The Journal of Doran Eirok
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Doran Eirok" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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06:54 pm
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I am a desert creature...
We're gonna see nothing... only in Wyoming... come to Wyoming we've got NOTHING... o/~
Today made the drive from Cody WY down to Evanston WY. Wyoming has plenty of neat stuff in various corners, Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons and Devil's Tower and all... but the west central part, where we drove through today, just has vast quantities and new frontiers in the concept of 'absolutely nothing.' Rolling hills of dry scrub and.... well that's about it. Occasionally a cow if you're lucky. But there were a couple stretches of around 60 or 80 miles of the road just going through this barren country with no settlement or habitation or services or crossroads or anything. It's rather intimidating to drive through, knowing that if something went wrong the only thing you could do would be waiting and hoping to flag down a passing car for help, of which there were not many. At the same time it's kind of neat that even in a country as obsessively developed as the US there are still large areas of effectively no human settlement. (This is not to say it's totally pristine and untouched, it's pretty much all rangeland for cattle. But cows don't tend to be handy with a jack or have spare engine coolant or phones you can borrow.)
However the trip only ended up being about 7 hours or so as opposed to the 9 and a half that google was telling us, which was a nice surprise. My lil car is still doing great, although some of the long rolling hills are really making me wish I'd bought a car with a V6 engine or something. Loaded down with our luggage, the car tends to complain rather loudly about trying to maintain freeway speeds up some of the longer and steeper slopes on the landscape. It'll get there but it keeps having to downshift and pump up the revs, and the cruise control tends to flat out give up on many of them. Poor thing.
Perhaps to compensate for all our jokes about the vast expanses of nothingness that seems to make up this state, wacky fun ensued when we went out to Pizza Hut. After a large order of cheesy garlic bread we figured a single large would be plenty for us, and we could deal with a few leftovers for lunch tomorrow because we're staying here two nights and have a mini fridge. When the order came we just got a medium, with the explanation that there'd been a goof in the kitchen and we were going to get two mediums instead of the single large. Okaaay... free food isn't bad but as soon as the medium came we realized that even just one of those was going to be more than enough for us. And then when they brought out the second pizza it turned out it was actually a large, because the pizza they gave us the first time was the wrong one.. so we ended up with a whole extra free pizza and walked out with three boxes of leftovers! So we're wondering how to deal with all of it since it's going to be more than we need even for an entire next meal tomorrow. Hee. It was kind of daunting but hilarious at the same time, our incredible multiplying pizza. WTS stack of pizza. One more reason I miss people, I know several of you reading this who I'm sure would be happy to help alleviate our pizza burden!
Current Location: Sietch Evanston
Current Mood:  full
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02:46 pm
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Hope
I am Doran Eirok and I approve this message.
https://pol.moveon.org/donate/gorechallenge.html
In the spirit of John F. Kennedy once challenging America to put a man on the moon within ten years, Al Gore has made a speech challenging America to commit to producing %100 of its electricity from cheap, clean renewable sources within ten years. He goes on to explain how dependence on fossil fuels involves more than just environmental concerns but also ties in with the economy and war.
It sounds totally off the wall in its ambition, but I think he makes some pretty convincing points about why it's more possible (and urgent) than most people think. I doubt it'll have the same kind of impact and success Kennedy's challenge did; for one, Gore isn't the president and the feeling I get is that however accurate and true his science is, all the people in this country who don't want to agree with him have already written him off as a wacky liberal alarmist, along with pretty much everybody in the scientific establishment who's actually noticing we've got problems we need to fix. For another thing, our whole society is neck-deep in the reliance on fossil fuels that Gore's urging us to break away from with this. So I'm hesitant with regard to how likely this will all come to pass, but it strikes me as one of those things really worth trying for and throwing some support behind. Because if we go 'nah, it won't happen' and go back to business as usual, nothing ever gets better. In fact with climate change they'll do the opposite of that.
I hope using my LJ to actually have an opinion about something rather than just delivering a dry account of what I'm doing doesn't shock anyone too badly. ;)
Current Mood:  optimistic
Current Music: "Down to Earth" by Peter Gabriel, from the Wall-E Soundtrack
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12:05 pm
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Iowa again
Well, back in Iowa again now. The city isn't looking too bad, I seem to have missed all the excitement really. There's still some roadwork, and part of the Coralville strip (sadly including Old Chicago, wah) is kind of creepily ghost-town-like. Most things seem to be recovering okay though.
Video Games Live was pretty amazing and a really fun time.
Being back in Iowa now is, as usual, both good and bad, nice and hard. Nice getting back into a normalish routine of life I'm used to, nice seeing people I've been missing. But now I miss the other people, rer. Geography is a pain sometimes.
Current Mood:  pensive
Current Music: Sweet Solitude - Blade Runner OST
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12:00 am
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New Hotness
So, new (used) car shopping took place last Saturday with my parents.
( Here's the story and the result )
Current Mood:  Squeee!
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10:16 am
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All good things...
My car is awesome and I love it. But no matter how good care I've tried to take of it, you can't stop time. While the engine and all still is working great, the rust along the rocker panels has been diagnosed as malignant and terminal.
It's still drivable as long as the driving isn't too rough, but totally fixing the problem would cost over 2000 dollars I determined this morning which just doesn't make sense anymore on a car that old. And given how much I drive between Iowa and Michigan, and that this summer I'm driving halfway across the country and over multiple mountain ranges in the name of research, I need a new car.
Once the semester's over I'm gonna head back to Michigan for a week or so to go car shopping with my dad. The Dragon Wagon will most likely pass to a cousin of mine who has need of it but doesn't do the kind of endurance driving I do, so it's nice having a good home lined up for it rather than the scrap heap.
Given the car's state this is all sad for me but not really unexpected, I've been bracing for the possibility. Just the way things go.
*hugs his car*
Current Mood:  resigned
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03:43 pm
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Back from Boston
The conference went well! My presentation went pretty well, I don't think I was *too* awkward or anything, and I got several questions that were all ones I could answer okay and weren't like 'who let you in here?' So that was good. Also it was neat being all geographical for a week and just going to all sorts of random sessions, some of which were relevant to my own research and many of which just sounded interesting. It was a good time. Would've been nice to get a bit more chance to sightsee around the city, but time and desire were both limited given that for the most part I would have been doing it on my own anyway. Stuff like that is more fun with somebody.
So yeah, that was good. Glad to be back now though too. I've still got some end of semester stuff to take care of coming up, and some more revisions to the paper my presentation came off of and the next paper to start working on after that, but... I feel all free and stuff right now without that hanging over me anymore.
Current Mood: calm
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06:32 pm
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Here goes nuffin
The big development... yes, yes I am still alive... in my life right now is that next week I'm going to Boston for the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers. And giving a presentation on some of the stuff I've been working on as part of my doctoral program.
It's kinda scary! But I gave a practice presentation of it to the department last friday and it went surprisingly well, I managed to not stutter my way through it or trip all over my words or anything. So... at this point I'm feeling like it might actually go okay and I may even survive it with my self-esteem intact. Will have to see.
So.. scary and exciting and professional. ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tarkara_kamaris helped me go shopping for new spiffy dressy clothes since this will be the first time I've been dressy looking in a few years, that's kinda fun. Traveling to a big unfamiliar city all on my own is also going to be a bit interesting.
Will report back on how things went in a week... wish me luck!
Current Mood: optimistic
Current Music: Blade Runner OST
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01:39 am
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Update from the far side of the world
Quick update! I'm in Scotland, blame any typos on the weird UK keyboard, having a great time being with close dragon types while missing all of you I'm not seeing right now, but for those I'll be back in Iowa and online in a lil over a week so I'll see you then. Love all of you and happy 2008. ^^
Current Mood: cheerful
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11:19 am
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Dragon girl short story
This was posted on the journal of my friend bladespark and I thought it was great enough that I'd repost it here to pass it on. Go have a look, it won't take you long.
http://www.sarahmensinga.com/dragongirl.htm
Current Mood: calm
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05:16 pm
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The Lair of Doran Eirok: 1997-2007?
Some of you may know that little website I still have set up on Michigan State University's webspace from when I was a student there. The one they've never gotten around to shutting down even though I don't go there anymore. Well as of recently, I can still log into it over FTP, but I can't upload or alter anything. Which got me wondering if MSU was finally pulling the plug on me, which they'd be fully justified in doing at this point. Even so it'd be a bit sad. However, this doesn't actually seem to be the case. Some FTP fussing from zelandeth showed that HE could log in with my info and do these things, just that I can't for some reason. Add to that the several fruitless hours that azakir and I spent a week or two ago trying to set up some sort of transparent bridging or port forwarding on my new cable internet connection so I could send files via DCC on IRC and/or host games, and the evidence all points to one more or less scientific conclusion.
My cable internet/modem is a lil bit crap. Or at least inconvenient.
Basically it seems that the above things (sending DCCs, hosting games, or doing anything over FTP) may just be impossible from my current connection. As such, trying to update my old website anymore, while still possible if I enlist help from somebody willing to be a middledragon, is going to be a pain, and since everything I really care to be showing anybody on that website is also now up on FurAffinity and DeviantArt, and since every time I've looked at monitoring stats of my website it's shown hardly any hits longer than a couple seconds which suggests a lack of actual viewing by any sentient beings, I'm leaning toward not being bothered. So the Lair remains, but if it's going to get updated anymore ever it'll be rather infrequently. Assuming MSU doesn't actually catch up with me and check their records and realize they don't need to be hosting it anymore anyway.
So! Just for where that leaves anybody who's actually interested in this, my remaining updated semipermanent online presence will now consist of three places:
-My LiveJournal. Which obviously you can find okay.
-My FurAffinity gallery (http://www.furaffinity.net/user/doraneirok/) shows all my more or less recent artwork and is updated anytime I draw something I feel is worth showing off at all. As such the only thing my old Lair has that FA doesn't is my old short stories, which I don't feel a massive need to keep showing off as I haven't really been writing anymore in a few years. And monitoring statistics of my website showed that not even automated search bots ever expressed any interest in viewing them.
-And, my DeviantArt gallery (http://doraneirok.deviantart.com/). On which gets posted all the exact same stuff as my FA gallery so there's really no difference apart from which one you prefer.
So um. That's just there for anybody interested.
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Moby, "Extreme Ways" -- Bourne Supremacy Soundtrack
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10:18 am
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Update in the life of me
Just to summarize what's going on in my life right now for interested parties...
After the happy great visit from special people, I went out west to Washington State for a week on a research trip with my professor and others he works with. We didn't do hard research or measurements, mostly just taking a tour of the Pacific Northwest and doing a bunch of hiking and observing in the Olympics, Mt. Ranier, North Cascades National Park, and Mt. Baker. It was a pretty neat time, and fun and informative getting to see firsthand the sort of environments I'm meant to be doing research on.
Now I'm back in Iowa getting ready for the semester to start next week, alone again, which I've decided after years of careful consideration is Not My Favorite Thing Ever. In some ways it's good to be back, since this place is my home of sorts, and there's something to be said for a feeling of stability and being able to run one's own life. I'm actually rather looking forward to my classes this fall, it's just my own research I'm less excited about, which so far seems to involve lots of being frustrated and confused and feeling stuck and lost and tearing my hair out over campus computers and ArcMap not doing what I want them to. But I'll keep at it and sort through things.
In the mean time, the usual post-dragon-visit retail therapy has ended me up with probably one of the best quality flashlights known to man (a Surefire L2, blame to zelandeth for turning me into a lighting and tech geek) and an Xbox 360 in preparation for Halo 3's impending arrival (blame to azakir for getting me spectacularly hooked on the Halo games, to the point where I'll buy a reasonably new console primarily for a single game. Yeah, I'm that excited about it).
Current Mood:  weird
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02:32 pm
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Reports of my abduction by superdimentional space emus have been greatly exaggerated
Rawr.
I been busy. azakir, zelandeth, and tarkara have been visiting me for the past three weeks or so from the UK, we've kept busy with all manner of things and travels including a visit to Iowa to see where I've been living on my own, camping over a weekend at the renaissance faire, and hanging out in my favourite places up by the sand dunes in northern Michigan. It was happy and wonderful and now is less so for being over and having that stinking great pond in the middle of things again.
In a couple days I go back to Iowa, then go on a research trip with my professor out to Washington State for a week. Presumably getting my head back into thinking about grad school and what the heck I'm actually doing there will happen if all goes well! Squee. tarkara will be staying on this side of the Atlantic now for at least a while, which while it lasts will make my life nicely and considerable less lonely. so I have squee regarding that.
Anyway, that's what I've been up to and such.
Current Mood: weird
Current Music: BT, "The Revolution"
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05:37 pm
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Culture of fear
Ponder, ponder. So in the wake of the recent Virginia Tech shootings, my University's had some excitement. On Tuesday there was a bomb threat that caused a bit of a scare and a few buildings were locked down for safety, including the one I do all my work and classes in because it's also where the president's office is. And then yesterday, it seems that there was an incident in which a student wore a ski mask into a building and sat down in lecture without taking it off, so another student got worried and called the police, who came and carted the guy with the ski mask off for questioning. Because you know, suspicious and stuff.
Okay, so. I'm all very very much in favor of being cautious and doing what can be done to try to keep it so that shootings like those at Virginia Tech and others never, ever happen. Contrary to what I'd like the world is not a fluffy happy place where everybody is accepting and loving and open minded and can always find better ways to deal with their problems than by indiscriminately killing people. I know this and I understand this.
However. My country is really starting to unsettle me. I think it's a major part of the culture and has been for a long time, but especially in the past decade or so we seem to have gotten to where so many of the decisions we make as a people are based on fear and paranoia. Everybody's out to get us, everybody might be a terrorist, we should be afraid of everything and everyone. Forget the Geneva Convention, Duck and Cover, assume the worst if somebody looks 'suspicious.'
Wearing a ski mask indoors is quite odd and in light of recent events I can certainly understand seeing that and getting worried. So I'm not really interested in passing judgment on the incident either way. But it does make me shift uneasily on my paws a bit, too. I don't go out my door each day dressing to turn heads, but it probably could be said that some of my appearance is 'mildly eccentric' or something. I have long hair, I own a couple trench coats that I wear when it's cold or rainy, and I have Interesting Hats that I wear in similar weather conditions. Generally I'm just more interested in 'looking like me' than 'looking like everyone'. And recent events can't help but leave me to wonder, what happens if and when somebody decides that I look suspicious too? And how scared do I, or does anyone in this country, need to be about stepping out of line and not looking and acting exactly as they're expected to?
I don't think there's really a profound message or rant or anything here, just... some kind of nervous feelings from a dragon looking around and wishing he felt a little more safe with regards to his personal freedoms in a country that he really does love and care about.
Current Mood:  Sorta mildly unsettled
Current Music: Tangerine Dream - Legend OST
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12:18 am
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Doran's LJ breaks with tradition and... does normal LJ stuff
Apologies if this sorta thing bothers anybody. I think it's sorta neat and entertaining. And I really enjoyed the books and am excited for the movie. Rar.
Current Mood: curious
Current Music: Vangelis - "Blade Runner Blues" - Blade Runner OST
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08:10 pm
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New member of the family
I am an uncle.
My brother's wife delivered their first baby, and my nephew, yesterday morning. His name is Fenton.
It's wonderful and exciting, and it hasn't really sunk in for me yet. I don't think it will until I get a chance to travel home and meet him for the first time. Hopefully this will happen soon.
Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: BT - "Good Morning Kaia"
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10:51 am
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Almost home
Well, it's been a really good holiday for me. As usual, in going back to Michigan for Christmas I really miss the people I don't get to see as much because I'm not online as much, but I don't miss school. Generally by the end of the semester I'm quite ready for break the way a dying fish is ready for a gasp of water. And being back with my family always feels really good.
( A Longish Cut, Wherein Doran Has Christmas and Vacations to the American Southwest and Does Stuff )
On tuesday I'll make the drive back to Iowa, and then I've got about a week to get my act together before courses actually start. But at least I'll be back on a reasonably modern computer and around to see people again.
I hope the holidays went well for everyone. Been missing all of you.
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: "Misha" -- Cirque du Soleil (from Mystere)
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06:29 pm
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Totally random post with no purpose or redeeming value!
...because I don't make such posts often enough. I'm in a strange mood so you all get to suffer for it!
I just spent the past several hours working fruitlessly on a remote sensing project and trying to sort out various data processing issues. It involved writing a program to stack a bunch of images together into a single file, and after much frustration and annoyance, I decided it was time to give up and go home when I got this error message:
Now for dinner I am eating a hot pocket. I hold up the 'crisping sleeve' that comes with it, and say to it, "Now... this hot pocket is not actually remotely crispy. How does it feel knowing that your whole life is a lie? You have failed miserably at the sole purpose for which you were created, and that's it, there's nothing more? That just... can't feel good."
Apparently when grad school and remote sensing project frustration just all get to be too much, Dorans start demoralizing their hot pocket crisping sleeves. Science rules.
Current Mood: weird
Current Music: Pink Floyd, "On the Turning Away"
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03:21 am
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Paws!
As promised, finally! Pictures of my new paws. Along with the rest of what dragony costume bits I have. The paws and tail are all by bladespark (website) and zelandeth again was responsible for the photography here. It goes without saying that I'm incredibly happy with the paws and very excited to have them. Squeee!
Dragony photo collage attack GO!
P.S. ...rar?
Current Mood: Squeee!
Current Music: Genesis, "Second Home by the Sea"
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11:49 pm
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Doran Eirok, Jedi Knight
Well, zelandeth and I took the whole custom homemade lightsaber idea a little bit further. Using simple plumbing equipment from the local hardware store we'd made a pretty spiffy looking saber casing, and with Zel's brilliant work on the push switch we found, it then just... had a switch and wires inside it and everything, and by then it just felt like there was more yet to be done.
I should mention now for those who don't know, Zel is a bit of a lighting nut.
We hit Radio Shack and got some blue LED's and a few other electronic bits, and ended up turning the saber into a 4 LED blue flashlight. Some finishing touches were also needed, so we ordered a belt clip and some rubber O-rings to make the hand grips, and... well here it is.
Lightsaber piccies!
The general design of the slightly long, two-handed grip comes from my idea for Jedi Knight Rin sel Dronathien's 'longblade' lightsaber which is based on a traditional weapon used by his tribal people, the Argothae. The wider spacing of the grips allows for greater leverage and control over the longer blade, which is roughly a third again as long as traditional Jedi lightsabers. If traditional sabers can be thought to be similar to katanas in terms of size and fighting style, the Argothae longblade is closer to a European greatsword.
Parts used: The basic shell involved a sink drain, a coupling, and an extension below that, all in chrome-plated brass 1 and 1/4 inch pipes. Hose clamps were used to add detail and affix a keychain belt clip. The pommel cap is the plug from the sink drain, fitted in place with a little electrical tape and a little genius from Zel. The switch is a simple push switch fit through the opening that would be the drain plug control. The grips are a bunch of rubber O-rings fitted side by side. On the inside, 4 blue LEDs, a bit of perf board cut into a circle and held in place with electrical and duct tape, a holder for four AAA batteries, two resistors to regulate the circuit, and some rather creative soldering make up the flashlight part. Suppliers used in the end were Lowe's Hardware for the plumbing stuff and switch, Radio Shack for the electronics, and Amazon.com for the keychain and O-rings. Credit for the original idea goes to bladespark, and credit goes to Zel for creative consulting, photography, and copious amounts of jiggery pokery. Overall cost of materials was around 60 dollars, and that probably could have been reduced a bit if we'd looked around for cheaper LED's, etc.
It made for a really fun geeky project with Zel, and one of the major Jedi rites of passage is the construction of one's own lightsaber. It's a neat feeling to have something physical and tangible that came initially from one's own creativity, to be able to actually hold something that began as an idea you had yourself.
Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: DJ Lithium, "The Return of the DeJi"
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12:06 pm
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Rar, Squee!
Just a lil update on what's going on in my life just now. I've got a zelandeth visiting me, which is going really well and being a lot of fun for both of us. There aren't a lot of things to show him around Iowa City but we've been getting by with lots of movies and video games and what sightseeing there is to be had. I've done what I can to expose him to all sorts of weird American things like hot dogs and Twinkies and Mountain Dew and this strange artificially-flavored beverage that we call 'orange pop' that is only distantly similar to the naturally-flavored stuff they have over in the UK.
Also, I have costume dragon paws commissioned from bladespark! They're totally fantastic and I'm really enjoying them, and I will put up pictures at some point once we get some taken.
Lastly, Zel and I got inspired by an idea bladespark had on her LJ a little while back and went out to the hardware store with some crafty ideas. Using some plumbing parts and creativity, we built a lightsaber hilt.
( Photo and parts! )
Current Mood: cheerful
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