Rain in Doha

Winter has arrived in Doha. About 10 days ago we had rain which caused serious flooding all over the city. This is because Qatar is basically a thin rock covering over an impervious rock base so the water just sits there and goes nowhere for a long time. There are a few drains which quickly fill with sand and assorted crap thereby becoming useless for anything other than as a man trap.

Today is National Day when they parade through the city, wave flags everywhere and generally drive in a more reckless manner than normal. Yes, you guessed right, it rained most of the day causing more flooding and general chaos on the roads.

The place I live in is on a small compound. The compound is surrounded by an road which loops in an oval about 300m on its long axis. The compound is at one end within the enclosed land the rest being wasteland.

When it last rained water drained into the road converting the compound into an island surrounded by dirty water about 30cm deep. After a couple of days the municipality sent a stream of water tankers to pump the water off the road and take it away.

As I am writing this the water has flooded about 30% of the road loop and the municipality has just sent a large tanker to pump out the water again.

However the locals are not to be outdone. In a burst of imagination someone has arranged to get a portable pump and pump the water off the road onto the wasteland in the centre. This would be fine if it wasn’t for the fact that the water promptly runs back onto the road off the wasteland bringing even more mud and associated crap with it. Of course the locals are not the ones doing the pumping that has been left to some guys from the Indian subcontinent who work for them and will carry out the job unquestioningly.

When the tanker driver arrived he waved madly at them pointing out where the water was running back onto the road about 15m from where they were standing and they have finally shut off the pump as they evidently decided it was getting just too silly. They are now loading it up back onto their pickup before they go back to the villa about 100m away.

The really stupid thing is there is a good land drain in the flooded area. I have seen tankers discharging into it in the past. The only problem is it is blocked with crap. They would have been much better digging the mud off it then using the pump to excavate the silt from the hole. Once the water starts flowing it would clear itself in seconds.

Oh such fun :-)

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Goodbye Geocities

Yahoo will be shutting down Geocities later today. Geocities started up in 1994, was purchased by Yahoo in 1999 for USD 2 billion and will finally die today.

When I formed an Internet company in 1995 with a partner Geocities was very popular and full of simple websites. The creators of these sites used simple HTML markup and usually an excessive amount of blinking and flashing text. I hated the <blink> HTML tag and was always scared of getting an epileptic attack when visiting anything on Geocities. Most of the websites also lacked any sense of good taste when it came to using colours too.

Yet the closure of Geocities leaves me feeling more than a little saddened. At its height the site reflected the vibrant Internet of the 1990s as people came to terms with how to design websites and express themselves – some of my early attempts at website design were just as bad. The 1990s were a great time of change for me when my children were young and the world/Internet seemed an awfully interesting place. Now everything seems so much more organised with big commercial interests controlling things.

I don’t remember the last time I went to a Geocities hosted website but it is probably unimportant now.

Looking back 15 years I wish I had changed some things but mostly I’m happy with what I’ve done. The closure of Geocities has brought back many memories – for that I thank Yahoo. I just wish they could keep it running a bit longer.

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Censorship, self censorship and attempted coups

Its been an interesting week in Qatar. On Tuesday I came across a blog which reported that there had been a failed coup attempt in Qatar. Apparently several Arabic websites had been reporting the story.

As this was a story of interest to the expat community in Qatar I posted a link to it on the popular website Qatar Living. Within a few minutes the entire thread had been deleted from the Qatar Living website without any message to me from the person who did it, there wasn’t even a marker stating that the thread had been deleted.

I then posted a complaint on the forum about the manner of the deletion and got a response from another site user. Within minutes of this that thread was also deleted without trace. I then followed this up with a message exchange with the ‘Moderator’ in which I was advised that the subject was ‘sensitive’ and there were concerns about the site being blocked by the ISP in Qatar. This was despite the fact that the original site and an extremely interesting Stratfor report on the same story were passing unopposed through the ISP (Q-Tel) firewall. I assume the Arabic websites were also unaffected.

The prospect of being blocked by Q-Tel isn’t something to be taken lightly out here. The administrators of the firewall seem to randomly block websites and it is near to impossible to get in contact with them. The email address posted on the block message appears to be a joke in that I have yet to hear of someone getting a response from it when they have complained. At the moment http://www.google.com is completely broken – any and all queries result in the original Google page being redisplayed and a search on any Google website including the word ‘Canal’ results in the response being blocked (I was searching for ‘Corinth Canal’ at the time).

At the time of writing this there is at least one extremely active forum on Qatar living where many users are letting off steam about the issue and the way that threads and messages are being deleted. I estimate that about 10% of new threads in the forum area of the website are being deleted at present.

There are several issues with all this. Qatar Living is a website based on a server in the USA and is probably in the top 20 of websites visited from Qatar. It has a large and extremely vocal userbase who use it for everything from discussing the weather (its hot and dusty) to selling unwanted furniture.

Whilst the users don’t pay for the service of the website (it is financed by advertising) – without them the site is worthless and quite a lot of the most active users are extremely unhappy at the moment.

The site does not have a clear policy of what topics are acceptable to the administrators and which are not. This results in a clash in expectations and some extremely public arguments on its forums.

Deleting threads without notice or explanation is extremely upsetting to users who feel protective about what they are writing and strongly object to censorship being applied to them by an unknown party.

The story in this case of a coup plot is extremly relevant to the users of Qatar Living and has been published in the press outside Qatar. The story is in the public domain and a much better way to handle the entire situation would have been to put a short note in the News section of the site referring to the stories in the foreign press and containing a request that it is not discussed in the forums because of concerns about the Q-Tel firewall. This would at a single stroke have defused the situation and would have put the entire userbase of the site on the same side as the site admins.

The problem with self censorship is the fear factor results in the press and other organisations being overcautious in what they publish and they do not challenge the ‘official censor’ in their interpretation of the regulations.

I do feel sympathetic for the administrators of Qatar Living in that they have spent a long time building up the site to its current position and they don’t wish to risk their investment. However I feel they have made a big mistake in the way that they handled this situation and the site has lost a lot of credibility as a result. If enough people become disillusioned then there is a danger of them moving to another site which would compete with Qatar Living.

One message I got from the unknown ‘Moderator’ on Qatar Living was “Why don’t you publish it in your own blog?”. Well Mr Moderator, I have :-)

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Doha Duststorms

Doha is in the midst of a late season dust storm at the moment. There has been dryer than usual weather recently in the gulf and this combined with Northerly winds has covered Qatar in dust. The dust is made up of tiny particles which cannot be seen without magnification and has reduced visibility to less than 1Km. The sun is pure white in colour due to the light scattering from the dust.

I woke up early this morning in a cold sweat and aching in every joint. It turns out I have an allergy to the dust which has covered the entire region, I’ve noticed I’m not at my best during a dust storm in the past but not like this. So I paid a visit to the pharmacy this morning and got some antihistamine capsules. It’s now 2 hours later and I’m beginning to feel human again, if a bit sleepy.

I went digging on the net about the dust storms and came up with the following story in the Gulf News from the UAE, it made me feel better knowing I’m not unusual with some strange disease.


From the Gulf News:
“The dust storm that blew across the UAE came from the borders of Iran-Iraq and in all probability carried illnesses from the place of its origin. Hay fever is the common illness that accompanies dust storms. This is because hay fever is seasonal and occurs in dusty conditions. In this the patients not only suffer from allergies but also run a temperature. In normal allergies, the patients do not have fever. By far the best advice one could give to those who suffer from dust allergies is to stay indoors and try not to venture out as far as possible,” said Dr Mohammad.
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Moving out of the Hotel

I’ve been stuck in a hotel in Doha for almost four months now whilst the wheels in the Ministry of Interior slowly turned. Well, they have now found me a nice place to live near Landmark in Doha. Its a bit far out of town but anything is better than living in a hotel.

I’ve been staying in the Rejaj Al Rayyan hotel. Its a reasonable place but the rooms lack the essentials for a long term stay (a serviced apartment would be much better) and they sometimes have problems in thinking things through.

  • One afternoon I had stuck the “Do not disturb” sign on my door so they decided to telephone me and ask if I wanted the room cleaning, at least they didn’t knock on the door.
  • Another night I had to change room at 00:15 because of a leak in the bathroom (these things happen) and one of staff members decided to wake me up in my new room by hammering on he door at 01:45 to enquire about a discrepancy in the minibar in the old room (I had never touched it). As if the question couldn’t have waited to the morning.

They have a few silly problems too, two of the three rooms I was in over the period had water leaks in the bathrooms, in the second case I complained three times before I ended up dragging a member of staff into the room to see the water dripping from the ceiling. At that point things finally happened. Also all the bathrooms have shaver points but none of them work in the entire place (whats the betting they failed to put the wiring in place).

That said, the staff were friendly and I’ll kinda miss them.

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A company I don’t recommend you deal with (Update 1)

Previous posting: Original Posting

True to form I got another email from Suzanne Martin in which she reasserted her previous claims.


From: suzanne@suzannemartin.biz
Date: 16/07/09 11:05
To: andy@x31.com

Dear Andy

I am really sorry to put you in this position. But as the copyright holder I expressly request that you take down the site. XXXXX admit via their lawyer that they are using our material. I have never agreed that they can use it in this way and unless they provide you with a licence that states they are allowed to use our material as they have done signed by my company then I respectfully ask you pull down the site until this matter is resolved. We have not been paid since October 2008 and this also puts me in an impossible position. By keeping this site live you are committing a criminal offence by publishing this material without my permission and you are also stopping from publishing this material elsewhere.

—snip—

The thing which amused me was she had attached an email from the solicitors of xxxxx Limited. This wasn’t a good idea considering she was trying to bully me into taking down the site.


“Dear Ms Martin

This firm has today received instructions from xxxxxxx Limited to deal with your allegations concerning breach of copyright by xxxxx Limited on its website.

The only materials appearing on the xxxxxx website that were authored by employees of Suzanne Martin and Associates were authored and supplied by on the express understanding that they would be amended, copied and disseminated by our client.

Consequently, our client has enjoyed and continues to enjoy a licence to copy the materials. This licence will provide a complete defence to any claim of copyright infringement.

On that basis, our client intends to retain the materials complained of on its website.

Yours sincerely

xxxxx xxxx
xxxxxx xxxxxxx
DDI: 01223 xxxxxx
Fax: 01223 xxxxxx
E-mail: xxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.com

So by this point I was getting fed up with her and composed the following reply…


From: andy@x31.com
Date: 16/07/09 12:07
To: suzanne@suzannemartin.biz

I only have your word for all this, a person I’ve never met.

I also have an opposite statement from xxxxx.

I suggest you expedite your case with xxxxxx and once there is a court
ruling then the appropriate actions can be speedily taken.

To do otherwise is to prefer one side over the other and to prejudge the
final outcome – I am not in a position to evaluate the competing claims.
That is a job for others and I assume it is the substance of your
discussions with xxxxx.

The damage to xxxxxx resulting from a shutdown appears to be
disproportionate to the ongoing damage to you by keeping the server up.
My doing nothing in this case is appropriate as it minimises the overall
harm to both companies involved and it isn’t my fight anyway.

BTW I am not doing anything illegal and I do not expect you to repeat
your statement. I just run the UNIX servers in various countries outside
the UK.

I suggest you deal with the content managers for the websites in
question (If you need the contact details for xxxxxxx I suggest you look
at one of the websites). xxxxxxxx have assured me that they have full
rights to use the material – I cannot judge your competing claims.

I remind you that I am not resident in the UK and you should send
anything you want to me at Villa xx, xxxxxxxxx Compound, xxxxx xxxxxl,
Doha Qatar. Note that simply receiving correspondence from you does not
of itself incur any obligations upon me. Note also there is no postal
delivery service out here. Feel free to apply to the local Sharia court
in Doha if you wish. The address you cited for me in your previous email
is incorrect and I will not receive any mail even assuming that you can
find someone to sign for it.

Any problems you have with xxxxxxx is between the two of you, I have
little interest in your financial arrangements with them. I’m also
doubtful of your statement regarding your wish to republish elsewhere as
I expect the material contains xxxxxxxx proprietary information. However
I’m sure you kept a copy of the stuff you delivered to them so I cannot
see how you are prevented from republishing.

Please don’t continue to waste my time in this matter. Sort out your
problems with xxxxxxxx in a professional manner, once this is done things
can be resolved out.

All email to the X31.com domain is subject to the EMAIL policy as
defined in http://www.x31.com/email-disclaimer.html This webpage has
been on a prominent position on the website since 2000 and sending mail
to the domain constitutes acceptance of these conditions.

Andy

Its now 10 hours later and I’ve not had any more emails. Maybe she has finally given up on harassing me.

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A company I don’t recommend you deal with

This evening I received an unwelcome email from a Suzanne Martin. She runs a company called “Suzanne Martin and Associates” based out of London. The organisation offers PR services for businesses.

I show the letter below. I’m reproducing it in accordance with the X31 policy on Email which has been on the website since 2000. I’ve not agreed to any confidentiality in regard to correspondence with her so anything goes.


From: suzanne@suzannemartin.biz
Date: 15/07/09 18:29
To: andy@x31.com

We understand that you are responsible for hosting a number of Websites on
behalf of XXXXXXX Limited including

XXXXX.com
XXXXX.com
XXXXXX.com
XXXXXX.co.uk/

These websites carry material which belongs to my company and I am asking
that your remove this material as this is a breach of my copyright. I have
not given this company permission to use this material they have admitted it
is my material but they refuse to remove it. I ask that you do so on our
behalf.

Many thanks in advance

Suzanne Martin
Suzanne Martin and Associates
Office +44 (0) 207 524 7600
Mobile+44 (0) 7950 051911
Studio 001
Westbourne Studios,
242 Acklam Road,
London W10 5JJ

This message is intended only for the use of the Addressee and may contain
information that is PRIVILEGED and CONFIDENTIAL. If you are not the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this
communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this
communication in error, please delete all copies of the message and its
attachments and notify us immediately. Thank you.

My understanding is as follows:
Company X arranged for Suzanne Martin to develop promotional materials for their website, this was done and paid for. When company X decided that there wasn’t any need for further work they advised Suzanne Martin accordingly. At that point Suzanne Martin objected and a dispute arose about the duration of ongoing work. As far as I know this is proceeding towards a court hearing. Now Suzanne Martin has decided that work previously done and paid for is no longer to be used by X and she is trying to drag me into the fray by sending me a takedown notice without specifying what is to be taken down!

Of course company X is of a different opinion to Suzanne Martin and maintain that they have the right to the materials etc. This leaves me in the impossible position of being told to take down unspecified materials by one party and to keep them up by the other. As I am unable to determine the validity of either argument as I don’t have access to the contracts etc I have to make a decision based on “Least Harm”.

If I take down the website company X will lose a lot of revenue and it will damage their image. If I leave it up then Suzanne Martin may have her materials used for a bit longer but I cannot see what the lasting damage to her would be. I’m sure whatever settlement they eventually arrive at (probably through a court hearing) will take account of the duration of the materials on the site.

I have therefore taken the decision to leave the website up as requested by company X.

It all seems bizarre to me that I as a uninvolved party is being dragged into this mess and I feel that Suzanne Martin is trying to frighten me into doing what she wants even though I am not in a position to determine the rights and wrongs of the case.

It seems even stranger to me that she could produce publicity materials for a company and then attempt to prevent them using the materials they have already paid for. Thank God I am an engineer and not in the publicity industry. I guess this all serves as a warning to anyone commissioning documents – make sure the contract is clearly worded (I don’t know if it is or not in this case).

When I conveyed my response to Suzanne Martin I just received another threatening email below:


From: suzanne@suzannemartin.biz
Date: 15/07/09 21:22
To: andy@x31.com

Dear Andy

Your address is registered in the uk and we will serve the appropriate
notice seeking an injunction on that address.

co XXXXXXXXXXX
zipcode: XXXXXXXX
city: Skipton
country: United Kingdom

On the basis that we have been non-specific regarding the exact copy ad you
have instantly denied and refused this we will have no alternative other
than to take legal action. We have the backing of trading standards on this
issue and we will proceed without further contact unless you seek further
clarification and assist us with this matter.

You are technically the publisher and we are be legally entitled to invoice
you for this work or alternatively sue you for copyright theft. This is a
criminal offence.

In the UK as the internet service provider – the hosting company – Section
27 of “Statutory Instrument 2003 No. 2498 – The Copyright and Related Rights
Regulations 2003″ allows me to seek an injunction against you to remove my
work. Section 26 of the same Instrument specifies that you are committing a
criminal offence

Please remove remove all illegal copy immediately to avoid legal action.
….snip…

The address she refers to is my X31 NIC Handle and used for domain issues. I don’t live in the UK and haven’t done so for quite a while. She is welcome to send anything she likes there but it probably wont get to me for many months if at all.

Again she didn’t identify the “Offending Materials”

I’ll post an update on this as things happen.

First update: Update 1

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RF line of sight propagation

Introduction

For communications systems to operate reliably a good signal needs to be received. Too weak a signal will cause loss of data and too strong a signal can result in overloading of the receiver or interference to other communications systems. Environmental factors will (normally) reduce the received signal below the level resulting from a simple line of sight computation. Note that this posting only considers propagation in the far field – antennas more than a few wavelengths apart and in an uncluttered environment.

The transmitting isotropic antenna

This is an antenna which radiates equally in all directions, in effect distributing the power over the surface of a sphere with the antenna at the centre. This is an important definition because all antennas are characterised in comparison with an isotropic antenna. A high gain antenna concentrates the power in a preferred direction at the expense of power being radiated in other directions. A useful analogy is squeezing a balloon where it shrinks where it is squeezed and pops out further in other areas.

Antenna gains are usually expressed in dB referenced to an isotropic antenna and these figures are denoted as dBi (dB relative to an isotropic antenna). An example of this is a dipole antenna which shows a gain of 2.2dBi in its preferred radiation directions.

An isotropic antenna is defined as being 100% efficient. This means all the power which is put into the antenna is transmitted onto its coverage area. This is known as radiation efficiency and all antennas are less than 100% efficient. Factors which can impact radiation efficiency include the impedance matching to the signal source (mismatches result in power being reflected to the source) and resistive losses of the surfaces of the antenna.

As the surface area of a sphere is equal to

[pmath]Area = 4 pi r^2[/pmath]

the power density at a distance r from the antenna can be computed as

[pmath]Pd = Pt / {4 pi r^2  }[/pmath] where Pt is the transmitted power.

From this it can be seen that the power density reduces by the square of the distance.

The receiving isotropic antenna.

Antennas receive as well as transmit and the amount of power they receive is a function of the area of the signal they intercept. The effective area of an isotropic antenna is defined as

[pmath]Ea = Lambda^2 / {4 pi}[/pmath] where Λ is the wavelength of the signal being received.

Isotropic antennas receive equally well in all directions and are defined as being 100% efficient. Real world antennas have efficiency losses and can increase their sensitivity in some directions at the expense of others. This figure is exactly the same as the transmit case as antennas are reciprocal in nature.

Path loss

Knowing the power density of a transmitting isotropic antenna and the effective area of a receiving antenna it is possible to work out the power transferred by two antennas.

[pmath]Pr = Pt (Lambda^2 / {4 pi} ) ( 1 / { 4 pi r^2 }) = Lambda^2 / { 16 pi^2 r^2 }[/pmath]

and the path loss is

[pmath]Path Loss = Pt / Pr = {16 pi^2 r^2 } / Lambda^2[/pmath]

As wavelength isn’t normally used we convert to frequency

[pmath]Path Loss = {16 pi^2 r^2 f^2} / {c^2}[/pmath] where c is the speed of light (300,000,000 m/s)

[pmath]Path Loss = ({{4 pi} / c} r f )^2[/pmath]

Converting everything to dB and separating the terms we end up with

[pmath]Path Loss dB = 20 log10({{4 pi} / c} r f )[/pmath]

[pmath]Path Loss dB = 20 log10({{4 pi} / c}) + 20 log10(r) + 20 log10(f)[/pmath]

[pmath]Path Loss dB = -138.02 + 20 log10(r) + 20 log10(f)[/pmath]

As antenna gains are expressed in dBi and we can easily add the effect of them to the pathloss computation:

[pmath]Path Loss dB = – Gtx – Grx -138.02 + 20 log10(r) + 20 log10(f)[/pmath]

This is a useful result as it allows us to quickly work out the loss between two antennas under optimal conditions. If you only have the natural logs rather than base 10 then you can convert the base using the substitution below:

[pmath]log10(x) = {loge(x)} / {loge(10)}[/pmath]

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Legalisation and Visa

I recently had to obtain legalised documents for my visa in Qatar. This isn’t a particually difficult task but is expensive and time consuming. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth office provide this service either by post or over the counter. The only problem is the counter in question is in Milton Keynes about 90 minutes drive from London. They used to have it in London but moved it out of town last year. You can find information on their website. When I turned up at 09:20 there were about 15 people waiting for the doors to open at 09:30.  Once we got inside and up to the third floor things were reasonably quick. I waited about 25 minutes for my turn, handed over my documents and money (GBP 27.00 each) then went and sat down for 20 minutes whist they processed them. I was out of the building by about 10:30.

In my case I had two things to legalise, a degree certificate and a doctors letter.  They won’t legalise degree certificates directly and you have to go to a notary or solicitor first and get them to certify that the certificate is an original or true copy. That cost me GBP 69.00 and took about an hour a few days before I went to Milton Keynes. The doctors letter was more straightforward. In both cases legalisation consisted of them sticking a bit of paper to the back of each document (an apostille) and embossing the whole thing with a seal.

It all seems strange that they can legalise doctors letters directly but require a notary to certify University degree certificates. After all both are semi-independent organisations and if they can do one you would naturally assume that they can do the other.  Its all well beyond me, logic isn’t a feature of government or legal systems. You can find a list of what can be legalised on their website.

One document which I have yet to sort out for Qatar is a “Police Clearance Certificate”, unfortunately the UK doesn’t issue them apart for visa purposes in relation to a handful of countries and Qatar isn’t one of them. So I’ve ended up requesting a printout from the Police National Computer under the data protection rules, they have to send me this within 40 days after I formally asked them for it and I can safely bet they will take the maximum possible time to do it.

The Metropolitan Police website has a “Frequently Asked Questions”  (FAQ) section which explains the situation with regard to Police Clearance Certificates which you can find here. I’ve reproduced the text below.

5. How can I get a “Police clearance certificate” / “Certificate of good conduct” for visa or emigration


The UK police do not issue “certificates of good conduct” or “police clearance certificates”, however in our experience foreign embassies will generally accept a police reply under the subject access provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 as a suitable equivalent. Individuals requiring Police Certificates for the purposes of applications for emigration, visas or residency in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America should download the application form for an ACPO Police Certificate from the ACPO website.

Please note that this Certificate is processed entirely by the ACPO Criminal Records Office (ACRO). All submissions and enquiries relating to this process should be directed to ACRO, who can be contacted through the following routes:

  • Telephone: 0845 6013999 (during their office opening hours of 8:30 – 16:30, Monday to Friday
  • E-mail: acro.policecertificates@acro.pnn.police.uk
  • Address: ACRO, PO Box 481, Fareham, PO14 9FS
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Last day in Heathrow

Today is my last day working for Siemens in Heathrow Airport. I’ve been there for the last year through ups and downs. Overall its been a good year and I’ll miss many friends. I’m leaving to move back to Doha and work the the Ministry of Interior. At least the weather will be better there than the UK :-) I’ll probably change my mind once I get back there :-P

I’ve learned a lot about designing indoor coverage systems for PMR and Cellular networks in the last year and how they are much more complicated than they would first appear. I’ll post a few articles about this in the coming weeks.

I’ve also learned a lot about getting documents legalised in the last week and will definitely be posting a short howto in the near future so other don’t have to go through the same pain as I did.

To those I worked with over the last year; thanks for putting up with me and my strange ways and best wishes for the future.

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