A green WTF



  • This week is "Green Week" on NBC.  Tonight we're watching The Biggest Loser, and they are giving various environmental tips, espousing the virtues of eating organic and shopping farmers markets, etc etc..  Now for a challenge they are giving away a simply astounding prize to the winning team: two SUVs.

    Granted, they are Ford Escape Hybrids (35 MPG), but still... they could do better than that.  Regardless of the improved gas mileage over standard SUVs, they're still not the most environmentally conscious vehicles you can buy by any stretch.



  • &t

    Double update:

    1: The winning team was a couple that apparently couldn't afford a second car, and the wife was essentially stuck home for years.  Now they have TWO $26000 cars to pay taxes and insurance on.  They could most definitely buy a used car with the money they have to pay to keep the prize cars.  If NBC doesn't foot the bill they would have to sell them immediately.

    2: An advertisement for the Escape Hybrid shown during the show takes the cake as the most absurdly laughable "greenwashing" ever done in marketing.  It plays out like so:

    The scene: A young teenage girl and her dad walking out to the car at home

    girl (sincerely concerned): "Dad, can you drop me off a block before the theatre?"

    dad: "sure honey"

    girl: "because, you know, the people in that part of town.. they ride bikes and drive hybrids and stuff"

    They both get in the car.

    dad: "You know, this is a hybrid"

    girl: "Like, a hybrid hybrid?"

    dad: "I don't know what a hybrid hybrid is, but it's a hybrid"

    girl: "Why didn't you talk about this before?"

     

    I can't stress how incredibly genuine the tone of the ad is trying to come off with.  It just makes it seem completely hilarious. 

    <p;so unintentionally="" hilarious! <="" /p=""></p;so>



  • @djork said:

    The winning team was a couple that apparently couldn't afford a second car, and the wife was essentially stuck home for years. Now they have TWO $26000 cars to pay taxes and insurance on. They could most definitely buy a used car with the money they have to pay to keep the prize cars. If NBC doesn't foot the bill they would have to sell them immediately.<p;so unintentionally="" hilarious!=""></p;so>

    Typically in situations like this, the producers offer the cash value as an alternative to the prize, so that part of the cash can be used to pay off the taxes.  I would assume it works like that on this show. 



  • Did you catch the scene on Chuck where the new asshat assistant manager was going on about the new recycling policy at the store, and all the protagonists were groaning and rolling their eyes.  I'm pretty sure NBC is trying to show that they don't actually give a crap and are only doing it because they have to, and frankly I'm proud of them.



  • It is fun share topics from thread to thread.  Here is another tongue in cheek take on it:

     
    "Dunder Mifflin: As Green As We Have to Be."
     



  • I about vomited when I saw that "Green Week" greenwashing crap.

    Too bad my vomit wasn't going to be green.



  • You do realize that the Toyota Prius only gets 45 MPG?  The Escape is much more versatile, while still a modest vehicle.  I don't think 35 MPG is anything to criticize.  If you ever want to have more than four people or three bags of groceries in your vehicle, the Escape makes sense.  I'd like to see how many people visiting this site own cars that get more than 35 MPG.  Mine gets 29-31.



  • @operagost said:

    You do realize that the Toyota Prius only gets 45 MPG?  The Escape is much more versatile, while still a modest vehicle.  I don't think 35 MPG is anything to criticize.  If you ever want to have more than four people or three bags of groceries in your vehicle, the Escape makes sense.  I'd like to see how many people visiting this site own cars that get more than 35 MPG.  Mine gets 29-31.

    I take issue with the fact that they are giving away two brand-new SUVs which just perpetuates consumerism wrapped in green packaging.  There are plenty of viable cars out there right now that get good mileage, have good emissions, etc..  It takes a tremendous amount of resources to produce a new SUV: the mining, processing, and transportation of the raw materials, the energy used by and pollution from the factory that assembles the car, the delivery of the car, the waste of a car that is not yet obsolete, the resources required for the consumer (or NBC) to pay for the car (money is as much of a resource as energy and steel), tire and break wear from a large vehicle, contribution to traffic congestion, noise, ad infinitum.

    That old car also has to go somewhere, most likely a scrap yard where it will sit, rusting, leaking toxic chemicals into the groundwater as it rots from neglect. 

    The total, holistic cost of choosing a brand new vehicle (regardless of how less-bad it is for the environment) is tremendously more than choosing an efficient used vehicle. 



  • @operagost said:

    You do realize that the Toyota Prius only gets 45 MPG?  The Escape is much more versatile, while still a modest vehicle.  I don't think 35 MPG is anything to criticize.  If you ever want to have more than four people or three bags of groceries in your vehicle, the Escape makes sense.  I'd like to see how many people visiting this site own cars that get more than 35 MPG.  Mine gets 29-31.

     AFAIK all european cars (besides supercars and sports models i guess) are between 15-20 Km/Litre, which with some google-fu should be the equivalent of <font size="-1">35-45 MPG. I myself own a opel astra that was built in 2002, and it pretty much hits 20 km/L precisely. Although i do lots of kilometres on the highway, so when looking at general usage it will probably be a bit lower.</font>
     



  • @stratos said:

    @operagost said:

    You do realize that the Toyota Prius only gets 45 MPG?  The Escape is much more versatile, while still a modest vehicle.  I don't think 35 MPG is anything to criticize.  If you ever want to have more than four people or three bags of groceries in your vehicle, the Escape makes sense.  I'd like to see how many people visiting this site own cars that get more than 35 MPG.  Mine gets 29-31.

     AFAIK all european cars (besides supercars and sports models i guess) are between 15-20 Km/Litre, which with some google-fu should be the equivalent of <font size="-1">35-45 MPG. I myself own a opel astra that was built in 2002, and it pretty much hits 20 km/L precisely. Although i do lots of kilometres on the highway, so when looking at general usage it will probably be a bit lower.</font>
     

    Is km/L the standard for measuring this in Europe?  My car reports to me in L/100km.  I don't know why you would invert an established relationship like MPG when switching it to metric.  I guess its reporting fuel usage to me instead of "mileage."



  • @Jetts said:

    @stratos said:

    @operagost said:

    You do realize that the Toyota Prius only gets 45 MPG?  The Escape is much more versatile, while still a modest vehicle.  I don't think 35 MPG is anything to criticize.  If you ever want to have more than four people or three bags of groceries in your vehicle, the Escape makes sense.  I'd like to see how many people visiting this site own cars that get more than 35 MPG.  Mine gets 29-31.

     AFAIK all european cars (besides supercars and sports models i guess) are between 15-20 Km/Litre, which with some google-fu should be the equivalent of <font size="-1">35-45 MPG. I myself own a opel astra that was built in 2002, and it pretty much hits 20 km/L precisely. Although i do lots of kilometres on the highway, so when looking at general usage it will probably be a bit lower.</font>
     

    Is km/L the standard for measuring this in Europe?  My car reports to me in L/100km.  I don't know why you would invert an established relationship like MPG when switching it to metric.  I guess its reporting fuel usage to me instead of "mileage."

    I don't know what the official way of expressing it is, but what is mostly discussed is the amount of kilometres you can drive per litre. Thus i imagined it would be km/l. 



  • @djork said:

    I take issue with the fact that they are giving away two brand-new SUVs which just perpetuates consumerism wrapped in green packaging.  There are plenty of viable cars out there right now that get good mileage, have good emissions, etc..  It takes a tremendous amount of resources to produce a new SUV: the mining, processing, and transportation of the raw materials, the energy used by and pollution from the factory that assembles the car, the delivery of the car, the waste of a car that is not yet obsolete, the resources required for the consumer (or NBC) to pay for the car (money is as much of a resource as energy and steel), tire and break wear from a large vehicle, contribution to traffic congestion, noise, ad infinitum.

    That old car also has to go somewhere, most likely a scrap yard where it will sit, rusting, leaking toxic chemicals into the groundwater as it rots from neglect. 

    The total, holistic cost of choosing a brand new vehicle (regardless of how less-bad it is for the environment) is tremendously more than choosing an efficient used vehicle. 

    Err.. usually it's only truly trashed cars that end up at a junk yard.  The rest go to auction, where they often end up being repaired and sold.  Salvageable cars have all the fluids and hazardous parts (such as batteries) removed, then they sit in a yard until all the useful parts are sold. 

     So... they should only give away used cars?  Am I understanding you?  What a prize!  So who gets the new car?  Hollywood liberals, right?
     



  • @operagost said:

    You do realize that the Toyota Prius only gets 45 MPG?  The Escape is much more versatile, while still a modest vehicle.  I don't think 35 MPG is anything to criticize.  If you ever want to have more than four people or three bags of groceries in your vehicle, the Escape makes sense.  I'd like to see how many people visiting this site own cars that get more than 35 MPG.  Mine gets 29-31.

    Is that city or highway? My Civic (non-hybrid) gets about 27MPG city, 45+ MPG highway. My short commute probably has something to do with this. So does my habit of drafting behind large trucks.



  • @Jetts said:

    Is km/L the standard for measuring this in Europe?  My car reports to me in L/100km.  I don't know why you would invert an established relationship like MPG when switching it to metric.  I guess its reporting fuel usage to me instead of "mileage."

    To be fair, a lot of US cars are better measured in gallons per mile... 



  • @djork said:

    I take issue with the fact that they are giving away two brand-new SUVs which just perpetuates consumerism wrapped in green packaging.  There are plenty of viable cars out there right now that get good mileage, have good emissions, etc..  It takes a tremendous amount of resources to produce a new SUV: the mining, processing, and transportation of the raw materials, the energy used by and pollution from the factory that assembles the car, the delivery of the car, the waste of a car that is not yet obsolete, the resources required for the consumer (or NBC) to pay for the car (money is as much of a resource as energy and steel), tire and break wear from a large vehicle, contribution to traffic congestion, noise, ad infinitum.

    That old car also has to go somewhere, most likely a scrap yard where it will sit, rusting, leaking toxic chemicals into the groundwater as it rots from neglect. 

    The total, holistic cost of choosing a brand new vehicle (regardless of how less-bad it is for the environment) is tremendously more than choosing an efficient used vehicle. 

    So, would you buy a Prius or a Hummer?

     


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Jetts said:

    Is km/L the standard for measuring this in Europe?  My car reports to me in L/100km.  I don't know why you would invert an established relationship like MPG when switching it to metric.  I guess its reporting fuel usage to me instead of "mileage."

    Empirical evidence would suggest that, in Europe, the 'standard' is based on the usual measurement of distance in that country.

    My car reports in MPG†. Though I think that since it's computerised, it can be changed somehow to l/100km or MPG‡

     

    [†] That'll be Imperial G, not US G. 

    [‡] That'll be US G, not Imperial G. 



  • @PJH said:

    @Jetts said:

    Is km/L the standard for measuring this in Europe?  My car reports to me in L/100km.  I don't know why you would invert an established relationship like MPG when switching it to metric.  I guess its reporting fuel usage to me instead of "mileage."

    Empirical evidence would suggest that, in Europe, the 'standard' is based on the usual measurement of distance in that country.

    My car reports in MPG†. Though I think that since it's computerised, it can be changed somehow to l/100km or MPG‡

     

    [†] That'll be Imperial G, not US G. 

    [‡] That'll be US G, not Imperial G. 

    Yeah, I can change the units on mine too, but it changes for all the displays and both metric and imperial have their oddities.  I can either have my odometer and average speed in miles when I've never used a mile in my life, or I can have fuel economy in L/100km and tire pressure in kPa.  Seriously?  Who measure tire pressure in pascals?  In Canada, I'm going to go ahead and guess: no one.



  • @Jetts said:

    @PJH said:
    @Jetts said:

    Is km/L the standard for measuring this in Europe?  My car reports to me in L/100km.  I don't know why you would invert an established relationship like MPG when switching it to metric.  I guess its reporting fuel usage to me instead of "mileage."

    Empirical evidence would suggest that, in Europe, the 'standard' is based on the usual measurement of distance in that country.

    My car reports in MPG†. Though I think that since it's computerised, it can be changed somehow to l/100km or MPG‡

     

    [†] That'll be Imperial G, not US G. 

    [‡] That'll be US G, not Imperial G. 

    Yeah, I can change the units on mine too, but it changes for all the displays and both metric and imperial have their oddities.  I can either have my odometer and average speed in miles when I've never used a mile in my life, or I can have fuel economy in L/100km and tire pressure in kPa.  Seriously?  Who measure tire pressure in pascals?  In Canada, I'm going to go ahead and guess: no one.

    well 100 kPa is 1 bar. So although it's inconvenient, it's not that hard to convert.



  • @operagost said:

    You do realize that the Toyota Prius only gets 45 MPG?  The Escape is much more versatile, while still a modest vehicle.  I don't think 35 MPG is anything to criticize.  If you ever want to have more than four people or three bags of groceries in your vehicle, the Escape makes sense.  I'd like to see how many people visiting this site own cars that get more than 35 MPG.  Mine gets 29-31.

     
    This depends very much on how you drive it.  If you go 80 down the freeway, yes it will average about 45.  If you go 65, it gets about 50-55, and if you are on a standard highway going 55, it averages about 55-60.  If you are in the city going 45 and hit the lights just right, you can average upwards of 70 mpg.  What kills the average, though, is short trips.  For the first 5-10 minutes of driving, the engine will remain on even when not doing anything.  This is apparently required to heat up emissions components to meet EPA requirements.  During this time you will get about 35mpg as you lose the advantage of a hybrid.  Also, this goes down a bit in the winter as gas stations switch to winter blend fuel, at least in the northern and mid US.

     I know this because I drive one.
     



  • @stratos said:

    @Jetts said:
    @PJH said:
    @Jetts said:

    Is km/L the standard for measuring this in Europe?  My car reports to me in L/100km.  I don't know why you would invert an established relationship like MPG when switching it to metric.  I guess its reporting fuel usage to me instead of "mileage."

    Empirical evidence would suggest that, in Europe, the 'standard' is based on the usual measurement of distance in that country.

    My car reports in MPG†. Though I think that since it's computerised, it can be changed somehow to l/100km or MPG‡

     

    [†] That'll be Imperial G, not US G. 

    [‡] That'll be US G, not Imperial G. 

    Yeah, I can change the units on mine too, but it changes for all the displays and both metric and imperial have their oddities.  I can either have my odometer and average speed in miles when I've never used a mile in my life, or I can have fuel economy in L/100km and tire pressure in kPa.  Seriously?  Who measure tire pressure in pascals?  In Canada, I'm going to go ahead and guess: no one.

    well 100 kPa is 1 bar. So although it's inconvenient, it's not that hard to convert.

    I use psi in my tires.  I forgot my 6.984 times tables long ago, so kPa doesn't help me much.



  • @Jetts said:

    Is km/L the standard for measuring this in Europe?  My car reports to me in L/100km.  I don't know why you would invert an established relationship like MPG when switching it to metric.  I guess its reporting fuel usage to me instead of "mileage."

    I don't know why it is at all.

    If you want to be REALLY offbeat, the Escape does 16.6 picoacres.
     



  • @m0ffx said:

    @Jetts said:

    Is km/L the standard for measuring this in Europe?  My car reports to me in L/100km.  I don't know why you would invert an established relationship like MPG when switching it to metric.  I guess its reporting fuel usage to me instead of "mileage."

    I don't know why it is at all.

    If you want to be REALLY offbeat, the Escape does 16.6 picoacres.
     

    And I thought my use of square millimeters was out of the ordinary!



  • @m0ffx said:

    @Jetts said:

    Is km/L the standard for measuring this in Europe?  My car reports to me in L/100km.  I don't know why you would invert an established relationship like MPG when switching it to metric.  I guess its reporting fuel usage to me instead of "mileage."

    I don't know why it is at all.

    If you want to be REALLY offbeat, the Escape does 16.6 picoacres.
     

    That gives (Length)^2 not helpful.  I suggest meter-liters per picoacre. 

    Edit: i just realized L/100km is volume/distance = area, so picoacres is perfectly acceptable.  The redundant meter-liters still sounds cool though.  I'll use it in the next car I design.



  • @j_johnso said:

    @operagost said:

    You do realize that the Toyota Prius only gets 45 MPG?  The Escape is much more versatile, while still a modest vehicle.  I don't think 35 MPG is anything to criticize.  If you ever want to have more than four people or three bags of groceries in your vehicle, the Escape makes sense.  I'd like to see how many people visiting this site own cars that get more than 35 MPG.  Mine gets 29-31.

     
    This depends very much on how you drive it.  If you go 80 down the freeway, yes it will average about 45.  If you go 65, it gets about 50-55, and if you are on a standard highway going 55, it averages about 55-60.  If you are in the city going 45 and hit the lights just right, you can average upwards of 70 mpg.  What kills the average, though, is short trips.  For the first 5-10 minutes of driving, the engine will remain on even when not doing anything.  This is apparently required to heat up emissions components to meet EPA requirements.  During this time you will get about 35mpg as you lose the advantage of a hybrid.  Also, this goes down a bit in the winter as gas stations switch to winter blend fuel, at least in the northern and mid US.

     I know this because I drive one.
     

    I would expect similar performance from the Escape, which is my point.  We have so many anti-SUV knee-jerkers around here that I thought it wise to point out that the Escape is a small, relatively efficient SUV (the most efficient sold in the world, Ford claims).


  • BINNED

    In Europe the standard unit is L/100km. My 14 years old Citroen Xantia spends roughly 10-11 L/100km in combined driving (mostly city) which would translate to 21.383144 MPG. 
    You have to take in account that it's an old car. My friend owns a Renault Clio and it gets app. 39.2024307 MPG. True, it's a small city car but we're talking pure 1.2 gasoline engine, not a hybrid.

    P.S. - you can use Google for conversions, e.g. 10 l/100km in mpg or 35 mpg in l/100km :)



  • @Onyx said:

    roughly 10-11 L/100km which would translate to 21.383144 MPG.

    The Real WTFTM is that the original measurement is "roughly 10-11", while your conversion is specified to the nearest six one-thousandths of an inch.



  • @m0ffx said:

    @Jetts said:

    Is km/L the standard for measuring this in Europe?  My car reports to me in L/100km.  I don't know why you would invert an established relationship like MPG when switching it to metric.  I guess its reporting fuel usage to me instead of "mileage."

    I don't know why it is at all.

    If you want to be REALLY offbeat, the Escape does 16.6 picoacres.
     

    My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and thats the way I like it!

     


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @BrownHornet said:

    My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and thats the way I like it!

     Do you have any idea how wildly inefficient that is?

    <FONT size=4>Google fu sez: 40 (rods per hogshead) = 0.00198412698 miles per gallon</FONT>

    <FONT size=4>An actual value is about half a million rph, since a hogshead is 65 gallons and a rod is 10 chains.  Or 1/10 of a chain, I forget which.  One of those is 66 feet.</FONT>



  • @djork said:

    ...

    The scene: A young teenage girl and her dad walking out to the car at home

    girl (sincerely concerned): "Dad, can you drop me off a block before the theatre?"

    dad: "sure honey"

    girl: "because, you know, the people in that part of town.. they ride bikes and drive hybrids and stuff"

    ...

    At least this is easy for the sports car ads to counter:

     

    son: Dad, could you drop me off around the corner from football practice? I don't feel like driving today.

    dad: Sure son, why?

    son: Because you're the only loser who drives a Prius. All the other guys drive their dads' Mustangs to practice.

    dad: But son, I'm helping to-

    son: I don't care dad, I can't do donuts in this thing.

    *** An H3 bursts through the nearby hedge and lands on the Prius, crushing it. It drives off into the distance trailing acrid exhaust, and exuding general capitalism and bad-assery. It tries to ford a ravine, but the rack-and-pinion explodes and the wheels all fall off. ***

     

    <p;so unintentionally="" hilarious!=""><="" /p=""></p;so>


  • @Carnildo said:

    @Onyx said:

    roughly 10-11 L/100km which would translate to 21.383144 MPG.

    The Real WTFTM is that the original measurement is "roughly 10-11", while your conversion is specified to the nearest six one-thousandths of an inch.

     

    Tsk, tsk, looks like he needs to learn about significant digits again. 



  • One of my favorite jokes from The Daily Show is when they were making fun of British measurements and expressed something in "furlongs per lunar minute".



  • @Cap'n Steve said:

    One of my favorite jokes from The Daily Show is when they were making fun of British measurements and expressed something in "furlongs per lunar minute".

    The irony being that the system known as "English measurements" (there's no such thing as "British measurements") has never been used anywhere other than the US. It's not even the same thing as the Imperial measurement system that the rest of the world used to use, before going metric. Notably, a US gallon is 0.8 of an Imperial gallon, which completely buggers up any attempt to communicate about "miles per gallon" with Americans.



  • @asuffield said:

    The irony being that the system known as "English measurements" (there's no such thing as "British measurements") has never been used anywhere other than the US. It's not even the same thing as the Imperial measurement system that the rest of the world used to use, before going metric. Notably, a US gallon is 0.8 of an Imperial gallon, which completely buggers up any attempt to communicate about "miles per gallon" with Americans.

    Actually, the "US gallon" is the same thing as the "English wine gallon", while the "Imperial gallon" is derived from the "English ale gallon", but by volume is closest to the "English coal gallon". I bet you didn't know that the English used different-sized gallons depending on what was being measured.



  • @asuffield said:

    @Cap'n Steve said:
    One of my favorite jokes from The Daily Show is when they were making fun of British measurements and expressed something in "furlongs per lunar minute".

    The irony being that the system known as "English measurements" (there's no such thing as "British measurements") has never been used anywhere other than the US. It's not even the same thing as the Imperial measurement system that the rest of the world used to use, before going metric. Notably, a US gallon is 0.8 of an Imperial gallon, which completely buggers up any attempt to communicate about "miles per gallon" with Americans.

    Hey, we saved your asses in WWII, so I think we get to decide just how big a gallon is! 



  • @bstorer said:

    Hey, we saved your asses in WWII, so I think we get to decide just how big a gallon is! 

    If only we hadn't been previously bought hook, line and sinker, we could now enter Iraq and save yours in WWIII and wrest back our gallon measurements.



  • @djork said:

    This week is "Green Week" on NBC. Tonight we're watching The Biggest Loser, and they are giving various environmental tips, espousing the virtues of eating organic and shopping farmers markets, etc etc.. Now for a challenge they are giving away a simply astounding prize to the winning team: two SUVs.

    Granted, they are Ford Escape Hybrids (35 MPG), but still... they could do better than that. Regardless of the improved gas mileage over standard SUVs, they're still not the most environmentally conscious vehicles you can buy by any stretch.


    They should have given them two top-notch carbon bikes. 



  • Well I'm not sure what system crazy units like Stones belong to, but we sure don't use them in the US.



  • @ChZEROHag said:

    @bstorer said:

    Hey, we saved your asses in WWII, so I think we get to decide just how big a gallon is!

    If only we hadn't been previously bought hook, line and sinker, we could now enter Iraq and save yours in WWIII and wrest back our gallon measurements.

    Hey, it ain't our fault you fell for our lies. 


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Cap'n Steve said:

    Well I'm not sure what system crazy units like Stones belong to, but we sure don't use them in the US.
    I never did understand that - the US use pounds (and presumabaly ounces,) but not the accompanying stones. What gives?



  • @PJH said:

    I never did understand that - the US use pounds (and presumabaly ounces,) but not the accompanying stones. What gives?

    Yeah that's a weird one. 21 stone sounds so much better than 300 pounds. You'd think Americans would be all over that. 


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @ChZEROHag said:

    @PJH said:

    I never did understand that - the US use pounds (and presumabaly ounces,) but not the accompanying stones. What gives?

    Yeah that's a weird one. 21 stone sounds so much better than 300 pounds. You'd think Americans would be all over that. 

    Well considering 21 stone is better (read lighter,) by 6 pounds (almost 1/2 a stone)...

    My OP was a serious question though - why don't the US use stones for (body) weight?



  • @PJH said:

    My OP was a serious question though - why don't the US use stones for (body) weight?



    I assume because we want to list body weight in a single unit (300 pounds, not 21 stones 6 pounds), and 14 pounds is too large a basic unit.

    Ounces fit into the same base-2 system used for liquid volumes(16 cups = 8 pints = 4 quarts = 1 gallon), and prevent us from having to
    use those hated decimals when dealing with weights smaller than a pound. We're apparently comfortable dealing with numbers in the tens
    and hundreds and so don't need another unit till we get up to 2000 pounds.



  • @SuperousOxide said:

    @PJH said:

    My OP was a serious question though - why don't the US use stones for (body) weight?



    I assume because we want to list body weight in a single unit (300 pounds, not 21 stones 6 pounds), and 14 pounds is too large a basic unit.

    Why don't we measure height in just inches, then?


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