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6:45 AM
@Feeds Eat that -1
 
 
1 hour later…
7:58 AM
Feeding of cows in Paris, Russia
 
8:11 AM
@CowperKettle so charming photo :)
 
8:35 AM
@M.A.R. The only reason why I'd ever actually want to reach 2000 reputation is so I can make trivial edits.
 
@userr2684291 Duh, the only reason we would want to reach any privilege levels is to earn those privileges. o.o
 
9:06 AM
@M.A.R. There are other reasons. Some people are just greedy for rep. Upon reaching 2k reputation points, you are accorded some other privileges such as the ability to edit questions and answers while eschewing peer review.
Mark Twain once supposedly said: "Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do." Isn't their statement paradoxical on its face?
Was it intended as such?
 
Word of the day: en banc
2
 
9:22 AM
@userr2684291 Yeah, that's called rep-farming
And your edits not going to the suggested edit queue is the same privilege
 
@M.A.R. It's not, really.
 
(/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ ~ ┻━┻ Whatever
 
@M.A.R. I don't need the privilege to eschew peer review, if that clarifies it.
 
9:40 AM
Man, everyone's (mis)quoting this guy and I can't find the source. It's like Chinese whispers. I'm thinking the original said "five-cent" instead of "fifty-cent".
 
@userr2684291 The only person misquoted and misreferenced more than Mark Twain is Einstein
 
Can someone make this below sentence more formal and structural way?
I believe selecting me as the developer won’t be a bad choice at all.
 
@M.A.R. ―Albert Einstein
 
@JudeNiroshan The what developer?
Just 'the developer' doesn't sound really good to say. Or you can drop 'the'
 
@M.A.R. ok. But this entire sentence, does it sounds formal? I'm writing this in a project proposal
 
9:51 AM
It's not just about formality
 
@JudeNiroshan You might not want to tell them what to do, rather say what you're capable of.
 
The sentence might just not be appropriate where you use it
 
@JudeNiroshan It sounds informal.
 
@userr2684291 agree with you.
@userr2684291 Actually they have allocated a section in the proposal to describe why you are the right person?
before that sentence, I have mentioned about the courses and the academic stuff what I have done.
I am writing that sentence at the end of the paragragh
 
@JudeNiroshan Right.
@JudeNiroshan I am confident in my ability as a software developer; nevertheless, I am prepared to acquire knowledge and guidance, and gain experience this position would indubitably grant me. I would appreciate it if you considered my application as I am keen to take up the post.
@JudeNiroshan Something along those lines would be apt, I reckon.
 
10:08 AM
@userr2684291 This seems like I'm applying for a vancy. But I'm writing my Google Summer of Code application
 
@JudeNiroshan What's the difference?
 
I need to represent myself as a student
However your sentence is pretty good
I modified it slightly as follows:
I am prepared to acquire knowledge and guidance, and gain experience in GSoC would indubitably grant me. I would appreciate it if you considered me as I am keen to take up the project.
 
@JudeNiroshan Nix the in before GSoC.
Eh, now my sentence sounds somewhat simple and formulaic.
 
 
1 hour later…
11:33 AM
Hello. How are you?
 
\o
Doing fine
 
@M.A.R. You said you are Asian. How do you practice speaking? Do you try to keep you accent? Or do you try to immitate how native speakers speak?
 
@user178049 I took some courses
 
Ohhh
Let's ping @DamkerngT.
 
And when I started to learn how to walk, I watched some movies to be able to run
I guess
I don't even remember most of it
My courses were only enough for a mediocre to slightly good score in TOEFL exams
But I came to this site, and this chat, and my English became more native-like, I guess
I guess most courses, including the one I took, completely miss the point. :(
The more popular something is, the more crappy people can become teaching it
 
11:42 AM
I do watch movies. But they don't help me. Sometimes I don't know they are saying, maybe because of their accents.
 
You should use whatever language you acquire
Chatting is a good help, but don't expect immediate results
 
@M.A.R. I understand that feeling :( . My teacher also, sometimes misleads us. But because od respect, I stay silent.
 
The more English you do, the better it will become
Think in English. Eat in English. Swear in English. o.o
 
I'm now starting to listen and sing only English songs. Hope that would help.
 
I never understood songs well, neither in English, nor Persian, nor Turkish, nor Arabic
 
11:47 AM
If this site allowed swearing. I would've been swearing all the time.
 
The music distracts me too much
 
Hmm.. I'll still try practising with musics. Because I don't have a member with the same passion with me. I seft-learn this language. So I got no friends that I can converse in English.
 
12:00 PM
@user178049 I have seen several attempts to set up a Discord server for people learning English to chat, but I don't know of any that have been successful in attracting enough people.
I'm a gamer, so I've been in a lot of guilds/clans with voice chat servers, and that group is usually happy to accommodate players that are still learning English. You will definitely learn how to swear on those voice servers :)
 
@user178049 Same as me
 
12:22 PM
@ColleenV Unfortunately, I don't play games. Maybe I'll swearing if I listen a sufficient number of rap songs XD.
 
Naturally
Everyone imitates one another, if they understand what's being said well enough
It has little to do with learning a new language
 
@M.A.R. Agreed. It's learned unconsciously. But it takes time.
 
There was a discord server for learning English called "English Realm" that had 54 users, but I can't really recommend it because I've never been on it
We could try to make one for ELL, but I don't know if enough people would join
and I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for moderating it
 
12:46 PM
@ColleenV I would try it.
 
Actually I found this one linked from the English learning reddit, and it has over 2000 members: discordapp.com/invite/v5egjjJ It might be worth looking into instead of trying to make a new one (although we know the ELL one would be full of awesome people :) )
2
I worry about recommending servers sometimes though - I don't know if there are nice people on there
 
Nice people are far and few between on some sites.
 
I am nice
 
1:05 PM
I popped into that discord channel discordapp.com/invite/v5egjjJ and it seems pretty nice. I need to steal their OED bot for our chat...
Or does ELLBot already look up words in OED?
 
!!define/already
I think it's from Wiktionary
ELLBot WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME
 
Adverb: already (not comparable)
  1. Prior to some specified time, either past, present, or future; by this time; previously.
  2. 1749, John Cleland, Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, Part 6
  3. slipping then my cloaths off, I crept under the bed-cloaths, where I found the young stripling already nestled, and the touch of his warm flesh rather pleas'd than alarm'd me.
  4. Arthur Conan Doyle
  5. It was already dusk, and the lamps were just being lighted as we paced up and down in front of Briony Lodge, waiting for the coming of its occupant.
(2 more not shown…)
 
The thing I like about discord is that it has text and voice chat, so you can still participate even if you don't feel like talking
you can just listen and type
 
1:33 PM
Hey, can "this is questions" ever be grammatical?
 
1:54 PM
@M.A.R. Yeah.
 
@userr2684291 Yeah? But I thought that only happened in "there"'s case
OK, should probably ask on main
 
2:06 PM
0
Q: Is "this is questions" ever grammatical?

M.A.R.I know for a fact that you can use plural nouns after "there's", which is an existential construction. I encountered a post on Stack Overflow today which went like this: . . . this is questions. Now, of course it was ungrammatical because what the poster actually meant was "these are questi...

Oh boy. There goes nothing
 
@user178049 Selamat malam!
@ColleenV Scary!
 
Sorry, every time I hear "This is..." I think of that "This is Sparta!" scene in 300
 
Don't worry. He'll scroll way up soon. :D
(Or so I hope!)
 
All gone :)
 
Ah! I kinda miss him now. :P
 
2:20 PM
\o Dam and Colleen
 
I probably should have picked something less graphic in all honesty.
 
300 was a pretty brutal film and not everyone has a tolerance for that stuff.
 
Well, how brutal?
The Departed is brutal because Scorcese has a really unapologetic theme in his movies
 
Well it was based on the graphic novel, which was just visually stunning, but there is a lot of death, dismemberment and gore
 
2:23 PM
But if you mean lotsa blood, I prefer Django Unchained and Tarantino
 
@M.A.R. I haven't watched that one, I think.
 
I think American's are really wimpy when it comes to sex and overly blase when it comes to violence
Tarantino's violence is a little more satire based on the old grindhouse films
 
@M.A.R. Heh, I admit I took that as a challenge, and immediately assumed this wasn't in the usual subject position. I can also imagine questions as a verb.
 
0
A: Is "this is questions" ever grammatical?

J. SiebeneichlerHere's an uncommon situation where it could work: when the antecedent of this is singular. It occurs in Laura K. Lawless, The Everything French Phrase Book: The only exception to this is questions.

:/
 
but not as jokey as, say Evil Dead.
 
2:26 PM
I'm sure you can think of a similar accidental sequence which crosses constituent boundaries (as StoneyB puts it).
@M.A.R. Is there a context where "this is questions" would ever be grammatical? is your question verbatim.
 
@userr2684291 Of course looking at it as a standalone sentence .
Lemme edit
 
@ColleenV I couldn't finish that one. I enjoyed Cabin in the Woods, though. (^_^)
 
@DamkerngT. It was meant for a certain audience - one who enjoys bad jokes and buckets of fake blood lol
 
@Userr better now?
 
This is questions makes me think of Who's they? @M.A.R.
It'd read better if we quote the right side.
(Like, Who's 'they'? or This is 'questions'.)
 
2:32 PM
@M.A.R. The first result COCA gives is This is nuts. (:
 
@userr2684291 This is nuts and bolts of X
But I guess what I added to the question nullifies both of what you said and what the answerer said
 
From Google: "...my colleague, we can share with the American people, and we always say this is not the Tim Ryan/Kendrick Meek Report, this is facts. We spend at least 7..."
I can imagine questions being used in a similar context.
 
Selamat malam @DamkerngT. o/ I want to know how do you practice speaking, do you imitate how native speakers speak, or do you keep your accent?
 
@user178049 I tried to imitate native speakers, the best I could, to the level I thought it'd be passable, and then left it like that.
So, my accent would be somewhat Tinglish. :-)
You can find some of my old clips around here.
 
@user178049 I imitate native speakers of English in a silly voice. They usually tell me to knock it off.
 
2:40 PM
Ohh, thank you @DamkerngT. :-)
 
I think it's fine to have an accent. The more important point is the listener shouldn't have a hard time trying to understand us.
 
Native speakers of English told me my accent is OK, but obviously non-native.
 
nods
 
@userr2684291 Hahaha. I know that feeling, I sometimes get annoyed when English speakers try to copy accent.
 
An American may mistake me as another American from 5 meters away. :P
(At least it happened once. :)
 
2:43 PM
Same. Especially if they don't hear me talking.
 
But I'm sure that my accent is Tinglish most of the time. :P
 
My pronunciation tends to skedaddle from the native speech, but this skedaddling is homoscedactic.
 
You're practicing Words of the Day again!
:D
 
En banc!
(0:
 
Heh.
It's the be-all and end-all of this channel to him, it might seem. I'd never do such thing.
 
2:46 PM
(0:
 
Not channel but chat room.
 
Whenever you practice WOTDs like a desultory moggie, I become seropositive like a petaloso
2
 
@userr2684291 That should be "this is fact" or "factual", but it's a common enough usage I think
"This is not speculation. This is facts, based on what we've seen first-hand," Jones said of the economic fallout." (foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/11/…)
You might be able to say "This is not proven. This is questions." but I'd still want to reword it.
"This is a sea of questions."
 
3:06 PM
I posted this in chat, but I think it might be helpful here as an example : "This is not speculation. This is facts, based on what we've seen first-hand," — ColleenV ♦ 30 secs ago
First meaningful contribution?
I hope my post doesn't turn into a crap magnet
 
Well just keep iterating until people understand
It takes a few tries sometimes
 
I wish Arau was around, and answering :/
 
Patience grasshopper ;)
 
@ColleenV Mhm, and the simpler it is, the more people think they should take a stab at it
On the plus side, considering there's probably going to be a third answer, a good answer would get upvoted and get this to HNQ, leading it to get even more upvotes
So it's like I made an auto-bounty
 
The same thing happens on ELU. The SE model tends to encourage throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks.
 
3:09 PM
@ColleenV The problem in ELU is more drastic only because a wider range of fluencies are present
I don't know if this guy is looking for an answer from a textbook, CGEL, or research material
BTW @Colleen I think you forgot to link the source in your comment . . .
 
@M.A.R. I did that purposefully because the article is kind of a political hot topic in the US
and might generate a lot of chatter. I think the example stands on its own
 
"Mods on ELL follow FOX news" Invokes Godwin law
 
Lol. I don't follow any of them really. It's not news anymore, just a bunch of psuedo-facts strung together to support whatever story someone wants to tell.
I was sort of sad that such a good example came from an article on such a stupidly controversial topic. We don't actually have anyone in the US enforcing gender at the doors to our public toilets.
so dumb.
 
Well, neither here
Bah
I don't even want to read what it says
 
morning.
 
3:21 PM
Morning!
 
@M.A.R. Well, I guess it's afternoon for you. :P
 
Well, UGT says it's always morning
 
UGT?
 
Universal Greeting Time. Ask @Dam
 
Ah.
 
4:19 PM
Mar 21 '16 at 9:35, by Damkerng T.
> UGT (abbr.): Universal Greeting Time.
UGT is convention initially established in #mipslinux on irc.openprojects.net (now irc.freenode.net) but slowly taking over the world. It states that it is always morning when person comes into a channel, and it is always late night when person leaves. Local time of any member of channel is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. Your ass will be laminated. (geoman is exception to this rule - his ass will be fried instead).
(^_^)
 
HA HA! That's cute!
 
So, good morning! :D
 
4:48 PM
@DamkerngT. Hiii
@DamkerngT. would you please take few minutes and go through the document which I have written so far? I have to submit it tonight. please? :D
I have given permission to anyone can make comments on the document
Please feel free to give me a support :)
 
5:18 PM
Though people in the project would know, Built-In Reports for OpenMRS Reference Application would be better than Built-In Reports for Reference Application, IMO.
We normally don't write 29 - March - 2017. No hyphens or dashes are needed.
Built-In Reports for reference application is probably better written as Built-In Reports for Reference Application. You could add OpenMRS here, too.
 
contribute on open source softwares --> contribute to open source software
 
@ColleenV It is. There's a line in that song that comes to mind "...and that's facts – no printer", lol.
Not really an example of Standard English, but whatevs.
 
@userr2684291 Standard English is so boring. It's much more exciting when we leave the door open for someone to misunderstand us and nitpick our grammar :P
 
5:30 PM
And then show them a soup nazi GIF
 
Also, if we all spoke and wrote perfect Standard English, not only would the world be a dull place, we would lose maybe 80% of our ELL questions...
 
@JudeNiroshan Sorry. My browser just crashed again!
 
@DamkerngT. It's ok. I can wait until you come back :)
 
(I don't know why everything Google makes isn't as efficient as it should be. This is why I like Firefox more than Chrome.)
 
I think your RAM is 4GB :D
 
5:36 PM
0
A: Is "this is questions" ever grammatical?

Stew C"There's questions to be answered." is incorrect. You will see it, but it is un-grammatical, and doesn't sound quite right. To make "this is questions" work in the sense you want (not by a trick of splitting/splicing different phrases), this can refer to a thing/concept which in turn may be or ...

 
Chrome needs minimum 8GB :p
 
Oh, it's 16GB, but I think I've opened over 5000 tabs in total in all browser instances I'm running.
 
> "There's questions to be answered." is incorrect. You will see it, but it is un-grammatical, and doesn't sound quite right.
Yep, my post indeed became a crap magnet
 
@DamkerngT. woah
 
Hehe! :D
 
5:38 PM
@DamkerngT. have you recovered it?
 
@M.A.R. ell.stackexchange.com/a/124141/3395 This is what I had in mind when you asked that question the first time.
 
@JudeNiroshan Yeah, I think it's okay now.
 
Aww :( TRomano is probably upset at me because of the previous drama.
@DamkerngT. Define okay
 
@DamkerngT. 3 more pages to go. We can finish it up within 15 minutes. After tha I won't bother you :)
 
@M.A.R. Okay meant I had to restart my Firefox one more time! :)
 
5:43 PM
I'm doing some punctuation edits Jude
@Dam is an anonymous frog
 
hahaha :D
 
@M.A.R. LOL
 
I didn't see the Snail there :D
 
Are you the anonymous walrus?
 
I can't see what I am
 
5:47 PM
@M.A.R. Okay, so you're the walrus. :D
 
I don't even know what sound Walruses make. Woof woof?
 
@Jude thousands of users is better than 1000 of users. If you want to make the digits stand out, you could go with over 1000 users.
@M.A.R. Haha! I don't know either!
 
A wild anonymous badger appeared
 
> I took many courses in the college which were useful for me to think as a good developer. Data structures and Algorithms, Database management systems, probability and statistics, internet technology and programming and many software engineering courses.
This is fine, but I think it'd be better if you changed the period before Data structures to a colon.
 
I was trying to tell, that I learnt those sort of subjects in college
 
5:50 PM
And I think you should make the capitalization of these courses more consistent.
 
> Therefore, reference application is considered the entire set of modules that are available in OpenMRS.
I don't get this sentence
 
@M.A.R. It's Reference Application.
A name of something in the project.
 
@M.A.R. OpenMRS reference application = 100 different projects put into a single folder
 
So "considered as"
 
Hi
Is there anything like "the lot of or just a lot of"
 
5:54 PM
Hmm... between Sweden hospitals and Swedish hospitals, I like the latter better. Though I'm not 100% if the former is really incorrect.
 
@user62015 Both exist
 
@user62015 What's the full sentence?
 
@DamkerngT. ohh, yeah yeah. I should write Swedish
 
No, I was thinking myself and just want to know what is the difference between them?
 
In fact the entire hospital activities that takes place are covered in this systems
entire hospital activities - this sounds bit odd
 
5:57 PM
Using all would be a better choice.
But I think it doesn't flow very well, considering the previous sentence. Not sure how to fix it, though.
Trivial grammatical errors are activities but takes, and this but systems.
 
ok. let's move ahead
 
> Having said that, in order to develop built-in application for reference module needs knowledge on ...
I don't know why, but it reads a bit strange without articles, even though I know built-in application and reference module are names in the project.
 
Is that a bad way to start the sentence?
 
No, Having said that is fine.
 
built-in application for reference module is the name of the project
 
6:05 PM
nods -- It still look weird to me, anyway.
I think I wish it'd been formatted distinctively, just to remind me that it's a name.
 
Do you think other readers will also find it weird and won't be able to understand that?
 
They definitely will, if they're not familiar with the project.
 
I'm done
 
@M.A.R. Thanks a lot mate.
@M.A.R. do you think, at the last section, I wrote the truth saying that I have joined the community just before a week ago
will this statement reduce the chance of wining?
 
Okay, finished!
@JudeNiroshan Not necessarily, IMO.
 
6:20 PM
To be honest, I joined the OpenMRS community only last week.
 
It's a fact, anyway. And you use it to point out that you're a quick learner.
 
D'you really wanna include "which proves that I am a quick learner".
 
@JudeNiroshan If you're worried about it, you can delete only.
 
@userr2684291 I thought that would give me some extra points to my profile
 
It'll make the time period more sublime.
 
6:21 PM
@DamkerngT. ok. I'll delete it
 
@JudeNiroshan Nah
 
@JudeNiroshan It would, but I don't know how recommendable it is to say it about yourself.
@JudeNiroshan "I tend not to write intelligent code, but more readable code." What exactly do you wanna say by the part in bold?
 
@userr2684291 What I was trying to tell is that, when I write the programs I always try to make it more readable to others
 
@JudeNiroshan I'd rephrase that sentence then.
 
@userr2684291 thank you
@userr2684291 should I keep that ... (3 dots) at the end of that sentence?
 
6:33 PM
@JudeNiroshan No, haha, I'm thinking.
 
@userr2684291 LOL.... Ok. I can wait :)
 
@JudeNiroshan I mean, try to think of something to add to that so it's not such a short sentence.
 
@DamkerngT. @M.A.R. @userr2684291 Big thanks to all of you giving your valuable time for help me. If I got selected with this proposal, I will definitely give my gratitute to all of you. (It's a suprise) I hope I would get selected for this. :)
@userr2684291 yeah. sure
 
You're welcome!
 
@userr2684291 I think, that's good, right?
 
6:43 PM
@JudeNiroshan Yeah.
 
@userr2684291 appreciate your willingness to help me :)
 
7:01 PM
@JudeNiroshan Sure, anytime
 
 
1 hour later…
8:24 PM
@snailplane @ColleenV @J.R. I think something might be broken with the upvoting recording. ...
Tonight I watched my rep going up several times -sometimes by 30 rep at a time for this question but the score on the answer remained steady at 54 and didn't change. Whilst I'm happy to have my rep capped, having the upvotes on answers unregistered is not quite so cool. Could any of you guys find out what was happening there?
 
There's a delay in the achievements pane... it's reporting achievements that are often hours old...
20
Q: Why does the reputation dropdown not show this upvote?

MithrandirOver at Science Fiction & Fantasy, I answered this question: Why did Voldemort choose a snake as a Horcrux given that it is a living thing and has a limited lifespan? (spoilers for Harry Potter 6/7!). This brought my reputation up to 10,565. However... this upvote didn't show up in the dropdown. ...

Also, you're not rep capped today... you're only at 120.
 
8:45 PM
@Catija Yes, but you're understanding that backwards :) My rep is going up but the votes on the Q aren't! There isn't that much delay on the Q score :)
 
Nah, you're just looking at it backwards. You look at the rep change when you see the alerts in your bar (I'm guessing)... and then go see what the score is... but it hasn't changed... because the alerts are late.
If that's wrong, let me know. I haven't upvoted your answer yet but I can (because it is good) and we could test it.
 
@Catija Possible, but I don't think so - unless the delay is massive. We could try that (and if you do it reasonably soon after you could undo your upvote). Do you want to give it a go?
 
Yeah. Voting now.
@Araucaria voted.
The delay seems to vary... sometimes it's instantaneous and sometimes it takes 20-30 minutes or more.
 
That made the Q score go up - so you're probably right. Hmmm :) (You can undo that now if you want )
 
Nah. It's worthy of it and it will be interesting to see what sort of delay there is.
 
8:51 PM
@Catija It registered both ways instantaneously ...
 
Hmmm. Well, it's also possible that it's since been fixed.
Hey J.R. :D
 
@Catija That's possible too. (I'm glad you liked the answer, btw)
 
@Araucaria Nothing amiss as near as I can tell. I think Catija's theory is a good one.
 
@J.R Yes, that looks likely ...
 
@Araucaria Yeah, it was great... I hadn't looked at it in that way before so it really makes it helpful (even to a native speaker who doesn't really think about why).
 
8:53 PM
@J.R. If I get any evidence that it really is malfunctioning I'll let you know ...
@Catija Those are the bits I like about studying English - it's the bits we'd never think about as native speakers ...
It's what makes it fun.
@ColleenV You've changed ...
 
@Araucaria This might be relevant:
20
Q: Why does the reputation dropdown not show this upvote?

MithrandirOver at Science Fiction & Fantasy, I answered this question: Why did Voldemort choose a snake as a Horcrux given that it is a living thing and has a limited lifespan? (spoilers for Harry Potter 6/7!). This brought my reputation up to 10,565. However... this upvote didn't show up in the dropdown. ...

It was asked 12 hours ago and seems to indicate an on-going issue
@Araucaria Yes! My husband finally got a good picture of our hyper puppy
 
@ColleenV Yes, superficially, it looked like things were working the other way round in this case - but as Catija pointed out that could be a result of the same delay ...
@ColleenV You are very handsome now .
 
I call him a puppy, but he's actually all growed up
 
@ColleenV He's got a great understated smile ...
 
He's a very happy dog. Our older dog always pushes him around, but he just keeps on being happy
 
9:00 PM
Would make a good album cover.
@ColleenV Good on him :)
 
Our older dog has dragon-like tendences. She gets all of the toys and piles them up in her crate, and if Charlie tries to play with something, she marches over and takes it away from him
He's very zen about it though
 
@ColleenV It's amusing when the younger creature is the more zen one.
 
Ah, the boss has arrived. Better pretend I haven't been being on ELL ... @ColleenV Hmmm, reminds me of someone who's just walked in (the boss/GF) ... I wish I could be as equinanimous ...
Ciao all! Thanks for the help. Cheers @Catija
 
@Araucaria Sure! Anytime. Good luck pretending to work ;)
 
9:39 PM
@Alex89 Did you delete your answer here? Your answer was correct and receive 4 upvotes. ell.stackexchange.com/q/124089/35026
 

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