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[–] 178 points 8 months ago (20 children)
  • [–] 67 points 8 months ago (18 children)

    I wish someone could quantify how much energy goes into this.

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  • [–] 38 points 8 months ago (9 children)
  • [–] 21 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    Which, for those of you who aren't energy professionals, is actually a fair bit of energy.

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  • [–] 17 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    To give a comparison, this is the sort of energy you often see in stars, cars, or springs.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    stars, cars, or springs.

    Sounds like the name of a weird gameshow 😁

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  • [–] 16 points 8 months ago* (4 children)

    Any time someone brings up to me what a waste of power crypto is (and it is, I'm not denying that) I bring this up, and it's so fun to watch them all do this:

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago* (3 children)

    Why would they get mad about dissing advertising along with crypto?

    (Maybe they think you're saying it to defend crypto using whataboutism?)

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I think most people have genuinely never thought about it once in their life, just like how they never would have thought once about crypto's energy usage if the media hadn't told them to be angry about it. So they either get upset at the sudden realization that we're all being played by the rich or they get defensive because suddenly their world view is under attack. Same expression either way.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I always figured the angry npc wojak meme implied they were mad at you for making a good point that they didn't like, but if you're using it to say they just became angry in general, fair enough.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    I mean, it is absolutely that on occasion. I may come off as doing a whataboutism, but I mean it more like "Absolutely, we should be angry at people and technologies whose energy use exponentially outweighs the societal benefits. Here's the world's biggest offender!" But they don't actually care about energy usage, they just hate crypto and have never thought critically about targeted advertisement; all they know is it's a part of capitalism which they love so their brain starts doing flips trying to find a way to make it defensible. It's like telling a 'wont somebody please think of the children' evangelical republican all the ways in which they directly support child abuse and abusers. "I agree with you, but do you?"

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago

    They don't really need to make or sell products, they just need to create the appearance of selling products to attract investment from billionaires. They've got all the money, why would they care about the small pittance of money everyone else has?

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  • [–] 86 points 8 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 56 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Seriously, though, is this bullshit actually effective enough to justify all the money and effort they put into it?

    I really doubt it. I think targeted ads are just window dressing to hide the real reason they want to spy on us everywhere all the time.

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  • [–] 60 points 8 months ago

    I used to wonder this, too, and think that it couldn't be that effective. Then I went to my last job, and there were MULTIPLE people who said they actually liked the ads because they learned about new products that they would like. What's worse is that a couple of those multiple people actually clicked the ads and would buy things.

    All that to say, yes, it is actually at least somewhat effective, and it erodes my faith in humanity.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    The advertisers are paying for ads to he shown to people who have shown an interest in humidifiers. If they aren't clear enough that people who have recently purchased the humidifiers shouldn't be targeted, Google isn't gonna correct them and show the ads to fewer people.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    Yea, google basically profits off of all their data, so it's either use it or be left out. They don't really give a shit if advertisers bleed dry, there's not much of a competition for Google.

    You know how most of the ads on YouTube are watched by kids on their parents phones. But on Google's database they're some adult individual with this and this interests. Google fucks over both ends.

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago

    So, the scam here is from ad providers like google on anyone running ads. It's the reason that often you see ads for a product you just looked at forever: if you are shown an ad for a product, and then you buy that product, the ad provider gets a cut. If you click on the ad, that cut is higher. Now, clearly you already looked at the product without the ad, and at best it was a reminder of something you already wanted, but in the eyes of the contract, you bought that product because of the ad. That's WAY more of a sure thing than actually compiling a meaningful profile on the provider side. Now, on the opposite end, you DO have stories of storefronts sending out coupons, emails, direct to consumer ads, built on your viewing history on their site that ARE based on complex algorithms that know you better than yourself, which is how you get stories of the algorithm knowing people are pregnant before they do

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  • [–] 31 points 8 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 23 points 8 months ago (8 children)

    YouTube fed me a sponsored ad from Scientology today. Like, Google, you know everything about me, you should know this was stupid.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    My Facebook ads now feature hard-core porn. I don't know what digital footprint I've created to deserve those.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    How is that not a literal crime?

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    Why would that be a crime? Advertising your weird-ass failed scifi author founded cult isn't illegal.

    There are plenty of other crimes scientologists have committed that they're not being protected for (like, where is the head of the church's wife? Hasn't been seen in like 15 years). This isn't one of them.

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  • [–] 22 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I've been recently rewatching all the X-men movies in order on Disney+.

    After each one it's like "why not watch the first one again?" like it doesn't know full well I watched it a few days ago.

    All this data collection, and for what?

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    So they can charge advertisers/companies money for "relevant" ads. I assume there's pushback in the market on this but even so, that's wasted ad space/time (since they seem to think it's so important to advertise that route. Maybe it's not even such a bad idea since so many products are shit and you may well be in the market soon anyway.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Selling ads to people wanting to make money is like selling picks and shovels to people heading to the gold rush. Those selling shovels don't even really care if their buyer finds gold (despite any apparent enthusiasm), they don't even care if they'll even need or want the shovel after figuring out most gold in this rush is found panhandling rather than by digging or that the amount of digging you'd have to do to find a decent amount of gold is more than what a shovel can handle (actually they might use that to sell you a shovel subscription).

    They only care that your desire for money has brought you to them, where you can make them money whether you do or not.

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  • [–] 39 points 8 months ago (20 children)

    After reading an article about ad metrics I realized this is ad fraud.

    What is going on is a business buys ads and pays one rate for ads shown but pays a higher rate if the ads resulted in a conversion (a sale). But the ad contracts are monthly or longer. So a business buys ads for their product and the ad company after noticing you bought it, stuffs your feeds with ads for what you just bought so they can bill those ads at the higher conversion rate.

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  • [–] 21 points 8 months ago

    It's just lies and deceit all the way down it seems... Every corner of almost every aspect of our lives, these kind of things keep cropping up. Kinda makes me feel like there might be an underlying reason to it all... Hmm....

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (16 children)

    But that doesn't make sense. The way they know it's a conversion is the ad url you click on tracks you through the purchase process.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (15 children)

    Yes but ads shown that result in a conversion are paid higher than ones that don't. If you pay for 1000 ads in a month and it results in a conversion you pay more for those all ads in the block because you got that conversion. You don't pay just for the one ad that resulted in a sale. You say "I only got one sale." They say, "It was those 999 ads that the consumer saw that generated the sale."

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (14 children)

    Right, but to know the ad resulted in a conversation the customer would need to click on the ad before purchasing. Showing you the ad after you bought the product without clicking on an ad wouldn't count.

    A company isn't going to pay more without the platform providing evidence that the conversion happened on their platform. If a company runs ads on Google, Instagram, and TikTok, Google can't just claim that every sale was because of ads on their platform.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (13 children)

    A company isn’t going to pay more without the platform providing evidence that the conversion happened on their platform.

    The proof is the sale. What isn't shared is exactly which ads ran when because they purchased a block.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (12 children)

    How is there proof of a sale due to an ad on a platform if the customer never interacted with the ad?

    I can guarantee you that no one is going to sign an advertisement contract if they have to pay more solely because the company sold something within that timeframe.

    The platform they advertise on is the one tracking the customer through the purchase, but that can't happen if the customer buys a product before they're shown an ad.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    You vastly overestimate the nuance in ad spend.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    No I don't. I'm saying that a company isn't going to pay an advertising platform more money just because.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    the problem is that you're assuming rationality and competence, which in many many many cases just isn't there.
    Especially with smaller companies it's incredibly common for the decision-makers to simply be dumb and make terrible decisions on a daily basis, like how mom&pop stores will prioritize the 4 people who show up in a car over the 20 people who want to bike to the store.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I think you overestimate how much time the companies buying ads spend on analyzing the data, or if they even get that data.

    The company selling the ad also doesn't have much interest in transparent reporting.

    The end result is that neither the company selling the ads or the company buying the ads have any interest in the ads. They both only care about their own sales numbers. Fuck the consumers, fuck the product, fuck the ads. Only sales.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (6 children)

    I can guarantee you that no one is going to sign an advertisement contract if they have to pay more solely because the company sold something within that timeframe.

    I used to spend a million a year on TV ads without ever knowing if I got a sale from those ads.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    And did you have to pay extra just because you made a sale in the time span the ad was running?

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (4 children)

    If they sold a package "X ads for X dollars depending on proof of conversion." it might have been something I signed up for. Realistically if they could have done it, they wouldn't have offered any other option.

    "Do you want to run ads? This is our package. You pay $X and if you get sales from those ads you pay $X + $Y because we proved the ads made you money. Take it or leave it. We own 85% of the ad market."

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (3 children)

    You pay $X and if you get sales from those ads you pay $X + $Y because we proved the ads made you money.

    That's the problem. In your original scenario the advertising platform isn't proving ads resulted in sales. They're showing the ads after the sale occurs.

    You said the company would be self-reporting their sales to the advertiser so that they'd have to pay the advertiser more money. But companies often run ad campaigns on multiple platforms and even multiple campaigns on one platform. They're not going to pay extra multiple times to multiple companies because they made a single sale.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    They’re not going to pay extra multiple times to multiple companies because they made a single sale.

    The premise is that the package is ads that resulted in a conversion are paid higher. It's not an individual ad that creates a conversion is singularly billed higher. It's an ad package where a conversion happened, therefore a higher price for that entire package.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (1 child)

    But you can't know a conversion happened due to a specific ad package unless the customer interacts with an ad from that package.

    And platforms can definitely give you detailed enough metrics to know how many conversions happened due to customers interacted with your ads. It's part of what tracking cookies are for.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    And platforms can definitely give you detailed enough metrics to know how many conversions happened due to customers interacted with your ads

    Yes that you got a sale and they proved it is why you had to pay more. Every ad doesn't cause a conversion. But the more ads show can cause more conversions.

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago

    I’m also amusedly infuriated when “smart” advertising takes the exact wrong pattern …..

    “ I see you recently bought a part for a Toyota. You must have a Toyota. Let me sell you the same part for a Volkswagen. “

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  • [–] 15 points 8 months ago

    Y'all need to go on the dark web, people are gambling millions on humidifier vs. dehumidifier battles, the videos are disturbing and end dry or moist.

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  • [–] 15 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    You would really think the algorithm would be smarter by now.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    They're not allowed to see actual purchase data, so all they have is "this person looked at a humidifier and may or may not have bought one". So they're plastering you with humidifier ads in case you still haven't pulled the trigger, or in case you did buy one but returned it.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I know. So the reason we are seeing this is not that the algorithm is shit, it's because there's laws in place to protect us.

    Meaning if we stop seeing this, then we should be worried! 😄😄😵‍💫

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago

    I bought a specific airfilter from home depot once (prob 15 years ago). 6 months later I went back because I needed a filter. I couldn't remember which one I bought so I popped on their website, from my phone. I found the unit I bought and got the filter that it needed from the store.

    For the next 3 weeks straight, every other add on every page, on facebook, on amazon, on everywhere was the air cleaner I purchased. They must have spent at least $5 on me alone it was the only static ad I saw the entire time.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago

    Almost as good as when I went to Home Depot and the next day I got an email asking me to rate my experience during my recent visit. That creeped me out so much I removed the app from my phone and forced logout on all devices. I have not been back since. And no, I did not pay using a Home Depot card and I am not part of any rewards program with them. Just eeew. If you advertise to me, I will ignore your product and buy something else. If there is not an alternative, then I will either plug my nose and buy it assuming that it is a need, otherwise I go without.

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Friendly reminder that part of the deal of showing you adverts for what you just bought is to increase your satisfaction with the purchase. It reminds you of what you bought and (tries to) make you feel proud of your decision.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Well, that's pathetic. Imagine deriving all your pride just from having bought things. What a sad, hollow life such a person must live.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    i mean, i derive some pride from having bought things, but that's because i literally spend a month researching before i buy anything above 20€ and i enjoy the fact that i didn't end up with a pile of garbage.

    If i do end up with garbage i bang my head against the table a couple times and spend 3 months researching the next time..

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago

    I was a part of Amazon vine for a while. It's Amazon's program where they offer you shit for free that other companies want to give away in order to get reviews rolling in for new products.

    Amazon offers around two to eight "just for you" items most days from these people, based on your order history and ad info crap they have on you.

    Well I made the mistake of getting a black toner cartridge for my laser printer through vine once. That will last me like a decade.

    Apparently, Amazon now thinks that I own 5000 printers of all different kinds and I'm never good on ink. Most days I would have at least 5 of my recommendations be printer ink or toner. Every single damned day it wanted me to get more ink. For months and months and months.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago* (4 children)

    Yup, I just bought a tank jet printer, so clearly I'm turning my apartment into the world's most inefficient print shop.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    tank jet printer

    Anyone who thinks this is a typo is a communist!

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago

    I see you’ve just bought a HDMI cable, but what about second HDMI cable?

    We think you’ll love it

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I recently purchased a small apartment. According to calculations, it was cheaper to pay the mortgage than rent a similar size apartment. Now meta thinks I am into collecting apartments in the same postcode. On the other hand, I do find it somewhat useful to see what is happening to the apartment prices around.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago

    Show me ads for cocaine and I will click it, brother. I was told capitalism solved all my problems by providing the material possessions I wanted in exchange for currency.

    What happened with that.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    On a very related note, a dehumidifier makes such a huge difference in indoor comfort.

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago* (3 children)

    I highly recommend Technology Connections' video on dehumidifers. Central air, if you have it, should take care of your humidity if it's working correctly.

    Dehumidifiers are great for small areas with poor airflow or in case of a flood. If you need one for everyday, whole-house comfort, there's probably an underlying issue.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Yes, was just about to recommend that myself. Link to the video in question: https://youtu.be/j_QfX0SYCE8

    If I remember it correctly, though, dehumidifiers can be useful for comfort in very specific climates where ambient humidity is high, but temperatures are mild enough to not require much actual heating or cooling. I think dehumidifiers are relatively common in many areas of the UK for that reason.

    If OP is from the UK, it might be a sensible recommendation for their specific climate, just not in many places elsewhere. In the US, at least, the only place you'd find anything like that climate might be some parts of the Pacific Northwest.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    The original underlying issue was several weeks of comfortable outdoor temperatures with 90%+ humidity. That meant the central air didn't need to run at all and the indoor humidity crept up over 70%.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Better make it a recurring purchase! Buy more, get more humidifiers!

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    Similarly:

    We've been tracking you for decades now. We know your location at all times. We know about the humidifier you bought. We know you do everything in English, but we also know you're trying to learn Spanish. We know who your family members are based on your interactions with them, and we have vast databases on them too. We know about the plane ticket to Turkey. We know about the new bathing suit you bought. We know about the English language guidebook you bought for Turkey.

    We know you're now in Turkey on your vacation.

    Here's an ad in Turkish for a humidifier sold in a Turkish store.

    You go to a different country, and despite the massive privacy invasions, and the terabytes of data they have about every aspect of your lives, they think you speak the local language and show you ads you can't even understand for products you'd never buy while there on a vacation.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    "You know what? I'll treat myself. Just one more dozen of toilet seats."

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I read a post where someone mentioned they wanted to buy a Royal Enfield Meteor motorcycle.

    Ads for that bike have been appearing ever since. I don't own a bike, never had a license, and don't make a lot of comments about them.

    Take that for what it's worth.

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    [–] 6 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    I always say that when advertisers think that I'm a Spanish speaking pregnant woman that I have won.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago*

    I block ads on my computer and my phone browser (shoutout to Orion), so I only see ads on my TV (because it's an old smart TV. I know, I know, but I'm not in a financial place to ditch it and buy a new one.) I have no idea what info advertisers have on me, but by the fact that at least half my ads are for fast food, they clearly haven't picked up on the fact that I not only don't eat meat, but that I've been avoiding fast food for over 20 years. They also haven't picked up on my age or that I'm a woman, since I also get ads for Medicare scams Part D as well as for men's healthcare products. Sometimes the ads are in Spanish, which makes it even better.

    It's all such a waste of time and resources, the only benefit being that my reflexes stay strong as I hit that "mute" button at the first sign of an ad break.

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