pounds Gaza would be a sick name for an anarchist-hipster occupist punk group. It's cool to different people to champion one group of people fighting another. This is sometimes referred to as tribalism. This concept is followed by 'exceptionalism' which is, as it sounds, an exceptionally important type of bullshit. People with doubts about the situation that created recent global tensions: be ready to be called an anti-Semite, another term watered-down and thrown around a lot. It's like how 'fascist' used to be, in the 80's, when neoconservatism was indoctrinating its brood, fattening its captains and psychopomps, and massacring its foes in many colorful and atrocious ways. It's easier to ignore these ugly spectacles, but they still affect people. Imagine a tiny explosion, inside an aquarium that is constantly getting hotter, smaller, and busier. Imagine all the stupid things the fish would be telling each other about this explosion while the water drained out.
Yeah there's still albums to review. There's still tens of page views per day to aim for. Giving up hope is stupid and there's no grain of truth in the suggestion that the world will end on Dec 21, 2012. The Pope even said it wasn't going to happen. There are jokes. Laugh about it. Things will go on. We will not get away from the problematics of our time so easily. Maybe we'll go back to patting ourselves on the back for doing the right thing, for buying one less gadget a year, for putting one kilo less matter into a landfill, for backing 'the good guys' while appreciating the plight of the underdog, for voting, for altruism, for proselytizing our beliefs, for not giving up, for getting up earlier to exercise, for calling mom and dad because they would like to hear from you, for slapping a friend's smartphone away from them when they're not paying attention, for giving a brutal douchebag a hard time, for not shouting down our opponents, for... &c. We're going to feel good about ourselves and we're not going to think about it because feeling anything else is unthinkable and the worst kind of suffering. We are not going to become self-aware, so in some ways we are going to continue to approach disaster. I don't think we're too close yet, but that is really just hope, not expectation.
But don't for a moment forget how truly expensive all this free entertainment is. Better yet, think about that while you're out Christmas shopping and you get frustrated because you're uncomfortable standing in a slow line, helping to outsource your country's economy, or having trouble finding a parking spot.
Then the term hipster gained an insane amount of weight overnight. One day it was limited to the actual people one would term hipsters, and the next day it was in everyone's mouth, like saliva. Years of ubiquity and overuse have made this word so resonant that it doesn't even really mean anything anymore. This is partly because the original hipsters died more than a century ago, for the most part, and this tenth wave lacks coherence. Nobody can say that Oscar Wilde wasn't a hipster and he wasn't even [critically un-hip] England's first. Dandies were probably third-wave hipsters, even. All of which goes to say, the term is misused constantly even by people who should know better, and the critical ignorance surrounding the term or its history (1950's highpoint anyone?) just makes it an embarrassing statement on our era's ideas concerning identity.
Mostly hipster is a brand thing, now. If you think the epitome is Vice you're probably right, but then again if you didn't know that you are part of the problem. Rich people have already invested in it, celebrities pay huge sums to appear more 'hipsterish', politicians probably use 'hipster' as shorthand for politically disengaged drunks and 'creatives'. There is an aggregate concept of an hipster. He typically wears flannel and, if nothing else, a mustache. She is typically wearing one piece of denim and often a toque. Everything else is overstated but vague. Random. Hell. It's not the worst social camouflage. These days you could get by on it. But of course, no matter who you are, you are going to be called a hipster by someone you know. It doesn't matter how carefully you cultivate your interests and it can happen even without a record player.
There are few things so fearsome as the current accepted models of politics and their adherents. Anarchists are largely undisciplined and immature. Conservatives are all gerontocrats, paternalists, and varying shades of militarist. It goes without saying that almost everyone is infatuated with or ignorant of the implications of continued statism. Liberals are preoccupied with everything, like they're cats and personal rights and privileges are catnip. But really these archetypes don't exist anymore. Probably they were never true, but everyone needs some reductionism or else things become difficult to consider. You have: people who are angry, people who are downtrodden, people who are doing what they are told, half-assed people, people who have disconnected in various ways, and people who think they know what the fuck is even happening and I don't know who to blame. I don't particularly like anybody's spiel right now.
Heh, Israel pounds Gaza would be a sick name for an anarchist-hipster occupist punk group. It's cool to different people to champion one group of people fighting another. This is sometimes referred to as tribalism. This concept is followed by 'exceptionalism' which is, as it sounds, an exceptionally important type of bullshit. People with doubts about the situation that created recent global tensions: be ready to be called an anti-Semite, another term watered-down and thrown around a lot. It's like how 'fascist' used to be, in the 80's, when neoconservatism was indoctrinating its brood, fattening its captains and psychopomps, and massacring its foes in many colorful and atrocious ways. It's easier to ignore these ugly spectacles, but they still affect people. Imagine a tiny explosion, inside an aquarium that is constantly getting hotter, smaller, and busier. Imagine all the stupid things the fish would be telling each other about this explosion while the water drained out.
Yeah there's still albums to review. There's still tens of page views per day to aim for. Giving up hope is stupid and there's no grain of truth in the suggestion that the world will end on Dec 21, 2012. The Pope even said it wasn't going to happen. There are jokes. Laugh about it. Things will go on. We will not get away from the problematics of our time so easily. Maybe we'll go back to patting ourselves on the back for doing the right thing, for buying one less gadget a year, for putting one kilo less matter into a landfill, for backing 'the good guys' while appreciating the plight of the underdog, for voting, for altruism, for proselytizing our beliefs, for not giving up, for getting up earlier to exercise, for calling mom and dad because they would like to hear from you, for slapping a friend's smartphone away from them when they're not paying attention, for giving a brutal douchebag a hard time, for not shouting down our opponents, for... &c. We're going to feel good about ourselves and we're not going to think about it because feeling anything else is unthinkable and the worst kind of suffering. We are not going to become self-aware, so in some ways we are going to continue to approach disaster. I don't think we're too close yet, but that is really just hope, not expectation.
But don't for a moment forget how truly expensive all this free entertainment is. Better yet, think about that while you're out Christmas shopping and you get frustrated because you're uncomfortable standing in a slow line, helping to outsource your country's economy, or having trouble finding a parking spot.
9/19/12
North American Politics Redux
That the governments of North America function as ears into which special interest groups pour their bile shouldn't surprise a single thinking person. The best part is the most worrying: there is no more point in even pretending to aim for a government which serves the people. The best one can hope for is a government that serves corporate interest, foreign investment, itself, and its elites and prays earnestly for that service to trickle down into the cracks where dwell the invisible, rotten peons which they have struggled to get away from.
In this era, where the American dream could be dismantled for the pernicious, self-destructive, blind and ignorant mess that it is, there are entire groups of people with frothing mouths trying to blame anyone for the demise of their beloved ideal. Instead of doing the American thing and hardening up and finding something better and smarter, they still worship the car cult, the sprawl cult, and the consumption cult. Bridges are fabricated in China and assembled by foreign labor in America. Nobody can do a goddamned thing about it, no matter how shameful it is, because American manufacturing and labor have been gutted in the interests of iPhones, service-industry, and the downright vampiric finance industry (which, rightfully, is more of a quack cottage industry, as its very nature is antithetical to true industry, which creates products of value).
A populace distrustful of its government moves apathetically to cast its meaningless votes into the mire of corruption and ineptitude that will bring them an even more degraded government. Someone says he doesn't care about roughly half of a country – well of course, nobody ever has, or will, and if this percentage would only dream the right dream of wastefulness and satiety then they could pull themselves out of poverty and darkness.
Meanwhile democracy is a dead byword, remembered by some, but truly forgotten by all. We have several hundred statist, nationalist, authoritarian and totalitarian pieces of shit running the world. All of them are lackeys to the 'real players' who wish, respectfully, not to be named or pointed at. Yet we consume their products each day. It's harder to farm food than it is to process it into unhealthy products to sell to masses, which it poisons into leprous lumps which look forward only to the faded idiotic 'leisure time' involving yet more consumption and little else.
Big bad governments pass hundreds of laws and amendments in so-called 'omnibus bills' which politicians are too lazy and inept to read and understand. All sorts of toxic policy are passed into law without so much as a cursory glance, and the culprits are paid and pampered, travel around the world, and don't even bother to defend their use of public money or trust in such a despicable way. The instigator even allows that it is undemocratic and scary, but continues doing it anyway, because god damn doing work you are paid and trusted to do. Revolutionaries, under these pressures and more, are still branded as idealists, idiots, and heretics. The placid horde feeds on scraps from the table and licks its chops contentedly, smiling at the less fortunate.
In some considerable and old parts of the world, a potentially faked video has caused a number of deaths because it portrays a prophet in an unfair and unkindly light. Free speech is cited and forgotten, and outrage is the rule of the day. If only outrage was the rule of the day, and apathy didn't rule, where truly important and existential affairs are concerned. As we pass into the twilight of this era, hoping for a better tomorrow, we would do well to remember the words of one J.J. Rousseau. That is, if any among us can remember them.
In this era, where the American dream could be dismantled for the pernicious, self-destructive, blind and ignorant mess that it is, there are entire groups of people with frothing mouths trying to blame anyone for the demise of their beloved ideal. Instead of doing the American thing and hardening up and finding something better and smarter, they still worship the car cult, the sprawl cult, and the consumption cult. Bridges are fabricated in China and assembled by foreign labor in America. Nobody can do a goddamned thing about it, no matter how shameful it is, because American manufacturing and labor have been gutted in the interests of iPhones, service-industry, and the downright vampiric finance industry (which, rightfully, is more of a quack cottage industry, as its very nature is antithetical to true industry, which creates products of value).
A populace distrustful of its government moves apathetically to cast its meaningless votes into the mire of corruption and ineptitude that will bring them an even more degraded government. Someone says he doesn't care about roughly half of a country – well of course, nobody ever has, or will, and if this percentage would only dream the right dream of wastefulness and satiety then they could pull themselves out of poverty and darkness.
Meanwhile democracy is a dead byword, remembered by some, but truly forgotten by all. We have several hundred statist, nationalist, authoritarian and totalitarian pieces of shit running the world. All of them are lackeys to the 'real players' who wish, respectfully, not to be named or pointed at. Yet we consume their products each day. It's harder to farm food than it is to process it into unhealthy products to sell to masses, which it poisons into leprous lumps which look forward only to the faded idiotic 'leisure time' involving yet more consumption and little else.
Big bad governments pass hundreds of laws and amendments in so-called 'omnibus bills' which politicians are too lazy and inept to read and understand. All sorts of toxic policy are passed into law without so much as a cursory glance, and the culprits are paid and pampered, travel around the world, and don't even bother to defend their use of public money or trust in such a despicable way. The instigator even allows that it is undemocratic and scary, but continues doing it anyway, because god damn doing work you are paid and trusted to do. Revolutionaries, under these pressures and more, are still branded as idealists, idiots, and heretics. The placid horde feeds on scraps from the table and licks its chops contentedly, smiling at the less fortunate.
In some considerable and old parts of the world, a potentially faked video has caused a number of deaths because it portrays a prophet in an unfair and unkindly light. Free speech is cited and forgotten, and outrage is the rule of the day. If only outrage was the rule of the day, and apathy didn't rule, where truly important and existential affairs are concerned. As we pass into the twilight of this era, hoping for a better tomorrow, we would do well to remember the words of one J.J. Rousseau. That is, if any among us can remember them.
1/10/11
Slurring Verses
One early morning I was looking up advice about noise pollution. From insulation, all the way to polite confrontation, went the advice I found. I found a page that I should've bookmarked which talked about gift baskets. Elsewhere I was advised to defuse the situation with some baked breads – which is disturbing if you have a perverse mind and even if you accept the words literally. Try solving anything beyond hunger with a home baked bread.
Baskets of gifts are pretty ostentatious, insulation is expense, and confrontation is the Achilles' heel of the misanthrope. I always think I'll figure out some devious cure to problems I may just be exaggerating. At least, that's what I think I do, but the truth is probably a bit more convoluted. In any case, I went wrong by seeking advice on the internet, and that's really the extent of the issue.
I am definitely not against the internet, but I can't imagine all the things it might've been if it wasn't immediately harnessed by nonsense. Things the inter-ignorant don't know much about, such as trolls, are actually becoming more common. Drastically more common, as a quick look at any forum or comment section (itself the curse of our stunningly obsessive and pathological habits) will prove.
But 'troll' has been a metaphor always, and not a bad one at that. I guess at one point a person could point at a nonsensically aggravating individual and say,
At the same time I have myself been guilty of being a troll in the past, and part of me looks at troll-problems as a function of karma - perhaps the ultimate expression of foot in one's mouth. If that's the case I need to be able to accurately measure karma, or else I'll never know when I should become its agent. Agent of Karma (good movie title +/- concept).
And noise pollution is itself kind of an interesting concept. Even good enough that someone could make a movie about it, but I suppose it is still rather misunderstood. It really exists, though, and you have to believe this. The best example is careless placement of wind chimes; maybe purposeful muffler alteration.
Wind chimes are not offensive in theory, but in practice, or windy areas, can get ridiculous. This is because they do not rest, and instead go on chiming at all hours. And chimes generate sharp noise, so the sound can travel a fair distance. Furthermore, if someone stands at a fair distance, and wishes to hear the night's elemental silence-music, they are forced to include the ostentatious music of chimes chiming in the breeze.
Muffler alteration for the sake of, say, noise, is probably the ultimate type of pollution. I'd say it borders on noise crime. I even know of a direct example of the power of even a small combustion engine.
Anyhow, trolls see noise-pollution as favorable because it allows them to broadcast themselves and trouble others. It's like interpersonal agitprop, or perhaps sonic graffiti, because it is deliberately noticeable and serves no noticeable purpose. I see it as a form of offensive excess, often used indiscriminately – why else the echo-mufflers of the world, the deafening car audio, F-1 racing?
It's always some more of that old noise pollution. Thunder isn't noise pollution because it is part of an inescapable process. Television and radio are (or can be, if you're conservative), because few people speak judiciously. Marching in sufficient force is kind of a noise pollution. And I almost forgot about noise cannons and sonic weaponry, which is paralleled only by microwave weaponry in terms of odiousness.
That's all just energy pollution but with a target. And, ultimately, aren't bullets pollution as well? Couldn't we as a planet come to some sort of awakened conversation about pollution? We are submerged in pollution, and the green team has monopolized it in the name of ecological commonsense, but other very real types of pollution exist.
Perhaps, reader, and I am sorry to bring this up, but perhaps you are ignorant and you laugh. You think to yourself, "That untypical gentleman is throwing words together about things that he either invented or read about in an anonymous internet article written by, no doubt, a bunch of kooks and quacks." Maybe you don't even know or care about the multitude of disasters that have always existed, even that special class of disaster which is anthropogenic. If you do not care, you may be a troll.
Pollution, depending on how one defines it, is always the source of grief and stress in organisms. Therefore it can be communicated as a bad thing, a negative. So when one repays pollution with more pollution, one has two bad things, and is sure to come to grief by both of them. If one merely accepts the initial pollution, one still deals with grief, and if one ignores it, the pollution still goes on existing. One can try to portray pollution as a good thing, and maybe even believe the delusion, but that does not change what exists.
So there's a thing called Troll Pollution, and, to the average person, it's more of a big deal than climate change or the pole shift or the greasy atmosphere. I've been thinking about it, and suppose it's simply just a negative aura that self-perpetuates, and if you look closely at a lot of the human world and its alleged history, you can apply the concept of troll pollution to explain such diverse topics as:
Baskets of gifts are pretty ostentatious, insulation is expense, and confrontation is the Achilles' heel of the misanthrope. I always think I'll figure out some devious cure to problems I may just be exaggerating. At least, that's what I think I do, but the truth is probably a bit more convoluted. In any case, I went wrong by seeking advice on the internet, and that's really the extent of the issue.
I am definitely not against the internet, but I can't imagine all the things it might've been if it wasn't immediately harnessed by nonsense. Things the inter-ignorant don't know much about, such as trolls, are actually becoming more common. Drastically more common, as a quick look at any forum or comment section (itself the curse of our stunningly obsessive and pathological habits) will prove.
But 'troll' has been a metaphor always, and not a bad one at that. I guess at one point a person could point at a nonsensically aggravating individual and say,
"Fuck off, you churl!"
I write that academically, of course. I guess what I'm looking for, accurately, is advice for living with the daily trolls of the universe. I need a solution that works for any troll situation.At the same time I have myself been guilty of being a troll in the past, and part of me looks at troll-problems as a function of karma - perhaps the ultimate expression of foot in one's mouth. If that's the case I need to be able to accurately measure karma, or else I'll never know when I should become its agent. Agent of Karma (good movie title +/- concept).
And noise pollution is itself kind of an interesting concept. Even good enough that someone could make a movie about it, but I suppose it is still rather misunderstood. It really exists, though, and you have to believe this. The best example is careless placement of wind chimes; maybe purposeful muffler alteration.
Wind chimes are not offensive in theory, but in practice, or windy areas, can get ridiculous. This is because they do not rest, and instead go on chiming at all hours. And chimes generate sharp noise, so the sound can travel a fair distance. Furthermore, if someone stands at a fair distance, and wishes to hear the night's elemental silence-music, they are forced to include the ostentatious music of chimes chiming in the breeze.
Muffler alteration for the sake of, say, noise, is probably the ultimate type of pollution. I'd say it borders on noise crime. I even know of a direct example of the power of even a small combustion engine.
Anyhow, trolls see noise-pollution as favorable because it allows them to broadcast themselves and trouble others. It's like interpersonal agitprop, or perhaps sonic graffiti, because it is deliberately noticeable and serves no noticeable purpose. I see it as a form of offensive excess, often used indiscriminately – why else the echo-mufflers of the world, the deafening car audio, F-1 racing?
It's always some more of that old noise pollution. Thunder isn't noise pollution because it is part of an inescapable process. Television and radio are (or can be, if you're conservative), because few people speak judiciously. Marching in sufficient force is kind of a noise pollution. And I almost forgot about noise cannons and sonic weaponry, which is paralleled only by microwave weaponry in terms of odiousness.
That's all just energy pollution but with a target. And, ultimately, aren't bullets pollution as well? Couldn't we as a planet come to some sort of awakened conversation about pollution? We are submerged in pollution, and the green team has monopolized it in the name of ecological commonsense, but other very real types of pollution exist.
Perhaps, reader, and I am sorry to bring this up, but perhaps you are ignorant and you laugh. You think to yourself, "That untypical gentleman is throwing words together about things that he either invented or read about in an anonymous internet article written by, no doubt, a bunch of kooks and quacks." Maybe you don't even know or care about the multitude of disasters that have always existed, even that special class of disaster which is anthropogenic. If you do not care, you may be a troll.
Pollution, depending on how one defines it, is always the source of grief and stress in organisms. Therefore it can be communicated as a bad thing, a negative. So when one repays pollution with more pollution, one has two bad things, and is sure to come to grief by both of them. If one merely accepts the initial pollution, one still deals with grief, and if one ignores it, the pollution still goes on existing. One can try to portray pollution as a good thing, and maybe even believe the delusion, but that does not change what exists.
So there's a thing called Troll Pollution, and, to the average person, it's more of a big deal than climate change or the pole shift or the greasy atmosphere. I've been thinking about it, and suppose it's simply just a negative aura that self-perpetuates, and if you look closely at a lot of the human world and its alleged history, you can apply the concept of troll pollution to explain such diverse topics as:
- Fights ending in death
- Theft
- Injustice – casual or severe
- Contention
- Fraud
- Noise pollution
- Jackasses
- Discrimination, hate crimes
- Psychologically damaging circumstances
- Fights ending in serious and/or life-threatening injury
- Consumerism, Postmodernism
- Authoritarianism, Feudalism, Anarchism
- 'Anarchism'
- Statism, Legalism, Recidivism, elitism
- Depression, Indigestion, Castration, Defenestration
- Charlatanism
- Entropy
- This blog post.
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