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Okay, for anyone that isn't familiar with Shadowrun and is now horribly confused: BTLs are an illegal type of simsense chip. A simsense chip is a full mental recording of someone's experience doing something. Plug one into your datajack and you can live through being an action movie star, or participating in an orgy, or just having a nice day on the beach with your loving spouse, whatever you like. With you fully experiencing all of the sensations and emotions involved as if this was actually happening to you. They're common, fairly cheap, consumer entertainment. They're also very safe. They're edited to ensure that the emotions and sensations they contain aren't dangerous. You're not going to come out of being James Bond for an afternoon with a budding case of PTSD. BTL, "Better Than Life", chips are the illegal version. They're also very literally named. The sensations and emotions on a BTL chip have been boosted above anything that's actually possible for a healthy human being to feel. This also makes them extremely addictive. A well made BTL can make you feel better than anything else in the world, that's the entire point of them. And not just "anything else you have personally experienced". "It is actually physically impossible to feel this good without using a BTL". CalHots, and whatever the Elder was making in his backroom from what Is0bel was saying, are BTLs that have been turned up so far that they're not just addictive, they're actively dangerous. Emotions so powerful that a metahuman brain will actually damage itself trying to process them, like an overclocked computer. And with much the same results in the long run. Stroth fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Apr 27, 2021 |
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Apr 27, 2021 04:35
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Come to think of it, Eiger's personal mission in Dragonfall had something similar right? The target there was some super hard War Crimes For Hire type who turned to goo when you threatened his special chip. Like the next level up from CalHots maybe?
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Apr 27, 2021 04:40
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Once you've tried BTLs a few times, actual-reality starts feeling like a lovely low-res trid show. It just doesn't seem real anymore, like life is the dream and only in BTL are you awake. Many deckers, incidentally, use hotsim to give them an edge. It works! You see more clearly, react faster. The downside is that decking becomes highly addivtive. The Lone Badger fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Apr 27, 2021 |
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Apr 27, 2021 04:42
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Alacron posted:Come to think of it, Eiger's personal mission in Dragonfall had something similar right? The target there was some super hard War Crimes For Hire type who turned to goo when you threatened his special chip. Like the next level up from CalHots maybe? That was “the Engineer”, a merc and advance operative for some Russian Mafia syndicate or another. And yeah, he had some kind of high performance BTL supplied by Magical Doomsday anti-tech cult Winternight.
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Apr 27, 2021 05:53
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I wonder how much the shaman Elder's just full of poo poo considering Essence drain and all thst.
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Apr 27, 2021 06:02
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calhots are in universe a regulatory arbitrage: california free state allows stronger simsense legally than other places, so buy em legal and smuggle them whereever. theyre not stronger than the illicit stuff sr is the kinda ttrpg settin w regulatory arbitrages in it lol
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Apr 27, 2021 06:03
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citybeatnik posted:I wonder how much the shaman Elder's just full of poo poo considering Essence drain and all thst. He's talking like a Technomancer, but AFAIK they don't exist yet. He's probably doing conventional tech/decking and talking about it in mystic terms.
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Apr 27, 2021 06:04
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2056, they would be otaku. according to psychotrope otaku were first found by fuchi in 2047. they last until deus crashes the matrix a second time in 2064 otaku almost all lose their powers by adulthood, unlike technomancers
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Apr 27, 2021 06:08
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citybeatnik posted:I wonder how much the shaman Elder's just full of poo poo considering Essence drain and all thst. She's wearing a trode*. She's not cybered at all from what we see. * "Dry active electrode array". Like a datajack, but it works by externally reading your neural activity instead of being directly plugged into your brain. Not quite as fast, and if it gets moved around at all you're gonna get signal noise so you've got to either build one into a securely strapped on hat/wig/headband or just glue it to your skin, but it also doesn't require brain surgery and only costs like seventy bucks for a decent one.
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Apr 27, 2021 06:23
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StillFullyTerrible posted:Burning down is different from exploding. Spoken like someone who doesn't watercool his rig with liquid hydrogen. Like a NOOB.
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Apr 27, 2021 06:29
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GhostStalker posted:Also, HK is known for a variety of cheap, mass produced BTLs colloquially known as Kong Chips. There are also CalHots, which are BTLs tuned up to incredibly powerful stimuli, produced in CalFree. CalHots are technically less dangerous than BTLs - they're incredibly loosely regulated due to being made in CalFree, as opposed to being completely unregulated due to being unarguable contraband. It's the difference between buying something in a state where it's legal and then smuggling it to an illegal location versus buying something illegal in that illegal location where they can't get in trouble even if they mix the actual "drug" with all sorts of nasty, health-adverse filler that isn't technically in that drug. bob dobbs is dead posted:calhots are in universe a regulatory arbitrage: california free state allows stronger simsense legally than other places, so buy em legal and smuggle them whereever. theyre not stronger than the illicit stuff e;fb, but basically this. Kong Chips are absolutely the lovely, super-illegal stuff that is more "dangerous additive" than "actually what you're paying for", though. The Lone Badger posted:Once you've tried BTLs a few times, actual-reality starts feeling like a lovely low-res trid show. It just doesn't seem real anymore, like life is the dream and only in BTL are you awake. And yeah, while normal simsense chips and skillsofts can help you do things better than normal, CalHot versions of the same (or BTL-styled versions of the same, if you're really crazy) can help you do things technically outside of metahuman limits, in the same sense that amphetamines will dampen down the mental restraints that humans in real life have that keep them from burning themselves out/injuring themselves. I guess in that way, the meth comparisons are really apt.
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Apr 27, 2021 07:29
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The Lone Badger posted:He's talking like a Technomancer, but AFAIK they don't exist yet. He's probably doing conventional tech/decking and talking about it in mystic terms. Yeah, Technos/Otaku (what they used to be called in 3rd Edition) didn’t start popping up regularly until around the time Deus took over the Renraku Arcology in Seattle in the early 2060s. We’re still in 2nd Edition during this time frame. Reading her description and mystical trappings made me think early Technomancer, but true virtualkinetics weren’t really a thing until the wireless Matrix following the Second Matrix Crash involving Deus and Winternight in the leadup to 4th, and then the Corps started fearmongering about them when they crashed Geneva’s Matrix infrastructure, to the point where Mitsuhama had an open bounty for their capture alive so they could vivisect them to see what made them able to do what they could do. GhostStalker fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Apr 27, 2021 |
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Apr 27, 2021 07:53
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The Lone Badger posted:Many deckers, incidentally, use hotsim to give them an edge. It works! You see more clearly, react faster. The downside is that decking becomes highly addivtive. Well, "highly". Most professional deckers are addicted to their jobs, but they generally keep it at about the same level as a caffeine addiction. A BTL is closer to heroin. Stroth fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Apr 27, 2021 |
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Apr 27, 2021 08:55
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Liking how everyone gets to inject their expertise or quips in every step of the quest. Makes it a lot more involved and interesting.
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Apr 27, 2021 10:43
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KataraniSword posted:And yeah, while normal simsense chips and skillsofts can help you do things better than normal, CalHot versions of the same (or BTL-styled versions of the same, if you're really crazy) can help you do things technically outside of metahuman limits, in the same sense that amphetamines will dampen down the mental restraints that humans in real life have that keep them from burning themselves out/injuring themselves. Well now I kinda want to see a CalHot/BTL skillsoft for some niche skill. I think most of the manipulation-based skills would just be like watching a youtube video on faster speed and then the guy stops and goes "OH CYBERJESUS MY TENDONS"
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Apr 27, 2021 11:58
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The relationship between the Resonance realms and the wireless matrix is a little complicated, but they aren't a factor until the 4th edition timeline. People were just getting weird about tech for a while, they weren't actual technomancers yet.
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Apr 27, 2021 13:58
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RE: the land use stuff mentioned earlier, corps absolutely care about that sort of thing. After all, if you're a AA or AAA that's not just your land, it's legally your country. Buying more land legally expands your borders. But they're also corporations so what they want is PROFITABLE land. And what makes places like Wahmpoa valuable isn't the location or some resource, but the people there. Combine the trouble of establishing land ownership after devastating world plagues, state collapse, major natural disasters, and the internet exploding with likely high local resistance; then you get a picture of why the corps often tend to let organized communities of squatters like this one be. Relatively speaking, everyone's always loving with everyone else a little bit. That's just business.
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Apr 27, 2021 15:28
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Stroth posted:Okay, for anyone that isn't familiar with Shadowrun and is now horribly confused: BTLs are an illegal type of simsense chip. Which is part of why they're both highly addictive and spectacularly illegal -- once you've had BTLs nothing you ever experience in real life will ever feel as good as slotting another BTL chip will. Even the corps who aren't big on ethics think this is a really bad idea.
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Apr 27, 2021 15:32
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Of course they do. All your workers turning into useless hedonists is bad for your share price. It doesn't justify the short-term income.
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Apr 27, 2021 16:38
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NeverHelm posted:Of course they do. All your workers turning into useless hedonists is bad for your share price. It doesn't justify the short-term income. This sounds like unreasonably long term thinking for a lot of corps tbh
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Apr 27, 2021 16:57
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NeverHelm posted:Of course they do. All your workers turning into useless hedonists is bad for your share price. It doesn't justify the short-term income.
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Apr 27, 2021 17:09
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paragon1 posted:RE: the land use stuff mentioned earlier, corps absolutely care about that sort of thing. After all, if you're a AA or AAA that's not just your land, it's legally your country. Buying more land legally expands your borders. But they're also corporations so what they want is PROFITABLE land. And what makes places like Wahmpoa valuable isn't the location or some resource, but the people there.
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Apr 27, 2021 17:12
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:Workers, yes, but I can easily see managers and executives slotting illegal stat-boosting chips for that extra performance edge. That already happens in real life, aka the less fun corporate-owned dystopia. How many project leaders do you know that slam back three or four Five Hour Energys, Four Lokos, whatever just to cram that extra bit of progress into their crunch? The one difference, I feel, is that slotting a skillsoft probably doesn't give you the turboshits.
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Apr 27, 2021 17:58
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:Workers, yes, but I can easily see managers and executives slotting illegal stat-boosting chips for that extra performance edge. Boosters are okay. Boosters are fine as long as you don't expect the Corp to shell out for health care when the side effects hit. BTLs aren't boosters. You don't gain any skills from them - you just remember having been James Bond or Jet Li or Jean-Luc Picard. You don't gain or retain their skills or talents.You can slot a hundred BTLs of Rocky Balboa and in the end your right hook will be as puny as it was going in. Possibly even worse because you managed to mess up your brain into thinking it can do better than it actually can and you wind up having some misfires.
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Apr 27, 2021 17:59
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KataraniSword posted:That already happens in real life, aka the less fun corporate-owned dystopia. the most outrageous abuse of venture capital money i have ever seen was corporate reimbursement of 2 grand worth of cocaine i mean, lol
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Apr 27, 2021 18:02
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Yeah, I feel like that's one thing lost in the shuffle of this discussion: simsense chips - which BTLs are explicitly a form of - don't provide you anything except an experience. They don't improve skills or anything, they're like movies for your brain. BTLs are movies for your brain that are so "good"/potent that your brain looks at real life and goes "ew this is so bland". While you can get skillsofts (brain tutorials, the stuff that makes Neo know Kung Fu) with normal limiters removed, those aren't the same thing with regards to how they gently caress you up.
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Apr 27, 2021 18:06
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GhostStalker posted:Yeah, Technos/Otaku (what they used to be called in 3rd Edition) didn’t start popping up regularly until around the time Deus took over the Renraku Arcology in Seattle in the early 2060s. We’re still in 2nd Edition during this time frame. 
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Apr 27, 2021 18:08
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KataraniSword posted:While you can get skillsofts (brain tutorials, the stuff that makes Neo know Kung Fu) with normal limiters removed, those aren't the same thing with regards to how they gently caress you up. They gently caress you up in entirely different ways, starting at 'increased tendency toward epileptic seizures' and getting worse from there...
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Apr 27, 2021 18:20
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kaosdrachen posted:They gently caress you up in entirely different ways, starting at 'increased tendency toward epileptic seizures' and getting worse from there... Especially if you go whole hog and replace your nervous system with a Move by Wire system instead to take full advantage of those skillsofts. And yeah, general nootropics and cognitive booster cyber/BioWare are pretty standard amongst higher end corporate types. After all, they can afford it, and the attendant medical care, and as we saw in the Black Lodge intro mission in Dragonfall, anything to stay ahead in the rat race and gain an edge, eh?
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Apr 27, 2021 18:35
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GhostStalker posted:Especially if you go whole hog and replace your nervous system with a Move by Wire system instead to take full advantage of those skillsofts. SR3 Move-By-Wire System posted:...are based on similar systems used for aircraft and vehicle maneuverability. The system puts the body in a constant state of seizure, so that it wishes to move in all directions simultaneously. An implanted expert computer monitors the seizure and counteracts its effects until the user wishes to move. At that point, it channels the effects of the seizure along the motion path desired. When the user moves, she does so with unnatural smoothness. Move-by-wire users frequently suffer from slight but uncontrollable muscle tremors in specific muscle groups when they are at rest, mostly due to errors in the system's seizure compensation. Other side effects, such as temporal lobe epilepsy with complications, are possible, but less common. Medically Sound Ideas.txt (but also a favorite choice for minmaxed PCs) We also saw several types of BTL/Matrix addiction in Dragonfall- mostly Simmy Kim in the Kreuzbasar. Dunno about the deckers living/working for Apex (or the ones in the Kesselhaus when you pick up Blitz) or the one guy who was living his best Fantasy Sim Rerun life. And if you're looking at "any edge necessary, drat the consequences", the rules for Kamikaze are pretty nutter.
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Apr 27, 2021 19:18
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i find it amusing that putting synthetic reinforcements on your bones and artificial ligaments and joints for all your limbs causes the same essence drain/cyberpsychosis risk as "literally put yourself into constant seizures"
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Apr 27, 2021 20:24
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we saw a move by wire dealio on eiger's companion mission w/ the wintermute reference
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Apr 27, 2021 20:30
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StillFullyTerrible posted:i find it amusing that putting synthetic reinforcements on your bones and artificial ligaments and joints for all your limbs causes the same essence drain/cyberpsychosis risk as "literally put yourself into constant seizures" Effectively replacing your entire skeletal system is an extremely invasive procedure. Also Move by Wire has two major drawbacks other than essence cost: Firstly that it's got an expiration date and eventually has to be removed or it will permanently cripple you as the seizure blocking subsystems slowly lose effectiveness due to your brain adapting around them. And secondly if someone manages to hack your cyberware you are hosed when they just turn the anti-seizure systems off entirely and your body immediately rips itself apart.
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Apr 27, 2021 20:54
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Do normal drugs still exist alongside BTL's?
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Apr 27, 2021 21:52
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Do normal drugs still exist alongside BTL's? they got normal drugs, they got new exciting drugs like novacoke, they got fuckin magic drugs like tempo (altho tempo is late 2060s early 2070s)
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Apr 27, 2021 21:58
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At least BTLs merely burn up your brain metaphorically In our reality, dollars to donuts Neuralink will literally make people catch on fire, much like Musk's other products.
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Apr 27, 2021 22:48
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bob dobbs is dead posted:they got normal drugs, they got new exciting drugs like novacoke, they got fuckin magic drugs like tempo (altho tempo is late 2060s early 2070s) For those who don’t know, Tempo is just awakened tree sap that wanted to propagate and as an effect gave unawakened people the ability to see into the Astral plus a heavy dose of euphoria (and also showed them what they wanted to see there), that got magically experimented on and became the stereotypical BAD (Bioengineered Awakened Drug, SR loves it’s TLAs that spell out stuff ironically) and now is clandestinely produced and distributed by Aztechnology because DRUG CARTEL. The inventor of Tempo used to run a AA Corp that eventually got it’s extraterritoriality revoked by the Corp Court because it was making too big of a global gang war and smuggling problem, before the Azzies stepped in (I guess they wanted to make an example in their proverbial back yard). Big plot point in 4th Edition, and a side hustle to the greater Aztlan-Amazonia War, since said trees were located in South America because of course they were. And yeah, Novacoke is definitely a thing. Weed is pretty much legal though, and they got bleeding edge new even more addictive opioids with the new medical tech they’ve been doing in the intervening decades. Kamikaze is basically ultrameth combined with PCP. GhostStalker fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Apr 27, 2021 |
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Apr 27, 2021 22:49
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Is it possible to magically or technologically overclock one's brain and nervous system so that everyday reality is augmented to BTL levels?
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Apr 27, 2021 23:26
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:Is it possible to magically or technologically overclock one's brain and nervous system so that everyday reality is augmented to BTL levels?
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Apr 28, 2021 00:09
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Negative_Earth posted:the one guy who was living his best Fantasy Sim Rerun life. Hey now I'm gonna have to stop you there, King Philip was just an addict to watching the only trideo he could find on his company's defunct intranet. (Trideos, or Trids as the case may be, are completely external and are basically just real life TV but with added holograms to make it more 3D.) He's literally someone who ended up trapped in a building alone with nothing more than long pork to eat and nothing more than Naruto to watch for years on end; don't liken him to a BTL junkie because he thinks he's the next hokage. 
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Apr 28, 2021 00:28
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