I don't know the details history of the system's development, however I notice that with Kunrei everything spelling is neatly 2 characters while with Hepburn it may be 2 or 3 characters:
Kunrei: ki si ti ni hi mi
Hepburn: ki shi chi ni hi mi
The politics of the issue is obviously that Hepburn is older and an American system while Nihon and Kunrei are very purposely domestic (Nihon "is much more regular than Hepburn romanization, and unlike Hepburn's system, it makes no effort to make itself easier to pronounce for English-speakers" [1]). Apparently, Hepburn was later imposed by US occupying forces in 1945.
Perhaps 80 years is long enough and suitable to effect the change officially with no loss of face.
"Better" depends on what you care about. _konniti-wa_ (which is the Kunrei-siki romanization of こんにちは, _konniti-ha_ is Nihon-shiki form that preserves the irregular use of は as topic-marking /wa/) and _susi-o_ (again, Kunrei-siki ignores a native script orthographic irregularity and romanizes を as _o_ not _wo_ ) are more consistent with the native phonological system of Japanese. In Japanese coronal consonants like /t/ and /s/ are regularly palatalized to /tS/ and /S/ before the vowel /i/, and there's no reason to treat _chi_ and _ti_ as meaningfully different sequences of sounds. Linguists writing about Japanese phonology use it instead of Hepburn for good reason.
Obviously, being more transparent to English-readers is also a reasonable goal a romanization system might have, and if that's your goal the Hepburn is a better system. I don't have a strong opinion about which system the Japanese government should treat as official, and realistically neither one is going to go away. But it's simply not the case that Hepburn is a better romanization scheme for every purpose.
I don't see how kunrei-shiki is useful at all. If I want to write Japanese words so non-Japanese speakers can pronounce them approximately, then Hepburn is the way to go. If I want to write Japanese words so Japanese speakers can read them best, I'll write them in actual Japanese. This isn't 1975, and computers are perfectly able to render hiragana, katakana, and kanji. What do I need kunrei-shiki for? I've been living in Japan for years now, and have never found a use for it.
But it's a reality that English is the primary (if not sole) focus, for historical reasons and as the global lingua franca. English is taught (poorly, from what I hear) in schools, played on train announcements, is the only Western language available on ticket machines, and is the assumed language of non-Asian visitors to the country. I was even on a couple of domestic flights a few days ago and the captain / FAs made announcements in English. It is not "arbitrary" at all.
Do you think Japanese people actually read and write in kunrei-shiki? No, they write using their own letters.
Romanization is an approximation that exists primarily for two purposes: 1. to express Japanese terms in other languages and 2. to enable typing Japanese on a computer. It’s silly to enforce kunrei-shiki, a system rarely used in practice, in the name of "accuracy" based on arbitrary criteria. Romanized spellings will never be accurate for obvious reasons.
Given the purpose of romanization, it’s more practical to choose a system that allows non-Japanese speakers to pronounce words more closely aligned with the correct pronunciation.
What I’m complaining about is that the romanization is based specifically on English, arbitrarily chosen from all languages that natively use the Latin alphabet. For example, what’s transcribed as “shi” is only “aligned with the correct pronunciation” for English speakers. In other languages it would be more accurately transcribed as “ši”, “szi“, “chi”, “schi” or even “si”.
If French didn't use the Roman alphabet natively, you might have a point.
At some point you might as well use Roman characters the way the Cherokee alphabet does - which is to say, uses some of the shapes without paying attention to what sounds they made in English.
And the way English generally uses the Roman alphabet (obviously excluding the zillions of irregularities) isn't that far off from how most European languages use the Roman alphabet.
I'd expect that Spanish, German and French speakers would benefit just as much as English speakers from these changes.
> And the way English generally uses the Roman alphabet (obviously excluding the zillions of irregularities) isn't that far off from how most European languages use the Roman alphabet.
Its not far off from the union of how all other European languages use the Roman alphabet, would be closer to accurate.
Sure, but the point is this isn't really making romanized Japanese more English-like. It's making it more similar to how just about every other language already uses the Roman alphabet. This isn't an Anglo-centric thing, it's just good common sense - unless your goal is to make it harder to pronounce your language properly, which seems like an obvious own-goal.
About 30% of people worldwide use a language that's not written in Roman alphabet.
Additionally, being written in Roman alphabet doesn't neccessarily mean it's clear how to pronounce it. Hungarians calls their country "Magyarország", but unless you know Hungarian, you will be surprised with how it's pronounced. Same as "Chenonceaux", "Tekirdağ" or "Crkvina".
Those are especially pathological cases, and not especially relevant to this discussion, as the romanization rules are explicitly designed to be consistent.
We're not talking about words like worcestershire. I'm talking about words like "bat" "monkey" "chimichanga". Those that follow the rules. There can't possibly be irregular spellings using the romanizations we're talking about!
> It's making it more similar to how just about every other language already uses the Roman alphabet.
There is no way "every other language already uses the Roman alphabet."
Many languages are internally consistent in how they use it, but those that are aren't consistent with each other. And then there is English, which does pretty much everything any other language which uses the Roman alphabet does somewhere, and probably a few that none of the other extant languages normally using that alphabet do with it, on top.
"The colonial government used the Control of Publications Consolidation Ordinance (1951) to regulate publications and suppress freedom of the press. One notable case resulted in the suppression of the newspaper Ta Kung Pao for six months (later reduced to 12 days) for its criticism of the colonial government's deportation of the Federation of Trade Unions-backed fire relief organisation officials and use of live fire against protestors. Deportation was also used as a method to control politics in education. Lo Tong, a principal at a pro-Beijing, patriotic middle school, had been deported in 1950 for raising the People's Republic of China (PRC) flag and singing the national anthem at his school." [1]
Now of course we'd all prefer Western-style freedoms but the narrative on HK is highly skewed and hypocritical, with HK used as a pawn in the broader anti-China narrative.
Even Singapore isn't exactly rosy but it is a friend of the West so it's fine.
The Chinese were obviously always opposed to British imperalism and it was a major victory to finally get HK back, including in HK, and even acknowledged in Taiwan. There is a large body of quite nationalistic and anti-European/British films in HK cinema from British times.
However, this does not mean that there is no domestic politics with pro and anti communist party, but daily life hasn't changed in HK except from the larger influx of "mainlanders".
The narrative on HK in the West is simplistic and, frankly a little racist. European imperialism and colonialism has long been rejected except somehow for the so great thing it did in HK, conveniently forgetting that the British never had any democracy in HK and acquired HK by pretty nasty means.
Wait until jingoistic EU nationalism emerges... we're there.
> luckily thanks to internet and social networks kids does not really develop sense of nationalism to their country as they can tell no difference between somebody from Albania, France or Niger...
That's both incorrect, younger generations do develop a strong sense of patriotism, it is even actually on the rise in Europe, and a ludicrous and very sinister rejection of culture ("few obscure traditions of their ancestors"... sounds like New China or the USSR...)
In fact, in the current international context what the article describes is the rise of a pan-European nationalism.
India is a lot like Europe (many traditionally separate cultures which were historically separate) and yet managed to have a nationalist movement. Part of that is attributable to colonialism, but I think that shows it's entirely possible to create a nation when there was none.
Germany benefited a lot from China. It used to be that most cars in China were German brands, for instance.
I think Germany has overly thought itself "superior" so to speak: perhaps Germany thought that China was a market to exploit forever because German products were, obviously, superior and China was, obviously, not able to produce many or to compete.
It seems to me that this "symbiotic partnership" is an euphemism for knowing your place...
This is not what the people asked for, wanted, or were told, though. The issue is the insiduous nature of the "ever closer union" that advances by stealth, deception, manufacturing consent over time, and sometimes by just ignoring what the people have said.
And then, now and then the people suddenly realise, too late, that on an ever growing range of issues their country has become powerless because a change of policy is either no longer within the country's power and is banned under EU law and treaties... and the web is being woven tighter and tigher little by little.
There is no support in member states for leaving the EU or dismantling the EU. "Eurosceptimism" is by and large only wanting to loosen and restrict EU oversight of member states(which again has been the main debate for decades) but even that is anathema and "far right", which should really raise red flags in people's minds even without going full conspirationist.
You are not the people and you do not speak for them. You are one person, just as I am. I want this, and I was told this - clearly, it's in the founding charta!
Right wing populists always pull this parlor trick of framing their views as the views of the people. The people have many different views, you do not speak for us.
There was no EU wide vote, so you cannot claim "the people" want or do not want things.
It hasn't just been communicated in the founding charta, but communicated and confirmed over and over and over again. [0]. If you have a problem with what member states do, then I actually agree - that's why we need to get rid of that layer!
I never claimed your opinion didn't exist, I just called you out for trying to frame your opinion as the one of "the people".
This has been the official line and "correct thought" for decades so it is unsurprising that it should yield results. It has gone into over-drive with, or thanks to, the war in Ulkraine, and renewed push for the EU to involved itself in military matters. Similarly, anyone who does not agree with further political integration, or objects that it is already too much, is depicted as wrong and, gasp, obviously "far right", as very well examplified in this article.
Manufacturing consent works.
> "No one is putting into question the existence of the EU anymore, but they fundamentally disagree [on] what they should do,*"
This is a little misleading because this has actually been the main contention, not the very existence of the EU/EC even since the days of Margaret Thatcher. The debate has always mostly been about political integration, and that's what is being suppressed more and more.
The far right may have been, in general, opposed to the EU but the fallacy, again, is the current use of the term "far right". Taking France as an example, the National Rally is now the largest party by votes and number of MPs, it is the main party of the right and not "far right", which is FUD. It has embraced the general euroscepticism of the traditional French right, including from the Gaullists (De Gaulle's political movement) but not the outright dismantling of the EU.
Edit: Really the HN crowd has become very obtuse and narrow-minded... What's the point of posting these articles if commenters are only allowed to agree, or disagree, depending on what is the expected correct reaction?
> This is a little misleading because this has actually been the main contention, not the very existence of the EU/EC even since the days of Margaret Thatcher.
Why is Thatcher significant here? She was strongly pro-EEC - she supported remain in the 1975 referendum but she had been long out of any significant political influence by the time integration became more political.
Looking at more recent British politics at the time of the 2016 referendum it was very common for remainers to claim that the EU was just a trade organisation and not going to evolve into a full political union or federal state.
I think part of the problem is that the EU's founding treaties both indicate it is a supranational organisation and promise ever closer union. I would argue that just reflects differences in what different groups of people want.
> Why is Thatcher significant here? She was strongly pro-EEC
Exactly, she was pro-EEC but "Eurosceptic" in that she didn't want this to morph into a political union. I mentioned her to illustrate that the debate on what the EU should be and how far political integration should go, if go anywhere at all, has been going on forever but is more and more "smothered" by accusations of being "far right" for often being not too different from Thatcher.
Remember a famous speech in Parliament in which she said that the single currency was political union by the backdoor. Exactly right.
> it was very common for remainers to claim that the EU was just a trade organisation and not going to evolve into a full political union or federal state.
That's not true. Of course it was a political union, and that was the point of the referendum. Remember the pro-Brexit's line that the people had been sold a trade organisation (in 1975) but got a political union, instead. Now there were claims that the EU would not evolve into a federal state, and this aligns with what I wrote about EU political integration being insiduous and often deceiptful
> Remember a famous speech in Parliament in which she said that the single currency was political union by the backdoor. Exactly right.
I do not think it was much of a backdoor. Anyone who looked at it could see where it should lead.
1. Further political integration was expected at the time of currency union
2. A currency union requires some amount of fiscal union to be stable so its idiotic to have one without the other
> Now there were claims that the EU would not evolve into a federal state, and this aligns with what I wrote about EU political integration being insiduous and often deceiptful
I think part of the problem is that people do not understand how the EU works. A lot of people have a very poor understanding of how their national political system works.
Such notions were also shot down when people had a chance to vote again and again (against the expansion of EU powers), but the bureucrats kept pushing and advertising (with public money) for it, and blackmailing countries with withdrawal of funds if they don't consent to them.
What do you mean by "Europe"? Yes, Lithuania has a problem, but the UK, France and Germany do not.
> What is your preferred model?
There are lots of alternatives to turning the EU unto a federal state with its own armies. Alliances for one. It has been NATO that filled this role for over 70 years, and successfully so against a far more powerful threat than Russia.
> All of us staying in little insignificant countries, kowtowing to larger powers?
Lots of "insignificant little countries" seem to do rather well. Switzerland, Singapore, Norway,.....
I can see the nationalist appeal of belonging to a big powerful country, but it does not really do the people of a country much good.
> Two of those three little countries have to follow EU law without having any say in it - my point exactly!
The same is true for any treaty. The same is true for internal negotiations within the EU.
> Think about economic extortion from the US and China, how would little Lithuania defend against that?
Could the EU do much better than the larger countries can do by themselves? Especially in the long term its much lower growth rate means its going to be a relatively smaller and smaller economy compared to the US or China.
Despite all the expansion, the EU at the time the UK left was a much smaller proportion of the global economy than the EU at the time the UK joined.
Its economy is a lot smaller than that of the US, and smaller than China in PPP terms, and is growing much slower than either.
Do you have import and export number that adjusts for transhipments? What is the economic impact of the trade?
Even the UK which was an EU member until recently, has a free trade deal with the EU, and is right next to the EU geographically trades more with the rest of the world - and that is including a lot of transhipment trade (look up "Rotterdam Effect"). You can find the same for lots of EU countries.
Why would "Europe's survival" be at stake without further integration? Why would Lithuania need to stand up to Russia, China, or the US? (In terms of defense there are military alliances. They have never required political union or giving up sovereignty)
Edit as you added things:
> Also, the National Rally is clearly far-right.
Making outrageous claims does not make them factual.
> It was founded by former Waffen SS-members, for chrissake.
That's the FN that preceded the RN, some other founders were involved in the Resistance, too. That's the typical FUD narrative I mentioned, which takes the situation in 1972 and uses it to describe 2025. Are you saying that the majority of French MPs are Nazis? That's obviously ridiculous. Most US founding fathers were slave owners, so obviously the US are pro-slavery, like the Democratic Party that used to support slavery... Equally ridiculous. Again, today the RN is the main party of the right, nothing more. Their positions today would have made them in Chirac's rightwing government in 1986, not in the FN of the time.
The situation today is more like this: "Why Serge Klarsfeld, the renowned Nazi hunter, says he's ready to vote RN" [1] clearly a little different from your claims...
Do you think Lithuania can in any way negotiate on anything approaching equal terms with any of those?
What you're asking for is effectively to become a client state of one of the above.
I notice you didn't address the elephant in the room regarding the National Rally, i.e. its founders being actual Nazis. (like, the Hitler kind, not just random right wing extremists).
Changing their name does not make this any less true - hell, one of their founders was talking about putting a Jewish singer in the oven (!!!) only a few years ago.
> What you're asking for is effectively to become a client state of one of the above.
You optimist! It seems more like one has to be a client state for all of the above simultaneously and be punished whenever contradicting orders are handed down.
>Do you think Lithuania can in any way negotiate on anything approaching equal terms with any of those?
Do you think Lithuania, or other such small countries like Serbia, Albania, Bosnia, Georgia, etc, can negotiate on equal terms with the EU?
I got news for you, when you're small country bordering large empires, you're gonna get absorbed into one or the other, whether you want to or not, because you don't really have a choice.
Lithuania doesn't need to negotiate with the EU, they are the EU.
The others can't, of course. That's the point! We become one of the predators instead of staying prey like them.
> I got news for you, when you're small country bordering large empires, you're gonna get absorbed into one or the other, whether you want to or not, because you don't really have a choice.
Exactly! That's why we need to build our own empire based on our own rules instead of letting foreign dictators gobble us up.
The EU is us, not national governments. National governments are a relic of old tribal days, we are all Europeans.
I do not feel represented by my national government at all, all they do is get in the way. If we can finally get rid of those impediments, we will be able to project so much more power.
Among the populations of all regions of the EU, only the city of Budapest identifies more with Europe than with their country or region. Even that might be just a protest against Orbán.
>National governments are a relic of old tribal days, we are all Europeans.
Says who?
Tribalism along with own group preference, is one of the core human instincts, in line with the search for food, shelter and the reproductive instinct. You are free to ignore this instinct because you feel more academically enlightened or something, but you will be in for a rude awakening when you'll find yourself in the minority and eliminated from the gene pool by those who let themselves driven by basic instinct and will vote and reproduce accordingly.
>If we can finally get rid of those impediments, we will be able to project so much more power.
Yes, if we can get rid of local democratic governments with direct accountability and replace them with an unaccountable EU dictatorship, we'll have so much power projection.
> Yes, if we can get rid of local democratic governments with direct accountability and replace them with an unaccountable EU dictatorship, we'll have so much power projection.
I'm glad we agree! I think a Titoist approach would work best, though I also like some elements of Xi Jinping thought - namely the technocratism. What would your preferred model be?
>I'm curious - how do you see Europe surviving if not through further integration?
I don't, with or without further integration. Not everyone or everything is meant to survive. Everything has a shelf life. The Roman empire also collapsed. Rearranging the deckchairs of the titanic doesn't change the outcome.
>What is your preferred model? All of us staying in little insignificant countries, kowtowing to larger powers?
A union is good, but the EU only worked at preventing another world war between members, not at helping us be united against foreign entities, because you can't force unity between different dethatched cultures just because we're neighbours, as proven by Yugoslavia, the USSR, etc.
Every EU member is still driven by self interest and own group preference, which will be the EU's doom. Like Spain doesn't really care as much about the Eastern war as Poland or Romania do because they're far away from the war and don't see why they should pay more taxpayer money for it. Germans care more about something happening in Austria than about what's happening in Bulgaria. And so on.
>I don't, with or without further integration. Not everyone or everything is meant to survive. Everything has a shelf life. The Roman empire also collapsed. Rearranging the deckchairs of the titanic doesn't change the outcome.
Why have strong opinions if you're really just a doomer?
Yugoslavia broke up mainly due to ethnic not cultural differences, it wasn't Croatian Serbs against Bosnian Serbs.
And the entire point of a healthy relationship is to compromise and try to understand the other side, which is the point of the EU.
So Spain contributes to the east as a compromise for getting heavy subsidies themselves.
>Why have strong opinions if you're really just a doomer?
Are you the opinion police?
>the entire point of a healthy relationship is to compromise and try to understand the other side, which is the point of the EU
The problem with compromise is that everyone becomes equally unhappy. And when everyone is unhappy strange results come at elections.
EU member states are so different, that you can't have regulations that benefits an economy like Denmark and also simultaneously one like Romania. Which is how places like Romania now have German energy and grocery prices but Romanian wages and pensions. Not exactly a great compromise for a lot of Romanians.
>So Spain contributes to the east as a compromise for getting heavy subsidies themselves.
It doesn't matter how it is in reality, what matters is how Spanish voters perceive it come election times. Elections are always won on vibes and feels rather than facts and arguments.
>The problem with compromise is that everyone becomes equally unhappy. And when everyone is unhappy strange results come at elections.
And the alternative is exactly what?
Compromise is not a negative or a positive otherwise healthy relationships wouldn't be defined by those who find compromises.
>EU member states are so different, that you can't have regulations that benefits an economy like Denmark and also simultaneously one like Romania. Which is how places like Romania now have German energy and grocery prices but Romanian wages and pensions. Not exactly a great compromise for a lot of Romanians
What specific regulation is causing tremendous benefit to Denmark but is causing harm to Romania?
And if Romania pays a lot for energy spot price then that is on Romania, similar to Germany, on top of this grocery prices are not regulated by the EU.
>It doesn't matter how it is in reality, what matters is how Spanish voters perceive it come election times. Elections are always won on vibes and feels rather than facts and arguments.
Then the fault is at those who do understand facts for not approaching vibes with better vibes, I can agree with you that neo politics has been the biggest catastrophe for Europe.
But the only reason why people follow vibes is because of the lack of social, political and cultural issues being part of what it means to be political and instead politics is portrayed as at best as a numbers game and at worst technocratic (just look at chat control, sounds wonderful when your experts are the police and lobbyists but sounds awful if politicians were invested in social perspectives).
>>Why have strong opinions if you're really just a doomer?
>>Are you the opinion police?
>For asking a question?
Calling someone a doomer then pretending you were just asking a question is bad faith argumentation so I'll have to end the conversation with you.
>What specific regulation is causing tremendous benefit to Denmark but is causing harm to Romania?
That was only a though exercise for an example. But to answer your question with something concrete it would be auto industry regulations for example. If China would destroy Eu's auto industry, Denmark wouldn't care since they don't have one, they'll reap the benefits of cheap Chinese import but it would wreck auto making countries like Slovakia or Romania.
>And if Romania pays a lot for energy spot price then that is on Romania, similar to Germany, on top of this grocery prices are not regulated by the EU.
No, that's on the EU, since the EU forced everyone to tie electricity to gas energy prices in the name of environmentalism which disproportionately affects poorer countries.
> On top of this grocery prices are not regulated by the EU
Doesn't matter that the EU doesn't regulate the food prices, but it's the outcome of the EU free market it led to for poorer nations like Romania and obviously Romanians aren't happy.
A lot of EU market regulations have negativity affected the poorer people of the poorer member States. And they still have a right to vote.
We didn't have access to modern technology... like ultrasonic speakers?
Also we died at a young age. Everyone dying at 40 isn't incompatible with the species surviving but it's what advice like that is usually trying to avoid (and even less extreme outcomes).
Eh, here it's more of a simplification than a myth as used in my comment. There are two effects:
1. We've reduced infant (and childhood) mortality. My comment isn't talking about this effect but it did drag down average life expectancy substantially. Including this effect life expectancy at birth in the stone age might have been as low as 20... but as you say the bimodality means this is a deceptive statistic when used this way.
2. We've made it so you on average live longer even if you survive childhood, my comment is really just about this part of the effect. It's still a simplification because saying "on average if you survive childhood you die at 40" isn't the same as "everyone dies at 40" but closer to "adults die at all ages in a reasonable smooth monotonic curve and 40 is about the average age they live to but some get lucky and live to 80 or whatever". But then "don't use ultrasonic dehumidifiers" is like this too, using one won't kill you at some specific age, it will just slightly increase your chance of death every year for the rest of your life however long that ends up being.
The number 40 was picked out of a hat, too. It should be right for some areas at some times just by coincidence though and since I was non-specific that makes me right ;)
The age 40 includes childhood mortality! It's difficult to get records from prehistoric humans for obvious reasons, but as early as Ancient Greece you had the upper class living about as long as we do now a days. A study of men of the time found the average life expectancy to be 71.3 years. [1]
And while the Bible includes plentiful mythological components, it also includes many historical and contemporary accounts. And this verse is certainly of the latter: "The length of our days is generally seventy years, or eighty years if one is strong, yet even the best of these years are filled with toil and sorrow, for they pass quickly and we fly away." That is part of the Old Testament (Psalms 90:10) that is believed to have been written somewhere from 1400-1200BC.
If you want more contemporary stuff that's completely indisputable you can also take random selections of people of renown. For instance the main Founding Fathers are a great example because they all were relatively young when their names become inexorably etched into history, yet their final life expectancy is again well into the 70s. The youngest major founding father to die was Hamilton, in a duel - at 49. Then Hancock died at 56 - likely of gout which can be caused by things like excessive indulgence. Next up was Washington who died at 67, probably more of the cure than the disease - he was leeched to the point of being pale as a ghost on his death bed. Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Sam Adams, John Jay all lived to their 80s. John Adams made it to his 90s.
---
I am not trying to claim these samples are representative. These were wealthy individuals who would be relatively immune to famine, war, and other such factors that could have a catastrophic effect on lower classes. But when speaking of life expectancy, I think we are implicitly asking the question 'how long could somebody reasonably expect to live xxxx years ago without access to modern medicine and technology.' And that's what this sampling of people answers.
Just a poor memory translation. Yeah, generally is incorrect - though I think the correct phrasing also implies an average age of natural death, rather than an upper bound. There were certainly plenty of people living past 80. In the aforementioned study of Ancient Greeks, there were at least 3 centurions - Aristarchos, Democritos, and Gorgias. Granted 1400BC is a thousand years yet prior to that already ancient time, but life peaks seem to be relatively unmoving for humans, and so I don't see any major reason to think there would have been a major difference between 400BC and 1400BC.
Kunrei: ki si ti ni hi mi
Hepburn: ki shi chi ni hi mi
The politics of the issue is obviously that Hepburn is older and an American system while Nihon and Kunrei are very purposely domestic (Nihon "is much more regular than Hepburn romanization, and unlike Hepburn's system, it makes no effort to make itself easier to pronounce for English-speakers" [1]). Apparently, Hepburn was later imposed by US occupying forces in 1945.
Perhaps 80 years is long enough and suitable to effect the change officially with no loss of face.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon-shiki
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