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Humans of New York went to Europe to see the refugee crisis firsthand. The photos are striking.

They're fleeing violence to an uncertain future.

This 76-year-old Greek baker has a new routine.

Every morning, Dionysis Arvanitakis asks his workers to make an extra 200 pounds of bread and pastries.

Photo by Brandon Stanton/Humans of New York, used with permission.

He then heads down to the port in his home of Kos, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea where an estimated 200,000 refugees have landed this year after fleeing conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, among other places. He passes out the loaves of bread to hungry migrants — a warm welcome for the often-weary travelers.

This is one of roughly a dozen stories captured by Humans of New York, a photo project that offers a glimpse into a person's life.

The photographer behind the effort, Brandon Stanton, was on the road in Europe, listening to the experiences of refugees and the people who have greeted them.

Here are some of the stories he's heard since launching the 10-day project on Sept. 25:

1. A baker who knows what it's like to be a migrant

So what motivates a person to devote their time, energy, and money to helping newcomers? For Arvanitakis, it's because he knows what it's like to be one.

He moved from Greece to Australia as a teenager and ended up sleeping on the street. His thoughts on the crisis, via Humans of New York:

"My father was a farmer and we had eight siblings. I went to Australia when I was fifteen because my family didn't have enough to eat. I was on a boat for forty days. When I got there, I couldn't find a job, I couldn't speak English, and I had to sleep on the street. I know what it's like. So everyday I drive the van to the port and hand out bread to the refugees. My son is my business partner. He says, 'Baba, please. It's fine to help. But not every day.' But I still go every day because I know what it feels like to have nothing."

2. Feeling grateful for a small gift

This group photographed in Lesbos, another Greek island in the Aegean (also written as Lesvos), appeared to have little to ease their journey to Europe but took comfort in a gift from a priest.

"Everyone here has been very nice to us. When we got to the beach, there were people there who gave us food and a hug. A priest even gave us this carpet to pray on. He told us: 'We have the same God.'"


Photo by Brandon Stanton/Humans of New York, used with permission.

3. A grief-stricken woman who lost her husband

She and her husband boarded a boat jam-packed with people — so overloaded that the luggage had to be thrown overboard. When it began to sink, her husband gave his life jacket to a woman, she said. She was later rescued; he wasn't found.

“My husband and I sold everything we had to afford the journey. We worked 15 hours a day in Turkey until we had enough money to leave. The smuggler put 152 of us on a boat. Once we saw the boat, many of us wanted to go back, but he told us that anyone who turned back would not get a refund. We had no choice. Both the lower compartment and the deck were filled with people. Waves began to come into the boat so the captain told everyone to throw their baggage into the sea. In the ocean we hit a rock, but the captain told us not to worry. Water began to come into the boat, but again he told us not to worry. We were in the lower compartment and it began to fill with water. It was too tight to move. Everyone began to scream. We were the last ones to get out alive. My husband pulled me out of the window. In the ocean, he took off his life jacket and gave it to a woman. We swam for as long as possible. After several hours he told me he that he was too tired to swim and that he was going to float on his back and rest. It was so dark we could not see. The waves were high. I could hear him calling me but he got further and further away. Eventually a boat found me. They never found my husband."


Photo by Brandon Stanton/Humans of New York, used with permission.

4. Families seeking refuge

Before they left home, this mother told her son that nearby explosions were far away. Then tragedy struck.

"They fired rockets from a mountain near our house. They were very loud, and every time he heard them, he'd run into his room and close the door. We'd tell him fake stories. We'd tell him that there was nothing to worry about, and that the rockets were far away and they would never reach us. Then one day after school he was waiting in a line of school buses. And a rocket hit the bus in front of him. Four of his friends were killed."


Photo by Brandon Stanton/Humans of New York, used with permission.

5. A vital effort from volunteers

This family has aided thousands of migrants as they've arrived in Greece, handing out sandwiches, juice, and water. Even their son has noticed how serious the crisis has become.

“In the past four months alone, we've had twelve thousand refugees stop here. We know because we've counted the sandwiches that we've handed out. They show up battered and beaten. We set up this rest area along the road to hand out sandwiches, juice, and water. One night we had one thousand people here. You could see nothing but heads. We're not professionals, just volunteers. The families break our heart the most. They show up with no money, no papers, and no hotels. Sometimes it's raining and they have nothing but cardboard over their heads. They have nothing for their children, and we know how hard it is to raise kids even in standard conditions. Our son hasn't seen very much of us recently. Even when we are together, the phone is always ringing and we are absent in mind. Recently he asked if we could build a big boat and send the refugees somewhere that there is no war."


Photo by Brandon Stanton/Humans of New York, used with permission.

6. A father desperate to provide a better future for his daughter

"She hasn't known many happy moments," he told Stanton. The man recalled a powerful scene as the family boarded a small boat to Greece.

"I wish I could have done more for her. Her life has been nothing but struggle. She hasn't known many happy moments. She never had a chance to taste childhood. When we were getting on the plastic boat, I heard her say something that broke my heart. She saw her mother being crushed by the crowd, and she screamed: 'Please don't kill my mother! Kill me instead!'"


Photo by Brandon Stanton/Humans of New York, used with permission.

7. A traumatized young girl

Stanton approached a young girl and asked to speak to her mother. The request seemed simple enough, but it triggered a look he described as "uncontrollable fear." A life on the run had conditioned her to expect the worst.

"The extent to which refugee children have been conditioned by their environment is heartbreaking. We wanted permission to take this young girl's photograph, so we asked if her mother was nearby. Her eyes filled with the most uncontrollable fear that I've ever seen in a child. 'Why do you want my mother?' she asked. Later, her parents told us how the family had crouched in the woods while soldiers ransacked their house in Syria. More recently they'd been chased through the woods by Turkish police. After we'd spent a few minutes talking with her parents, she returned to being a child and could not stop hugging us, and laughing, and saying 'I love you so much.' But I went to sleep that night remembering the terror on her face when we first asked to speak to her mother."


Photo by Brandon Stanton/Humans of New York, used with permission.

8. A man who wants to see his brother healthy again

After a sniper shot his brother, he thought the injuries would be fatal, the man told Stanton. His brother survived but needs medical attention, something he's hoping to find in Germany.

"A friend called me at work and told me that a sniper had shot my youngest brother. I rushed to the clinic and he was lying there with a bandage on his head. I unwrapped the bandage to help treat the wound with alcohol, and small pieces of brain were stuck to it. The doctor told me: 'Unless you get him to Damascus, he will die.' I panicked. The road to Damascus went straight through Raqqa and was very dangerous. It took ten hours, because we could only take back roads and we had to drive very far out of the way. My brother was in the back seat, and after a very short time he started to vomit bile. Water was pouring from his eyes. I didn't know what to do. I was so scared. I thought for sure he was dying. But somehow I got him to the hospital. He's paralyzed now and his speech is slow. His memory is OK. He can remember old things. He needs an operation in his eye. We used to do everything together, and now he can't do anything. He can only move his hand. I'm trying to get him to Germany because I hear that maybe the doctors there can help him."

Photo by Brandon Stanton/Humans of New York, used with permission.

9. Finding a friend when you need one most

This young man was taken under the wing of a baker in Austria (these bakers have big hearts!) who helped him settle there. He studied German intensely to help obtain legal immigration status in the country.

"After one month, I arrived in Austria. The first day I was there, I walked into a bakery and met a man named Fritz Hummel. He told me that forty years ago he had visited Syria and he'd been treated well. So he gave me clothes, food, everything. He became like a father to me. He took me to the Rotary Club and introduced me to the entire group. He told them my story and asked: 'How can we help him?' I found a church, and they gave me a place to live. Right away I committed myself to learning the language. I practiced German for 17 hours a day. I read children's stories all day long. I watched television. I tried to meet as many Austrians as possible. After seven months, it was time to meet with a judge to determine my status. I could speak so well at this point, that I asked the judge if we could conduct the interview in German. He couldn't believe it. He was so impressed that I'd already learned German, that he interviewed me for only ten minutes. Then he pointed at my Syrian ID card and said: 'Muhammad, you will never need this again. You are now an Austrian!'"


Photo by Brandon Stanton/Humans of New York, used with permission.

Sometimes the political debate over immigration can muffle the human stories.

The scale of the refugee crisis can seem overwhelming. According to The New York Times, six countries — Germany, Austria, Hungary, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Finland — expect 1.3 million asylum applications by the end of the year.

But these stories help us remember that behind each of these numbers is a person, someone willing to risk their life for a better future.

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Family

Mom gives a tour of her typical 'middle-class home' and it's exactly what people needed

"There is just so much pressure on social media to be perfect."

@steph_murphy/TikTok

Stephanie Murphy shares her "average" home in viral TikTok video.

Sure, it’s lovely to see pristine, perfectly curated homes that look like they belong in Architectural Digest. A little inspo never hurt anyone. But as we all know, the spotless life is simply not an achievable reality, especially for those with busy lives and limited budgets (read: most of us).

But you know what? Maybe even the messy homes deserve some love. The ones with constant junk piles, unfinished projects, dirty dishes, and misplaced toys. The homes that will never grace the cover of a magazine but still do a wonderful job of containing all the moments life has to offer—the big, small, extraordinary, mundane, and everywhere in between. 'Cause at the end of the day, isn’t that a home’s true purpose anyway?


@stephsharesitall

Lets normalize “average” because there is nothing wrong with it. Everywhere you look on social media you see big gorgeous houses in perfect condition and its hard not to compare yours to them. But its not the norm and half the time its staged. Our house is lived in, and its filled with love and tons of memories and at the end of the day thats all that matters.

Stephanie Murphy, a mom and TikTok creator, seems to think so. Murphy recently took viewers on an “average house tour,” and it was the exact opposite of aspirational. Highlighted in Murphy’s tour are the pantry door that’s remained unpainted for three years, blinds held together with binder clips, air conditioners held in place by duct tape, a full dish rack tray that’s “a permanent fixture” on their countertops, and not one but two junk drawers (honestly, that’s a little low by my count). You’ll also notice a fridge that is covered in her kid’s artwork and school pictures. Not in any cohesive way, but merely thrown on randomly, as nature intended.

Meanwhile, in the master bedroom, Murphy and her husband’s bed have two separate blankets because neither of them like to share. A genius idea, and just another example of how we really, really don’t need to continue with marital sleeping norms that don’t actually feel comfortable.

As for why Murphy decided to showcase her “average, middle-class house,” it’s all in the caption of her video: “Let’s normalize ‘average’ because there is nothing wrong with it. Everywhere you look on social media, you see big gorgeous houses in perfect condition and it’s hard not to compare yours to them. But it’s not the norm and half the time it's staged. Our house is lived in, and it’s filled with love and tons of memories and at the end of the day that's all that matters."

She further explained her reasoning to Good Morning America. "I feel like social media is full of one perfectly curated video after another, and there is just so much pressure from social media to be perfect in all aspects -- to have perfect skin, perfect makeup, perfect outfit, perfect house. And the reality is no one's perfect," Murphy said.

"Honestly, I feel like there's a very good chance that all those videos that we see were staged and they probably like, moved a pile of toys behind the camera to film and then moved it back when they were done. But that's the part that people on social media just aren't sharing. They don't show you the behind-the-scenes and that is what I was looking to change," she continued.


Judging from the comments sections of this now-viral post, it seems like other people are ready for more average content.

“This is awesome! I’m constantly feeling inadequate when people have a perfect house that looks like nobody lives there!” one person wrote. “I feel seen,” added another.

Hear, hear. No need to feel inadequate about having a home that’s lived in. Imperfection has its own kind of beauty.

This article originally appeared two years ago.

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Joy

It's just sweater holes being mended by hand, but people can't look away

It's like watching a magic trick.

Photo credit: Canva

Knowing how to properly darn holes in sweaters is a useful skill.

For most of human history, people had to make their own clothing by hand, and sewing skills were subsequently passed down from generation to generation. Because clothing was so time-consuming and labor-intensive to make, people also had to know how to repair clothing items that got torn or damaged in some way.

The invention of sewing and knitting machines changed the way we acquire clothing, and the skills people used to possess have largely gone by the wayside. If we get a hole in a sock nowadays, we toss it and replace it. Most of us have no idea how to darn a sock or fix a hole in any knit fabric. Unfortunately, it's far easier for us to replace than to repair.

mending a sock, darning socks, darning sweater, fixing a hole in a sweater, knittingMost of us don't darn socks anyomore.Photo credit: Canva

But there are still some among us who do have the skills to repair clothing in a way that makes it look like the rip, tear or hole never happened, and to watch them do it is mesmerizing.

Videos of people stitching holes in knit sweaters have gone viral on social media with millions of views on simple, 2-minute demonstrations. Why? Well, you just have to see it in action.

One video begins by showing a hole in a light pink knit sweater. Using a needle, yarn and a tiny latch hook device, the person demonstrates how to fill the hole to make it look as if it never existed in the first place. Putting a patch over a hole is one thing, but this is something akin to magic.

Watch:

- YouTubeyoutube.com

Wow, right?

Another video begins by showing a hole in a gray knit sweater, but this time a yellow yarn is used to patch the hole so you can see clearly what was done. It looks so simple, but you really do have to know what you're doing to make this magic work.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

What we're witnessing here is a combo of knowledge and experience in the fiber arts, of course, but what it looks like is sheer sorcery or some kind of really complicated calculus problem. Who figured out how to do this? And why is it so satisfying to watch?

"I watched this whole video and I still don’t know how you did that," shared one commenter. (Right?!)

"Hey that was pretty neat," wrote another. "Can you do the ozone layer next?" (Ha.)

"I could watch it a hundred times and still not be able to do this," wrote another. (Uh, same.)

"My toxic trait is thinking I can do this 😂😂😂," shared another. (Maybe after watching it two hundred times.)

Many people found it oddly soothing to watch, perhaps because seeing something being fixed is indeed satisfying and perhaps because it harkens back to a simpler time when people spent their evenings doing things like this around the fire.

The music helps, too. This video demonstrates three different ways to mend sweater holes and the piano practically lulls you into a meditative state while you watch. Is this fiber arts therapy for those of us who don't sew or knit or crochet? Maybe so. Whatever works, right?

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Kudos to those who are keeping these kinds of skills alive and sharing them with the world. We may not be passing this kind of knowledge down in most families anymore, but at least we have the internet to help us if we really want to learn it.

This article originally appeared three years ago.

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Pop Culture

'Wicked' author reveals how one line in 'The Wizard of Oz' inspired Elphaba and Glinda's story

Gregory Maguire says he "fell down to the ground" laughing when the idea hit him.

Public domain

Gregory Maguire was inspired by a line in the original 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz."

Have you ever watched a movie or read a book or listened to a piece of music and wondered, "How did they come up with that idea?" The creative process is so enigmatic even artists themselves don't always know where their ideas come from, so It's a treat when we get to hear the genesis of a brilliant idea straight from the horse's mouth. If you've watched "Wicked" and wondered where the idea for the friendship between Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) and Glinda (the Good Witch) came from, the author of the book has shared the precise moment it came to him.

The hit movie "Wicked" is based on the 20-year-old hit stage musical, which is based on the novel "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" written by Gregory Maguire. While the musical is a simplified version of the 1995 book, the basic storyline—the origins of the two witches from "The Wizard of Oz"—lies at the heart of both. In an interview with BBC, Maguire explained how Elphaba and Glinda's friendship popped into his head.

Maguire was visiting Beatrix Potter's farm in Cumbria, England, and thinking about "The Wizard of Oz," which he had loved as a child and thought could be an interesting basis for a story about evil.

"I thought 'alright, what do we know about 'The Wizard of Oz' from our memories,'" he said. "We have the house falling on the witch. What do we know about that witch? All we know about that witch is that she has feet. So I began to think about Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West…

"There is one scene in the 1939 film where Billie Burke comes down looking all pink and fluffy, and Margaret Hamilton is all crawed and crabbed and she says something like, 'I might have known you'd be behind this, Glinda!' This was my memory, and I thought, now why is she using Glinda's first name? They have known each other. Maybe they've known each other for a long time. Maybe they went to college together. And I fell down onto the ground in the Lake District laughing at the thought that they had gone to college together."

In "Wicked," Glinda and the Wicked Witch, Elphaba, meet as students at Shiz University, a school of wizardry. They get placed as roommates, loathe each other at first, but eventually become best friends. The story grows a lot more complicated from there (and the novel goes darker than the stage play), but it's the character development of the two witches and their relationship with one another that force us to examine our ideas about good and evil.


- YouTubeyoutu.be

Maguire also shared with the Denver Center for Performing Arts what had inspired him to use the "Wizard of Oz" characters in the first place.

"I was living in London in the early 1990’s during the start of the Gulf War. I was interested to see how my own blood temperature chilled at reading a headline in the usually cautious British newspaper, the Times of London: 'Sadaam Hussein: The New Hitler?' I caught myself ready to have a fully formed political opinion about the Gulf War and the necessity of action against Sadaam Hussein on the basis of how that headline made me feel. The use of the word Hitler – what a word! What it evokes! When a few months later several young schoolboys kidnapped and killed a toddler, the British press paid much attention to the nature of the crime. I became interested in the nature of evil, and whether one really could be born bad. I considered briefly writing a novel about Hitler but discarded the notion due to my general discomfort with the reality of those times. But when I realized that nobody had ever written about the second most evil character in our collective American subconscious, the Wicked Witch of the West, I thought I had experienced a small moment of inspiration. Everybody in America knows who the Wicked Witch of the West is, but nobody really knows anything about her. There is more to her than meets the eye."

Authors and artists—and their ideas—help hold a mirror up to humanity for us to see and reflect on who we are, and "Wicked" is one of those stories that makes us take a hard look at what we're seeing in that mirror. Thanks, Gregory Maguire, for launching us on a collective journey that not only entertains but has the potential to change how we see one another.

This story originally appeared last year.

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Pets

After no one showed up for a puppy's first birthday party strangers on the Internet stepped in

"I love how they posted the flyers at different heights. One for the dogs and one for the humans."

Photo by Hedi Alija on Unsplash

Party of one for dog's birthday.

Decades after the trend first emerged, people are still debating whether dog birthday parties are cool or "too extra." One woman on TikTok threw her tiny one-year-old puppy, Angel, a party and claimed no one came. In response, she received nearly 30,000 comments from people expressing their sadness that such an adorable puppy looked so distraught. They followed up with thousands of birthday wishes and heart emojis. (Turns out that Angel, who's a Brussels Griffon, has over 700,000 followers and her own manager, so she seems to be doing okay.)


dogs, birthday parties, birthday, pups, dog birthdayThree dogs wearing party hats. Photo by Pawtography Perth on Unsplash


Tons of people online have opinions about whether hound parties should even exist. An OP on Quora asked, "Why do pet owners throw birthday parties for their pets?" One commenter kept it simple: "Because it’s fun. That’s why. Dogs have about the same mental functioning as a toddler when it comes to navigating interactions with human beings. Do you think a baby has any clue what’s going on when you throw a 1st birthday party? Probably not, but you can see it brings them joy and you enjoy it too, so why not?"


@angelpawspups

Nobody came to his birthday 😞💔🎂 #sad #sadvideo #dog #dogparty #birthday #dogbirthday #puppy #brusselsgriffon


As for the logistics of it all, in the subreddit r/dogs, a Redditor posted: "Dog birthday party help: We adopted our good boy 3 years ago next week and we want to have a little party in our backyard with neighborhood dogs. Any tips or ideas on how to make it fun and keep it safe/contained?"

A commenter had excellent advice as to only having well-behaved dogs in attendance: "Hand out invitations with your pup in tow, to neighbors as they walk their dogs, and assess any behavioral incompatibilities before even mentioning anything."

And this wisdom was aimed at helping alleviate a dog-mob mentality when it came to treats: "You could do goodie bags for people to take as they leave, tied in a poop bag."


@lelepons

Happy Birthday my baby Toby 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

While some seemed adverse to the idea, more and more people are embracing their canine hoe-downs, whether it's an actual birthday or a "gotcha" day, for those lucky rescue animals out there. Recently, in the subreddit r/aww, someone posted a flyer of a puppy in a red party hat, with the caption, "Wuff, wuff, wuff, arf, woof, woof, ruff." A date and time followed by more woofs, arfs, and ruffs, then "nom nom (cake!) Come! Bark less…Maybe." As someone who's fluent in "dog," I can tell you that's a solid invite to what sounds like an off-the-chain party.

This post already has over 50,000 upvotes and nearly a thousand comments. Even more exciting, people actually went to the party and posted some photos in the Reddit thread. An amazing time seemed to be had by all!

gif, dogs, dog birthday party, birthday, party, party hatsHappy Birthday GIFGiphy

Days before the event, one eagle-eyed viewer had a compliment for the flyer itself. "I love how they posted the flyers at different heights. One for the dogs and one for the humans."

Another viewer had excellent advice for those searching for a companion on say, Tinder: "Are you single? I have a strong vibe if you go you are going to meet someone that you will really want to know." Not sure if they meant a dog-friend or a human-companion, but, either way, hopefully it all panned out.

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Education

The simple trick neuroscientists say will help you learn any new skill a lot faster

Humans are like sponges.

via Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

A woman learning how to play guitar

Learning a new skill, such as playing an instrument, gardening or picking up a new language, takes a lot of time and practice, whether that means scale training, learning about native plants or using flashcards to memorize new words. To improve through practice, you have to perform the task repeatedly while also receiving feedback so you know whether you’re doing it correctly or not. Is my pitch correct? Did my geraniums bloom? Is my pronunciation understandable?

However, a new study by researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Oregon shows that you can speed up the processes by adding a third element to practice and feedback: passive exposure. The good news is that passive exposure requires minimal effort and is enjoyable.

"Active learning of a... task requires both expending effort to perform the task and having access to feedback about task performance," the study authors explained. "Passive exposure to sensory stimuli, on the other hand, is relatively effortless and does not require feedback about performance."

gardening, exposure, positive exposure, nueroscience, woman and book, readingA woman reading a book about house plants.via cottonbro studio/Pexels

How to pick up new skills faster?

So, if you’re learning to play the blues on guitar, listen to plenty of Howlin’ Wolf or Robert Johnson throughout the day. If you’re learning to cook, keep the Food Network on TV all day to absorb some great culinary advice. Learning to garden? Take the time to notice the flora and fauna in your neighborhood or make frequent trips to your local botanical garden.

If you’re learning a new language, watch plenty of TV and films in the language you are learning.

The scientists add that auditory learning is especially helpful, so listen to plenty of audiobooks or podcasts on the subject you’re learning about.

What is passive exposure?

Researchers learned the tremendous benefits of passive exposure after conducting a study with a group of mice. They trained them to find water, using various sounds to give either positive or negative feedback, like playing a game of “hot or cold.” Some mice were passively exposed to these sounds when they weren't looking for water. Those who experienced this additional passive exposure and their active training learned to find the water reward faster.

exposure, positive exposure, nueroscience, woman and headphones, music, listeningA woman listening to music in bedvia Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

“Our results suggest that, in mice and in humans, a given performance threshold can be achieved with relatively less effort by combining low-effort passive exposure with active training,” James Murray, a neuroscientist who led the study, told University of Oregon News. “This insight could be helpful for humans learning an instrument or a second language, though more work will be needed to better understand how this applies to more complex tasks and how to optimize training schedules that combine passive exposure with active training.”

The one drawback to this study was that it was conducted on mice, not humans. However, recent studies on humans have found similar results, such as in sports. If you visualize yourself excelling at the sport or mentally rehearse a practice routine, it can positively affect your actual performance. Showing, once again, that when it comes to picking up a new skill, exposure is key.

The great news about the story is that, in addition to giving people a new way to approach learning, it’s an excuse for us to enjoy the things we love even more. If you enjoy listening to blues music so much that you decided to learn for yourself, it’s another reason to make it an even more significant part of your life.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

This article originally appeared last year.

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