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Hadlock posted:I've yet to see someone suggest the perfect laptop bag That's probably the case. When I looked for a laptop backbag a decade+ ago, I went through several stores all around the city, tried over a dozen different models and majority of them felt too uncomfortable to even consider them. Years later a paid considerable portion of the original price to have the zippers replaced, so I wouldn't have to go through that ordeal again.
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Mar 5, 2020 20:20
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KracKiwi posted:So it looks like my employer might be asking us to work from home soon. Can anyone suggest a Windows 10 Pro laptop that would only be used to remote into my office computer? No work would be done on the laptop itself. I would also likely hook it up to an external monitor and keyboard. With external keyboard and mouse a laptop wouldn't seem to give much benefit. Any performance isn't needed either. Something like this refurb Optiplex USFF could provide a nice, compact computer.
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Mar 12, 2020 21:27
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:With all due respect, this is a profoundly lovely take. Even if it was a "bad actor", the company is still liable and responsible for it, and they refused to even acknowledge anything happened despite clear evidence to the contrary. If it was worth spending the time and money to hold them accountable, you'd get a guaranteed settlement out of this. This again brought in my mind the question, how is one supposed to survive in a modern world if they are not an IT professional or enthusiast. We can't really expect average people to be aware of this problem. And even if they would consider it they don't have the knowhow to wipe their drives, not to mention how to wipe the drives without losing all their data. Same happened yesterday in the Firefox thread when someone asked why Adblock Plus was so bad at blocking ads and me and everyone were facepalming how there are still people who don't you needed to get rid of that extension years ago. If one were to compile a book of everything you might need to know with computers, what kind of tome would it be. At least with cars the problem is smaller, but even with them things are so much better if you can handle things yourself. My car had throttle body problems and it took over a month and 900€ for the dealership to wait for a replacement part and swap. Next time it happened I spent few hours for internet investigation and work, and 5€ for throttle body cleaner spray to fix it.
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Mar 15, 2020 20:36
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Tetrabor posted:In this day and age it's good to check the battery at least once a year. My Razer Stealth had a battery ready to blow and I only found out because it was preventing the touchpad mouse from clicking down. I bought a used laptop and the battery started bulging during first charge. After I received the replacement battery I measured the thickness of every module with a caliber.
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May 3, 2020 16:54
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At work we've been using thousands of HP Elitebooks for probably over half a decade. As far as I know they have worked great, at least better than the Acers we used for a while. After the latest tender we've switched to Thinkpads and I don't think they've been a noticeable improvement.
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May 19, 2020 10:18
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EclecticTastes posted:But it won't stop me from complaining to my friends and family about how XP was the last OS that actually felt good to use. You are dead wrong, Windows 2000 was the last good one. Ever since we've been jumping through hoops to make the UI useable again, and settling for the parts we can't fix anymore. But you're in luck with the antivirus, the only antivirus software these forums recommend, or even approve to use, is the Windows Defender that comes free with Win10.
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Jul 3, 2020 19:30
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roomforthetuna posted:Oh, one more thing to bear in mind though, if the laptop isn't one of those that can have two batteries in at once and hotswap one of them then the external pack does have the advantage that you can switch to using it without turning the laptop off in the middle! The biggest disadvantage could be the hassle of charging all the extra batteries. I take a huge amount of pictures during vacation trips and I have three batteries for my pocket camera. Every evening at the hotel it's a bit of a juggle to manage charge two of them so I can leave the third one to charge over night. I so wish I could just use a USB powerpack.
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Jul 16, 2020 23:27
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Irving.jpg posted:So my parents laptop has finally given up the ghost. They are UK based and have a budget of around £200-300 for a replacement. Really all they do is internet browsing, youtube, netflix and twitch.tv for sure. They want windows 10 for familiarity. Any recommendations I can link them, preferably on amazon UK. I would propably look for a refurbished business class laptop. 8 GB of RAM and a SSD drive should be suitable, unless they need significant storage. https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/st/refurbished-laptops
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Aug 9, 2020 20:50
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Professor Funk posted:I am looking for something like a desktop replacement--as I said above, I was originally thinking about building a desktop but decided (1) I travel a good deal for work and in my personal life, so I'd like the mobility of a laptop; and (2) having a giant glowing gaming rig in our living room might not be my soon-to-be wife's first choice of decoration. How much of a high performance gaming do you intend to do while traveling? My choice has been powerful gaming desktop and for my laptop gaming I do NES and SNES emulator. And I wouldn't worry about the glow, you can build a nondescript box without careful choice of components. And if you have a traditional cabinet under the TV you can probably hide the computer there.
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Oct 18, 2020 19:02
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Hadlock posted:If your wife hangs on to laptops for 5+ years, she might as well accept USB-C and adopt a USB-C dock and get over it, usb-A is not coming back And for the few devices where it's not worth it to upgrade there are cheap adapters that don't make the USB plug too much bigger.
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Oct 26, 2020 05:59
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:- Running a couple of VMs to assist with troubleshooting (Mac/etc.) Do you mean MacOS virtual machines? My understanding is you are officially only allowed to do that on Mac hardware.
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Nov 6, 2020 14:38
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etalian posted:Maybe a Mac machine with Boot camp? Parallels or VMware Fusion with Windows VMs is probably more convenient option. I don't know the details, but I've heard our main Mac admin complain about it several times. He'd rather run his VMs on our VMware cluster or in some rack server in our data center, but apparently that's not an option without Hackintoshing.
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Nov 6, 2020 23:35
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MrOnBicycle posted:After more research is seems like 4 cores is the minimum to not be miserable in this day and age, or are people exaggerating? The T480 is becoming a better and better second hand option... As was said it depends. But for my own experience, a year ago I bought a used HP Folio 1020 and I have been quite pleased with the old and wimpy 5 watt 2c/4t Core M-5Y51 processor. You also mentioned fan noise in your other post and I must say, a completely fanless laptop is a magical thing. It was a total uncanny valley experience the first times I used it, I could just sense that something was missing. I don't think I'll ever buy a laptop with a fan in it. My work laptop has a more powerful CPU, but what benefit does it have when I immediately start hunting the culprit when the fans speed up just a bit. A throttling CPU is much less of an issue. Browsers were brought up and I find that a non-issue. I am a chronic tab hoarder, my Firefox on the laptop has over hundred tabs open and over dozen of them from YouTube and it doesn't matter at all, except for the 1.5 GB of RAM use. CPU usage for Firefox hovers between 0.5 and 5%. Just use uMatrix to disable every bit of Javascript that isn't absolutely necessary. Firefox can play 1080p YT videos smoothly, Chrome manages 1440p, 4K doesn't quite work with either. When I tested network speeds with speedtest.net I had to enable Javascript and it seemed to take all the power the laptop had to offer. The laptop manages to compress 1080p60 H.264 video at 7fps, good enough for me. For gaming I settle for NES and SNES emulators. I tested Baldur's Gate Remastered, but that just does not work on a 13" 1440p display, the characters were absolutely tiny. I feel that a CPU power is a resource that degrades gracefully. If your drives are slow everything sucks, but SSDs have pretty much solved that problem. If you have too little RAM and start swapping I'm not sure if even SSDs will save you. If your CPU is weak and operations take 50% or twice as long as they could it's probably not much of a problem. All those operations have to be quick to begin with for us to tolerate them.
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Nov 18, 2020 22:35
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papa horny michael posted:How can i figure out what ram will work in my old-rear end laptop? Here are the Kingston products that are pretty close.
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Apr 3, 2021 23:27
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Hadlock posted:Yes At work we purchase laptops with 4 year warranties and desktops with 5, so the companies have to provide higher quality. For a while our tenders were won by a smaller local company which sold us Acer laptops and desktops they built themselves. After couple years they gave up, I suspect because the warranty costs hurt their bottom line.
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Apr 14, 2021 15:49
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A friend once told me about a moroccan coworker, who on trips back home would have his suitcases full of Oras faucets and bidet showers.
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Apr 20, 2021 22:09
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96 spacejam posted:The move killed my PC. It boots, but I can't get any signal out to a monitor. DVI, HDMI, 6 ports--nada. I have a full retail copy of Win10 with the USB and key. What's the process of transferring that license to the Razer Blade? Google has provided me an idea of what's possible (or not) but there are quite a few conflicting and none I've found with my exact situation. Windows 7 or 10 licenses can be found so cheaply from SA-mart or eBay that it's not worth the hassle, just get a new one. That way if you manage to figure out what is wrong with your computer it will still have a working license.
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May 17, 2021 01:53
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sigma 6 posted:That sounds pretty great. If it was under 2k it would be even better... The Sabrent drive uses QLC NAND flash, so it can be expected to have performance deificiencies in some situation, but mostly in writing which shouldn't matter for VJ use. Because of this the SSD Thread usually recommends QLC drives for secondary uses, game installations and such. You don't need a heatsink, they only show effect in synthetic benchmarks. And for the flash heatsinks are detrimental, they work best when hot. I would question how much performance you really need, can the CPU even handle 2+ GB/s of video? For VJ use I would think what really matters that you can instantly jump to any timestamp of the video, which any SSD can handle since there is nothing spinning or moving. Then it's necessary to read maybe 10 frames worth of video to reconstruct the frame at the specific timestamp and after that it's a matter of reading the video stream at normal speed, which is probably no more than 50-100 Mbit/s max, something any HDD or even USB stick should handle. Sabrent Rocket Q 2TB Review Large Inexpensive NVMe - ServeTheHome quote:For a 2TB NVMe SSD, the Rocket Q 2TB is among the least expensive at around $250. The larger capacity of the drive helped improve upon the performance we experienced when we tested the 500GB version of the drive, but the Rocket Q remains a QLC drive and still has the potential for some dramatic swings in write performance, especially as the drive fills up. As we tested it though, the drive performed very well.
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Jun 24, 2021 16:57
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sigma 6 posted:Saukkis: That's really good info. However as a VJ there are actually 2-5 layers of video going on simultaneously + FX all in realtime. In addition there might be a visualizer (which is very resource intensive) in ADDITION to mixing video. It isn't going to be some kind of file server but VJing in 2-4k with a visualizer can slow down even the beefiest of computers. Yeah, but I would assume that is all down to CPU power and it won't matter what kind of SSD you are using. You should be able to check the speed requirements from Task Manager's Performance-tab while you are doing VJing, it shows graphs for your drives. WD SN550 is the standard recommendation with good performance and not overpriced.
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Jun 25, 2021 15:16
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Clobbermeister posted:Am I crazy or are laptops now legitimate competitors with desktops as serious gaming computers? My understanding is laptops can work perfectly fine for gaming nowadays and you will probably manage it cheaper than two machines, especially nowadays with the ridiculous availability and prices of GPUs. In the long run it probably evens out, it's cheaper to keep desktop up-to-date by getting a new midrange GPU every couple years instead of switching a laptop. But I would still choose two machines, largely because you can get a great thin and light laptop if you forget heavy gaming. Year and half ago I bought a laptop for the first time since finally I managed to get price, specs and need to meet. I bought a 4 year old HP Folio 1020 G1 ultrabook for 300€, new this laptop had probably cost more than 2000€. It has an anemic CPU, but thanks to that it has no fan. It's a sort of uncanny valley experience when you power up a fanless laptop, there is a sense that something is missing. I much rather choose the low performance compared to something like my work laptop which starts whining immediately if the CPU tries to do something, and I start killing offending processes. Another reason is that it's just nice to have two computers. One computer can be down for updates, OS reinstall or some other maintenance but you can still most things you need computer for.
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Jul 7, 2021 14:01
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abraham linksys posted:I feel like the thing to point out here is that being an hour away from an Apple Store is literally a better case for laptop repairs than literally any other laptop manufacturer, who are all going to require a mail-in fix for anything beyond, like, the Geek Squad reinstalling Windows for you. I assume a business model with an on-site warranty could be an option.
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Sep 5, 2021 21:11
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Dennis McClaren posted:I'm using extend display to run an external monitor for gaming from my laptop. But when I boot up a game, it starts running on my laptop screen, and not the external monitor. How do I swap displays so that I use the laptop for browsing/media and the external for just gaming? Or how do I get the games to boot up on the external monitor and not the laptop you could say With some games you choose which monitor it uses somewhere in the graphics settings. For other games you go to the Windows Display settings, select your external monitor and check the "Make this my main display".
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Oct 21, 2021 23:27
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Have Some Flowers! posted:And lastly question for anyone, is buying a laptop that I plan to use internationally (US/AUS/NZ) just a matter of getting the right power supply/adapter? Or should I be considering more The power supply will almost certainly work anywhere with a suitable adapter, but if the brick has a detachable power cable, a nicer and higher quality option could be to get several cables with different wall plugs.
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May 6, 2022 09:37
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I am in search of a used, fanless, ultralight Windows laptop, preferably for sub 500€. I guess the fanless requirement limits the selection quite a bit, and it seems tricky to identify which models are fanless. In my search the most promising options seem to be the Dell XPS 13 9365 or Acer Swift 7 2019 model. I assume my best source would be ebay.de, unless there are other good online stores for used laptops.
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Jul 10, 2023 23:35
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I'm in Finland so there's probably too limited selection. In 2019 I got lucky and found my old HP Folio 1020 G1 from a Finnish online store selling used laptops, but I've checked the selection on half a dozen stores and I didn't find something that fits my requirements.
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Jul 11, 2023 01:07
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Kin posted:Yeah the whole "swollen battery be EXTRA CAREFUL" message on your link is what's putting me off opening it myself. If the battery is swollen most likely the whole laptop is. I once dealt with a Macbook Pro that was three times as thick as it was supposed to be.
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Sep 12, 2023 13:50
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Kin posted:I dunno if it only burst recently (which would presumably be the reason the battery fully died). It's good to keep an eye on the thickness of battery devices and take measures at the first sign of swelling. 4 years ago I bought a used laptop and it started swelling within hours after I plugged in for the first time. This was pretty noticeable so I knew to contact the company. They send me another used battery as a replacement and that worked for over a year before starting to swell. At that point the warranty had expired and I bought a new battery from third party. This time I drew a sketch of the battery, used a caliber to measure the thickness on different sections and noted them down. So if it starts swelling even a little bit I can compare the notes. bike tory posted:Probably, and it's technically true in terms of best practice, but it's dumb advice because no one will follow the advice, as you point out. Yeah, that's the truth. I wish laptops had a method to limit the charging to 85% or something, and when it's plugged in power it directly from cable and bypass the battery. And only start recharging when it reaches 70% or so.
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Oct 21, 2023 20:57
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Lord Ludikrous posted:Looking for some input from the thread - someone earlier answered my question regarding an Asus A15 earlier which was very helpful thank you. If the aim is childproofing I think a desktop is actually preferable. My desktop is hanging under the desk, it would be quite hard to pour anything on it. To take things further you can even put the desktop in a locked cabinet. Then put the monitor on an arm so it can be easily raised out of reach. And wireless keyboard and mouse so if something does get spilled on them you only lose a cheap peripheral. You think you can hide the laptop, but would you really bother to do that every time you turn your back on it.
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Oct 25, 2023 02:05
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There are several ways to handle space. My coworker has put his gaming PC inside TV stand. It even has a special case that looks almost exactly like the AV receiver next to it. A wireless keyboard takes less space than a laptop and a 80" 4K TV in nicer for gaming. If space and flexibility are concern, then the best option is a powerful desktop hidden in the basement and use game streaming with your laptop, cellphone or any random TV in the house. Unfortunately streaming seems to be in flux after Nvidia discontinued their system. And since you don't need a gaming laptop it can be smaller and much easier to carry around. A gaming laptop seems most suitable for road warriors who don't have good enough internet connection to stream from the desktop at home. For occasional out of home gaming a lighter laptop also works, just choose the games more carefully. I have done a lot of gaming on my fanless ultralight laptop with 5W 2-core CPU. Mostly NES and SNES emulation with my niece. Who knew SNES had multitude of Sailor Moon fighting games. She has skewered me sooooo many times with the Pitchfork Girl 
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Oct 25, 2023 03:06
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Hadlock posted:I'd really like to see the guts of a steam deck in a more traditional form factor, with the screen above the controls. Not a big fan of cranning my neck down to stare between my hands. There's a bunch of emulator handheld things that do this, but none with the power of a steam deck It's sounds like you should investigate streaming, then you would have larger selection of possible devices to choose from. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/04/nvidias-gamestream-is-dead-sunshine-and-moonlight-are-better-replacements/
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Oct 25, 2023 04:47
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Is that the issue that can be solved by unplugging it from charger before putting to sleep? I had that with my Thinkpad T14 but haven't had the issue since learning the unplugging.
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Nov 8, 2023 01:40
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namlosh posted:Now if I can find out how to easily install Windows 11 without needing a Microsoft account I'd be much happier. The Windows 10 trick of: "install without a network and it'll create a local account" doesn't work so I've heard. The best option is probably to use Rufus to create Win 11 USB stick. Another trick I have read is to install the European N version of Windows, this supposedly disables some annoyances. https://www.howtogeek.com/836157/how-to-use-windows-11-with-a-local-account/
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Nov 23, 2023 05:22
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I use a roll of scotch tape and a marker pen as risers. If you play games that don't need keyboard you could use tablet/laptop stand to raise the display a lot.
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Dec 5, 2023 08:56
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Fozzy The Bear posted:How do I figure out what is the max resolutions it can support? You find out the exact model name of your laptop, then go to the manufacturer website and read the specifications for your laptop. This again makes me wonder why can't people just post the model. Someone would have probably told you the exact information by now.
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Dec 18, 2023 01:34
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Mental Hospitality posted:My Asus strix g16 goes to sleep reliably every night after the required time of inactivity as evident by its pulsing power light, whether on AC or Batt power, but I've never tried to ascertain what, if any, power drain happens when unplugged. It is certainly powered down though but will wake to desktop in maybe 2 seconds after smashing the keyboard or power button. That's how it's supposed to behave. The problem may occur if you put the laptop to sleep and then unplug it from the power source. The simple solution is to unplug it first and then put it to sleep, if you can't keep it plugged in. My new work laptop drained the battery few times over weekend, and when I started using that routine it hasn't happened again. Linus Tech Tips did a video about this issue with some possible remedies. Microsoft is Forcing me to Buy MacBooks - Windows Modern Standby
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Jan 20, 2024 16:16
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