295 lines
8.5 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
295 lines
8.5 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
culture
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books
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bookreviews
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8143329
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# How do you wrap an e-book?
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## Ceri Radford has become a Kindle convert. She explains why so many people
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want one for Christmas.
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![Ceri Radford with her husband][1]
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Ceri Radford with her husband Photo: MARTIN POPE
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By Ceri Radford 5:19PM GMT 19 Nov 2010
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[Comments][2]
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I am an unlikely convert to the Kindle, Amazon's electronic reading device.
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For starters, I love books, as in actual physical books, preferably with
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yellowing pages, a faint gluey smell and a scrawled inscription from an old
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friend. And I hate gadgets. Technology baffles me: I may be part of the
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internet generation, just, but I'm also a prematurely perplexed technophobe
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who struggles to plug in an iron, let alone download an app.
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So when my husband gave me a Kindle, it was not with unalloyed delight that I
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opened the box and pulled out the 241g slither of brushed grey plastic. Hmm, I
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thought. No pages to riffle, no blurb to read, no spine, no soul. Hmm.
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But that was five weeks - and five e-books - ago. Now the Kindle is tipped as
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a Christmas top-seller and I too have seen the light - or rather the lack of
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the computer-style, backlit glare that I was expecting.
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This was the first pleasant surprise. When I turned it on, I thought there was
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a paper sticker covering the screen, so impressive and lifelike is the "e-ink"
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technology that makes the Kindle uncannily like reading an actual book.
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When it first powers up, the Kindle displays one of a series of lovely line
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drawings of great authors, from Emily Dickinson to Mark Twain, adding a little
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dose of serendipity to the gadgety experience. Most importantly, it is easy to
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read - in every sense. The matt ink is easy on the eye. There are large
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buttons that instantly turn the electronic pages. It saves your place. It's
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light enough to hold up with one hand on a crowded train.
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## Related Articles
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* [E-books set for Christmas sales boom][3]
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19 Nov 2010
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It takes a minute, and no tech savvy whatsoever, to connect wirelessly to the
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Amazon store and buy a new book. Its battery lasts an age. A friend says his
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elderly aunt loves it because there is a simple option to enlarge the font
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size.
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Overall, then, it's no surprise that the Kindle is already the bestselling
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item on Amazon in Britain and has also become the most "wished for" one on the
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site ahead of Christmas. The basic version costs £109 and a 3G model, which
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gives you free wireless internet access from anywhere in the world, is £149.
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Amazon is far too coy to give actual sales figures for the device, but based
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on my entirely unscientific observations, I think it is about to go
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mainstream. You see, twice in the space of a week, the person sitting next to
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me on the London Underground broke the taboo of metropolitan commuting and
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spoke to me.
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"Is that one of those Kindles?" a man asked on each occasion. Instead of
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recoiling, as from a plague victim - the stock response to unsolicited Tube
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conversations - I was only too happy to reply and give a little demo. We
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Kindle owners are evangelical in our zeal, especially to fellow commuters, for
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whom the gadget really comes into its own.
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I do most of my reading on the way to and from work and have always,
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reluctantly, filtered the kind of book I read by weight. Too heavy and it
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takes up too much space in my bag and gives me shoulder strain, something that
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rules out most hardbacks as well as the likes of _Wolf Hall_. But thanks to my
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Kindle, I can now carry 3,500 books at once without needing a chiropractor and
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I have finally got around to reading the winner of last year's Booker Prize.
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It cost me £4.49 - a penny cheaper than the paperback would have cost from
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Amazon - and was on my screen, waiting, seconds after I decided that I wanted
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to read it.
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I've found that I'm reading more: instead of eking out the final few chapters
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of a book, knowing it will take me a while to track down whatever I want to
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read next, I can race through to the end and order a new book instantly.
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The Kindle is not the only electronic reader, of course. The Sony Reader,
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which comes in a £150 "pocket" version or the more sophisticated £200 "touch",
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has been updated in time for Christmas orders and my husband - the Inspector
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Gadget to my technophobe - now reads everything on his iPad. With a starting
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price of £429, though, the latter is a high-performing computer, with all its
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attendant distractions and eye-dazzling glare, rather than an easy, relatively
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affordable way of reading books.
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"Try checking your email," my husband said, just as I was cooing at my
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Kindle's inky screen. But I didn't want to. I know that the Kindle has a web
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browser and that it offers all kinds of "functionality", such as annotating
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passages or sharing recommendations using social media. None of that appeals
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in the slightest. For me - and I suspect many other Luddites - the joy of the
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Kindle is its simplicity.
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The romantic appeal of physical books will never fade: I will continue to buy
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them, as presents for others, and to line my own bookshelves with the sort of
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works that I will want to keep admiring and revisiting. Everything else will
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be on the Kindle. It's light, convenient, aesthetically pleasing and the best
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thing is that, so far, I have even managed to read it in the bath without
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dropping it.
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[X][4] Share & bookmark
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Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter
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Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz
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[What are these?][5]
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* Share: [Share][4] [ ][6] [ ][7]
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[Tweet][8]
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8143329/How-do-you-wrap-
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an-e-book.html
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Telegraph
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## [Book Reviews][9]
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* ### [Technology »][10]
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* ### [Culture »][11]
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* ### [Books »][12]
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* ### [Amazon »][13]
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* ### [Ceri Radford »][14]
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[![telegraph book shop][15]][16]
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### [Telegraph Book Shop][16]
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In culture
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[![Join the Telegraph's Book Club][17]][18]
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### [Telegraph Book Club][18]
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[![][19] ][20]
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### [Herman Melville: Storms of the heart][20]
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[![Darcy, who is a source of comfort - and mischief - in the novel A Surrey
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State of Affairs][21]][22]
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### [A Surrey State of Affairs: blog to book][22]
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[![][23] ][24]
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### [Genre: Crime][24]
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[X][4] Share & bookmark
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Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter
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Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz
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[What are these?][5]
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Share:
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* [ ][4]
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* [ ][6]
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* [ ][7]
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* [Tweet][8]
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* Advertisement
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![][25]
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telegraphuk
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Please enable JavaScript to view the [comments powered by Disqus.][26] [blog
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comments powered by Disqus][27]
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Advertisement
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[Hay Festival on Twitter »][28]
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[Telegraph Dating][29]
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* [Men][30]
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* [Women][31]
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* [Search for free][32]
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I am a:
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Woman Man
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Looking for:
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Women Men Men & Women
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Aged:
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Within:
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5 miles 10 miles 20 miles 40 miles 60 miles 100 miles 200 miles 300 miles
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UK postcode:
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Photos only:
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[Search more Kindred Spirits][29]
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Culture Most Viewed
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* TODAY
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* PAST WEEK
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* PAST MONTH
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Be Televised, dies][33]
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2. [Cheryl Cole in talks with over return to UK X Factor][34]
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3. [Grease actor Jeff Conaway dies][35]
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4. [How I fell back in love with Television][36]
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5. ['Margaret Thatcher' actress Janet Brown dies][37]
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1. [Cannes 2011: Peter Fonda calls Obama a 'traitor'][38]
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2. [Joely Richardson breaks silence over family scandal claims][39]
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3. [Cheryl Cole out of American X Factor 'over accent fears'][40]
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4. [Kate Middleton shows that this Sloane obsession with fake tan has got to
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stop][41]
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5. [Cheryl Cole 'replaced' as judge on US X Factor][42]
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1. [Cannes 2011: Peter Fonda calls Obama a 'traitor'][38]
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2. [Eurovision Song Contest 2011: review][43]
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3. [Joely Richardson breaks silence over family scandal claims][39]
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4. [Horoscopes: Catherine Tennant looks at the week ahead][44]
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5. [Why I miss that old meanie Simon Cowell][45]
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TELEGRAPH BOOKS: BESTSELLERS
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### [][12]
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**[1. The Best of Matt][46]**
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**[2. I Could Go On... Unpublished Letters to the Daily Telegraph][47]**
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**[3. Matt: Super-Slim Calendar 2011][48]**
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**[4. Am I Alone in Thinking...][49]**
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**[5. Gardener's Diary 2011][50]**
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Advertisement
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Classified Advertising
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* [Culture][51]
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* [Fine Arts][52]
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* [Events][53]
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var puffs_8120648 = new Array();
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