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Elon Musk: Officially a fraud and piece of shit. Official or unofficial war criminal?


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21 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

 

 

It's.  All. A. Scam.

The overlap between Tesla's profitability model, crypto bros, Elon fanbois, Twitter "free speech absolutists?"  Every one of those circles overlaps at the "scam" intersection.  How this became one of our dominant cultural identities, I have no idea, but here we are.

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Hmmm...do I believe Space Karen Holmes Musk, who didn't earn even an undergraduate degree let alone the space physicist education he claims, or the George Westinghouse Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon?

Quote

Raj Rajkumar, a professor of computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, doubts that Tesla can fix the problems cited by NHTSA with a software update. The automaker, he says, relies only on cameras and artificial intellingence to make driving decisions, a system that will make mistakes.

“Cameras can miss a lot of things," Rajkumar said. “These are not straightforward issues to fix. If they could have fixed it, they would have fixed it a long time back.”

Most other companies with self-driving vehicles use laser sensors and radar in addition to cameras to make sure vehicles see everything. “One sensing modality is not perfect by any metric,” Rajkumar said.

He questioned whether NHTSA will require testing before the software update is sent out to make sure it works. A NHTSA spokeswoman did not have an immediate answer to that question but the agency's statement said it will monitor the recall remedies to make sure they're effective.

 

8izrzGjrT.gif

edit - I missed a part of the prof's bio

image.thumb.png.c0492ab562d7e3eea4e8c10e4b560729.png

 

Edited by Chopper
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Just now, Chopper said:

Hmmm...do I believe Space Karen Holmes Musk, or the George Westinghouse Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon?

8izrzGjrT.gif

 

Elmo will surely tweet back some super-clever internet-y response about how cameras are awesome, something like "Your self-driving program is worthless without pics!"

And all the fanbois will laugh and adore him because -- and I QUOTE -- his "meme game is strong."  So, suck on that, beta boys!

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35 minutes ago, Slacks said:

brother... sorry to inform, but the U.S. economy is based on scam.

that land that people somehow own that was acquired at almost no cost? scam.

that free labor? scam.

those 'bootleggers' that weren't jailed for being dealers, and became industry titans and forefathers of the country? scam.

an entire financial model built on fiat currency that the banks can create via loans that become immediate deposits leading to more loans, repeating to infinity? scam.

creating monopolies, breaking them up for the alleged purpose of competition and price fairness, and then bringing them back together? scam.

Cocaine Importing Agency selling drugs in the U.S. in order to fund guerillas in foreign lands and incarcerate brown people in the U.S.? scam.

Arthur f'n Andersen and Enron? scam.

destroying the infrastructure of countries, then sending U.S. tax dollars to the the country to rebuild, but sole sourcing the rebuilding to your own company. scam.

Lehman Bros and mortgage backed securities? scam.

big 12 referees calling unsportsmanlike conduct on Charlie Strong. scam.

 

all of our shit is a scam, but it works when everyone is bought in, so it becomes reality. pick your scam and go with it.

I mean......fair.   Not entirely right, but goddammit, I love the dark cynicism.  You can come out here on the ledge anytime, friend!

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Really well thought out, Elron...

https://jalopnik.com/theres-a-reason-most-car-companies-dont-use-stainless-s-1850082421

 

"A car absorbing the impact around the driver is a pretty critical piece of crash safety. Not only will stainless steel divert more of the energy of a crash to the people inside, the metal is difficult to work with when it comes to minor fender-benders. While tougher than traditional steel and fiberglass vehicles, stainless steel is a pain to repair once damaged. The flat body panels also make any damage more obvious, but it seems to be the best way to utilize stainless steel, considering it is difficult to stamp and bend."

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31 minutes ago, texasdago said:

Really well thought out, Elron...

https://jalopnik.com/theres-a-reason-most-car-companies-dont-use-stainless-s-1850082421

 

"A car absorbing the impact around the driver is a pretty critical piece of crash safety. Not only will stainless steel divert more of the energy of a crash to the people inside, the metal is difficult to work with when it comes to minor fender-benders. While tougher than traditional steel and fiberglass vehicles, stainless steel is a pain to repair once damaged. The flat body panels also make any damage more obvious, but it seems to be the best way to utilize stainless steel, considering it is difficult to stamp and bend."

from the same article. this says everything you need to know about TSLA

Quote

the last new product introduced by the company, the Tesla Model Y, came out in 2020

from comments of that article:

Quote

Stainless Steel only worked on the DMC-12 because the panels were not structural in any way. The doors were stronger for collisions but every panel bolted onto the fiberglass body tub.

another fun thing with stainless is that stuff keeps a razor sharp edge and you have to grind it down. Delorean inner door skins are no fun

 

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https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-staff-company-tracks-key-strokes-make-sure-working-report-2023-2
 

Spoiler

Autopilot workers at Tesla's New York plant said the company tracks their keystrokes to make sure they're actively working throughout the day, according to a recent report from Bloomberg.

The tracking feature allows managers to see how long employees spend on each assignment, as well as how active they are on the computer throughout the day, Bloomberg reported. Six Tesla employees told the publication that they've avoided taking bathroom breaks due to the system.

The workers at the plant in Buffalo, New York are paid about $19 per hour to label data collected from beta testers for Tesla's self-driving software, Bloomber reported. On Tuesday, the workers emailed Elon Musk to inform the billionaire of their union campaign, which aims to secure better pay and benefits, as well as curb the workplace monitoring system, per the report.

A spokesperson for Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from Insider ahead of publication.

Spoiler

It's not the first time that Tesla has faced allegations that it tracks employees. Insider reported last year that Tesla began tracking workers' office attendance using an automated system to track when staff badged in or out of its offices. The company has been known to push lofty production goals and Musk has expressed doubt about the American work ethic in the past.

Last year, the Tesla CEO said in "America people are trying to avoid going to work at all." The billionaire made the comments shortly before informing staff that they will need to commit to returning to the office for at least 40 hours a week or resign. Musk has expressed similar sentiments at Twitter as well, where the CEO has asked for staff to print up their code and send him updates of work they've done each week.

Workplace monitoring systems appears to be a growing trend. Last year, The New York Times reported that about eight out of the ten largest private US employers track staff productivity. The publication detailed multiple methods companies had employed to measure workers' productivity, from tracking mouse clicks and keystrokes to having staff take random photos to insure the workers were at their computers.

The practice of workplace surveillance has been a point of contention since the pandemic promoted the rise of remote work. In September, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said managers are plagued by "productivity paranoia" due to remote work. Though, Microsoft vice president Jared Spataro said that the company has taken a "strong stance" against worker surveillance.
 

We don't think that employers should be surveilling and taking note of the activity of keystrokes and mouse clicks and those types of things because, in so many ways, we feel like that's measuring heat rather than outcome," Spataro said at the time.

I’m sure Elon and Tesla are always on the up and up and don’t use the key logging technology to steal passwords to personal email accounts of union organizers or anything like that :eyeroll 

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27 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

Class Action Lawsuit

Anyone dumb enough to pay $15k for self driving vaporware is an Elon knob sloberrer and there's no way that they're going to admit that their god is fallible.

Edited by royiv
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Also Space Karen, quite belatedly, (kind of) denied the accusations in the Platformer article that he got all emo about his twitter engagement and ordered changes so his would zoom to the top, and has threatened to file a lawsuit. Reminds me of some other clown but I can't quite remember who that clown is.

So per Space Karen, there is a source, a person who he has somehow pinpointed, despite the fact that person hasn't worked at twitter for months, and whom is getting paid by twitter, even though they've accepted a job already from google. Seems perfectly clear.

Edited by Chopper
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17 minutes ago, Chopper said:

Also Space Karen, quite belatedly, (kind of) denied the accusations in the Platformer article that he got all emo about his twitter engagement and ordered changes so his would zoom to the top, and has threatened to file a lawsuit. Reminds me of some other clown but I can't quite remember who that clown is.

So per Space Karen, there is a source, a person who he has somehow pinpointed, despite the fact that person hasn't worked at twitter for months, and whom is getting paid by twitter, even though they've accepted a job already from google. Seems perfectly clear.

He won’t sue but discovery on that one would be fun.

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21 minutes ago, Chopper said:

Also Space Karen, quite belatedly, (kind of) denied the accusations in the Platformer article that he got all emo about his twitter engagement and ordered changes so his would zoom to the top, and has threatened to file a lawsuit. Reminds me of some other clown but I can't quite remember who that clown is.

So per Space Karen, there is a source, a person who he has somehow pinpointed, despite the fact that person hasn't worked at twitter for months, and whom is getting paid by twitter, even though they've accepted a job already from google. Seems perfectly clear.

I think the best response to that should simply be "we welcome such a lawsuit.  Our registered agent for service of process is XYZ at address ABC.  And please see the attached Notice of Deposition to take your deposition.  The date and time are not yet filled in, we will of course work with you to find a suitable date within 30 days of you filing suit.  We are confident that you are looking forward to the opportunity to tell the truth.  Right? [And then actually post a PDF of the drafted Notice in the case of Twitter vs. My Journalism Outlet, leaving the blanks for case number and court assignment]."

Or, alternatively, a response of "Bring it, you cowardly little bitch.   You don't have the fucking balls."

Either one.

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On 2/16/2023 at 12:54 PM, Brisketexan said:

Love this, ummm, "summary:"

TLDR version: "The FSD Beta system, ummm, doesn't work."

 

On 2/16/2023 at 1:16 PM, royiv said:

Imagine being such a moron that you're willing to pay $15k for software that doesn't work.

 

On 2/16/2023 at 1:23 PM, Biff Tannen said:

This is why I never upgraded to it.  I never thought it would actually end in a recall though.  Good god.  Talk about nose diving off a cliff.

FSD has always been sold as a future capability.  You buy an option now at a lower price for a future capability (level 5 autonomy) that will cost a lot more when fully developed.  In the meantime, you get some cool additional functionality.  It's all about whether or not you believe that the capability will be developed during the life of that vehicle. 

Why will level 5 autonomy be so valuable when achieved?  You now own capital that can earn passive income as a robotaxi.  Personally, I think that this is a capability that will be achieved within the next half decade or so.  I'll buy a new car and then my FSD Model 3 can go off and work as a robotaxi while I do other things.  Once level 5 autonomy is achieved, an FSD vehicle could recoup the $15K cost in less than a year.  

My Model 3 is two years old.  I bought FSD when it was $8K.  My car has had FSD beta for the last 14 months.  My car can, in fact, drive without intervention from point A to B.  It's not perfect, which is why driver attention and at times intervention is required.  I don't feel cheated or duped, because I knew that I was buying an option (with some risk) that came with some interim capability, all of which I still have. 

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52 minutes ago, Chopper said:

Also Space Karen, quite belatedly, (kind of) denied the accusations in the Platformer article that he got all emo about his twitter engagement and ordered changes so his would zoom to the top, and has threatened to file a lawsuit. Reminds me of some other clown but I can't quite remember who that clown is.

So per Space Karen, there is a source, a person who he has somehow pinpointed, despite the fact that person hasn't worked at twitter for months, and whom is getting paid by twitter, even though they've accepted a job already from google. Seems perfectly clear.

He already admitted to the facts in the article with the milk drinking picture. But now he’s suing someone. Ummm for what exactly?

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30 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

 

 

FSD has always been sold as a future capability.  You buy an option now at a lower price for a future capability (level 5 autonomy) that will cost a lot more when fully developed.  In the meantime, you get some cool additional functionality.  It's all about whether or not you believe that the capability will be developed during the life of that vehicle. 

Why will level 5 autonomy be so valuable when achieved?  You now own capital that can earn passive income as a robotaxi.  Personally, I think that this is a capability that will be achieved within the next half decade or so.  I'll buy a new car and then my FSD Model 3 can go off and work as a robotaxi while I do other things.  Once level 5 autonomy is achieved, an FSD vehicle could recoup the $15K cost in less than a year.  

My Model 3 is two years old.  I bought FSD when it was $8K.  My car has had FSD beta for the last 14 months.  My car can, in fact, drive without intervention from point A to B.  It's not perfect, which is why driver attention and at times intervention is required.  I don't feel cheated or duped, because I knew that I was buying an option (with some risk) that came with some interim capability, all of which I still have. 

A fool and his money...

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6 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

Maybe.  Jury is still out.  But I have a pretty cool toy in the meantime.  

Just for grins, how much per mile do you expect to make with your hypothetical robotaxi? Once the barrier to entry is reduced by not needing a driver, again hypothetical, what makes you think that the market won't be flooded with robotaxis? What in Tesla's history makes you confident that they will achieve level 5 autonomy in half a decade? We're talking about a company that has a corporate ethos to over promise and under deliver.

Edited by royiv
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3 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

So, they’ve sold billions (with a b) dollars worth of the $15,000 fake self driving software?  How is there not already the mother of all deceptive trade practices cases about to rain down on them?

3 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

Class Action Lawsuit

One of the Tesla drives in our neighborhood (not an Elon fanboy, but a tech fanboy - I remember him buying one of the first Priuses in Austin when they came out) said he's been in touch with lawyers about a couple of things.  He didn't go into details because nothing is filed yet, other than saying that it's a bunch of Tesla owners in the Austin area that are talking to some lawyers, and there's a lot of them.  Whether that pans out, I have no idea, but he joked that he's only holding onto the Tesla until they decide what to do with the lawyers.  I would imagine a shitload of people are pissed over the $15,000 thing.

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47 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

Why will level 5 autonomy be so valuable when achieved?  You now own capital that can earn passive income as a robotaxi.  Personally, I think that this is a capability that will be achieved within the next half decade or so.  I'll buy a new car and then my FSD Model 3 can go off and work as a robotaxi while I do other things.  Once level 5 autonomy is achieved, an FSD vehicle could recoup the $15K cost in less than a year.  

My Model 3 is two years old.  I bought FSD when it was $8K.  My car has had FSD beta for the last 14 months.  My car can, in fact, drive without intervention from point A to B.  It's not perfect, which is why driver attention and at times intervention is required.  I don't feel cheated or duped, because I knew that I was buying an option (with some risk) that came with some interim capability, all of which I still have. 

Did they add radar and other sensors to your Model 3?  Because it sounds like that's a part of the problem and needed to address the problems that the cameras aren't solving.

Also, what happens if your "robotaxi" is involved in a crash?  Tesla will damn sure not be on the hook.  Will insurance companies even want to touch self-driving cars that have no drivers in them and that are lacking a lot of sensors, especially if it's a business?  Because if your robotaxi is in a wreck because of Tesla's software, and Tesla has made sure that they have no liability, I'm not sure insurance companies will be keen on that business model - I'd think they'd want many years of proof, and a lot more than some cameras and software.

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4 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Did they add radar and other sensors to your Model 3?  Because it sounds like that's a part of the problem and needed to address the problems that the cameras aren't solving.

Also, what happens if your "robotaxi" is involved in a crash?  Tesla will damn sure not be on the hook.  Will insurance companies even want to touch self-driving cars that have no drivers in them and that are lacking a lot of sensors, especially if it's a business?  Because if your robotaxi is in a wreck because of Tesla's software, and Tesla has made sure that they have no liability, I'm not sure insurance companies will be keen on that business model - I'd think they'd want many years of proof, and a lot more than some cameras and software.

My car has radar, but currently disabled in the latest software stack.  Tesla's philosophy is that human beings have been driving with vision only input for over a century, so they should be able to develop AI that can do the same, but with 360 vision and 100% attention.  The goal is to keep the system cost low so that it is more easily deployed at scale.  System cost increases greatly with LIDAR and other sensors.  

Tesla insurance (something they already do in-house in many states) will cover robotaxis just like Uber/Lyft cover drivers while they are driving for those companies.  At least that's the stated vision.

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1 minute ago, Guadaloopy said:

Tesla insurance (something they already do in-house in many states) will cover robotaxis just like Uber/Lyft cover drivers while they are driving for those companies.  At least that's the stated vision.

Musk is trying to nickel-and-dime the shit out of Twitter, so I wouldn't put anything past him in terms of financial liability concerning owners using their cars as driver-less robotaxis.

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My car has radar, but currently disabled in the latest software stack.  Tesla's philosophy is that human beings have been driving with vision only input for over a century, so they should be able to develop AI that can do the same, but with 360 vision and 100% attention.  The goal is to keep the system cost low so that it is more easily deployed at scale.  System cost increases greatly with LIDAR and other sensors.  


Do you want to know how you get exposed to punitive damages? What you just typed is how.
And “vision only input” is a dreadfully wrong assumption. We also drive with auditory input (ever react to screeching tires, a car horn, someone yelling word of warning, even the change in the sound of how your tires are making contact with the road? Most any decent driver has). And nevermind that our visual input isn’t just what we see, it’s how we process based on intuition and experience. It’s one of the things I taught my kids when they were learning, and it’s paid off - eg, “Look at the driver of the car on the other side of the intersection, the one that’s supposed to yield to you…are they even looking over here? Nope. Expect her to blow through her signal and not yield.” And that’s exactly what she does, we anticipated it, and avoided what would have been an “unavoidable” crash when she turned right into us.
AI will eventually be able to drive. But to make up for its inability to “think fuzzy,” it’s going to have to overcompensate with inputs and programming. Doing it on the cheap with cameras only is…not the way to get there. Arrogance gets people, and businesses, killed.
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 Tesla uses the term “vision only” but that is in reference to object detection and lane-keeping.  It does monitor interior microphones for sounds of sirens, alarms, etc.

While driving, our sense of hearing cues our primary sense of sight to look in a certain direction.  That’s not nearly as necessary when you have 360 degree visual coverage  that doesn’t blink or get distracted. 

The driver for the “vision only” decision isn’t arrogance, though Musk has no shortage of that.  It’s cost.  They want to build a system that is effective, but low cost so it can be sold and deployed at scale.  

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Ok while y'all are discussing the potential liability of robotaxis and Elon self insuring he's still busily wrecking Twitter. 

Spoutible seems to be the latest flavor. But, someone is going to put together a mimic of what Twitter used to be. Because it's getting fucky over there.

You used to have search options of News, Sports, Entertainment, y'know the typical categories. Now it's just Trending and For You. According to who and where the hell are the scores? Links to the discussion/shit slinging. You can't set the geo for Trends. You could have DFW or whatever. Now it's just Trending. Global? RedState psychobilly land? Where is this Trending? 

They took out the Most Recent Option and that was when it really started to get fucked up. Instead of the free flow it was constrained or filtered somehow. I have to go directly to the Tweeters I want to see. They stopped appearing on the timeline. I still follow them, but even on that feed it's not the same. 

IG ain't it. It's just not the same bite sized delivery that you can get with Twitter. Maybe if I make an account that only does sports, or politics. But, it's a damn shame he fucked up something that had a reasonably good thing going. 

Y'all carry on with the other shit he's fucking up.

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30 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

Because it's getting fucky over there.

You used to have search options of News, Sports, Entertainment, y'know the typical categories. Now it's just Trending and For You. According to who and where the hell are the scores? Links to the discussion/shit slinging. You can't set the geo for Trends. You could have DFW or whatever. Now it's just Trending. Global? RedState psychobilly land? Where is this Trending? 

They took out the Most Recent Option and that was when it really started to get fucked up. Instead of the free flow it was constrained or filtered somehow. I have to go directly to the Tweeters I want to see. They stopped appearing on the timeline. I still follow them, but even on that feed it's not the same. 

It's absolutely getting fucked up.   It's constantly trying to force me to login to just look at tweets or accounts, and I know it's probably because of cookies in my browser that tell it I have twitter accounts and it wants me to engage so it's going to force me to login (when I clear the cookies for twitter, it seems to stop trying to force me to login).

Normally I get emails every day or two with suggestions for tweets of people I actually follow.  Now I'm getting a lot of shit I won't mention for CR reasons, and these are not people I follow or engage with at all, but I notice they have that blue checkmark, and its drowning out people I actually follow and engage with.  I am just binning all of the twitter emails automatically. 

I'm extremely ready to be done with twitter, I just need the people I follow and the people who follow me to do so.

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6 hours ago, Chopper said:

Prepare to see more hacked twitter accounts. At least I think that's what this new policy means.

 

To be clear, SMS 2FA is trash and should not be used by any organization. Not even remotely secure in any serious way. It's certainly at least arguably better than having no 2FA at all, but it should be avoided if possible. 

Of course, instead of simply doing the right thing, Elon had to roll the change into yet another grift. The clown show must go on.

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The Dunning-Krueger in this thread is remarkable. We use WAY more senses than just our vision while driving, and the tech to fuse multiple types of sensors (camera/raster, lidar , radar, microphone/acoustic, feedback from the vehicle, etc) is very much still emerging and developing. 

No doubt that genuine full self drive a solvable problem, but Elmo and Tesla sure as shit haven't put in the work to solve it, and the cars themselves don't have the compute or sensor coverage to ACTUALLY deliver on that promise. 

The genuinely fully self driving cars that ARE out there are extremely limited in scope and don't yet have a general solution. I've ridden in a driverless car on the Vegas strip with an engineer in the passenger seat with their hand on a big red button, and while it worked great, ONLY worked on a 5 mile section of the strip. It's insanely difficult to craft a generalized solution when its a small scope, even moreso when you're trying to cover every possible edge case in the real world. 

Sorry you wasted your money, Guadaloopy. You got got by a marketing claim

Edited by Captainant
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I will say, though, that for as much of a huckster barker as Elon is -- sorry you subsidized his company by springing for the FSD. Not sarcastic or dickish, but a genuine "sorry dude" -- I am thankful that he and his company have spurred more serious players into action in the EV and AV space.

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  • immamac changed the title to Elon Musk: [Fraud] Official or unofficial piece of shit?
  • blacklab changed the title to Elon Musk: Officially a fraud and piece of shit. Official or unofficial war criminal?

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