What’s The Best Free iPhone App For Tracking Fitness?

Author’s Note: This question was posed on Formspring. Feel free to ask any questions to me at http://www.formspring.me/matteargle and perhaps I will answer it in a future post!

Zelzega asks: What’s the best free iphone app for tracking fitness? I currently have Electric Miles (dailymile), Kinetic Lite, and Runkeeper. I love that Kinetic Lite connects to both dailymile and runkeeper, but which is the best?

As far as iPhone goes, I have no real idea considering I don’t carry one. In general, though, I use RunKeeper and Fitocracy. I’m not into tracking everything I eat, but RK does fantastically for my cardio, and Fitocracy imports from it so I don’t have to reenter anything.  Fitocracy hasn’t developed a native application yet, but their mobile site is fully-featured and quite accessible.

The best part about Fitocracy is that it gamifies exercise.  The site was started by a couple of stereotypical nerds who wanted to appeal to other stereotypical nerds through the two most powerful words in our language:  LEVEL UP!  The concept is that one earns points by performing certain exercises, thus increasing your overall capabilities–all in traditional RPG fashion.  I have to admit, the formula works, especially in keeping me focused on strength training (which has always been something I avoided).

In short, the best application out there is the one that works best for what you want to accomplish.  I want to have fun, and I’m a data junkie, so RK and Fitocracy work best for me.  Try some of the applications listed in the apps section of the RunKeeper website.  You’ll likely find one you like.

Product Review: SXE Electronics Wireless Charging Digital Alarm Clock

Looking for a good, cheap way to upgrade an older phone to have wireless charging? This probably isn’t it. It’s the good, the bad, and the REALLY ugly about the SXE Electronics Wireless Charging Digital Alarm Clock.

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Tech teardowns, repairs, and reviews; sketches; how-to; games; and lots of other interesting geekery. At least one new video per month! Thanks for watching, and be sure to like, share, and subscribe!

TRANSCRIPT:

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[Music]

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okay so here we have the FX e wireless

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charging digital alarm clock wireless

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charging enabled smartphone anyway so

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here’s the box wirelessly charge your

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smartphone they can charge no wires

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needed because it comes with these

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handy-dandy

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wireless charging adapters that you can

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stick on the banking phone or your

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family ever and then of course you can

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wireless charging have on top a physical

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device to clock

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fuck your manual side and optional

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battery backup with to delay that’s the

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acquirement well it’s days you just like

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let’s do

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[Music]

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clock radio units we have two adapters

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AC adapter patient there this is light

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adapter the adapter it Saturday the

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adapter 110 120 240 240 in Portland –

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what – amp to 5 volt pan 6 and center

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positive barrel adapter 3 standard stuff

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there’s your battery port for two

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doublea’s charging pad oats it cut some

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nice kind of a rubbery substance here

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just to hold your stuff in place little

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grippy see I low and off for your alarm

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time that alarm stuff squeeze your

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dimmer minute

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and that’s pretty much all there is to

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it there’s no radio function or anything

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like that

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not that we need that on this model this

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is just something that we’re going to

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use to charge charge phone and cell time

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with we got to plug down you can see

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this is pretty bright see if it would

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affect the general settings so the

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lowest one should be okay for for

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nighttime use set the alarm for highest

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setting here goes off moving

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[Music]

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[Music]

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love it uh we’ll hook up the phone and

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see how it does with charging so what

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we’re going to do so we’re just gonna

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fit this right off in the back the phone

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here look it yeah right there your

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father she is fits them nice and snugly

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popper into case

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sure charging it’s charging there this

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is a yeah this is kind of ridiculous

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hear how this caught plug them sent

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Sunday now Friday and it has game looks

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like 11 minutes or so yeah so it’s on

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I’m a three minute the day to to in

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changes day over five day that’s

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ridiculous

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bad timing in this plan so if you want

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an accurate clock this is not going to

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be the one as I was afraid of this was

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sort of something that was handed in the

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back of my mind the whole time I was

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playing with this nowhere on the box

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does it say that it is Qi compliant and

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that’s the problem

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now of course it says

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the other you know compatible with

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wireless charging in a smartphone other

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smartphones like an iphone blah blah

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blah maybe adaptors to work with this

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unfortunately these adapters are also

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not Chi compliant thus they do not work

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on any qi chargers they only work on

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this charger this particular charger

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which pretty much makes them useless

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that’s a deal breaker right there so sxe

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wireless charging digital alarm clock

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stay away from it don’t buy this do not

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waste your money on this piece of trash

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get yourself a real qi adapter and a

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real key compatible charger

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[Music]

How To Add Wireless Charging To Any Device

With just a few off-the-shelf parts, you can add wireless charging to any portable device!

Parts used (AFFILIATE LINKS):
Qi Wireless Charging Receiver: http://amzn.to/2se8NEC
Omoton Case for Moto X Pure: http://amzn.to/2sPUPpi
Choetech Wireless Charger: http://amzn.to/2sdDTw9

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–Everything else is at http://airbornesurfer.com

Tech teardowns, repairs, and reviews; sketches; how-to; games; and lots of other interesting geekery. At least one new video per month! Thanks for watching, and be sure to like, share, and subscribe!

“Shaving Mirror” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

TRANSCRIPT:

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okay so today we’re going to look at a

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very simple non hack that you can do

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more of more of a pro tip that you can

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do to turn a non wirelessly charging

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phone into a Qi compliant wireless

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charging phone that you can use with

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pretty much anything available market

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now I have tried this already with a

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piece of trash deal right there and of

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course it wasn’t she complained so do

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not recommend what you should do you

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should do the smart way and grab

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yourself a party grab this the case in

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the case of patriotism

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so I got the helmet on case here and you

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can see overview of that I’ll put a link

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somewhere as you can see the view of the

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case it’s a good little case that with

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no cream for a protective mouthpiece

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fishing form and then sort of a harder

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hair

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so the Carter classic partnership

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it’s nice because it steps look it

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allows the phones except last slide

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expenses which going to be imperative if

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we’re going to get a good connection and

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then I got this wireless charger on

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Amazon for in a couple bucks it’s not a

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big deal decreasing all over the place

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make sure you get one that she compliant

31
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as most of them are the long time most

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of them so I think this is a super

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simple not not even a real hack so we’ve

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got our little charging pad as you see

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it’s got the key icon air so you do know

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that it is Qi compliant or at least we

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hope that is Qi compliant you know but

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all we got to do is just plug this

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little guy here into BA and I’m going to

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actually put it I’m actually going to

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put the charger down here towards the

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bottom not actually going to Center it

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up on the phone on this particular model

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simply because you’re going to create

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there’s a little bit of thickness here

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with there’s a little circuit board in

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here and of course the antenna that adds

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a little bit of thickness so I’m going

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to stick it down here where the phone

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curves in just so it doesn’t create the

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bulge on the back of the phone that

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would allow that would make the phone

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sit and rock and do all the annoying

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things anyway so then so all we’re going

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to do is just place that there they’re

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going to that

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[Music]

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over them play nice and or Center down

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there on top slide enter squishy parked

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over that have an enforce lift the

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harder outer shot onto a mic back now we

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have a Moto X pure a little extra beep –

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that looks perhaps to it but it is it is

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flat on the back that’s nice it’s kind

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of nice weight – I like I like kind of

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this bp4 debuff that’s throwback to the

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old track very like – mom you know

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pulling up inside your head Zack Morris

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phone anyway so I liked a little bit of

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weight there it adds a substantial bit

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there and when I’m when I’m traveling

72
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when I’ve got this gun mounted it

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doesn’t shake quite so much just get a

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little more inertia to

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so that’s that and it really that is

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that is all there is to it is very

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simple hack I’ll throw it on the charger

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here so you can see what happens so here

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we have a G compliant charger that I

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picked up at IKEA me has this section

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from ten bucks on the way over there I

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don’t really care but it works we got to

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do is just stick that on there and as

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you see it’s now charging I mean that’s

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really all you got to do so if you liked

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the video and I’ll give it a thumbs up

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share with your friends and of course

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you know always subscribe that’s pretty

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cool too and until next time Cali oh

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yeah

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Oh