Saturday, July 13, 2013

Import Export Start-up At UC Berkeley

If you can get to the Bay Area I will offer a live, all-day, for credit seminar at UCBerkeley.  This will be intense. It is labelled Importing but it includes new tactics on export development as well.  Follow-up consultation with me is included in the cost.  If you are dead serious about starting up, here is your chance.


Mon 8:30AM - 5:00PM
29 Jul 2013
UC Berkeley Extension Belmont Center
Classroom 04
Belmont
  • Classroom
  •  1
  • 8.00


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The Downward Spiral of Trade Wars

Not only will we get a renaissance in any field we deregulate, it also minimizes the possibility of trade wars erupting.  See this:

BEIJING - Some senior executives of multinational pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (China) Investment Co Ltd (GSK) have been placed under criminal investigation for suspected bribery and tax-related violations, Chinese police said Thursday.

The WSJ fills in some details...

According to the ministry's statement, Glaxo used travel agencies to bribe officials and health industry workers, falsifying tax invoices. In China, employees at corporations are typically reimbursed with cash when they provide their employers with receipts and tax invoices. The statement didn't identify travel agency names.

that is how the game is played in USA.  In one method, don't bribe anyone directly, but when they tell a salesperson that they are going to Phuket for vacation, surprise! Upgrades to first class air, hotel, champagne, caviar, side tours, girls...  you name it. Utterly untraceable. and then this...

MILWAUKEE - A Chinese scientist accused of stealing a research drug from a Wisconsin medical school and planning to pass it off as his own pleaded guilty Wednesday to a reduced charge of illegally accessing a computer.

So.  What we get from patents and monopoly is crime, corruption, restraint of trade, all sorts of wicked actions, all contrary to the spirit of the Patent laws.  The crime and corruption is commensurate with the distortion the patents provide.

Then the stakes are high enough for the conflict to get to national levels, and tit for tat downward spiral..

Free trade opens up and makes margins so narrow, fraud it pointless, trade war desultory.  We need the free trade unilateral elimination of "intellectual property rights" and we'll see an immediate upward spiral in peace and prosperity.  Medicine is a very good place to start.

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One Other Reason USA Economy is Tottering

The USA invasion was a criminal act, and ten years later we are quietly retreating.
NEWSER) – Washington has abandoned a plan to open a consulate in northern Afghanistan after signing a 10-year lease and dishing out more than $80 million for the site, the Washington Post reports. American officials cited rising security concerns, but planners apparently overlooked problems from the beginning in a rush to prove America's commitment to Afghanistan. Among them: a feeble protective wall made of straw, mud, and manure, and surrounding buildings from which enemies could easily launch attacks.
And this...
A top Marine commander warned the Pentagon that the building was unnecessary three years ago, but his concerns were ignored. The building was originally commissioned for the 2009 surge, but by the time construction began that push was over, and with the US now withdrawing, commanders don't intend to move in. "This is an example of what is wrong with military construction in general," the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction told Chuck Hagel in a letter this week.
Prior to 9-11, Cheney/Rumsfeld were busy negotiating with the Taliban for USA to exploit the Afghan mineral riches.   They were not getting very far.  So after USA was attacked by Saudi Arabians, we attacked Afghanistan.  The Taliban offered to turn over Osama bin Laden, but for the powers that be, war is preferable to negotiations.  We invaded.  Now we are retreating in defeat, like in Vietnam.

I wonder if the escape in Afghanistan will be as orderly as from Vietnam?  We now trade with Vietnam, much better.  I look forward to trading with a free, independent and prosperous Kabul some day.

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Friday, July 12, 2013

Saving the SBA From Itself

Here is a Silicon Valley veteran who has set up a franchise trying to save the SBA by criticizing it.  His view is the SBA is a good thing, brokering government contracts to small businesses, but that the process is thoroughly corrupt, which he thoroughly documents.  Even I had no idea it was as bad as he demonstrates.

His fear is the republicans are letting the SBA go bad so they can get rid of it.  Sounds Republican, "get big or get out." Lloyd Chapman wants it to stay and comply with the law.

I guess it makes sense, if the law requires some $52 billion in govt contracts each year goes to small business, but it goes to Microsoft, Bechtel, etc instead,  than that is wrong.  If the government is going to be spending this money anyway, and the law requires it go to small business, then that needs to be fixed.

But the money going to big firms works its way back to election campaigns, etc. So there is no incentive to fix it.  And like so many government agencies, particularly intelligence, nobody is directing anyone to do any wrongdoing.  Midlevel "rogues" simply do what they know will be pleasing to their masters.  (Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?)  No Eric Holder did not know about Fast & Furious, yes the people who directed it were trying to get attaboys (if they did not get caught).  It's the nature of the beast.  Nobody told the IRS to pick on right wing groups, it was just a good idea, career wise.  The problem is not the people who get caught, it is the ones who never get caught.

The people in the SBA must be experiencing a tremendous conflict.   Good job, but unable to do what the enabling law requires, for corruption.  Whisteblowing is not a good idea in USA.  If the Republicans get rid of the SBA, then no doubt most employees will end up in whatever takes its place (The SBA replaced the War Munitions Board).  To whistleblow might very well cause one to lose a place in any transition.  Disillusionment. Tension. Anxiety.

The only solution I can think of is if you are a federal employee, especially of the SBA that Lloyd Chapman exposes,  then immediately stop thinking of yourself as a federal employee and start thinking of the SBA as a client who has contracted you to make the SBA work.  You attitude and actions will change.  You will begin to exercise talents that now lie dormant.  You'll see new opportunities.  I would never suggest whistleblowing, but do talk within school about what needs to be done.  There will be hegelian dialectic, as like minds begin to think in new ways.

Keep an eye out for what will be needed in the marketplace if the SBA is eliminated.  Then start developing the skills that will be marketable in that void.  I cannot think of any job more uncertain than government employee.  Everyone of them should shift their thinking from "employee" to "consultant."  Each will begin to see a way out of the trap.

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Patents Equal Failure

Wow... here is an astonishing exchange...


  1. @PatentBuddy-
    The fact that we do not provide links to where products can be purchased does NOT make the article stupid. The author does not deserve the condescending commentary suggesting that the article is incomplete or somehow defective.
    You should know that not every patent is commercialized, and not every interesting patent has a corresponding product on the market. You should also know that it is virtually impossible in many cases to find products that are covered by a patent even when they do exist. So why do you demand that we either provide links or apparently don’t write such articles?
    Get a grip.
    -Gene
  2. @Gene at (4): Most, if not all, new products on the market are indeed patented. Where is the evidence for your assertion above that “it is virtually impossible in many cases to find products that are covered by a patent even when they do exist.”
    Patent litigation is increasing. If there are fewer patented products on the market, how can patent litigation be increasing? Why litigate for a product not covered by a patent? – this does not make any sense. There has been an explosion of patented products on the market in recent years, as indicated by the increase in patent litigation. The patent system works.
    See:
    “Patent litigation in the US has increased over 230% in the past two decades.”
    http://info.articleonepartners.com/the-increase-of-patent-litigation/
    Why develop new products without patent coverage? Your above statement needs to be supported by evidence – which I do not think is true, in fact it is very unlikely to be even remotely accurate. Without patents, you get no funding for developing the new product which is critical to its success in bringing it to market.

I am surprised there are such extreme views extant  -

 "Most, if not all, new products on the market are indeed patented. "

Almost no new product is patented (more new things are copyrighted, and maybe you are adding that in).  go into any specialty store (where new things show up) and look for the patents.  Almost nothing.  Also, count the patents and the new products.  Almost nothing new is patented.

I think what Gene was trying to gently share with you is, since 1789, almost none of the some 7 million patented items was ever commercialized, like maybe 80,000 ideas.  Of those 80,000, maybe 50,000 were profitable.  If there is any correlation at all, patent equals failure.  Ask any patent attorney.  Stephan Kinsella and William Patry and Lessig, etc.    Read Boldrin and Levine on this.

Patent litigation has exploded because congress changed the law, and now there is more chaos when before there was just pointlessness.  Now there are also the patent trolls, and the anti-patent trolls.

Almost no new products are developed or ever covered by patent.  it is simply not necessarily to success, and in fact a likely hindrance.  You say ...

"Without patents, you get no funding for developing the new product which is critical to its success in bringing it to market."

That game is extremely narrow and almost never works.  The VC market adds up to almost nothing as far as funding business start up.  If you think the entire world revolves around the patent and the VC, then I can see how you will get exercised if someone tries to talk some sense to you.

You demand others provide proof, I've cited patent attorneys who will school you, just google them.  it is all there.  if you believe the model is facebook and Segway, then tell us how that model of patent and VC has worked out for you.

If there is any correlation at all in business, it is IPR = failure.

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Thursday, July 11, 2013

Money and Industry

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "We Are Living And Dying for The Banks": 

I don't understand how these above business examples, e.g., coal, natural gas, etc., would not exist in a free market. 

*** The companies that trade those are creatures of the state.  In a free market, ther are no businesses thata re a creature of the state.  No doubt there would be coal and oil sold, but not by creatures of the state.  The creatures of the state crowd out free market traders.***

Did you mean mag-lev wind turbines?:

http://inhabitat.com/super-powered-magnetic-wind-turbine-maglev/


*** No, mag lev transport.  The auto companiesa re creatures of the state, so they crowd out fre market transport.   In Hong Kong, mass transit is privately owned.***

Also, federal reserve notes are essentially "money"?

***No, not even close...***

 - these notes are susceptible to government malfeasance and mismanagement (e.g., deflation or hyperinflation, currency devaluation)?

fed. res. notes (U.S. dollar paper money) = an object generally accepted as payment for goods:

***Right, but they are not money.***

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money

*** The wikipedia article is wrong...  money is a medium of exchange, and as store of value. It extinguishes a debt.  today only gold and silver does that,   Federal reserve notes are fiat currency that can easily fail to extinguish debt, as have all other previous currency, eventually.  Believing otherwise is risky.***


You lost me with the last paragraph regarding the use of credit and not taking money out of a business (?).

*** go to http://hbhblog.blogspot.com/search?q=money   and click through on the various pages...

John

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Why Small Countries Are Better

USA was formed as 13 small countries, and it should be 50 small countries now, as a sort of commonwealth.  Small countries are more responsive.  When the evil of rogue spying that is epidemic in USA took hold in Luxembourg, the President of that country had to resign.
The report was commissioned after a Luxembourg weekly newspaper published a secretly-taped conversation from 2008 between Mr Juncker and the head of SREL at the time, Marco Mille.
Mr Mille revealed that his staff had secretly recorded a conversation involving Luxembourg's Grand Duke and that the sovereign was in regular contact with Britain's MI6.
So, he's fired.  That would be what would happen here and now if USA stayed a group of small countries.

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Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Forbes Gets Lost

Forbes Magazine is struggling to find a news model of the digital era.  They may be settling in on what has not worked for so many other organizations, and that is to just slap by-lines on state produced press releases.  I used to subscribe, but haven't for a few years.  Here is a problem article talking about innovation:
Mazzucato argues that long-term, patient government funding is an absolute prerequisite for breakthrough innovation. There is something seriously wrong, she says, with a system that asks taxpayers to take all the risk while the private sector takes all the rewards
The article praises a book that follows that theme...  The second part, that is that there is something wrong with taxpayers taking all of the risks and the private sector getting all of the rewards makes perfect sense.

The problem part is taxpayer support for innovation.  Such support is necessarily politically driven, not market driven.  What gets "supported" usually ends up trash, or worse like ethanol.  What succeeds, like the internet, is so terribly crippled that it is likely a net deficit.  Sure, you love email, but some 90% of email traffic is spam.  The #1 problem the preacher man is dealing with is families broken over porn. There is zero privacy in communication.  All this because of the history of state funding of the proto-internet.  A free market would not have yielded those results.

What is seriously wrong is that we do not have a separation of industry and state.  What we have is crony capitalism, where a few suits occasionally come up with the least bad thing that necessarily crowds out a universally good thing.

Nobody anticipated the internet, it emerged from a concatenation of telephone deregulation (state imposition of telecommunication monopoly) with open source software (unix) and Job's insight that computers would be decentralized, not centralized.    Had their not been the crony capitalist telephone monopolies, war machine darpa com network, two bad things, to match with open source and job;s insights, the 'net would not have happened.  But since it was based on a foundation of bad government, what we have is a pretty awful thing.  Better to have no taxpayer funding of research and let all that be private.

The fundamental error in the thinking of "basic research" is that great breakthroughs can be had without market nexus.  It is by constant hypothesis formation and testing that tiny, steady improvements are made.  These filter through and the good ones thrive and the bad ones die off.  Breakthroughs do not take a lot of money, just a lot of freedom.  The economy will improve if the state gets out of research, and cuts taxes concomitantly.

But as long people who get free $#!+ from taxpayers applaud you wildly at TED talks when you say the taxpayers should give out free $#!+, we'll always have people writing books saying the taxpayer should be dinged for free $#!+.  Forbes now likes this argument.

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ThomasNet Intellectual Property Strategy Article

I really like this article at ThomasNet on intellectual property export strategy, because I wrote it, with James Chan.    What I like best is ThomasNet published it, they being the producer of the #1 USA directory of everything made or distributed in USA.  Check it out.


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The Rule of Law

Chinese Official - Death Sentence

Graft fight stepped up; ex-rail chief sentenced

USA Official - party on!



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Tuesday, July 9, 2013

We Are Living And Dying for The Banks

Love of money is the root of all evil, and for banks to lend fiat credit at usury is evil on steroids.

Real USA soldiers die and are maimed, not to mention the little girls we set on fire with phosphorus rockets in the Middle East.  Real countries fall apart over this usury.  Military and veteran suicides equal on Sandy Hook every day. I could go on, but the root of this evil is the love of money and the ability to aggregate it through usury, to the point were very few people are literally calling the shots.  These five top money people are naming it.


Note they say the solution is something scarce. You do not need to own gold.  A government that lies and cheats as much as the USA does will simply steal it anyway.  You cannot run away, because when the USA is rioting over the economy, so will the rest of the world.  ("All countries are devaluing their currency" ...  "Spanish bond riots, Italian bond riots..")  You think escaping to Mexico, Philippines, Costa Rica, you name it, will be safe when the riots start, and you are an American?  You gotta be kidding!  You'd be safer on Florence Avenue during the Rodney King riots.   Or if you live in an American oasis of wealth someplace overseas, how long before the local police begin squeezing you slowly, demanding a cut of your pension check for protection?  No, you have to take the good with the bad, or you end up with worse.

And note the speakers comment that the riots will be the free market rejecting bank ownership of people.

But you do have something scarce, extremely scarce, you can trade on.  And that is the product only you can offer.  There is a process to discover it, there is a process to actualize it, and build it into YOUR business.  It is what I teach, and I'll be doing a special long version of this course, for University credit, at UCBerkeley on Monday July 29.  The course is called importing, but it will include exporting as well, naturally.  It will be an intense, hard core day, but the indoctrination will set you up where I can assist, post-class, most effectively as you proceed.

No matter what happens, USA will be the place to be in the next decade. The most revolutionary thing you can do is start your own business.  And it is not only nonviolent, it is beneficial. Get thee to Berkeley for the day and take control over your life, right here in USA.

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China and Thucydides

Chinese opinion articles are getting erudite!  Here the writer warns against the Thucydides syndrome (war tends to erupt between established and emerging countries.)  The writer makes a salutary point that world trade is not a zero sum game.  I agree, the world should welcome the full flowering of Chinese genius, that which we have been denied for far too long.

In the West the news tends to focus on Chinese military activities and the putative Chinese threat.  Yes, China is doing joint maneuvers with the Russian navy, and yes they can ready everything the NSA reads.  But that would miss 92% of where Chinese efforts are directed.

The Chinese are quietly becoming world class in every field.  Pick a classic program, Latin and Greek, and there Chinese students assiduously studying in Universities around the world.  Laugh at that if you like, but your disdain of Latin and Greek is socially conditioned: the powers that be do not want you to know they have done this all before, step by step.  If you were a Latin of Greek scholar (or better yet both) you'd know what the bad guys were going to do next.  We've seen all this before... divide et impera.

And it is not just Latin and Greek, it is every single field.  Military might is a flimsy shell upon which to depend, China is backfilling with solid cultural stuff.  Worldwide.  The writer's handling of Thucydides may be tentative, but China;s first electronics efforts were risible.  They now make Apple computers.

USA efforts at empire are suicidal.  The USA was never designed to be an empire, so we are awkward at it anyway, but we might recover some of our original intent if we were to withdraw from this imperialism that leaves us isolated worldwide, and get back to Americanism that would have us engaging at the business and cultural level with the world.

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Egypt Was Not A Coup

A coup is an illegal takeover of a government (usually by the military).

The Egyptian military, a subsidiary of the USA military, overthrew a democratically elected president.

The USA is NOT calling this a coup, because the military installed a civilian, the chief of the Egyptian Supreme Court, as the new president.

Lessons:

One: USA soldiers die to bring democracy to the middle east.  In the middle east, you may have free elections, as long as you vote in the candidate USA powers-that-be wants.

Two: If the USA military overthrows the USA government, as long as the USA military installs Supreme Court Chief Justice John "just following orders" Roberts as president, it is not a coup.

What goes around comes around.

Update, Pat Buchanan:

They played by America’s rules. Now, with America’s blessing, they are being locked up by America’s friends in Egypt’s armed forces.
Nor is this the first perceived betrayal. When Hamas won the free elections demanded by George W. Bush, America refused to recognize their legitimacy and plotted the violent overthrow of Hamas in Gaza.
When Islamists swept the first round of Algerian elections in 1991, the regime, with the blessing of Bush 1, canceled the second round, leading to a guerrilla war that cost 100,000 to 200,000 dead.

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Monday, July 8, 2013

101 Million Americans Cannot Feed Themselves

While we are teaching Afghanis how to have democracy, 101 million Americans cannot feed themselves.  In history, most people depended others to grow their food, and they traded services to eat.  What is new, less than 100 years old, is the idea that all food comes from the government anyway, so one need not work to eat.  This has resulted in a misallocation of resources that simply cannot be undone through the democratic process.  No one who believes he is entitled to free food will ever vote that he should work to eat.

This is just one of very many market distortions that will end up badly.  There will be a clearing of the decks, and if one happens to survive that, one better be able to provide some value in the marketplace if one wishes to thrive apres deluge.

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TT Payment Scams & B2B International Payments

TT is bank to bank payment settlement service... telegraphic transfer (TT of money).

TT can put money into an account, but up to 3 hours later it can be taken back out, for various bank reasons...  Scammers have figured this out...

The scammers TT $10,000 in payment for a shipment, then the tell sellers to look... seller sees $10,000 in the account and ships...

The scammer/buyer withdraws the $10,000 from the account.  Since the goods have been shipped, the shipper has been ripped off, bankers say "too bad.."

Solution, you can set up receiving acct for TT to have money swept out and put into another account...as soon as it arrives... so the instant money is sent into your account, it is swept out into another account.

In this way you can share your TT payment account information to the world without worrying about scammers attacking it.  Since the money is immediately swept out, the money cannot be recalled, because it is not in the account to which it was sent.

Lesson, pros do not keep any money in TT receiving accounts...

Paypal is not a reasonable payment method B2B, since Paypal charges 3.5% for transactions under 5000, so $175 to paypal vs $24 - $45 for TT.  Some people love Paypal, but I have had nothing but bad experiences with them.

Also, with TT you see some corresponding fees as a surprise on the "settlement."  Reject those.  It is simply banks passing paper around toe add fees for fees sake.  You can say "no, I never agreed to that."  If you don't, then expect to see it every time.

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Lost?

A Mexican mayor was murdered by one of the guns let go into Mexico under the Obama Administration Fast and Furious program.  Here is how the top LA times reporter covers the story.
A high-powered rifle lost in the ATF’s Fast and Furious controversy was used to kill a Mexican police chief in the state of Jalisco earlier this year, according to internal Department of Justice records, suggesting that weapons from the failed gun-tracking operation have now made it into the hands of violent drug cartels deep inside Mexico.
Lost?  Are LATimes reporters the only ones who do not know the facts? The guns were purposely let loose into Mexico for reasons we could know, but reasonably surmise to be for USA intelligence to prefer one drug cartel over another.

I was surprised by this reporters ignorance when I did a bit of research and found he has a long history of slapping his by-line of justice department press releases.  Not even a stenographer.

The only way we can get to the bottom of these things is a truth commission.  The newspapers are wholly owned by the State.

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Sunday, July 7, 2013

Samples and 3D Printing

Bill From Vegas checks in with some links to 3D printers -

Below are some companies that offer 3D printing:

http://i.materialise.com/

http://www.sculpteo.com/en/

http://www.shapeways.com/123d_welcome


https://www.ponoko.com/

Now this is another advance in technology, like the internet, which must be understood properly to be exploited properly.  3D printing changes nothing about business, it only shortens the time frame and lowers the cost of sampling.

Fedex only lowered the cost and shortened the time frame of small package shipping.

The internet only lowered the cost and widened access to communicationa dn research.

What people might think is this changes everything, and bet on that.  Product development and marketing are one.  You have no product without customers. Prototypes are not products, excitement is not orders from customers.

Just because samples are cheap and fast does not mean they are any good.  Still have to communicate, test, listen etc.

I am delighted to see this development advance so far so fast.  It will make it faster to start-up, but you still have to start up the old fashioned way.  What problem will you solve?

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Non-Accidental Crashes

We'll no doubt find at some point the crash in San Francisco was a matter of more technology than the decision maker can manage overcame the decision maker.  That's why they call them accidents.

Here is a report on another crash, this one clearly not an accident.


First, notice the only in-depth inquiry we get is some guy in Japan doing whay 60 Minutes should be doing, filling us in on the facts.  Second, it is very level headed, and solid analysis.  The only thing I would challenge is his idea that only USA security elements could benefit from this.  Now ther eis the problem.  In politics terror acts, it can be anyone who did it, because if it looks like "only USA did it" then it is all the more reason from another crew to do it to make USA look bad.  The bottom line is we have too many rogue elements without adult supervisions.

One point the above video makes is how it is possible to remote control cars with all of the new systems on them, they can be hacked and taken over, and as the top intelligence people explain, it is untraceable as to who did it, or even if it was done.  This brought my mind to the problem Toyota was having in 2009 with the "sticky accelerators."

Nothing was ever determined one way or another, but Toyota did do the recall, did make changes, paid out some damages, and went on.  The curious part was Toyota ran into this problem in 2009 when the Big Three automakers were dying and Toyota was thriving.  OK, just a coincidence, but it is motive and means.  And what do you make of the fact that although Toyota sold these cars world wide, only in USA did the accelerator problem occur?

We will never know, and the problem is such actions are plausible.  We are at the point we cannot trust the FBI, prosecutors, judges, no one.  We can see how mafias form, for why would anyone ever talk to law enforcement.  Look what happens to whistleblowers.

Truth Commissions, Independent Commissions on Corruption are needed to get us out of this mess.  And perhaps we need a Hong Kong in USA, like that peninsul upon which Detroit resides.

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