# Main > News >  Member location map.

## Redrobes

Hey guys, I have put together this nifty cgi script so that we can all add ourselves to a global map. You can tool tip on any of the red dots to see where people are. Try not to abuse it by adding lots of frivolous stuff to it. In any case early additions are on the top so late spammers get pushed to bottom of the tool tips - that and ill review the list now and again. Hope this can show where we all are as often I have no idea.

View or add yourself... here

You have to enter lat long values. You can get these from a variety of places but google maps is just as good as any.

If you dont know what a lat and long looks like then shame on you !

London is approx Lat 51.5 and Long 0.0
Florida is approx Lat 25.0 and Long -80.0

Northern Hemisphere is positive Lat
Western Hemisphere is negative Long

Oh yes, one more thing; The handle name characters are limited to a-z A-Z and 0-9 plus spaces. You will also get a warning note if you use a previously entered handle. PM me if your has been stolen !

Edit -- It seems we really do need a diagram...

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## Jkaen

I have sort of lied and put in the loc of my new job and where I will be living in a few months time rather than where I am right now

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## Steel General

Cool Stuff!

OK, it's to damned early and I haven't woke up yet so I screwed up. 

@RedRobes - Delete the 'Steel' handle that looks like its in Nepal & please correct the 'SteelGeneral' handle that's currently off the coast of South America. The long. is supposed to be -85.12 and it looks like I forgot the negative sign. 

That'll learn me to try and do things before I'm completely awake.  :Razz:

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## Jkaen

Jezelf, you live on an oil rig in the north sea?

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## Redrobes

Ok guys, if you screw up then put in a name like Redrobes_Attempt2 Redrobes_Attempt3 etc and ill go through and delete all but the highest and remove the Attempt suffix bit.

Also the lat longs are in decimal not minutes and seconds.

To get them go to google maps and zoom into where you live. Click on the link labeled 'Link' in the top right which makes up a big highlighted URL, press right key to unhighlight it and put cursor on the right side of it. In there is the lat and long coords. Note them, or cut n paste them in.

See example below for New York Central Park.
Lat = 40.781874
Long = -73.964767

You dont need to be too accurate as each pixel locator is tens of miles across so a few decimal points of accuracy is all thats needed.

Fixed you up Steel. If your happy with that second location then God knows where you are then ! You floating on a raft looking for land ( with a good internet connection  :Wink:  ). I didn't think I would need the arctic or antarctic but maybe that was a short sighted decision...

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## jezelf

> Jezelf, you live on an oil rig in the north sea?


LOL- adrift in a sea on confusion. nah just screwed up. Im in Dundee - thanks redrobes for correcting that.

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## Jkaen

> LOL- adrift in a sea on confusion. nah just screwed up. Im in Dundee - thanks redrobes for correcting that.


Ahh was hoping some people were going to end up being in really cool unusual places  :Frown:

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## joão paulo

Hey steel you sank? :Smile:  :Compass Rose: 

 :Confused: why my name appears only "jo"?

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## Redrobes

> why my name appears only "jo"?


Yeah, sorry but the characters were limited to a-z, A-Z and 0-9 so it rejected the unicode one with the tilde. Fixed now but with a normal 'a' hope that doesn't make too much difference. Ta for entering - it was your location and Torq's that made me think this would be interesting.

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## joão paulo

thankful  Red

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## Robbie

Just added myself...good thing you don't allow zoom, because my latlong values take you directly to my rooftop I believe.  Can't wait to see where this goes.

I have the ability to add custom fields to profiles...would be pretty cool to add a lat and long field to profiles and have everyone fill that out and then do a map off a data dump of it.

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## The Cartographist

So I'm in there.  But when you scroll over top my positition, it only shows "The" vice "The Cartographist."

Oh, BTW, first time visiting the Guild in a month and it was a month and a half before that.  Real life and all...

Howdy, everyone.

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## torstan

Good to see you again.

Very cool! So what happens to people who are in the same location - I can see Jkaen in London, but not The Cartographist?

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## The Cartographist

torstan - Actually the red little block for Jkaen and mine are touching. Mine is just above his.

Yes, it does take a fine touch with a mouse to get me, or "The", whoever *that* guy is.

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## NeonKnight

Please delete the Neon Handle somewhere in Northern China  :Frown: 

Stoopid did not put the - sign in as well.

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## Absinth

Done!  :Smile:  Cool idea!

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## Steel General

> Hey steel you sank?


Nope not quite yet  :Smile:  

I think RR misread my post, I entered the longitude wrong, supposed to be 
-85.12 and I think I put in 85.12. I'm supposed to be in Indiana in the US not the Galapagos  :Very Happy: 

@RedRobes: Sooo..if you coud give the fix another try RR I'd appreciate it.

I don't think it likes spaces in your 'handle' either.

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## RobA

Not to be critical, but what is the advantage of this over something like http://www.frappr.com/

(Which I have use in the past with a number of groups...)

-Rob A>

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## Redrobes

Neon I have fixed that and I have adjusted the script so that it should (hope hope) take and underscore and spaces for the handle now. I fixed 'The' to be TheCartographist too but somebody has put in a 'Map' in about Denver way, what was the full name before it cut it off ? I'll fix that too if required. Gotta just fix up these minor teething issues.

Edit -- And Steel got you in US now. Thought that was a bit odd  :Smile: 
Edit2 -- Map would be Map Vandal. Ill edit now.

Arcana and similarly paranoid dudes, you can put in just two or three digits and it will be fine the map markers are not as accurate as can be described with more. Or just zoom into the center of the closest town or whatever suits you. I wont post locations or verify them but I will be able to look at them in the file it generates and theres no reason it couldn't be hacked either what with this being the net. For the vast majority of people your IP address is available to any website you visit and it can be geo located also. Mine comes up in a town a mile or two away so its close enough in most cases that with a little cookie view and IP I could update the map with no user input at all. But I am not gonna do that. Sometimes I get pop ups with stuff like sexy girl in town-next-door wants to chat to you - just click here... etc and thats all that they are doing. Tis the nature of the net I am afraid.

Its only now that I can understand why Neon comes online later than some of us. I do find I am in the midst of thick and fast posting when its early hours here and get the majority of updates in the morning.

Edit3 -- Advantage of this way ? Probably none, its just we didn't have one and this way its kept in house so we can change the map or make other alterations if we want. I expect that we will have a majority of people in US and UK areas so I could do a second map of those places but bigger. Or link the dot to the members intro page or something like that.

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## NeonKnight

Yeah, I usually Work Graveyards (So Midnight Pacific until 7 AM), but yep, I am pretty much the furthest 'West'.

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## Steel General

> Edit -- And Steel got you in US now. Thought that was a bit odd


Mucus Grass-i-ass..errr thanks  :Very Happy:

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## RPMiller

> Yeah, I usually Work Graveyards (So Midnight Pacific until 7 AM), but yep, I am pretty much the furthest 'West'.


Yup, you have me beat by 1 degree.  :Smile:

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## Redrobes

Heres another resource you can try for getting lat long data...

http://www.heavens-above.com/countries.aspx

This is a great website for checking astronomical events and star charts so they need your location to calculate them too. This has a country picker link and town search facility to get a lat / long.

It appears as though you can actually download the data from two sites which cover most of the globe too but that sounds like a bit of a chore to convert and host given all these web sites which can get it for you.

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## jfrazierjr

Wow... someone in Kazakhstan...  Long ways...

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## Ascension

I forgot the minus sign as well dang it, thought I was smart enough to follow directions.  Tried to correct it (twice) but it stills shows me somewhere near Borat.

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## Valarian

Think I've got it correct: Droitwich Spa (52°16'N, 02°08'W)
Looks about right

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## Anna

Great work Redrobes!!  :Smile: 

Added myself, and got it right too. 

At least I have some use for all my navigation training even in front of my computer.

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## Korrigan

Hi there ! Great Job, redrobes ! Added myself and Vehuiah and location seems correct. But I added both of us at exactly the same long/lat (we live together)... Maybe I should have posted them only once with a handle like "Korrigan&Vehuiah" cause I can't see her on the map...

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## Redrobes

Cheers everyone - ill fix up adjustments later today. Seems that Valarian is closest to me and I didn't even know.

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## MGCJerry

Cool... Placed mine.

I screwed up too by not adding the negative on my longitude. My location is "MGCJerryAttempt2"

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## Redrobes

No probs - fixed.

I have added a diagram to the top post and to the web page which I hope should make it pretty clear now. Otherwise ill be editing for the next month !

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## Steel General

You know it might at some point become neecesary to provide a 'zoomable' map - especially if you get a bunch of folks in the same basic area.

Just a suggestion  :Very Happy:

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## Redrobes

Yeah, lets see where in reality all the clusters are and we can go from there. I expect a bigger US and UK map might cover it but lets see. The data can decide.

Ohh eck, that '12' must be 12 Rounds so my spaces in the handle obviously doesnt work then.

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## jezelf

> You know it might at some point become neecesary to provide a 'zoomable' map - especially if you get a bunch of folks in the same basic area.
> 
> Just a suggestion


I think you can make a layer or something in google earth we could all plug in for that perhaps? 

Here's another forum with the same idea. it shows another approach - using a crosshair than a block as the marker...still turns into a mass of red though

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## Redrobes

Concept art is a good site isnt it. Looks like they had the same idea but they dont have tool tips for the user tho  :Wink: 

Fixed the spaces issue and edited 12 Rounds in properly. Right, should work now.... he says.

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## Korrigan

Just an other suggestion : do you think it is possible to put a white line around the red dots so that colorblind people don't have to struggle too much to see them ? (speaking for myself, here...)

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## Redrobes

> Just an other suggestion : do you think it is possible to put a white line around the red dots so that colorblind people don't have to struggle too much to see them ? (speaking for myself, here...)


Good call, and done.  :Wink:

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## Turgenev

I'm on the map after my second attempt. I forgot to add the - to the longitude as well (in my first attempt). My dot is hiding behind RobA's dot.  :Wink:

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## joão paulo

:Compass Rose: Hey, Turgenev, how's the weather there in Xinjiang Uyghur?

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## Redrobes

Added a bit o zoom so no more hidden dots. Well almost, New York is looking a bit cramped - but then it is isn't it.

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## Steel General

> I'm on the map after my second attempt. I forgot to add the - to the longitude as well (in my first attempt). My dot is hiding behind RobA's dot.


Shouldn't your dot be a bit further north and on Lake Ontario? Or are you not really in Toronto?

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## joão paulo

suggestion: When there are many people at a single point (as in new york) make a single label with the names of all who live there.

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## Redrobes

If New York or any other place gets too many in comparison to rest of map then ill add another zoom zone for them.

If all the members added themselves then we should expect areas with lots of dots. We cant expect to resolve every dot as an individual in every case.

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## Turgenev

> Shouldn't your dot be a bit further north and on Lake Ontario? Or are you not really in Toronto?


That's interesting. Toronto should be on the North-Western tip of Lake Ontario. Toronto's coordinates are Latitude: 43° 40' North, Longitude: 79° 22' West. I rounded down on my 2nd attempt and it put me near Niagara Falls. I tried a third attempt with 43.4 and -79.22 and it still missed the Greater Toronto Area (GTA as the locals call it). 

Sigh, I grabbed the coordinates from Google Maps (43.76911,-79.387207) and it put me in Lake Ontario (4th attempt). I give up. Feel free to erase my previous attempts. Sorry about the extra work, Redrobes. Meanwhile if anyone needs me, I'll be snorkeling in Lake Ontario.  :Laughing:

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## Turgenev

> Hey, Turgenev, how's the weather there in Xinjiang Uyghur?


Not bad. The locals have a saying, "_Qian Wu Gou Ren._"*


* Literally means "No ancients before us" (meaning: Go where no man has gone before!), if my Google Fu is correct.  :Laughing:  

Cheers,
Tim

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## CC_JAR

I'm up. Morganton, NC representing!

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## Sagenlicht

nice idea RR  :Smile: 

Just added myself, and I think I got it right  :Smile:

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## Redrobes

> Sigh, I grabbed the coordinates from Google Maps (43.76911,-79.387207) and it put me in Lake Ontario (4th attempt). I give up. Feel free to erase my previous attempts. Sorry about the extra work, Redrobes. Meanwhile if anyone needs me, I'll be snorkeling in Lake Ontario.


Its ok as its my fault for rounding the coords on the USA map so I got out google and put in some super accurate ones now so hopefully it should be better. Its got you about right and RobA just on the coast underneath. Its never going to be absolute to the pixel but should be just about right enough to know where we all are in relation to each other.

We have some handles on the map from people who aren't in the members list so presumably these are lurking guests - which is cool as we will know where they come from *when*  :Very Happy:  then decloak.

Well done Sagenlicht - you must be Munich (München) way then. People say its nice there. I have been there but just to the railway station tho ;(

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## Gowienczyk

I think I placed myself properly, folks.

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## Sagenlicht

Heh RR, yep I live about 50 km away from munich (sorry no idea whats that in miles).

If ye ever get the chance to visit munich let me know  :Smile:

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## Steel General

@Sagenlicht - 50KM I believe is about 33-35 miles (can't remember the exact conversion rate)

@Turgenev - I thought so, I grew up about half way between Buffalo & Niagara Falls (a dumpy little place called the City of Tonawanda) so I was reasonable sure I was correct on the Toronto placement.

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## Turgenev

> Its ok as its my fault for rounding the coords on the USA map so I got out google and put in some super accurate ones now so hopefully it should be better. Its got you about right and RobA just on the coast underneath. Its never going to be absolute to the pixel but should be just about right enough to know where we all are in relation to each other.


Thanks for fixing the location problem, Redrobes. Consider yourself repped for all of the help. It is appreciated. Besides, I was starting to get water logged sitting in Lake Ontario.  :Laughing:

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## jezelf

cool zoom in feature!

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## joão paulo

:Confused: Who are Fiend and 25?

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## Steel General

> Who are Fiend and 25?


I think those are probably mistakes.

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## Redrobes

Do you think I should limit to the registered members and parse the username against the list and reject those not on the list ? The problem is with case sensitivity, underscores, spaces etc might make it reject the username. I can try to match with no case sensitivity and ignore spaces and so on but I know it always gets something wrong now and again. Still, there is no feind or 25 in the user list so I am not sure what to do. I am tempted to just leave it for now and see how it goes. If it gets bad then do something about it.

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## Steel General

Could you parse on # of posts or something? Maybe limit it to those with at least 5 posts - like PMing is currently set-up.

Then maybe update it once/week, month, whatever is convenient.

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## Redstar

Ugh, I botched it.  

Redrobes: Could you change mine to Lat 40, Long -73?  I don't live in the middle of Russia, I live in the dogpile of New York.  

Thanks!

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## waystar

Ha! 

I screwed mine up as well, by not scrolling down to see the +/- convention. I entered my numbers with N and W, and cheerfully clicked the button.

Some days there just isn't enough coffee in the world, I tell ya!

-waystar

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## Redrobes

I think it will just reject any input which is malformed like that so just try again. Looking at the map I dont think it added you to it. If it did then just put in waystar_attempt2 as your username and ill sort it out later.

Edit - actually I see it did add you. Gimme a while and ill just flip the long coord to -ve. Ill look into checking the 'N' and 'W' chars as input. Maybe I can put that in as an optional style and adjust accordingly.

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## Redrobes

> Ugh, I botched it.  
> 
> Redrobes: Could you change mine to Lat 40, Long -73?  I don't live in the middle of Russia, I live in the dogpile of New York.  
> 
> Thanks!


Fixed you up... well that is I have put your dot at 40,-73 which is in the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe a few more digits might be advisable. Do you want to sit in Manhatten Central Park at 40.78,-73.97  ?

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## Bohunk

Redrobes!  

Forgot ot put a minus in front of my longitude!  As with others it put me in Russia.

My actuals are 41.24 and -81.22  east of Cleveland.

Thanks.

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## Redrobes

Sure no problem.  :Rolling Eyes: 

Y'know I think you yanks have a secret desire to be Russian...
I am going to have to add a button saying "I live in the USA" and if the long is +ve then ill flip it over automatically.

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## Steel General

> Y'know I think you yanks have a secret desire to be Russian...
> I am going to have to add a button saying "I live in the USA" and if the long is +ve then ill flip it over automatically.


Might save you some time & effort  :Very Happy:

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## Airith

Interesting to see where everyone's from, and now I'm jealous of the places you guys are  :Razz: 

And of course I screwed up my first attempt, so hopefully it will be deleted before someone thinks I live off the coast of Alaska  :Frown:

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## Redrobes

Feelin chilly up there ??? Just put in Airith_attempt2,3,4 etc and ill fix it up later when your happy with your location.

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## Airith

> Feelin chilly up there ??? Just put in Airith_attempt2,3,4 etc and ill fix it up later when your happy with your location.


Alright, got it on the 2nd attempt. Now it's in the right spot  :Very Happy:  Thx RR

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## Torq

Man I feel so totally alone......Still, I have a continent to myself.

Torq

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## Ascension

Gonna have to get you to recruit some more  :Smile:   Otherwise your local chapter meetings of The Guild are gonna be quite short  :Wink:   Maybe we should all come there for a visit...it is approaching winter in the northern hemisphere after all.

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## Steel General

Now that would be one heckuva road trip!  :Smile:

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## Redrobes

> Man I feel so totally alone......Still, I have a continent to myself.


There - Continent du Torq !

And your not very far from Europe now.  :Very Happy:

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## Ascension

Heh, reminds of Stephen in "Braveheart"..."It's MY island."  "Ireland?"  "Yeah, it's mine."

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## MarkusTay

Nevermind.

I was asking why you guys didn't just use Google Earth, but whatever.

*Edit:* Just added myself, and miracle of miracles I got it right the first time. 

Let Redstar know I'll be sending out a rescue party - he's somewhere in the Atlantic just south of me.  :Razz:

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## Khairn

Done.

I'm glad to see a few others in the great North-West.  Maybe some time we should get together and share a beer. Or three.   :Very Happy:

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