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2:56 AM
blah
i can't remember how to re-enable middle click to open new tab in firefox
 
 
8 hours later…
11:08 AM
@slhck used meta.SU on , it was super effective!
 
11:23 AM
lol
 
11:49 AM
@Mokubai lol, that makes me think about Pokemon Fusion again
 
Good old xkcd
Choosing a good server name is important.
 
Wil
YAY! (About time!!!!)
 
@Wil oh nice, congrats!
 
Holy heck in a handbasket! Congratulations!
I've only got a bronze on that
 
Wil
Out of all my answers, I only have 2 gold badges - one was just for being on here so much... so really happy for that!
Thanks both of you! :)
 
12:00 PM
I think I've only got 2 tag badges on the whole network :/
both bronze
 
Wil
You'll get them eventually - it just means you have a life away from the site!
 
lol
well - to be fair - I haven't got 10k anywhere yet either ;P
 
Wil
Yeah, but your a mod... that trumps that!
 
indeed
oh well: it's not the numbers that count, but the taking part (or something equally cheesy)
 
Wil
lol
 
12:05 PM
gaming's at it again with the suspiciously named questions I see
22
Q: How can I kill adorable animals?

Ben BlankWith version 1.0.4 of Terraria came fluffy little bunnies hopping in my fields and happy little goldfish swimming in my lakes, grateful for the sanctuary my base provides them against the horrors of the wider world. So, naturally, I'm trying to kill them. Not because I expect it to be useful, j...

 
Wil
hehe
 
@Mokubai I name my servers using astronomical names, which is really nerdy and not very original.
 
The accepted answers last line: "Don't forget your evil laugh; remember -- you can't spell slaughter without 'laughter'!"
@paradroid Mine are usually named after bladed weapons
 
What, like Axe, Sword, Cutlass, etc?
 
@paradroid "Sabre" was the rather large and unwieldy linux box that had a habit of killing itself, "Rapier" and "Tachi" have been my last two routers
My next full server may well be Claymore
 
12:10 PM
The datacentre where my LUG is held has a variety of different schemes, from Star Wars and Star Trek to the Simpsons
Vader, Picard, Homer
 
I did some work experience at a university may moons ago where the Sun cluster servers were all Egyptian figures, Osiris, Anubis and so on
 
That's pretty cool
I might steal that idea, as I am running out of good astronomical names. I have started to use Greek and Roman gods as well
 
The Egyptians had a lot of gods with cool names, just remember that the one that is most likely to burst into flames and destroy everything is the one that gets to be called "Ra"
 
You wouldn't want to tempt fate like that
Satan would be a good name for a fully loaded HP ProLiant DL980 G7 though
 
Cthulu and HP Lovecraft names might be a good series of names of servers from HP and Dell
 
12:16 PM
Heh, yeah.
Dante is another good sinister name
I should make a note of these. It would save hours
@Wil Did you decide on getting any Microservers in the end?
 
Wil
@paradroid I decided that whilst low performance, it is twice as fast as what I have and will save me money within a year (including cost price).... I want one, but, I saw distribution price is ~£160-£180, so I am trying to sign up to the HP reseller program... waiting for that to come through, if it doesn't, I will just buy online from elsewhere
...You can only get cashback if bought from a hp official reseller, not just anywhere
 
@Wil Would you still get the £100 rebate that way?
ok
 
Wil
I have to say, I am so tempted to buy an I3, (5x performance), but right now, on the P4, it idles at between 5-20%, and my other celeron never goes above 10%, so, I think this makes the most sense...
 
AMD Athlon™ II Neo N36L Dual-Core Processor (None) @ 1297MHz (200MHz FSB), 10% load
running four vms
 
Wil
12:35 PM
@paradroid Seriously, I am convinced - as I said, previously I had no plans on upgrading, but, within a year, it will pay itself... right now, my celeron idles at 68w and my p4 is about 100... That is just under £300 a year... This one will cost around £80 (maybe a tad more maxed out with hard drives)
and even though it isn't a brand spanking new I3, it is faster than what I have.... all things considered, I would be an idiot not to ugprade
 
The drive caddies are pretty handy too
easy to swap drives in and out
and it's compatible with ESXi of course, which your current machines most probably would not be
 
Wil
My real problem at the moment is working out if I should just get one or two! I have already filled up my 2 bay netgear nas and I am thinking I will get a second just to use as a NAS... so, I will probably stick with the 1GB memory in them (again, more than I already have... but hard choice)
 
I had two for a while, to experiment with - the second was borrowed though. I was going to get another one, but I think getting that Supermicro would be better for what I want to do with it.
 
Wil
with the £100 cash back, it is just an amazing deal!
 
They seem to always have a good deal on. A couple of years ago I got a ProLiant ML115 G5 quad core Opteron, which was really cheap and there was a 100% rebate on the optional Lights-Out card for it, which I would have had to pay around £90 for normally.
Must have been more than two years go now
 
1:30 PM
@Wil - got the wireless bridge working. All it needed was a firmware update for the US Robotics ADSL Wireless Router. Now got an option for WDS mode which I enabled and allowed the bridge in. Everything then sprang to life.
Next job getting Chromium installed on the old desktop so we can browse iPlayer, 4OD etc. on the telly
 
Wil
@ChrisF you shouldn't of needed wds - it should of worked as it sounded like you had done everything right... but still, if you were able to do it with a push of a button, good for you!
glad everything is working!
@ChrisF Thought that machine was for the kids!? Media centre won out?
 
@Wil I had two machines - this one and an old Dell. The replacement was for the Dell which is going to be the living room browser. The kids have the new machine at the moment though that will change once I've upgraded this to Windows 7. That's still waiting on me getting the extra memory for this one.
 
Wil
ahh, got you!
 
1:45 PM
Oh @Wil congrats on your gold tag badge. I'm still a way off my first silver tag (windows I think).
 
Wil
@ChrisF Thanks - ... but you already had a gold ages ago on SO! It is my first hard work badge!
 
reads up
I have two systems with the same hostname right now ._.
well one is not currently running
@Wil: also, i got my new laptop, a fairly shiny thing about it is, the power manager seems to give you a live estimate of power usage
 
Wil
@JourneymanGeek cool, usually it just estimates and isn't that good... if it is accurate, that is cool
 
yeah, but i've never seen it before ;)
 
Wil
RE: My dad's laptop, finally set it up for him yesterday... with time difference it has been really hard to do it... he made a funny joke:
My Dad made a funny joke!!! I said his new laptop has a "motion sensor"... he said, "does that detect if I go to the toilet? " :)
 
1:55 PM
o0
 
Wil
Told a few of my friends, hardly anyone got it! ... Does no one know!
 
@Wil, that is a bad joke
 
Wil
Ahh, didn't know, just an old English word... Doesn't even come up in Google Dictionary...

From Cambridge English Dictionary...

Motion -

a polite way of referring to the process of excretion of solid waste, or the waste itself

The nurse asked if her motions were regular.
 
And at the same time, good
That's one reason I don't like the 'merkin phrase "going through the motions"
 
Wil
Well, when I first heard about the hard drives with the motion sensor, I thought exactly the same.... I thought it was funny at least! ... maybe humour just runs in families!
 
2:02 PM
That phrase has some seriously disturbing implications
 
2:17 PM
Hey, anyone here?
 
Nobody here but us...
 
what do you guys talk about in here all day?
 
Stuff, mainly.
 
@Chacha102: well, no one talks all day... ;p
 
2:32 PM
Sometimes SU posts, sometimes who's doing what...
@Chacha102 What do you expect us to talk about?
 
@Mokubai What Linux Distro should I use?
 
Depends what you want to do...
Ubuntu is simple for home users, CentOS is supposedly good fer servers, as is Redhat
 
I hate Ubuntu Unity. It feels like a plastic spoiler on a Honda Accord
 
lol
you can switch to any desktop manager quite easily
 
Gentoo is a good distro....
 
2:36 PM
There are so many features of Compiz, and everytime I want to enable them Unity gets in the way..
 
@Chacha102: depends on your aims
 
I'm mainly a Web/Development User
 
I've built up a nearly totally custom ubuntu based build for a box, using openbox
@Chacha102: then why do you need a gui? ;p. More seriously tho, tried swapping to gnome to see if that works better?
donno what they call it, i think classic
 
That's what the guy in the Ubuntu Room suggested
So I think I'm gonna go with it
I just wanted another opinion
I really like Fedora, just is really buggy. Horrible font rendering, all the settings have gone away, bleh
 
2:38 PM
If you want a distro that is completely customised to your needs take a look at Gentoo, setup time is longer but you get exactly what you're after and nothing more
 
@Chacha102: quite honestly?
start with CLI
 
@Wil True - but tag badges are harder to come by on SU.
 
try a few varients, try a few distros
@Mokubai: eh, have they updated the installer live cd? the last time i installed it, i got frustrated cause the cd used the old HDX conventions while the finished install used the new SDX conventions for PATA drives
 
That was what screwed me over last time I checked it, but I'd expect that to be fixed by now...
 
;)
good to see i wasn't the only one
the advantage for debian based distros is, they're fairly newbie friendly
speaking of which
@Chacha102: give debian a try too
 
2:43 PM
@Chacha102 if nothing else I'd recommend downloading a few distros and trying them in Virtualbox, give you an idea of the differences before you take the plunge...
 
Wil
2:58 PM
@ChrisF I would love a C# badge!!! I have been programming for the past 6 months or so and every time I feel like I have made progress or mastered something, I feel like I get slapped in the face with a wet fish!
 
@Wil I've been a developer for 28 years and still get that feeling
 
Wil
@ChrisF That's good to know!!! I just read some of the questions on SO, and forget giving an answer to the problem - half the time I don't understand the question! I'll get there one day!
 
3:13 PM
The 2 * 2GB 1066MHz memory I was looking at have come down in price. Now £35 (including shipping). This is not much more than 1 2GB 800MHz stick. I'm going to have to go for this.
I'll put the stick I currently have on eBay
 
@ChrisF Sounds like a good deal, take it!
 
@SimonSheehan Have done! Will upgrade this machine to 64 bit Windows 7 when it comes.
 
3:50 PM
@ChrisF Awesome :D
 
4:18 PM
hey
 
Heya
 
I guess today I had the worst. ever. experience in providing a long answer... :'(
 
3
A: Are all basic SATA drives equally reliable?

bubuIf you have the time, read Pinheiro et al (2007) Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population. Proceedings of the 5th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies, Feb 2007. It can be retrieved from http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/labs.google.com/en//p...

 
wow you caught me
 
Just clicked through to your profile and sorted to find the most recent.
Such things happen, the rate is still low compared to a site like Stack Overflow.
 
4:21 PM
I never thought an accepted answer would come sooo fast.. c'mon it's not even an hour
 
There is a hint on their meta somewhere that suggests to first type a short answer and then edit your answer to improve it, so that if you're right then you at least get the accept.
 
yeah, im no longer a programmer though these days... last time i struggled even in writing a small program to interpret some medical data in android...
nevermind though... reps doesn't matter so much... it's just that i need to come here and say it to make myself feel relievd...
 
Well, you got four votes, so there isn't really a problem.
Unless you do care about accepted answers...
 
not really but just feel really disappointed when i click the post answer button just to see a green tick
thanks though =)
 
Yeah, feels annoying. Had the same this morning (although I went to sleep in the middle of posting an answer)...
 
4:29 PM
now that i don't have much holiday left in my schedule (i usually intensively surf su only during my annual leave period)... an answer or two a day may as well be the best i could do...
cya
 
cya
 
5:34 PM
1
Q: Can i use one laptop to charge another laptop by connecting the two together with a usb cable?

BrantMy Toshiba laptop has a problem with the ac charging adapter. The problem is with the computer and not the charging cord. The geek squad told me that Toshiba laptops have had the same problem in the past. I dont want to spend $400 dollars to fix it or buy a new one. Please let me know if anyo...

o.O
 
5:45 PM
@Mokubai: Exactly my thoughts, in order to get that working you could as well just replace the power connector. Unless his power circuit is broke, in which case the USB charging wouldn't work either...
 
It baffles me, we've had a number of "can I charge my laptop via USB" questions lately it seems
power out != power in
 
1
Q: Share Multiplayer World

theChrisKentA buddy and I have been playing Terraria together in a joint world. I hosted and so I have the world and can play in single player when he's not around. He'd like to do the same, is this possible? I doubt we could both play it and then have it sync up the changes, but is there a way to send him...

I'm really wondering if he's going to implement my answer...
 
I'd do it via dropbox , share the folder, and then hardlink to where you need it to be, that way DB only syncs actual changes to the file as well
good solution though
 
@Mokubai: What do you mean by actual changes? Does Dropbox do binary diff?
 
Aye, I've been doing stuff on WLW files (which seem to basically be office documents) that were about 5MB in size and each time I changed it there was about 20-30k uploaded
@TomWijsman you need a dropbox account? db.tt/zNz3Mk0
 
6:08 PM
I have one but never use it...
Don't really feel the need to.
 
Wil
6:19 PM
@Mokubai I so want to answer with this picture:....
user image
4
 
@Wil That would be perfect, I'd just be worried that they'd take it seriously...
 
Wil
:)
 
true
 
you'd have to follow it quickly with a definition of iron-oh-knee... ;)
 
well i guess a reference to the irony mint is also ok
btw is it just me or the superuser site is rather slow today?
 
6:26 PM
was down for me a few minutes ago, I'm assuming server troubles
 
i still have trouble connecting to superuser.com
 
 
1 hour later…
7:29 PM
@Wil: I wonder what such cable would actually do, my first thought would be that it cycles around and loses power on each cycle but my second thought comes up with a short circuit...
 
Wil
@TomWijsman I would love to learn more about electricity and electronics - so forgive me if the terminology is wrong... I would assume it would be close to your first guess... if it was only using the USB for power then it would simply register as a normal power source and charge - but, at a slower speed than it drains.... or if there isn't enough current, it would just drain and get lost as heat inside the psu.
 
@Wil: Another thing I was thinking is that it could be a zero effect, imaging connecting the + of a battery with the + and the - of a battery with the -.
Well, other possibility is that using the cable it connects + with - and the - with + and then it short circuits. xD
I really feel like asking this somewhere, would it be on-topic anywhere?
Because I'm facing the "not-an-actual-problem" issue...
 
Wil
I am certain it would do something.... USB sockets can be used just for electricity and are not smart... e.g. I got carried away and bought a "humping dog USB adapter" (as a joke... was only about £3!), when plugged in, nothing happens apart from hardware monitor showing slightly more power output (and minimal at that)... so, I am guessing it would drain power but most likely would be lost as heat/not enough to charge the PSU
Hmmm... Electronics or Physics SE?
Probably electronics more
First the maths question, now this... We use other SE sites to answer our stupid (but interesting) questions!
 
7:45 PM
0
Q: What happens if you charge a laptop using it's USB power?

TomWijTo play a joke on this question, we came up with the folloing image on the Super User Chat. Of course this will not work, but now my question is: What happens if you charge a laptop using it's USB power? Assume there is a fully charged battery in the laptop to begin with. ;) I see three pos...

 
Wil
I wouldn't say 3 is accurate as it wouldn't go in a circle... I think 3 should be... not enough current (or whatever) and it is undercharging the psu... so electricity is drawn and just gets loss as heat in the psu... and then 4 is what you said first - it charges but at a much slower rate than it puts out.
:/
 
 
1 hour later…
9:00 PM
hm
nothing would happen
there's simply not enough voltage
on the other hand...
supposedly you can charge a laptop off... a giant array of C batteries
 
If the power supply in the laptop is set up properly then nothing at all would happen
You might loose a little bit of power, but it should be negligible,
That would be it it was a full switch mode power supply, which is the standard these days anyway. With other types of PSU you could end up with cool fireworks and stuff
Sadly that last bit is a lie...
But it would be much more interesting if it wasn't
 
9:27 PM
lol
 
woo I got my first gold badge o/
 
@JourneymanGeek What time is it where you're from? O_o
I was just wondering because you're .. like .. far ahead
 
5.30 am
 
Wil
I think I just spent far to long on something I shouldn't of done...... but oh well, has made me happy.....
 
9:35 PM
not sleeping too well. too much excitement ;p
@Wil: XD
 
Wil
 
@JourneymanGeek Excitement for your laptop? :P
 
hm
and another thing ;p
 
Wil
@JourneymanGeek (... That was the bug! Keeping it open for Balpha, if he wants it... next picture is the thing)
 
don't tell me i didn't mention the crush here ;p
ahh ;p
its still amusing
 
Wil
9:38 PM
@slhck congratulations!
 
basically, i (unfortunately) have a fairly major crush on a girl in my business comms class. Which means i've seen her all of thrice. The last time i see her is monday
 
@Wil Thanks :) what's up with that letter? I mean, do they really think that people would pay?
 
@slhck: eh, the tyranny of authority, and the fancy letter head ;)
 
Wil
@slhck Well, they used to clamp people non stop, but the government have declared that illegal, so they just send letters out on the hope that people will... try to make it look all official and stuff
I like my "wasting my time" letter.... I think I may use that a bit more often
 
@Wil So that's what you're doing in return
:P
@JourneymanGeek Meh, so go you and make a move!
 
Wil
9:40 PM
Why not!
 
Wil
I wonder if they will even bother to respond
 
@slhck: bizzarely, i have never asked a girl out before, and i don't know anything about her XD
 
@Wil I guess if they know they did you wrong and you'd threatened with something else, they'd probably paid the 25 pounds
Just so you'd shut up. I mean, they do have the money :P
 
Wil
@slhck Lol... I highly doubt they will pay out... I doubt I will even get an apology, but just thought I have nothing to loose by sending it!
To be honest, I am surprised they are even sending a letter, usually they just send a fine straight away
 
9:45 PM
Yeah, I once got a ticket for parking in the wrong spot on a huuuuge parking lot on December 23rd somewhere in a huuuuuge shopping center in Germany
They really cared to send me that 15€ fine.. to Austria
 
I mean, come on! :P I guess everybody got a ticket that day
 
lol
@slhck: we're more efficient, they started using the devices they use for automatically charging tolls for parking too
not everywhere, of course
 
There goes your privacy!
 
what privacy!
lets see
 
Wil
9:51 PM
@slhck ... I don't get people who care about privacy "so" much... I pretty much tell anyone anything if they ask me... Nothing secret on that letter - or anything that people who spend a good few minutes
 
you can track where a specific railcard went... or track your car a dozen different ways
 
Wil
But wow... Did you pay yours / is it enforceable in Germany/Austria?
 
@Wil Well it's about still having the choice, for me the nothing-to-hide argument doesn't always hold. I have a blog post that I'd like to publish on WTFriday that explains why.
 
if i wanted to be untracable, i'd pay in coins or cash and take public transport... oh wait, they can trace where my phone is... and...
 
And yes, they seem to have some jurisdiction that allows them to
 
9:52 PM
@slhck: the choice would be, avoiding road pricing gantries entirely?
 
Wil
@slhck please give link once you do! I fully agree with the choice but I just find some people silly (not everyone!)
 
@JourneymanGeek Yeah, it's almost not possible
 
Wil
brb 20 minutes... errands :(
 
there's a reasonable expectation of privacy
or excessive information making tracking hard
but if i told the singapore government ERP violated my rights, they'd either laugh at me, or spin some bullcrap story about how its good for me
just like any government
 
yup, and it's for your convenience only
 
9:55 PM
lol
taxes are the opiate of government ;)
 
lol yeah something like that :D
 
10:11 PM
Oh how much I hate Austria
You can't even go out for groceries on a Saturday evening
 
lol
that's true of much of europe
 
Turns out we have a public holiday on Monday, so that means no shopping from Sat. 6pm until Tuesday 8am
Yay!
 
nice thing about singapore... we have both 24 hour grocery stores...
and 24 hour computer retailers ;)
 
yeah, rub it in my face
 
no point having nice things if you can't ;)
 
10:15 PM
24hr computer retailer sounds fun though.. I mean, whenever I decide I need something it's probably 1AM or so
 
well, and there's also a 24 hour hypermarket
;)
i might pop by challenger (the computer retailer) before school
 
hypermarket
gasps
 
and.. their website is down
 
lol
well I'm gonna get some food
 
@slhck: i wanted to check if there was anything useful i could use the points from the membership from ;)
 
10:19 PM
:D
see you around, think I'll be off watching TV or something
so, see you around @JourneymanGeek
 
Wil
@JourneymanGeek 24 hour computer places?... Wow... (24 hour grocery shopping is in England as well)
 
lol
@Wil: challenger - i'd link their site but its down
they're like our equivilent of say best buy or PC world, but with somewhat less suck
 
Wil
@JourneymanGeek less suck... when you look at PC World's service, that really isn't hard in the slightest!
 
lol
@Wil: Well, they're the only people who have cyberclean in stock, locally. And by service, i mean 'leave me the hell alone!'
for anything... useful, i tend to favour smaller places, naturally
 
Wil
10:28 PM
@JourneymanGeek Cyberclean? :/ I have seen them advertised, but never tried one... I just use the vacuum cleaner or compressed air! Do you like it then?
 
lol
its awesome
especially for removing hair between keys, dandruff or mildly greasy keys
Its made a huge difference to how cruddy my keyboard gets
 
@Wil: I've got a new mind-bending question. Perpetual motion isn't possible as far as we know of, however, if you look at the entire solar system it looks like perpetual motion is happening all the time and will not cease to exist as energy doesn't disappear in a closed system... :/
 
lol
@TomWijsman: actually no. orbits will decay.
 
@JourneymanGeek: Will all other things too? Because perpetual motion of the whole solar system ceases to exist if nothing moves anymore...
 
also, there's another flaw
energy is concerved
its not necessaily converted to useful forms
 
Wil
10:37 PM
@TomWijsman ...beyond me, TBH, I have never agreed with many of the "laws" of science, I just think they are the best guess until they can be broken... as for energy... I suppose it depends where you draw the boundary of a closed system...
 
In mathematics, tetration (also known as hyper-4) is an iterated exponential and is the next hyper operator after exponentiation. The word tetration was coined by English mathematician Reuben Louis Goodstein from tetra- (four) and iteration. Tetration is used for the notation of very large numbers. Shown here are examples of the first four hyper operators, with tetration as the fourth (and succession, the unary operation denoted a' = a + 1 taking a and yielding the number after a, as the 0th): #Addition #:a + n = a\!\underbrace{{}^{\cdots}{}'}_n #::a succeeded n times. #Multiplicat...
Unrelated, but learned something new in Mathematics today...
@JourneymanGeek: It seems to me that it's subjective, as we don't know what would really happen...
Observations suggest that the expansion of the universe will continue forever. If so, the universe will cool as it expands, eventually becoming too cold to sustain life. For this reason, this future scenario is popularly called the Big Freeze. The future of an expanding universe is bleak. If a cosmological constant accelerates the expansion of the universe, the space between clusters of galaxies will grow at an increasing rate. Redshift will have stretched ancient, incoming photons (even gamma rays) to undetectably long wavelengths and low energies. Stars are expected to form normally ...
Last paragraph of the section Dark Era I linked in the above article says that.
@JourneymanGeek: Hmm, one of the Newton law of Physics stays that under no influence of an external force a moving object will keep moving. Which I would consider to be perpetual motion; however, I doubt if we can determine if something moving away from our galaxy will ever collide with something at the borders or outside our galaxy... :P
 
@TomWijsman: ASSUMING a frictionless surface
and no energy lost to say... useful work ;)
 
@JourneymanGeek: I doubt if there is friction, it flies in space space space SPAAAAAACEEEEE... xD
Kind of like this:
 
lolz well it would be nice to put some sort of power generator on the perpetual motion... but that's not possible I guess
 
10:52 PM
o0
@ExelerationG: if perpetual motion was possible, doing actual WORK with it....
 
lol yeah
1 problem: we ourselves move along with the perpetual motion :P
 
Once you do work with it, the perpetual motion is lost.
 
That's another thing
 
well, energy is transferred out of the perpetual motion system
 
But there will be friction when generating it
Which will likely sudo kill -9 the perpetual motion in the end
 
10:55 PM
well, yes. hence i mentioned frictionless ;)
 
ah ok sorry for not seeing that
 
Why don't they call it "perpetual work", I thought motion was sufficient... :(
 
How long does this chat exist? It's not as busy as you'd expect from a busy website as AskUbuntu
 
Since the beginning of Chat Stack Exchange, I belief...
 
lol
SU was here before AskUbuntu
 
10:57 PM
ah thank you lol
 
i think it was like..the second or third site in the family
 
11:21 PM
3rd @JourneymanGeek
 
SF is older?
 
@JourneymanGeek check out this and set the sort to oldest
 

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