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In an infinite universe it's possible
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:26 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 22:44 |
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Fried Watermelon posted:In an infinite universe it's possible This is the best thread title. This is the lovely thread title you deserve.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:31 |
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Salt Fish posted:He's right though. The space colonization myth is rooted in ignorance. The distances involved, the basic limitations of physics, the frailty of the human body, our inability to plan scientifically, and our rejection or any kind of social organization not based on individualistic consumerism ; these will all prevent us from leaving earth in any meaningful way, and in tandem make it an impossible fiction. And clueless people said this about the oceans too lol Or is not knowing what the gently caress you are talking about just the threads gimmick? It's funny, for a thread obsessed with expert consensus -- where does all this doom predictions cone from? Not backed up by evidence or expert opinion in the slightest. Honestly these past couple pages have basically just been get_therapy.txt , it's sad to read : [ Oxxidation posted:It is not possible. You're an imbecile for even bringing it up. Haha yes, despite people saying this and being wrong again and again and again and again, this time is different, end of history mother fuckers!!!! You probably haven't when opened a science book in the last 10 years lol but go ahead and lecture us on poo poo you don't understand in the slightest.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:35 |
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You don't think there's been any objective advance in the understanding of the natural world over the past, say, 100 years? Also please enlighten us on all the "science books" you've been perusing.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:36 |
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It is definitely maybe possible to colonize the solar system (and no more than that), but the only ends to which that points is imperial Earth gobbling down more resources.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:44 |
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TildeATH posted:This is the best thread title. This is the lovely thread title you deserve.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:45 |
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TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:And clueless people said this about the oceans too lol Human beings have been conquering the ocean with stone age technology for millennia. Your dumb analogy is so off that it shows a basic misunderstanding of, well, everything ever.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:46 |
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TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:Haha yes, despite people saying this and being wrong again and again and again and again, this time is different, end of history mother fuckers!!!! Let's fight fire with fire and quote a sci-fi author. Isaac Asimov posted:The Relativity of Wrong
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:48 |
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Oxxidation posted:It is not possible. You're an imbecile for even bringing it up. For humans it is not possible. For transhumans and infolife navigating the great Interplanetary Transport Network over thousands or millions of years, I don't see why not.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:50 |
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TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:And clueless people said this about the oceans too lol Sailing doesn't require nearly as many engineering and social/economic challenges as space exploration, I don't think they're comparable. Relatively primitive societies were able to sail, colonizing a planet as comfortable as earth would require massive amounts of energy, money, labor, and technology. The ocean can be hostile to human life in many ways, but it still supports life. Space is antagonistic to pretty much ALL life. The ocean is also something that's easy to conceptualize on a human scale. You can get get from one piece of land to another in days, weeks, months, etc. Outside of our solar system, you're talking about years and years of travel. And despite all of our technology, sailing is still expensive as gently caress. Ships cost a ton of money to build and maintain. RobotDogPolice fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Jun 30, 2017 |
# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:04 |
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Even if we could travel into space, won't the cold, cruel hand of entropy pull all atoms into an evenly distributed empty space over billions and billions of years? poo poo, we are hosed guys.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:14 |
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The Groper posted:It is definitely maybe possible to colonize the solar system (and no more than that), but the only ends to which that points is imperial Earth gobbling down more resources.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:18 |
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A Buttery Pastry posted:It's actually possible to colonize the entire galaxy, "all" you need is self-replicating machines capable of interstellar travel. Exponential growth will also make it a surprisingly fast process. Probably not a big help for people though. Fermi's paradox. I mean unless you want to believe there's a berserker VN in the solar system just waiting for humanity to achieve the capability so it can wipe us out.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:29 |
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A Buttery Pastry posted:It's actually possible to colonize the entire galaxy, "all" you need is self-replicating machines capable of interstellar travel. Exponential growth will also make it a surprisingly fast process. Probably not a big help for people though. I'm going to go with that not counting on the basis of robots aren't people. Clearly nobody else in the observable universe is doing it though, so the ROI is probably nil.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:31 |
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Conspiratiorist posted:Really, you need to recognize what you're saying for what it is: that you are being aggressively dismissive of any culture that is not your own or your sci-fi envisioning of its evolution. You couldn't be further off base. How much happiness, and art, and creation do you see coming from displaced Syrian refugees? Some, certainly, but nowhere near as much as you'd see if they were still living their semi-prosperous lives from the 2000 or so era. That's my point, that we're not going to soft-land into a place where we just live in log cabins again.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:43 |
I thought it was going to be climate change related... The Sci fi and fantasy thread is located in TBB
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:45 |
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call to action posted:You couldn't be further off base. How much happiness, and art, and creation do you see coming from displaced Syrian refugees? Some, certainly, but nowhere near as much as you'd see if they were still living their semi-prosperous lives from the 2000 or so era. That's my point, that we're not going to soft-land into a place where we just live in log cabins again. "You must be THIS CULTURED to persist as a species"
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:46 |
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Much like silicon valley billionaires the average sadbrain will when confronted with real-world problems which feel insurmountable invent fictional problems to solve instead. Finding solutions for curbing rising internet-fueled fascism and rapid climate change? Overrated. No what we need to do is to solve how to colonize Mars and how to fight super-AI's, obviously those are the real problems! This thread has had a lot of stupid derails but this is certainly one of the more out there ones.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:49 |
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I get the impression it's just sort of the natural evolution of the feeling of hopelessness that lays over the thread like a funerary veil. Good news isn't in abundant supply. Not that this is an endorsement of all just laying in a depressed pile and flailing at each other impotently, mind you. First order of business is probably either changing the weird, widespread public perception that events that will directly affect them don't affect them, and getting the shitstack science-denying wannabe fascists out of political institutions. That's uh, going a bit slowly right now, admittedly.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:54 |
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Oxxidation posted:"You must be THIS CULTURED to persist as a species" Turns out culture is a pretty important part of being a human, who knew MiddleOne posted:Much like silicon valley billionaires the average sadbrain will when confronted with real-world problems which feel insurmountable invent fictional problems to solve instead. Finding solutions for curbing rising internet-fueled fascism and rapid climate change? Overrated. No what we need to do is to solve how to colonize Mars and how to fight super-AI's, obviously those are the real problems! I discussed a few things that would bend the curve of warming out years if not decades, feel free to engage with them if you want
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:57 |
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call to action posted:You couldn't be further off base. How much happiness, and art, and creation do you see coming from displaced Syrian refugees? Some, certainly, but nowhere near as much as you'd see if they were still living their semi-prosperous lives from the 2000 or so era. That's my point, that we're not going to soft-land into a place where we just live in log cabins again. "If you're not contributing this much to the glory of mankind, you might as well be dead." The Groper posted:I'm going to go with that not counting on the basis of robots aren't people. Clearly nobody else in the observable universe is doing it though, so the ROI is probably nil. Getting technical, you require: - Highly adaptive AI - Self-replicating machines able to process a wide variety of natural resources in unknown environments - The ability to accelerate through interstellar distances and more important deccelerate as they approach their target star system - Impulse/maneuvering capability to approach asteroids et al in order to harvest them Each of these is really hard, but possible. Combining them all in the same extremely complex and fiddly package, and then adding the resilience to survive centuries or millenia of deep-space cosmic radiation and microimpacts, is what might actually push it beyond what's physically achievable.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:58 |
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Conspiratiorist posted:"If you're not contributing this much to the glory of mankind, you might as well be dead." I get that you're OK with the insane squandering of human talent and ability that we are OK with in the world today, I'm not
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 19:00 |
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TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:And clueless people said this about the oceans too lol There is no ocean colonization either, so I don't fully understand your comparison. I will say though, that ocean colonization is infinitely more likely and feasible. As far as living on earth; I don't view life on earth as a doom prediction or as depressing, so I don't understand your recommendation for therapy. I would argue that being able to accept that earth is the habitat of man is a sign that I'm well adjusted and content. It's important to understand that space colonization is not a solution to global warming and we don't just get to pack up and leave because we destroyed the environment.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 19:13 |
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Salt Fish posted:It's important to understand that space colonization is not a solution to global warming and we don't just get to pack up and leave because we destroyed the environment. I feel like it would be nice to live long enough as a species to at least experiment with the idea of space colonization, but uh, yeah, that does require not choking to death in the cosmic cradle first.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 19:16 |
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call to action posted:I get that you're OK with the insane squandering of human talent and ability that we are OK with in the world today, I'm not We're not an anthill, bro, there's no such thing as progress, we were all better off when we were having orgies on the seaside eating abalone 15,000 years ago.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 19:28 |
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Peter Frase's book Four Futures had a pretty nice look at using the excess labor over the next century to combat climate change. After reading the past few pages I'm all for exterminism. Let the tech bros liquidate our asses, you guys are insufferable.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 21:21 |
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Conspiratiorist posted:Also, what the hell kind of future are you imagining where advancement just stops happening? Wait, no, I'm wrong here. You're not talking about advancement in general, you're only talking about the poo poo that feeds your sci-fi dreams. The poo poo that makes you, you specifically, go 'wow, this is like sooo cool'. Humanity can keep developing its culture, its legal and ethical systems, its medical technology, information technology - but no, it has to happen at the exponential rate that is the right and proper way of things, the way you were raised on, yes? Do you honestly believe that ethics and social progress will ''keep going'' as everything progresses? Think of the progress we've been having in the past few decades regarding things like women's and minorities rights. One of the biggest enhancers of that is communication technology that allows those groups to organize. If that goes away, we're back to square one. Husbands will start beating their wives since there's less police to stop them, they have no where to go and no where to stop them. Parents and other children will try to fix and exclude gay people. You can rightly point out that all that stuff is happening now but at least it gives them a chance to escape. Not to mention how once medical knowledge is lost, we'll be back to the local healer who knows these roots or whatever. I'm not arrogant enough to say technological progress is the end all be all of progress period but if that falls, everything else falls with it. That to me is the tragedy. Everyone's lives will be hell. I don't understand how having a life comprised of 99.999% suffering is preferrable to non existence.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 21:58 |
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If a civilisation arises from the wreckage of this one it could have totally different social norms to ours Maybe start burning bibles now to give them a better chance
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:05 |
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Record heat high at Ahvaz, Iran, 53,7C° with peak humidity in the 70's.quote:The heat index – a measure of how hot it feels factoring in the humidity – exceeded 140F. This combination of heat and humidity was so extreme that it was beyond levels the heat index was designed to compute. lol nice
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:09 |
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El Laucha posted:Record heat high at Ahvaz, Iran, 53,7C° with peak humidity in the 70's. How do you even live in temperatures this high?
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:14 |
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AceOfFlames posted:Do you honestly believe that ethics and social progress will ''keep going'' as everything progresses? Think of the progress we've been having in the past few decades regarding things like women's and minorities rights. One of the biggest enhancers of that is communication technology that allows those groups to organize. If that goes away, we're back to square one. Husbands will start beating their wives since there's less police to stop them, they have no where to go and no where to stop them. Parents and other children will try to fix and exclude gay people. You can rightly point out that all that stuff is happening now but at least it gives them a chance to escape. Not to mention how once medical knowledge is lost, we'll be back to the local healer who knows these roots or whatever. The problem here is that GLORY OR EXTINCTION types are only seeing a full Mad Max future. There is no Mad Max future, not in the long term anyway, as exciting as that sounds to the fantasy-prone mind. We're heading towards a mix between a more agrarian society (something akin to a much less extreme version of Interstellar) and hypercapitalist Mordor. I know it sucks and even worse, it's boring, but that's just how it is. It's exceptionally childish to believe that because upheaval would cause our current global civilization to collapse, that humanity will suddenly regress to some kind of pre-industrial anarchist dystopia - there's just poo poo that's too valuable to go away, so stuff like global communications is here to stay even if it gets temporarily disrupted by wars or whatnot.
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# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:26 |
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Burt Buckle posted:How do you even live in temperatures this high? You hide in a building built out of materials with bad heat transference and colors that reflect sunlight. If that's not enough you dig yourself underground. Then you wait for it to go away. EDIT: When this doesn't work out the traditional outcome before the age of AC's was death. MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Jun 30, 2017 |
# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:30 |
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Conspiratiorist posted:The problem here is that GLORY OR EXTINCTION types are only seeing a full Mad Max future. I don't want anarchist dystopia but even what you describe I believe will cause major regression in the mean time. I'm picturing the current situation of the Middle East spread out throughout the world, religious fanatics included, only suited to the region in question. Also, should we just accept the coming technological regression? I have the chance to pursue a Machine Learning degree, which is a field I find fascinating. Should I ditch that and learn how to woodwork or something? AceOfFlames fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Jun 30, 2017 |
# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:31 |
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In the long term, information technology is not going away, so it helps you get or keep a decent job that prevents you from dying from starvation or exposure in the streets of a country that doesn't give a flying gently caress about its lower class. RE: your edit AceOfFlames posted:I don't want anarchist dystopia but even what you describe I believe will cause major regression in the mean time. I'm picturing the current situation of the Middle East spread out throughout the world, religious fanatics included, only suited to the region in question. What current situation in the Middle East? What is it that you're picturing? Because last I checked, people still worked for a living even in loving Syria - and Yemen excluded, the rest of the Middle East is not doing like Syria. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jun 30, 2017 |
# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:34 |
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It's gonna suck when the whole Middle East becomes like the Rub al-Khali.AceOfFlames posted:Also, should we just accept the coming technological regression? I have the chance to pursue a Machine Learning degree, which is a field I find fascinating. Should I ditch that and learn how to woodwork or something? It's not like all modern technological advances are going to be forgotten or something. What will happen is the number of people able to buy, use, repair, or learn to build the latest technology will gradually become restricted to a smaller and smaller elite. Essentially the same situation as now, but exaggerated. Becoming educated in a technological field now could actually be a great idea since that knowledge may become an even rarer commodity later on. Burt Buckle posted:How do you even live in temperatures this high? You don't. You flee to a colder area.
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# ? Jul 1, 2017 02:54 |
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The toba bottleneck was supposedly around 10,000 people. I think if it came on "fast" but like, 100 - 200 years fast, we could build out enough mega-bunkers to keep 10k rich people alive in a relatively indefinite/sustainable way. Even if the surface went full-venus. In a way, maybe thats what it'll take. Only that level of hyper focus on working out the exact mix of sustainable consumption and resource sharing will ever get humanity to figure out communism.
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# ? Jul 1, 2017 15:00 |
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I thought this was a good post.quote:Of note, the temperature difference you're talking about is an average for the WORLD. Local temperatures may vary wildly from this, which is part of the problem, as waters around corals heat up drastically on some days. It's not the 1-2C that's the problem, it's that couple of days at +10C (or more!) above normal temps that really cause the problems we're looking at. The "higher on average" is a way to show not just that it can/will have those unusual (and often unexpected, which can kill) temperature spikes, but also that there's some underlying issue raising temperatures steadily, as opposed to just spikes and things remaining relatively constant otherwise (denialists must find something that is also contributing to this process if they want to discount human-released carbon). Most people haven't spent much time digging into what "global warming" even means, but the above is just a taste - if temperatures are higher on average, that means there have been some much higher than normal spikes of high temps and a lack of low temps, which can kill anything. The speed of the change is a big factor, happening in decades rather than millenia or longer. I see a lot of people shrugging at 2* of warming, not realizing the math behind it.
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# ? Jul 1, 2017 15:44 |
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Of course its not possible for humans as they are now to colonize the stars. As a physics person I don't see any hard limits to making self-replicating robots that explore the universe though.
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# ? Jul 1, 2017 16:01 |
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Debate & Discussion > Climate Change: Not actually the Climate Change Thread
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# ? Jul 1, 2017 16:12 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 22:44 |
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Blockade posted:Of course its not possible for humans as they are now to colonize the stars. As a physics person I don't see any hard limits to making self-replicating robots that explore the universe though. What is your VNM's energy source? Propulsion system (both interstellar and maneuvering)? What is your propellant? Are you confident you can procure and refine more at the destination? How do you deal with the hundreds or thousands of years that you spend traveling between stars, constantly bombarded by cosmic rays and impacting interstellar dust at relativistic speeds? How do you keep a machine that does all of this, that is resilient enough to do all of this, small enough to be functional? Once you have to push material sciences two steps beyond currently foreseeable technology, beyond what we think can be done but cannot or is impractical to do yet, that's fantasy.
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# ? Jul 1, 2017 16:40 |