On Monday 15 at 13:00 KIT, Nosila will host a music event; the location will be the Ae’gura plaza, and the stream will be at nosilaradio.caster.fm.
CT Hostess Susa’n was on stage to announce the sixth Cavern Tour of 2020, on Saturday 13 at 11:00 KIT, starting from the Cavern Tour’s Hood. The Nexus is currently malfunctioning, and the neighborhood is not showing up; if the problem persists, you should ask Susa’n for an invite.
The host, Larry LeDeay, will use his Twitch channel for the presentation, so you will need to keep a browser or the app open in the background. Videos will be available for two weeks after the tour.
The tours occasionally visit hard to reach places. Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319) is employed for special effects and long-distance travel (and to avoid stairs). If you arrive late, you can PM Susa’n (KI# 9122427) to join the in-progress tour – but do try to arrive in time!
A recent update to the MOULa client reportedly included a physics update, stirring the longstanding question of the future of ‘skydiving’ (a.k.a. glitching), the practice of jumping on invisible colliders to reach normally out-of-reach places, stemming from an older practice of jumping off high places. Innumerable marker games have been created to map skydiving paths along the Ages, and more recently a robot-assisted training course.
Skydiving, however, depends on broken physics engine (PhysX) implementation, causing an uneven game experience depending on computer and network characteristics, fixing which has been part of the open source roadmap since the beginning in 2011. Perhaps even more importantly, upgrading the physics engine (to at least version 4) will lift a major obstacle to a truly native macOS and Linux clients.
Hoikas and Doobes therefore agreed to illustrate the developer side of the issue, and clarify a few questions and misconceptions regarding the client update roadmap:
As for future options, a ‘skydiving client’ was released years ago by Lyrositor – who in the meantime retired from the community – but an update to the KI functioning made it unusable. The source code, and some guidelines on how it could be brought up to date, are publicly available to any coder willing to take up the challenge. However, the long-term solution to preserve skydiving would be a dedicated skydiving shard.
As an addendum, it was noted that another planned update is the transition from the exceedingly obsolete Python 2.3 to 3.8; for robot makers, this will require checking their code for no longer compatible syntax (e.g. from print "string" to print("string") ).
Doobes’ latest releases – Chiso Preniv, Veelay Tsahvahn and the New GoMe Pub – have been ported to the Minkata shards, where the heavy testing will begin. From then, if all goes well, they will be ported to Cyan’ staging server for the last quick checks, and eventually on MOULa, hopefully very soon.
But the big news was the announcement of another, yet unnamed Age in the works! It will be a competitive puzzle Age, based on the Gahreesehn Wall idea, but as a circular maze with configurable (or randomizable) walls. The player or team that will manage to reach the center of the maze, will win.
There will also be a one-in-four chance to remove the walls to gain an advantage, using a control panel beside each wall; but it may also be a disadvantage, so you will need to make a strategic decision! To make things even more challenging, a timer will also be available. During the Q&A, Theo suggested implementing a command to save and load wall configurations.
As for his other Ages in the work, the next release will likely be Kotsahvosahn, a.k.a. the Waystation, the beginning of the journey of D’ni citizen and Messenger Lothias, so it will be more story-heavy than Doobes’ previous Ages.
After that, Doobes has started a new project with AgeExplorer, which promises to be both story and puzzle-heavy.
To keep updated on Doobes’ work, check his blog and his Facebook page.
Korov’ev then gave a quick update on the Fan Ages Expeditions he is hosting on the Deep Island shard, every Sunday at 11:00 KIT.
In June, the Touring Club will visit Enobmort and Noidrocca by J’Kla, Paah’kweh and Sonavio by Boblishman, and Pre-Swaltu by Tolip Ydop. A gallery of fan Ages with some details is available on the Writers’ wiki.
After the expeditions, the participants will be able to share their observations in dedicated threads in the Guild of Writers’ forums (look for threads that start with “Fan Age expedition”). The expeditions are streamed (without comments), and the videos will be available for two weeks after.
One of the main objectives of the Touring Club, besides getting more explorers to know and appreciate the many Ages created in the last 15 years, is also to give some feedback to the authors, who are very welcome to attend the tours and talk about their works.
Setting up a Deep Island client can be a bit tricky in some situations; a quick guide is available in our Troubleshooting section.
Korov’ev mentioned that Mystitech Productions released Episode 10 of its The Lost Art machinima, on Saturday 30.
See also the News Roundup #4 and #5.
The convention will be held virtually, with a combination of Twitch and Zoom for presentations, and Discord for live chatting. The convention dates will be the same as planned, August 7–9, with a possible extended weekend. Refunds will be available, but roll-overs to next year’s in-person convention will too.
The deadline for event submissions has been extended to June 30, with the option to submit pre-recorded presentations. The deadline for the Digital Activity Book is also extended to June 30.
The existing T-shirt design will be used for Mysterium 2021, with altered dates. A store page will be opened soon. The 2020 pin designs will also be rolled over into 2021.
Shokhootahn Rehn gave two announcements, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights.
He is still putting things away after his recent move. As a result there will not be any daytime classes until further notice. They should be able to return sometime in autumn. Night time classes, however, are unaffected.
There are currently two students working on lesson 6. Meanwhile, Aqua completed her final exam and passed the D’ni 101 class! Votahret ah’shem khe-bahrtahtahvteeom!
Story Nights and Story Nights – Europe are now at the same stage. They are continuing with the story arc of the D’ni kings, and will continue for the next four weeks.
Rehn hinted at a possible special Story Night on the Gehn shard, in a “certain memorial Age”.
And that was it for this month.
Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!
The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, July 4, 2020 (Leesahn 2, 9676 DE) at 13:00 KIT.
Until then!
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Minasunda was first, with two announcements: the first about her Uru Advent Calendar marker game, available from Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319) by sending it “sendme 8833282” in PM.
Before collecting markers, it is advisable to use the “/startlog” command, that will save a chatlog in Documents/Uru Live/log. For each day there is a marker in Ae’gura, with two links to Youtube videos – one in German, the other in German with English subtitles. The videos will not be released in advance.
The Advent Calendar is also available on Minasunda’s website, again in German and English.
The second announcement was about the Christmas Party, planned for December 15 at 13:00 KIT in Mir-o-Bot’s Eder Delin; to get there, send “link” or “meet” in PM to Mir-o-Bot. Yoda will provide the magic, the Nulp Dance Group will perform one of their dance and Seeker will play music (stream).
Minasunda also gave a remind about MO:UL’s 10th anniversary, coming on February 2020. So far, only two events are planned.
Doobes and Rarified were next, to give an update on the fan content situation.
At the end of November, with the help of Hoikas and Emor D’ni Lap, they were able to get the New Guild of Messengers Pub working on Minkata-alpha. Doobes and Emor previously submitted a few very basic testing Ages, but the new Pub is the real stress test, so it is useful as a benchmark.
They were also able to locate, and in some cases squash, a few bugs both with the Age itself and with the fan-made server MOSS. It has been said many times, but this really is a concrete step in bringing fan-made content to the official Uru Live server.
This content will include upgraded Cyan Guild Pubs and an upgraded Watcher’s Pub – although the path to the Tree still requires more work to function correctly. Doobes is hoping to also send all four Ages (Tre’bivdil, Fehnir’s House, Vothol Gallery, New GoMe Pub) currently on the Gehn shard and The Open Cave, plus two brand new Ages of his to help tie things together.
Rarified commented that November has been unusually productive on the testing pipeline; things picked up with a code submission from cjkelly1, one of the original authors of the MOSS server used on Minkata, which provided the initial additions to the client necessary to be able to explore Ages built with Blender and Korman.
The regular Minkata (beta) shard will stay relatively clean, for testing bug fixes to be incorporated in the Uru Live client. Minkata-alpha will run in parallel, using the same client but through a special batch file. Announcements about new testing cycles will in the future come from the creators, rather than Rarified, who will take the role of adding the new content to Minkata-alpha, and leave it up to the author to describe the things they want tested, as well as any special ways to get access to their Age.
Rarified also mentioned a couple of Ages under construction (including Doobes’ library Age, Chiso Preniv) that will provide in-game access to the other new Ages. Once those have become available and tested, he will start moving fan content into Minkata along with them. That will be the enabling event to start considering when fan content can be considered for inclusion in Uru Live.
To summarize, a new Age will first be tested on Minkata-alpha; when all the major bugs will be fixed, it will be moved to Minkata (beta); next it will be given a final test on Cyan’s Staging server before being released on Uru Live. There is a lot going on behind the scenes to start making this happen, and it has been the result of excellent coordination between authors, testers, and shard admins, and the enthusiasm from both Cyan and fan creators.
If you want to drop into Minkata-alpha and get ready for what is involved in testing, all the details are in two threads (one, two) on the OpenUru.org forums. Note that, and this cannot be stressed enough, Minkata is a testing shard:
Doobes had more to say about his work on porting Cyan’s Ages into ready-to-export-and-modify files. Chogon has drafted some legal notes to include with these files. Once that is finalized, Doobes should be able to post the ‘base’ versions of the blends on GitHub.
From there, anyone can download the Ages and modify them. Presumably, one could even customize many Ages for their own shard for a sort of “alternate dimension” shard. A Shard of Dreams, if you will.
Fan Ages and content coming to MOUL have been promised for many years, and it can be incredibly frustrating getting hopes up and continuing to wait. However, the recent developments, along with Cyan’s loosening of the rules with their assets, has opened things up as they never have been before. Exciting new things are coming, and soon.
To keep updated on Doobes’ work, check his blog and his Facebook page.
Rarified closed this section by mentioning the notion that building Ages is not for resource-challenged computers. With content comes the need to store it; free access to large quantities of storage is uncommon. But OpenUru happens to have a fair amount of free space.
So he offered to establish a repository on the OpenUru server to run in parallel with the Guild of Writers repositories on GitHub for authors to store their big Blend files and Ages as they evolve.
If you are an author, be ready for an announcement from Hoikas and Rarified when this is set up and tested.
Korov’ev mentioned the release of the latest episode, “Schisms”, of MystiTech’s machinima series, The Lost Art, produced with the help of Mirphak and Yoda for advanced lighting and special effects, Dulcamara and Doobes for special sets, Larry LeDeay and Tweek for graphics, and Larry LeDeay for D’ni translations.
In the last episode, we had a mysterious egg, shared dreams, and Thomas’ new assistant turned up to be not exactly human. What is next?
Episode 9 is tentatively planned to be released on December 29 at 13:30 KIT, as a Youtube Premiere event, during which people will be able to chat live with the creators while watching.
If you have a question, or you want to help with the making, you can send an email to enquiries[at] mystitech[dot]de.
For the Cyan News section, Korov’ev started with a reminder about the official Cyan newsletter.
A new version of the client (Build 918.OpenUru=139) has been released, for the first time in years! The update includes:
Note that the client does not automatically update the uncompressed music when updated; you will need to delete the file sfx/streamingCache/clftZandiRadio_Loop.wav to hear the new music (“IV. Allegro Molto” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart).
Some people had problems updating. Usually the issue is that the client is unable to replace itself (UruLauncher.exe); temporarily launching it with admin privileges (or even better, moving the game folder somewhere else other than the UAC-protected C:/Program Files (x86)) should fix the problem.
Other problems happens mostly because of missing libraries or DLL:
msvcr71.dll and msvcp71.dll can be fixed by downloading them from Chogon’s post, extracting them, and putting them in the Uru Live folder, along the launcher;d3dx9_27.dll can be fixed by installing a few extra DirectX files. The install procedure is a bit unintuitive: you will have to download the installer, make a new folder on your desktop, run the installer and tell it to extract into the folder you created, then run DXSETUP.exe in the folder to install the DLL files. If it worked, you can delete the folder on the desktop and the installer;On November 26 it was announced that Cyan Ventures acquired the tabletop roleplaying game Unwritten: Adventures in the Ages of Myst and Beyond, by Inkworks Productions, one of the first 3rd party works set in the D’ni universe since Myst IV: Revelation.
Small revisions will be made to the existing Unwritten manuscript to reflect the new ownership, and the revised version will be available in the future from the Cyan Store, as well as from DriveThruRPG.
Future versions of the Unwritten core rule book, future supplements, or other related products will be published by Cyan Ventures, in partnership with Inkworks, which will remain the primary developer for the Unwritten product line.
To celebrate Lexember, Cyan will post a D’ni word every day throughout December on their Twitter account. Some of these words are already known, but some are of course new releases, for the happiness of all D’ni linguists.
At the time of this writing, the following have been released: advuh, n. arch; taygahn, v. to love deeply, with the whole mind; bol, n. brother; b’rish, adv. very, so (lit. “to twenty”); dahgo, n. hammer (derived from dahg, v. “to strike”); elioykhets, adj. gusty; eder, v. to rest / n. a moment of rest (used in naming garden Ages).
Submissions for art designs are now open. There will be four categories: T-shirt, pins, activity books, writing and artwork table. Deadlines will be staggered through early-to-mid 2020.
For the T-shirts, the Triumvirate encourages the artists to incorporate contrasts in their designs: Sirrus vs Achenar, Red vs Blue, Haven and Spire, etc. Tying in the host city of Washington, DC is also encouraged. The winning design will be rewarded with a free Mysterium shirt. The deadline is February 16, 2020.
For the pins, they are once again planning a set of enamel ones. Pin design is an easier and faster process than shirts. The deadline for these is March 15, 2020.
For the activity books, which are the new thing for 2020, artists can create a coloring book page, a word search, a crossword puzzle, etc. The deadline is April 19, 2020.
For the writing and artwork table, artists will be able to showcase their Cyan-related artwork or writing. All content must be in by July 31, 2020.
Shokhootahn Rehn is still putting things away and finding homes for everything after his recent move. So there will be no daytime classes until sometime in winter; nighttime classes are unaffected.
r’Tayrtahn thanked Mirphak and NikiMay for their invaluable help with the Bahro Glyph Tour.
Story Nights – Europe started the story arc of the D’ni creation myth, the pre-history, the life of the first King Ri’neref, and will continue with the lives of the Kings.
Original Story Nights will conclude part 5 of the fan fiction “Jae’s Journey”.
November 9 will also be the start of the bi-annual Bahro Glyph Tour! The tour will last for two weeks, finishing on November 16.
And that was it for this month. Don’t forget to donate to keep the Cavern open!
The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, January 4, 2020 (Leevosahn 3) at 13:00 KIT.
Until then!
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Minasunda ha cominciato la sessione degli oratori con le parate in programma per Paddy Day, domenica 17 marzo:
Tenete presente che l’ora legale comincerà il 10 marzo nella maggior parte degli U.S.A., ma il 31 marzo nella maggior parte dell’Europa, perciò gli eventi cominceranno in Europa un’ora prima del solito.
Per maggiori dettagli, vedete il post del forum di MO:ULa scritto da Minasunda.
Max ha delineato gli eventi musicali per la Giornata internazionale della donna, venerdì 8 marzo; cominceranno alle 20:00 CEST e andranno avanti fino almeno all’01:00 CEST, e saranno presentati, tra gli altri, da Minasunda, Ghaelen, Mystitech, AlanDJ e Fil. Il programma definitivo verrà deciso nel post del forum MO:ULa scritto da Max.
La richiesta è per D’niJ donne, o playlist con artisti donne, o suggerimenti per brani composti, suonati o cantati da artisti donne.
rarified ha annunciato che il problema della conservazione degli stati delle Ere nello shard sperimentale Minkata di OpenUru.org è stato finalmente corretto, e che lo shard è di nuovo aperto!
Primo, un paio di correzioni saranno presto
inviati a Cyan, perche siano aggiunti a MO:ULa. Secondo, rarified ha trovato il meccanismo per sincronizzare Minkata-alpha (il secondo shard pianificato per verificare il contenuto dei fan) con Minkata regolare: lo shard alpha rispecchierà i vostri progressi nello shard regolare, ma non viceversa. Il login sarà lo stesso per entrambi gli shard.
Il primo obiettivo di Minkata-alpha sarà rendere il client e il contenuto dei fan compatibile con il client MO:ULa corrente. Poiche il fan Nexus non è ancora pronto per la verifica, il client iniziale per Minkata-alpha sarà un client interno, che usa un comando della console per collegarsi alle Ere dei fan.
Il rilascio di Minkata-alpha è previsto tra qualche settimana. Per iscrivervi allo shard regulare, visitate la pagina Foundry di OpenUru.org.
Doobes era di ritorno con un veloce aggiornamento sulle Ere a cui sta lavorando, nello specifico Veelay Tsahvahn, che è quasi completa e che includerà musica originale composta da Mystler! Il brano, appropriatamente intitolato “House of Reminiscence”, cattura il tono che Doobes desiderava per l’Era.
Nel sito web di Mystler potrete trovare gli
Su una nota più triste, Doobes ha menzionato la dipartita di Jeff Zandi, amico dei fratelli Miller e ispirazione per il personaggio che accoglie gli esploratori accanto all’Airstream vicino al Crepaccio. Potete leggere di più su di lui qui.
Una voce per Zandi è stata aggiunta al monumento in MO:ULa e nei diari di Veelay Tsahvahn. Gli esploratori potranno inviare brevi memorie a agesofdoobes[at] gmail[dot]com su qualunque degli esploratori perché siano aggiunte ai diari, così che tutti possano leggerle.
Nel caso mancasse un nome, la miglior azione è aggiornare la pagina in memoria presso OpenUru.org, poiché gli aggiornamenti saranno regolarmente caricati da lì.
Per restare aggiornati sui lavori di Doobes, visitate il suo blog e la sua pagina Facebook.
Tweek ha brevemente ricordato che la scadenza (9 marzo) per gli invii per Eder Fahsee, la sua Era dedicata al 25º anniversario di Myst, è vicina. Quello che chiede sono racconti delle vostre prime interazioni con Myst e dell’impatto che ha avuto sulle vostre vite.
Il piano è di rilasciare Eder Fahsee per Uru offline e ogni shard disponibile a ospitarla. Per restare aggiornati sulle opere di Tweek, visitate il suo blog e la sua pagina Facebook.
Korov’ev è stato raggiunto da Nora della squadra di MystyTech per un aggiornamento del loro machinima, The Lost Art. Nell’ultimo anno sono riusciti a reclutare l’aiuto di Mirphak e recentemente di Yoda per illuminazione ed effetti speciali avanzati, di Dulcamara e Doobes per set speciali (due dei quali appariranno in futuri episodi), e di Larry LeDeay e Tweek per la grafica.
Gli episodi 7, 8 e 9 sono completamente girati e montati, a parte qualche pickup; le due cose che ne ritardano l’uscita sono la musica e la sequenza dei titoli. Anche le riprese e il montaggio degli episodi 10 e 11 sono a un buon punto.
Se avete domande, o volete dare una mano, potete mandare un’email a enquiries[at] mystitech[dot]de.
Korov’ev ha poi dato un veloce aggiurnamento sul Kickstarter di Myst25. Diversi backer non riescono a trovare la penna del calamaio: si trova nel compartimento nascosto vicino al ‘dorso’, verso il basso; c’è una linguetta che potete tirare. Potete vedere dove sono tutti i compartimenti in questo video, e dove sono i controlli del pannello di collegamento in questo diagramma.
Per quanto riguarda Mysterium, le richieste per gli eventi sono ora aperte! La scadenza è il 20 maggio. Gli eventi includono i ‘Microtalk’, brevi (massimo 10 minuti) presentazioni riguardanti quasi ogni argomento interessante.
L’ospite speciale per quest’anno sarà Russell Brower, tre volte vincitore del premio Emmy, compositore, direttore e responsabile musicale. I fan di Myst lo riconosceranno per il Kickstarter del 25º anniversario di Myst, per il quale ha composto diversi brani ispirati a Myst disponibili ai backer. È anche conosciuto per la colonna sonora di World of Warcraft.
Anche Mass Mysteria è vicino, sabato 4 maggio in varie località negli U.S.A. e in giro per il mondo! Canali elettivi sono stati aggiunti al server Discord per ciascuna località, per permettervi di communicare con altri partecipanti e organizzarvi.
E questo è tutto per questo mese. Non scordatevi di donare per tenere aperta la Caverna! Lo status del CavCon non è ancora stato aggiornato; fonti interne assicurano che la situazione è buona, ma questo può continuare solo col vostro aiuto.
La prossima Riunione Generale delle Gilde è prevista per sabato 6 aprile 2019 alle 21:00 CEST.
Alla prossima!
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Doobes è stato il primo, con un aggiornamento sulle Ere a cui sta lavorando:
Un paio di queste Ere è già quasi pronto, mentre altre hanno diversi dettagli ancora da risolvere. Il piano è per un rilascio per i primi mesi del 2019 negli shard Gehn, The Open Cave, e Deep Island. Più tardi, Minkata e (se tutto va bene) MO:ULa!
Per restare aggiornati sui lavori di Doobes, visitate il suo blog e la sua pagina Facebook.
Poi, Doobes ha annunciato il lancio del sito web che state leggendo in questo momento! Il sito GoMe è stato assente per oltre un anno; il vecchio dominio “.com” è scaduto ed è caduto nelle mani di una… roba di scommesse. Il nuovo sito adesso finisce in “.org”, in linea con in sito della Gilda degli Scrittori.
Alcune delle pagine di informazione devono ancora essere copiate; potete aiutare anche voi! L’aspetto è simile al sito 2.0 (WordPress con il tema ColorMag), principalmente per coerenza. I chatlog della Riunione Generale delle Gilde, finora ospitati nel sito web di Doobes, saranno da ora ospitati qui, sia grezzi che ripuliti.
Il nuovo dominio è ospitato e gestito da Doobes, perciò non sparirà di nuovo nel prossimo futuro; i costi di gestione sono piuttosto economici, perciò non chiederà donazioni.
Eventuali video dovranno essere ospitati esternamente invece che nel sito, dato che lo spazio ha i suoi limiti; probabilmente ci sarà un feed RSS per le notizie, e il link rel.to è in corso di aggiornamento.
Tweek ha dato un aggiornamento su Eder Fahsee, una familiarmente sconosciuta Era giardino per festeggiare Myst e l’impatto che ha avuto su tutti noi. A questo scopo ha invitato chiunque sia interessato a dare il suo contributo all’Era: sta compilando 25 libri (e forse altri 25 più avanti) da includere nella biblioteca dell’Era, che registreranno le prime interazioni che gli esploratori hanno avuto con Myst. Potrà essere qualcosa di corto o lungo (ma non troppo lungo!), che esprima i vostri pensieri, sensazioni, etc. Non sarà possibile includere tutti i testi nell’Era, ma Tweek cercherà di farcene stare quante più possibile.
Per restare aggiornati sui lavori di Tweek, visitate il suo blog e la sua pagina Facebook.
I dischi per il Kickstarter di Cyan del 25º anniversario sono stati spediti, e in molti casi sono già arrivati a destinazione! Se state ancora aspettando, controllate tra le vostre email di avere un codice per il tracking, per sapere dove i dischi si trovano al momento. Per chi vive nel Regno Unito, se il tracking indica “failure to deliver”, probabilmente ci sono spese doganali extra da pagare.
Al momento sembra che solo i dischi per Windows siano stati spediti; gli utenti macOS sfortunatamente dovranno aspettare ancora un po’.
Lo staff di Cyan si è preso una pausa invernale dal 21 dicembre al 2 gennaio; se avete inviato richieste a support[at]cyan[dot]com, info[at]cyan[dot]com o press[at]cyan[dot]com in questo periodo, pazientate qualche giorno perché le smaltiscano in ordine di arrivo.
Non uno ma due video sono stati pubblicati nel loro canale Youtube: un teaser natalizio il 16 dicembre, e il 6º episodio la vigilia di Natale.
Verso Marzo saranno necessari un po’ di operatori avatar extra per qualche scena speciale; i requisiti saranno la capacità di usare un client interno e un account Skype per coordinare le azioni. Se siete interessati, potete contattare .
Korov’ev ha concluso la sessione degli oratori facendo gli auguri di pronta guarigione all’esploratrice Chihiro.
E questo è tutto per questo mese. Non scordatevi di donare per tenere aperta la Caverna! Lo status del CavCon non è ancora stato aggiornato; fonti interne assicurano che la situazione è buona, ma questo può continuare solo col vostro aiuto.
La prossima Riunione Generale delle Gilde è prevista per sabato 2 febbraio alle 21:00 CET.
Alla prossima!
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