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<title>Haaze.com / fferdolage / All</title>
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<pubDate>Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:10:44 +0000</pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Dual Core rocks the 'nerdcore' hip hop stylings (Q&A)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=dual-core-rocks-the-nerdcore-hip-hop-stylings-qa</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=dual-core-rocks-the-nerdcore-hip-hop-stylings-qa</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:10:44 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>fferdolage</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=dual-core-rocks-the-nerdcore-hip-hop-stylings-qa</guid>
<description><![CDATA[If you don't know what nerdcore is, you might find the lyrics to the song &quot;My Girlfriend's a Hacker&quot; a little strange. &quot;My girlfriend's a hacker, best hacker ever,&quot; the song begins. &quot;She's quick on her feet and her code is so clever. Yes she's a hacker and brilliant as well. Who knows what she cast, but I'm under her spell.&quot;The song is from nerdcore hip hop specialists Dual Core, the duo made up of a programmer from Cincinnati, Ohio, known as Int Eighty, and a graphic designer from Manchester, England, dubbed C64. Nerdcore has no clear origins, but several well-known practitioners, artists like MC Frontalot, MC Paul Barman, MC Lars, Beefy, ytcracker, Schaffer the Darklord, Random, and perhaps, MC 900 Ft. Jesus, have been leaders in the underground genre for years. The themes are geek, the musical stylings are hip hop and rap. Just without all the references to drugs and guns. But nerdcore rappers definitely extol their virtues. They might just use their lines to tell the world how much better a programmer they are than anyone else.Being that Dual Core's front man is U.S.-based and his producer partner is in England, Int Eighty spends a lot of time on stage at hacker and geek-oriented conferences and other events by himself. Indeed, the two didn't even meet face-to-face until after they'd already released their first album, 2007's &quot;Zero One.&quot; But they've been &quot;rocking the more studious side of the hip-hop underground since&quot; then, their Web site proclaims.I recently caught up with Int Eighty for a 45 Minutes on IM interview. And before getting into any other subjects, we cleared up what had to be the most important point.Q: Welcome to 45 Minutes on IM. Thanks so much for doing this. So, first things first: Is your girlfriend a hackerInt Eighty: Thanks for having an interest in our music. My girlfriend is a hacker. Technically, she's actually a Java developer, but she knows how to test Web apps for security vulnerabilities.How much of what's in that song is realInt Eighty: The majority. She did not post on every site in my RSS reader, and she did not pwn a random person in the park. However, she did camp out with me in a below-freezing Cincinnati night to be No. 1 and No. 2 in line for aNintendo Wii. She also did come home and exploit some sites with XSS after seeing me give a talk about it at 2600. It is a matter of public record that my girlfriend is the best hacker ever (to me, at least).So, explain your names, Int Eighty and c64. I'm assuming that c64 means Commodore 64 Int Eighty: Yes, though his name has better double-meanings than mine. His first system was a Commodore 64, his first name is Chris, and his height is 6-feet, 4-inches. My name is from an assembly instruction in Linux on x86, technically &quot;int 0x80.&quot; It's the interrupt used to interface between ring3 (userland) and ring0 (kernel). In Windows, developers use the windows API, but in Linux a developer can just use syscalls loading the registers appropriately and then interrupting the kernel to make the needed syscall.Related links &amp;149' The Force is strong with 'Clone Wars' writer &amp;149' The art of making Google Art Project &amp;149' LivingSocial: We're set to overtake Groupon &amp;149' Author Jane McGonigal explains why 'reality is broken'My first system was a Commodore Vic-20, and my second was a C64. What did you start withInt Eighty: The first place I really got into coding and hacking was on my parents' old 486dx. I wrote tools for AOL, &quot;proggies&quot; as they were known there, and hacked Gibsons with Windows 3.1 and vb3.How did you get started as a nerd-core rapperInt Eighty: I was peer-pressured into writing my first raps by a guy with whom I programmed online. He was from New Jersey and got me into hip hop. Then he challenged me into writing some. In college, I began free-styling, since it was fun to do at parties and was also challenging. Everything collided at a hacker conference called Notacon in Cleveland when one of my friends told the people throwing a room party that I could freestyle. Not knowing what to rap about in a room full of hackers, I just started free-styling about the programming and hacking I've known and loved.What was that likeInt Eighty: It was really surprising that people enjoyed rap music about technology, or anything at all. Pretty much every hacker I'd met had only liked some form(s) of electronic music and had an avid dislike for hip hop.Its seems like that's changed thenInt Eighty: Probably I've just met more people. I didn't really know a lot of hackers up to that point, as that was only my second hacker conference. We do have people come up to us at almost every show to say they don't like rap music but they love our songs. To me, it just sounds like they haven't found rap music with appealing subject matter. But the sound of hip hop is aurally pleasing.A significant portion of rap music is about violence or drugs, neither of which are interests of mine. So I don't [generally] identify with most rap music. The beat still sounds good, though, and I definitely love the feel and texture of hip hop. But like the people who &quot;don't like rap&quot; but like our stuff, I don't waste my time listening to unappealing music either.How much of an audience have you found outside the geek communityInt Eighty: We have a pretty decent cross-over, if you'd call it that. One of our good friends has played our stuff for all of his friends who like hip hop but aren't into nerd-core, and he says they all love it. We do play regular hip hop shows, and people have a good time there. But I would say nerds are our primary constituency.What's your favorite lyric you've written--and how comeInt Eighty: The first one that came to mind was from our song &quot;Rock It,&quot; from the album &quot;Lost Reality:&quot; &quot;Mortars'll fly 'til they're scorching the sky, sorta like the northern lights on the Fourth of July.&quot; I like that one because of the rhyme scheme and because I remember the site I was hacking into when I first thought of the lyric. What was the site you were hackingInt Eighty: It was a client when I was employed by Neohapsis. My NDA won't let me say who it was, but you've heard of them, and quite possibly use their services.Do you write raps about newsy geek issuesInt Eighty: We definitely make songs about current technology, but not about individual news pieces. for example, we don't have any songs about Nate Dogg passing away or Charlie Sheen/Tiger blood/Winning. We do, however, have a song called &quot;Painting Pictures&quot; about a girl who is born deaf then is the recipient of a cochlear implant and is then able to hear.Would you write about, say, theiPhone 4 antenna issuesInt Eighty: That could definitely be included as a line or used as a simile/metaphor in a lyric, but we wouldn't dedicate a whole song to it.I want to ask you to dissect a song. &quot;The Game.&quot;Int Eighty: Sure. That's one of my favorites. You write, &quot;Pack my own malware, write my own crypters, With more entropy than a Mersenne Twister.&quot; Can you explain those lyrics, and tell me why the song is one of your favoritesInt Eighty: So, let's start with &quot;pack my own malware.&quot;A packer is a program that can compress and obfuscate a target program. This can be used to make smaller sizes or just bypass antivirus. Almost all malware is packed. In this case, it's the author of the song who is writing and packing the malware.Then, &quot;Write my own crypters.&quot;A crypter can encrypt sections of a target program. This can be to protect your intellectual property or to bypass anti-virus. Writing a crypter is no small task, and reversing encrypted binaries, or programs, can be a huge pain. The author writes his own crypters.Finally, &quot;With more entropy than a Mersenne twister.&quot;Entropy is the measure of disorder or randomness in a system. A Mersenne twister is a rather fast pseudo-random number generator. The more entropy you have, the more random your &quot;random&quot; numbers are, and in cases like crypto, you want more entropy so that it would be more difficult to predict the seed or the next number in the pseudo-random number sequence.'The Game&quot; is a favorite of mine because C64 initially pitched the idea for the track, and he was beyond pleased with the way I wrote the song. Additionally, I feel that most people automatically paint malware authors in a bad light, and in reality, yes they are doing bad things. But I was able to portray a malware author in a different context and our fans really seemed to enjoy the different perspective that was offered in the song. Also, the hook in the song samples my voice, and usually you have to be famous like Nas or Mobb Deep to have your voice sampled in a track. If you write the lyrics, what does C64 doInt Eighty: He does all of the hard work in making the beats, mixing the songs, and he even creates our artwork. I have the easy job of writing, recording, and performing the raps.How long does it generally take you to write one of your songsInt Eighty: It can be anywhere from five minutes up to a couple hours. I almost always walk the walk before talking the talk, so writing about what you know is pretty easy, and songs are much shorter than the 20-page papers I would have to write in political science class.When you say you walk the walk, you meanInt Eighty: I rap about hacking computers, and I hack computers. I rap about cracking software, and I crack software. Are you a PC guy, or aMac guy Or do you build your own machines Or is that the kind of question a Luddite would askInt Eighty: I build my own desktop, rock the eee 900a (Atheros chipset with Madwifi) for my tracktop (backtrack). I never owned a Mac because when I was in school I couldn't afford them. Now they use Intel chips, so the only difference is the OS, and I'm a Linux guy at heart. I wouldn't turn down a MacBook Pro if someone gave me one, though.What's your idea of geek heavenInt Eighty: Geek heaven would be somewhere with infinite video games, computers, software, vodka and Red Bull, and everyone would be there and they would all love all the things there and be friends.Last question--and it's my standard for this interview series: I really like doing IM interviews, for several reasons. First, I get a perfect transcript. Second, it gives my subject a chance to be a little more thoughtful and articulate than they might be in a phone or in-person interview. And finally, because IM allows for multi-tasking. So, what else were you doing while we were doing this interviewInt Eighty: Listening to a metric butt-load of new beats from C64. I have to go buy all new pants now. Correction at 4:17 p.m. PT: Due to a typo, this story originally misstated the source of Int Eighty's name. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Google working to reverse Chrome bloat]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-working-to-reverse-chrome-bloat</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-working-to-reverse-chrome-bloat</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 22 Mar 2011 07:10:05 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>fferdolage</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-working-to-reverse-chrome-bloat</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Chrome has grown heftier in the last two years.(Credit:data from Google' chart by Stephen Shankland/CNET)When Chrome got its start, the browser was svelte and fast-loading if limited.Now, it's got plenty of features, but two years later, it's nearly three times bigger. And Google, deciding that's not a good thing, has set up a task force to curtail Chrome bloat. The task force is &quot;aggressively looking at options to bring down the size of Chrome distribution binaries,&quot; said Anthony Laforge, Chrome technical program manager, in a mailing list message this month. Binary files are the ones computers understand' they're created from human-comprehensible source code.With broadband connections, large file sizes aren't necessarily a showstopper. But they can cause plenty of problems. Chrome Developer Ian Fette described two:1. We do distribution deals with Chrome, where we bundle Chrome with other products. These get difficult when our binary grows. 2. We see increased download failures / install dropoffs as the binary grows, especially in countries with poor bandwidth like India. India also happens to be a very good market for Chrome (we have good market share there and growing), so that's also very problematic.Added another Chrome programmer, Adam Barth:At a more macro level, adding MB to Chrome is pretty invisible to developers. It's a tragedy of the commons, where each of us grazes our cows just a bit and piles on just a few more KB. Performance would be the same, except we're fanatical about not regress startup or page load performance. Maybe we need to be more fanatical about not regressing binary size Chrome has grown from 9.0MB with version 1.0 to 26.2MB for version 10.0 on Windows. Despite being dogged by reputations of being bloatware,Firefox 4.0 is 12.0MB for the Windows version.Chrome has proved to be influential. It increased the relevance of the open-source WebKit browser engine project on which it and Apple'sSafari are based. Mozilla has embraced Chrome's fast-rev ethos, starting after today's release of Firefox 4.And although it's hard to find a direct link from external statements, it seems likely that Chrome helped to add fuel to the fire Microsoft lit under its Internet Explorer developers. With IE9, released last week, Microsoft once again has a competitive browser. (For a walk down memory lane, check this superb tour of Internet Explorer 1.0 through 9.0.)Google updated its Chrome logo last week, though the change won't arrive beyond the developer version of the browser until Chrome 11 reaches beta and stable versions.  &quot;Since Chrome is all about making your web experience as easy and clutter-free as possible, we refreshed the Chrome icon to better represent these sentiments. A simpler icon embodies the Chrome spirit -- to make the web quicker, lighter, and easier for all,&quot; Google designer Steve Rura said in a blog post yesterday.Correction at 10:16 a.m. PT: This post initially misstated the browser that has grown from 9.0MB with version 1.0 to 26.2MB for version 10.0 on Windows. It's Chrome. Also, the labels on the bar graph were reversed. The horizontal axis is the version of Chrome, while the vertical axis shows the size in megabytes.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Smartphones of Mobile World Congress 2011]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=smartphones-of-mobile-world-congress-2011</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=smartphones-of-mobile-world-congress-2011</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:10:29 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>fferdolage</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=smartphones-of-mobile-world-congress-2011</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is one of the most highly talked about phones at Mobile World Congress 2011(Credit:Kent German/CNET)Despite the Nokia and Microsoft headlines at the start of the show, this year's Mobile World Congress was definitely dominated by Android. Most of the 15 or so smartphones that were announced in Barcelona, Spain, sported either 2.2 Froyo or 2.3 Gingerbread, which is music to our ears. Here's a list of all of the smartphones that were announced at Mobile World Congress 2011.LG Optimus 3D: Yes, it's 3D on a phone! While we're not sure if it's for everyone, it's certainly an impressive leap in the mobile space. Samsung Galaxy S II: Samsung continues its Galaxy S series with the superfast and shiny Samsung Galaxy S II.Sony Ericsson Xperia Play: Sure we had our misgivings about its Super Bowl ad, but the Xperia Play does look like a decent phone. But will it be the true &quot;PlayStation Phone&quot; that people might be expecting We'll see.Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo: Sony Ericsson released other smartphones too, like the Neo with the 3.7-inch touch screen.Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro: This is the Neo with a slide-out keyboard.ZTE Skate: ZTE releases its first &quot;jumbo phone&quot; with a 4.3-inch display, but it only has an 800MHz processor and a 5-megapixel camera.ZTE Amigo: ZTE also announced a couple of other Android phones. The Amigo has a slide-out keyboard and a 3.2-megapixel camera.ZTE Blade: The ZTE Blade does not have a keyboard, but just a 3.5-inch touch screen. It does run Android 2.1, but ZTE promises it is upgradeable to 2.2. Huawei Ideos X3: Huawei gets in on the Android action too with the Ideos X3, which promises to run on 2.3 Gingerbread.HTC Incredible S: The HTC Incredible S gets an update with the HTC Sense interface. It also has an 8-megapixel camera on the back plus a front-facing camera.HTC Wildfire S: The Wildfire S gets HTC Sense too, though it only has a 5-megapixel camera.The HTC ChaCha is one of HTC&amp;39's new &amp;34'Facebook phones&amp;34' announced in Barcelona.(Credit:HTC)HTC Desire S: You guessed it, the HTC Desire S gets the Sense UI as well. It has a body similar to the HTC Legend and has a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor.HTC ChaCha: One of two &quot;Facebook phones&quot; that were announced in Barcelona. The ChaCha has a full QWERTY keyboard.HTC Salsa: The HTC Salsa is the other so-called Facebook phone, but it has no keyboard. It does have a 3.4-inch touch screen.Acer Iconia Smart: At 4.8 inches, the Iconia Smart is almost atablet. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Mobile World Congress preview]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mobile-world-congress-preview</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mobile-world-congress-preview</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2011 08:10:43 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>fferdolage</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mobile-world-congress-preview</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Though it feels like we just leftCES, the next gadget extravaganza is upon us. With 50,000 attendees and 1,300 exhibitors, Mobile World Congress is the biggest wireless trade show of the year. The fun begins Sunday night in Barcelona, Spain, and CNET will be there to bring you the latest news in handsets, operating systems, accessories, and applications.So what will happen this year in Barcelona As usual, we expect quite a bit, including the long-rumoredPlayStation phone, a fewtablets, and more Samsung Galaxy S devices. Read on for the full scoop on what's (probably) to come. Sony EricssonWe've known it was coming for a long time, but next week Sony Ericsson's PlayStation phone should really happen. Over the past few months we've caught occasional glimpses of the Xperia Play, but it wasn't until a Super Bowl commercial that Sony Ericsson officially acknowledged that the phone exists. Sony Ericsson also should reveal the Xperia Neo, which was caught on camera earlier this week.  Whatever happens, Sony Ericsson will have a press conference this Sunday, February 13, at 9 a.m. PT. Check back then for what the company will officially unveil. LG teases its upcoming 3D phone.(Credit:Android Community) LGLG will host a conference the next day as MWC officially opens. The company has been pretty open about its plan to show a new 3G version of its Optimus smartphone. At this point, we're not sure how we feel about the basic concept of a 3D handset, but we'll offer our opinion once LG shows it off. NokiaNokia didn't announce new products at MWC 2010 and we expect that the company will also be short on new handsets this year. Yet, that doesn't mean that Nokia will be laying low. Instead, we're counting on the Finns to highlight a new smartphone strategy. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop will get a jump on MWC by holding an investor's conference on February 11 where he will unveil whatever strategy that will be.  Though Nokia continues to sell more phones worldwide, a renewed focus on smartphones is sorely needed. Reuters reported this week that the company was halting development of its MeeGo platform. Plenty of opinions exist about what Nokia should do--Windows Phone 7 may be the likeliest option--and Elop recently championed the need for a new strategy in a somewhat scathing internal memo. SamsungSamsung also will hold a press conference on Sunday evening, and we already know that the next-gen Galaxy S is on deck for a full reveal. The company has posted a teaser site and video on its Samsung Unpacked site, but of course, it doesn't say much about the smartphone. However, according to rumors, the device will feature a dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, and an 8-megapixel camera with 1,080p HD video recording. There's also talk of an NFC chip and Android 2.3. Samsung could introduce a new Galaxty Tab in Barcelona.(Credit:Josh Miller/CNET) It's also quite possible that we'll see the successor to the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Possible specs include a 7-inch, 2,048x1,200-pixel touch screen, Nvidia's Tegra 2 chipset, 64GB hard drive, and Android 2.3. In any case, Samsung usually goes all out for these events--last year, it had dancers and an aerial acrobat, among other things--so I'm sure we're in for a amusing good show. HTCUnlike most companies, HTC is saving its press conference for Tuesday. In the past, the Taiwanese handset manufacturer has used the show to introduce a bevy of international phones, and we expect this year will be the same.  There is a rumor that the dual-core HTC Pyramid will land at T-Mobile, but as our Android Atlas blogger Scott Webster points out, it's likely that the company will save that announcement for CTIA 2011 in March. Even if we don't see the Pyramid in Barcelona, MWC always gives us a good indication of what kinds of devices HTC will roll out throughout the year. The big question is: Will HTC unveil a tablet MicrosoftIt's hard to believe, but it was just a year ago that Microsoft took the wraps off Windows Phone 7 at MWC 2010. The company will be in Barcelona again this year and has a keynote address planned for Monday afternoon. We expect it'll talk more about the upcoming software update, rather than new hardware, but you never know. If Nokia announces a switch to Windows Phone 7, then things will be a lot more interesting. CNET's coverage begins Sunday and runs through the week. Be sure to check back for the latest updates and plenty of blogs, photos, and videos. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple sells massive 7M iPads, 16M iPhones in Q1 2011]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-sells-massive-7m-ipads-16m-iphones-in-q1-2011</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-sells-massive-7m-ipads-16m-iphones-in-q1-2011</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>fferdolage</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-sells-massive-7m-ipads-16m-iphones-in-q1-2011</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The  holidays have been good to Apple, and in particular to iPad sales. In its first quarter 2011 earnings report today, Apple said it  sold an astonishing 7.33 million iPads and 16.24 million iPhones in the quarter.To  put those numbers in perspective, it took Apple around five months to  sell its first 7 million iPads. In its previous earnings report in  October 2010, Apple announced that it shipped 4.19 million iPads, which meant it had shipped a total of 7.5 million iPads since the device&amp;'s  April launch. Even though ita4a4s not as easily giftable as Amazona4a4s $139 Kindle,  ita4a4s clear that many lucky consumers received iPads for the holidays (or  perhaps they decided to treat themselves to a gift).Either  way, iPad sales are accelerating, and ita4a4ll be interesting to see if  Apple can keep up the momentum for this quarter. With the announcement  of the iPad 2 on the horizon, some consumers will definitely choose to  hold off on iPad purchases. But if Apple manages to deliver the iPad 2  quickly after ita4a4s announced (wea4a4re figuring sometime in April), it will  be able to make up for that loss with a new wave of buyers who were  waiting for the company to offer a more polished iPad.As for iPhone sales, Apple sold over 2 million more iPhones in Q1 than it did in the previous quarter, where it sold 14.1 million units.  Again, the holidays certainly helped bump up those sales &amp;8212' but now  that the iPhone is available on Verizon, Apple may be able to keep up  sales, and possibly even approach 20 million units, in this current  quarter.Apple also reported that it sold 19.45 million iPods in Q1. As usual,  therea4a4s no breakdown within the types of iPods sold, but I dona4a4t suspect  that the aging iPod Classic made any waves over the holidays. Apple did mention that sales of the iPod Touch were up 27 percent from last year (driven by the launch of the fourth-generation iPod Touch), and they accounted for 50 percent of all iPod sales. Overall, iPod sales were down 7 percent from last year.Next Story: Two cleantech behemoths team up to tackle clean coal: GE and China Previous Story: First cable channel, WealthTV, hits Roku. Will others followPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: iOS, iPad, iPhone, ipod, iPod Nano, iPod Touch, smartphones, tabletsCompanies: Apple          Tags: iOS, iPad, iPhone, ipod, iPod Nano, iPod Touch, smartphones, tabletsCompanies: AppleDevindra Hardawar is VentureBeat's lead mobile writer and East Coast correspondent. He studied philosophy at Amherst College, worked in IT support for several years, and has been writing about technology since 2004. He now lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can reach him at devindra@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @Devindra.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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