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Do you recycle? I don't even have the option. (Also incentivizing "green" behavior)

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  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    If they're just out of the plastic and/or freshly washed they look perfectly clean. You just don't feel that they are clean. Which is your own issue. Don't but them. Not everyone else cares that the harmless specks inside the plastic cup they are going to throw away are there.

    I disagree that they look clean. A clear plastic cup with random brown specs in it doesn't look clean, or at least not the way it's supposed to. If you don't care that's fine, but I personally know a lot of people that feel how I do. Contrast ketchup bottles which are apparently made of plants now, but look fine.

    You are literally saying that X product that helps the environment isn't exactly what you want and therefore companies should stop producing it altogether for everyone else. That is not a reasonable statement. That you know people who agree with you does not make it a reasonable statement.

    I question how much they really help the environment. If a cup has a speck, I throw it out, so more cups get used. If a paper towel or piece of paper has a brown mark, I throw that out too. And we have gone through a progression of worse and worse recycled cups at work, so while you used to be able to use one non recycled cup for water almost the whole day, now you barely get one cup out of it.

    Those materials are helping the environment perfectly well. You're the one throwing them away for no reason beyond "icky".

    Whether we save trash on net is an empirical question that we don't have an answer for, but in my case, non recycled cups are probably better for the environment, and the change to dishwasher detergent made my household markedly worse for the environment.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    Ever thought of hand washing your glasses if you don't like the way your dishwasher cleans them?

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    The existence of those items is not what's hurting the environment.

    It's pretty much all you.

  • DiannaoChongDiannaoChong Registered User regular
    I dont see where the issue is here, if you pick up a disposable utensil/plate/glass, and it looks dirty, you arent going to use it. If you cant tell:

    If the item is dirty
    if its supposed to look like that
    if something went wrong when it was made

    and it doesnt look like a standard item of the same type, then it isnt an effective method of helping the environment, because an average consumer is just going to give up after the third item and throw the whole set out.

    steam_sig.png
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Except he can tell and does know it's supposed to look like that. He just doesn't like it.

    Which, you know, fine. Stop buying it. But don't declare it needs to stop being made because you personally have bad habits.

  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Except he can tell and does know it's supposed to look like that. He just doesn't like it.

    Which, you know, fine. Stop buying it. But don't declare it needs to stop being made because you personally have bad habits.

    I don't know that they are supposed to look like that. I assumed they were defective when I got them. But this is also a problem with plastic utensils in take out places. I defy you to go to cafe metro and tell me half the plastic forks don't look dirty.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    Clearly the solution is for everybody to start carrying their own travel silverware, so they are able to comport themselves in the manner of a gentleman whatever the environment.

    ...

    I started that sentence being facetious, but imagine how much waste would be saved if everybody had their own knife and fork and never had to pick up plastic ones from eateries. Package them in a leather valise and you'd have a fancy little travel accessory.

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Ever thought of hand washing your glasses if you don't like the way your dishwasher cleans them?

    That kind of defeats the point of having a dishwasher for convenience. . . I'll handwash crystal and stemware, but I don't want to have to hand wash a glass every time I have a glass of water. Also, I'm not sure that washing things is neccesarily better. In my office we have crappy paper towels. If I washed a mug, it would use up hot water (that uses energy and reduces our supply of potable water) and mix soap into the waste water, and then I would probably have to use 4 or 5 of those crappy paper towels. Not sure that's actually better than a paper cup. And of course, it would also be tough to scrub coffee or hot chocolate without a sponge, which would mean more wasted paper towels (there is no way i would use the communal sponge). I really think that the old paper cups, which lasted a whole day, were probably the greenest choice.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    Quick rinse, leave to drain on the counter. Bish bash bosh. If you wait until you're in the kitchen anyway for cooking, you can wash an entire sinkful of glasses - that's what I do at home, and I imagine many people without dishwashers do.

    Your office might have sucky facilities, but that's no excuse for chucking your hands up in defeat at home. Either that or admit you don't care enough to change your lifestyle.

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Quick rinse, leave to drain on the counter. Bish bash bosh. If you wait until you're in the kitchen anyway for cooking, you can wash an entire sinkful of glasses - that's what I do at home, and I imagine many people without dishwashers do.

    Your office might have sucky facilities, but that's no excuse for chucking your hands up in defeat at home. Either that or admit you don't care enough to change your lifestyle.

    I'm actually planning on buying new glasses, since it might just be that the glasses we have don't wash well with the new soaps (other glass ware like pyrex comes out well). But this is really beside the point. I think we are better off using recycled plastics and papers for applications where the difference is less noticeable, instead of things like plastic forks or paper cups. Either that, or we need better quality control.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    This is a new height of pedantic obstinance even for you SKFM.

  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Have you ever thought that maybe JUST MAYBE instead of demanding an entire industry cave to YOU, YOU should get the fuck over yourself or simply not purchase the product?

    I could get being squicked when you first see the cup. Sure. But now you should know better and it it is still a bridge too far, buy real cups and don't use disposable.

    Lh96QHG.png
  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    shryke wrote: »
    This is a new height of pedantic obstinance even for you SKFM.

    How is wanting them to stop making dirty looking cups, forks, etc. so unreasonable? For store bought things, fine, you can avoid them. But at the takeout place where half the forks look dirty? I don't think its unreasonable to say that this is not the best use of recycled plastic.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    Again: take your own fork if you're that precious about your cutlery looking pretty.

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Again: take your own fork if you're that precious about your cutlery looking pretty.

    Looking pretty? I generally am not confident that it is clean when it looks like that. How can wanting clean, consistent looking flatware when eating out be unreasonable?

  • So It GoesSo It Goes We keep moving...Registered User regular
    I just googled recycled plastic forks.

    Can't find any dirty looking ones.

  • BlackjackBlackjack Registered User regular
    What, exactly, do you think was done to the fork to get the dirt embedded into the plastic?

    camo_sig2.png

    3DS: 1607-3034-6970
  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    So It Goes wrote: »
    I just googled recycled plastic forks.

    Can't find any dirty looking ones.

    It's ones that look like this:

    4KMV3_AS01?$productdetail$

    I see them in a lot of places, and they consistently have this lighter discoloration, and I can't tell if its from people handling them or just shoddy quality. The plastic is extremely soft, so it might even be from them just moving in shipping, because they are so low quality, but you can't tell. I think we should not be using plastic of that incredibly poor quality for utensils. I presume they are really inexpensive, since they are in a lot of take out places here.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    Again: take your own fork if you're that precious about your cutlery looking pretty.

    Looking pretty? I generally am not confident that it is clean when it looks like that. How can wanting clean, consistent looking flatware when eating out be unreasonable?

    You said dirty-looking in the post above mine, which suggested that you knew they were clean, you just didn't like the look of them. I feel my point stands. If you care that much, take your own cutlery, as clearly nobody else cares enough for it to be an issue.

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • SaammielSaammiel Registered User regular
    edited February 2013
    Ugh normally I think people are overly harsh on you Space for being in the upper strata of what can be considered middle class, but really? These items aren't dirty. A cursory examination would reveal them as clean. You are going on about how disposable flatware is slightly less aeshtetically than you desire. Especially given the fact that the kitchen's of a lot of those takeout places likely don't meet your platonic ideal of cleanliness anyhow.

    And really that is one of the best places for recycled plastic. Quality doesn't matter much, and the consumer in aggregate likely doesn't give a damn about consistency.

    Also, who regularly washes their coffee mug anyhow? Maybe I work with too many ex-military members, but a nice black crust of coffee staining is the sign of a well loved mug.

    Saammiel on
  • So It GoesSo It Goes We keep moving...Registered User regular
    So It Goes wrote: »
    I just googled recycled plastic forks.

    Can't find any dirty looking ones.

    It's ones that look like this:

    4KMV3_AS01?$productdetail$

    I see them in a lot of places, and they consistently have this lighter discoloration, and I can't tell if its from people handling them or just shoddy quality. The plastic is extremely soft, so it might even be from them just moving in shipping, because they are so low quality, but you can't tell. I think we should not be using plastic of that incredibly poor quality for utensils. I presume they are really inexpensive, since they are in a lot of take out places here.

    good lord.

  • DiannaoChongDiannaoChong Registered User regular
    edited February 2013
    You guys are being silly goosey about this, to the point of suggesting that we dont buy a product because the silverware might be dirty after you have received service. I know I go and inspect all of the facilities before I order from a resturant, don't you? "yeah I want a cheese burger meal, but can I see the inside of your plastic cups first?" Are you going to pull 1 plastic fork out, not be sure its dirty, and then return your food? are you going to put it back? Or are you going to throw it away and pull a new one? How many do you pull before you go "oh the whole batch is bad" or "someone spilled something in this fork holder".

    Personally, I have never seen this in recycled material items, so I am curious what brands these are. Which makes me believe even more that is how I would reasonably act if I got something like the described.

    Honestly I like the idea of carrying our own silverware, when I bought my super nice bento box it came with this nice silverware/chopstick container. Kind of seems anal though, but reminds me of times of pocketwatches and monocles.

    DiannaoChong on
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  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited February 2013
    redx wrote: »

    Paper... we shouldn't use so much of the stuff, but paperless office endeavors aren't really all that practical, even with all the computers, tablets and e-ink. Lower quality recycled paper should be pretty acceptable for most things clients won't see, and as I understand it, and for more than just ecological concerns, electronic discovery is becoming a pretty big thing in law. Which should cut back on consumption a fair bit. Electronic transaction processing can also reduce a lot of paper, and really can Increase efficiency a lot.

    Aside from retail environments I wholeheartedly disagree. If a doctors office can do it, your measly office can do it too.

    Biggest first step? Stop using the fucking fax machine. You'll be amazed once you go "oh hey it's super convenient to not have to have paper copies of all these documents. Email/FTP is such a great feature! I'm so glad they came up with this in 1971!"

    Then that transitions to "well... why don't we schedule vacations and all that with a computer based calendar?"

    Then that transitions to "well why don't we digitize our entire office!"

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited February 2013
    bowen wrote: »
    redx wrote: »

    Paper... we shouldn't use so much of the stuff, but paperless office endeavors aren't really all that practical, even with all the computers, tablets and e-ink. Lower quality recycled paper should be pretty acceptable for most things clients won't see, and as I understand it, and for more than just ecological concerns, electronic discovery is becoming a pretty big thing in law. Which should cut back on consumption a fair bit. Electronic transaction processing can also reduce a lot of paper, and really can Increase efficiency a lot.

    Aside from retail environments I wholeheartedly disagree. If a doctors office can do it, your measly office can do it too.

    Biggest first step? Stop using the fucking fax machine. You'll be amazed once you go "oh hey it's super convenient to not have to have paper copies of all these documents. Email/FTP is such a great feature! I'm so glad they came up with this in 1971!"

    Then that transitions to "well... why don't we schedule vacations and all that with a computer based calendar?"

    Then that transitions to "well why don't we digitize our entire office!"

    The one wrinkle is handmarking things. I do that a lot, and it's really hard to do it well on the ipad. But I print much less than most people because I don't like having excess paper lying around for no reason, when a digital copy is just as good.

    Edit: We can move off the fork thing. Obviously I am alone on this one. No point in continuing it.

    spacekungfuman on
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    You mean a signature? Trivial.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    redx wrote: »

    Paper... we shouldn't use so much of the stuff, but paperless office endeavors aren't really all that practical, even with all the computers, tablets and e-ink. Lower quality recycled paper should be pretty acceptable for most things clients won't see, and as I understand it, and for more than just ecological concerns, electronic discovery is becoming a pretty big thing in law. Which should cut back on consumption a fair bit. Electronic transaction processing can also reduce a lot of paper, and really can Increase efficiency a lot.

    Aside from retail environments I wholeheartedly disagree. If a doctors office can do it, your measly office can do it too.

    Biggest first step? Stop using the fucking fax machine. You'll be amazed once you go "oh hey it's super convenient to not have to have paper copies of all these documents. Email/FTP is such a great feature! I'm so glad they came up with this in 1971!"

    Then that transitions to "well... why don't we schedule vacations and all that with a computer based calendar?"

    Then that transitions to "well why don't we digitize our entire office!"

    Well, actually, I'm a dedicated e-book reader but I also read dozens of depositions at work. Other than the simplest ones, they are unreadable electronically. You've got to print them out and use flags and stuff. I do do my best to reduce though, I print 4 pages to one page, double sided.

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Or do you mean "This is a line I'd like to put on my document"

    Also trivial. And you can add revisions to a document so you can cycle back through, also color code who marked a document.

    Like I do this for a living.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    bowen wrote: »
    You mean a signature? Trivial.

    No, making hand written edits. A lot of the time, we are only sent PDFs, so you can't do a track changes markup. Also, it's really hard to digitally show your edits to a redline (especially a redline sent as a PDF). But only lawfirms may use of redlines as heavily as we do, so this is likely ideosyncratic.

  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    tbloxham wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    redx wrote: »

    Paper... we shouldn't use so much of the stuff, but paperless office endeavors aren't really all that practical, even with all the computers, tablets and e-ink. Lower quality recycled paper should be pretty acceptable for most things clients won't see, and as I understand it, and for more than just ecological concerns, electronic discovery is becoming a pretty big thing in law. Which should cut back on consumption a fair bit. Electronic transaction processing can also reduce a lot of paper, and really can Increase efficiency a lot.

    Aside from retail environments I wholeheartedly disagree. If a doctors office can do it, your measly office can do it too.

    Biggest first step? Stop using the fucking fax machine. You'll be amazed once you go "oh hey it's super convenient to not have to have paper copies of all these documents. Email/FTP is such a great feature! I'm so glad they came up with this in 1971!"

    Then that transitions to "well... why don't we schedule vacations and all that with a computer based calendar?"

    Then that transitions to "well why don't we digitize our entire office!"

    Well, actually, I'm a dedicated e-book reader but I also read dozens of depositions at work. Other than the simplest ones, they are unreadable electronically. You've got to print them out and use flags and stuff. I do do my best to reduce though, I print 4 pages to one page, double sided.

    Sounds like you use them as bookmarks? Tabs and bookmarks would probably increase your productivity once you got used to using that. E-readers are a wholly different beast though. Not one I have any expertise on.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    You mean a signature? Trivial.

    No, making hand written edits. A lot of the time, we are only sent PDFs, so you can't do a track changes markup. Also, it's really hard to digitally show your edits to a redline (especially a redline sent as a PDF). But only lawfirms may use of redlines as heavily as we do, so this is likely ideosyncratic.

    I assume PDF is the chosen format for the text-search capabilities?

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    bowen wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    You mean a signature? Trivial.

    No, making hand written edits. A lot of the time, we are only sent PDFs, so you can't do a track changes markup. Also, it's really hard to digitally show your edits to a redline (especially a redline sent as a PDF). But only lawfirms may use of redlines as heavily as we do, so this is likely ideosyncratic.

    I assume PDF is the chosen format for the text-search capabilities?

    No, some places just have redline software that defaults to pdf. It's really annoying.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    I have a Boogie Board for making notes on during the day - it's an impermanent way of taking notes, but most of the time the stuff I'm writing needs to exist for thirty seconds until I can type it into a CRM.

    Every few months my boss will get me to research various e-readers and tablet PCs for everybody to use instead of paper call documents. He takes it all in, looks at the price, and the idea is shelved for another few months.

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Seems like a tablet with a stylus would work just as well? But yeah you'd absolutely need custom software to do all that in. It's not something you'll be able to buy off the shelf for $60. Heavy investment that pays off in spades, especially if you go through reams of paper like we do. Biggest savings is storage costs. We used to have about 600 square feet of paper storage for paper charts. We're down to about a 10x6 foot shelf.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    Our requirements are both low-tech and high-tech; for most of the time we just need a doodle pad and a script to work off, but then you factor in all the information we need for client work and it becomes an exercise in frustration looking for an iPad or Android app that would do it properly. We're not a big company, and most of the staff aren't particularly tech-savvy so it ends up being a dead end.

    Schedules, expenses and holidays are almost all digital, however, and we've added the "do you really need to print this email?" footer to our email signatures.

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Our requirements are both low-tech and high-tech; for most of the time we just need a doodle pad and a script to work off, but then you factor in all the information we need for client work and it becomes an exercise in frustration looking for an iPad or Android app that would do it properly. We're not a big company, and most of the staff aren't particularly tech-savvy so it ends up being a dead end.

    Schedules, expenses and holidays are almost all digital, however, and we've added the "do you really need to print this email?" footer to our email signatures.

    Good first steps.

    Yeah you're almost certainly looking at a custom made application for your needs, which can run a few thousand dollars in cost. You'll have to do the math to see where that break even point is.

    I'm surprised you can't find an application that you could do that with, small upfront cost, load it on all your devices (which necessitates a developer to develop an off-the-app-store product). Like I said, that's a few grand.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    redx wrote: »

    Paper... we shouldn't use so much of the stuff, but paperless office endeavors aren't really all that practical, even with all the computers, tablets and e-ink. Lower quality recycled paper should be pretty acceptable for most things clients won't see, and as I understand it, and for more than just ecological concerns, electronic discovery is becoming a pretty big thing in law. Which should cut back on consumption a fair bit. Electronic transaction processing can also reduce a lot of paper, and really can Increase efficiency a lot.

    Aside from retail environments I wholeheartedly disagree. If a doctors office can do it, your measly office can do it too.

    Biggest first step? Stop using the fucking fax machine. You'll be amazed once you go "oh hey it's super convenient to not have to have paper copies of all these documents. Email/FTP is such a great feature! I'm so glad they came up with this in 1971!"

    Then that transitions to "well... why don't we schedule vacations and all that with a computer based calendar?"

    Then that transitions to "well why don't we digitize our entire office!"

    Sorry, really I meant, 'Paperless office initiatives are notoriously poorly implemented to the extent I don't want to start an argument about them.' It's a human/management issue more than a technical one.


    When I'm doing editing/proofreading I'm much more comfortable and more effective doing it with good old paper. Full digital is not impossible, but I haven't found an interface I like for it, and it would require everything you get(often stuff from customer and client) exist as a given document format(or be converted to one).

    Of course, a decent digital system allows the ability to verify that all the edits have been addressed, and should make things more efficient, accurate and would improve accountability. They should be better, and avoids creating paper, but I've never worked in an environment where I felt this would actually be the case with the tools available.

    They moistly come out at night, moistly.
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    We've found the "either you learn this or you don't have a job" is a good incentive to the management/human issue. Suddenly all the old bitties who threw up their hands because the "computer is too hard" learn how to use it.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    We'd also need to all be given iPads or similar. That adds to the cost, but I agree it'd be worth it if we could replicate all we need. Looking at my desk there are a few dozen sheets of paper that could be condensed into electronic data.

    We used to have a client who would send their agents' availability over to us in the form of screenshots of their Outlook calendar. Five pages of diary printouts. Every day in case there was a change we needed to account for. Luckily, we can just do it on the computer now, so people are changing; it's just getting them to accept that a new way is an option.

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • ThanatosThanatos Registered User regular
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    When I lived in Chicago we had the best recycling system.

    You just through everything into the dumpster. Then, some guys would drive down the alley in an old pick up and take all the large scrap steel, or anything that might be repaired and resold. And then after the truck went through, a bunch of guys with shopping carts would come and pick out all the cans.

    My old weight bench, was picked up from the curb in less time than it would have taken me to drive the 5 miles to the scrap metal place. Great service, no cost. Can't be beat.

    And if you're not home, they'll even recycle your A/C and copper wires!

    Yeah, the pickers are an interesting bunch, but the city and most of the burbs have separate bins and trucks for recycling. Started out as separate, but most are mixed now - glass, plastic, paper all go in the same bin.

    I sometimes wonder how much waste was/is being created by those "reusable" bags everyone buys now. I would be surprised if it's been a net benefit as far as environment.
    It's keeping a ton of plastic grocery bags out of landfills. Those not only don't decompose well themselves, they prevent landfills from breathing and allows other garbage to decompose better, to say nothing of all the plastic we're saving in not manufacturing those bags.

  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    We've found the "either you learn this or you don't have a job" is a good incentive to the management/human issue. Suddenly all the old bitties who threw up their hands because the "computer is too hard" learn how to use it.

    The old bitties are often part of management, and either actively oppose the initiative or fail to require their subordinates follow it. In company where IT gets a lot of support from management, it's not too much of a problem, but that often is not the case particularly in small/medium businesses outside of the IT sector.

    *shrug* I mean, this is true to some degree of everything an IT departments wants to do, and effective stuff does get pushed through. If IT doesn't have good support from management, it's hard to get anything done. I have yet to work somewhere that management gave that sort of support.

    They moistly come out at night, moistly.
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