<whitequark>
ELLIOTTCABLE: you've said several days ago something along the lines of "programmers mustn't design languages; UI designers should"
<whitequark>
my initial knee-jerk reaction would be "just fuck off", because I realized that quite likely that would lead to a bad case of iPhone: a product which does basics very well, and non-basics doesn't.
<whitequark>
but then I understood that this peculiarity, which I despise, certainly was an express goal (which then was cargo-culted where it belonged and where it didn't)
<whitequark>
I think you know it already, though
<whitequark>
I wonder if it's possible to describe X in "X to languages is what Sublime Text is to editors"
<whitequark>
does that even make any sense
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<ELLIOTTCABLE>
alexgordon: oh really?
<cuttle>
whitequark: well sublime text just seems like a kinda nice editor, not like something revolutionary or anything
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
whitequark: I'm glad we understand eachother well (=
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
hi, cuttle
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
devyn, joelteon: I have a ~/Code folder, with ~/Code/Source being where all the shit I contribute less than two patches to goes, and ~/Code being where anything I contribute more than two patches to, goes
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
other than that, the only organization is A) by modification-time, and B) a special ~/Code/Paws folder, in which are a dozen or so Paws projects
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<whitequark>
ELLIOTTCABLE: sarcasm? :)
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
Nope.
<whitequark>
cuttle: I think it hits a local optimum
<whitequark>
which is not something you do accidentally.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I disagree mildly with the premise, but nonetheless, you've pretty much nailed me, and what I care about, on the cuff.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
You're just wrong in your assumption that it's silly, or doesn't matter.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
As, you know, evidenced by the insane popularity of the iPhone, and how much it's changed each and every owners' life.
<whitequark>
uh, I totally did not mean that it doesn't matter
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
We're very similar, you and I. Just *opposite*.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
If you graphed us out and mirrored us, we'd probably be the same person.
<whitequark>
well
<whitequark>
I don't despise design, or UI design, per se.
<whitequark>
I despise a particular flavor of it, made (and excellently so) to appeal to a mass consumer.
<whitequark>
it's a problem which was solved very well, it simply was a wrong (if you ask me) problem.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
which is so very, very backwards. All that should matter is whether or not a product helps the mass consumer.
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<whitequark>
quantity over quality, sort of
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
not at all.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
Can't get quantity *without* quality.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
It may not be quality that *you care about*, but it's definitely got bags 'n fuckin' bags of quality.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
It's got quality oozing out its anus and eardrums.
<whitequark>
and I agree with that?
<whitequark>
what I don't agree with, is yours/Apple's definition of "helps", and that quantity, as itself, is something to be attracted to.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
you'll have to elaborate on that
<whitequark>
as in, "it helps consumer" is not the same as "makes consumer give you shitloads of money"
<whitequark>
or, said another way
<whitequark>
a consumer is happy when a product solves his problems, so on one hand, a product which solves the problems very well is good
<whitequark>
but what's better is to avoid problems in the first place
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
This article is oh-so-interesting.
<whitequark>
as per the other part
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I love this guy *so much*. He takes topics that are inherently boring (at least, to me) and makes them so very accessible and downright interesting.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
“Then we interpolate linearly between the last two values until we run out of physics again.”
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
until we run out of physics :D
<whitequark>
if you're a publicly traded company, it makes sense to have a product appealing to as much people as possible as your top priority
<whitequark>
but it doesn't have any intrinsic value
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
What the *fuck* is “Verlet integration.”
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
Like, he calls it magical, and it damn-well seems like it is.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
alexgordon WAKE UP AND TEACH ME MATSH.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I think your problem is in your concept of intrinsic value, whitequark
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
A product that is worth X dollars to A person, is generally worth X dollars because it's X-dollars-of-useful to them.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
(We can argue all day about marketing and what the fuck ever, not going there.)
<whitequark>
I didn't say that intrinsic value exists at all
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
An iPhone useful to your grandmother because it has a half-arsed voice-activation service, *that nonetheless works for her*, is better than an awesomePhone that has a Grand Time/Space Differentiator that can Teleport her to China™,
<whitequark>
very well
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
is better than an awesomePhone with a *perfect* voice-activation service that nonetheless doesn't have a U/X inherently simple and understandable for her to use,
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
is better than an awesomePhone with an unbeatable amazing perfect U/X that doesn't have a family-member to walk her through her first days with it ...
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
… etcetcetcetcetc
<whitequark>
that's phones, though.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
no, that's everything.
<whitequark>
we have specialization for a reason
<whitequark>
you are not a plumber. your grandmother is not, and should not, be a programmer
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
product M is worth X dollars to person A, because it is of α usefulness to person A.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
and the important insight here is that α is *directly correspondant* to X.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
thus, a product worth $100 to 1,000,000 people, has more *intrinisic value* as you put it, in the world, to our society, to our species,
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
than a product so amazing and excellent that it's worth $10,000,000 to one person.
<whitequark>
for a product to be worth something to a person, that person need not buy the product directly.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
or, more realistically, a product worth $5,000, to 10,000 people.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
and that, is exactly where I disagree.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
the argument that works for plumbers absolutely does not work for programmers,
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
because your grandmother is *already* a programmer.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
she logs in and manipulates her Facebook privacy settings.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
she arranges mail-forwarding between her old Hotmail, and her Gmail accounts.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
she configures her iPhone to switch to do-not-disturb automatically at 11:00PM.
<whitequark>
(probably not, lol, but it doesn't matter)
<purr>
lol
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
This is 2013, computers are *everywhere*, and **everybody is a programmer**.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
Anybody who is *not* a programmer, is the equivalent of somebody who is not literate: they are, while sadly, *very realistically*, pointless in the modern world.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
They are fit, *maybe*, to milk some cows. Preform the equivalent of what, two centuries ago, they would have termed ‘menial labour.’
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
Everybody who touches a computer or swipes on a smartphone; everyone who *drives a modern car* or *changes the family's thermostat* is a programmer.
<whitequark>
yes yes, enough with that rhetoric, I get it
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
And what we do, in making computers easier to control, is The Only Thing That Matters, except A) teaching people the steps to *get* here, and B) getting into space.
* ELLIOTTCABLE
shrugs
<purr>
¯\(º_o)/¯
<whitequark>
it's still wrong though, because it's just stretching the terminology, or, if you want
<whitequark>
because "programmers", as you treat them, is an incredibly wide group of people, much, much wider than the group of people using phones (I'll elaborate on that),
<whitequark>
and it doesn't really make sense to judge them as a single group, at all.
<whitequark>
you have to divide this spectrum into lesser, more useful chunks.
<whitequark>
the lowest end of it is, arguably, pretty well-researched and known. does the rules established there apply further up? I don't really know, I think no, and I'm very certainly not taking it for granted.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
… just as phone-users divides into everyday smartphone users, power-smartphone-users, grandma-smartphone-users …
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<whitequark>
the complexity of what you can do with a phone is limited by, well, it being a phone. the complexity of programming, in general, is not limited at all.
<whitequark>
it's like saying that we know such-and-such rules of making good metal bars, and extending that to entirety of the engineering.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
it's *not* limited.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
it's only limited by what *needs* to be done.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
And I argue that the subset of the population that *needs* a phone capable of launching rockets to the moon is very very small,
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
and a subset that is currently unfilled.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
someday, it will probably be filled.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
the biggest problem with programming as a whole (as I was treating it earlier, in terms of *interactions with computers*, by Humans™, that use these wonderful machines to provide *leverage* in their lives, make them more useful and productive Humans™), is that it is unbalanced.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
unbalanced, unfortunately, in the *opposite* direction from phones.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
That ridiculously small group of people who need phones which can launch space-ships?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
yeah, *we've* got all the amazing theory, and tools, and advanced-ified technology and mathematical magic and development-time that you can imagine.
<whitequark>
I actually think that you yourself highlighted the gap
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
but we're the 1%. And we're *ignoring* the 99%, except to give them Facebook privacy settings (if you presume the 99% to only be fucking cishet white American males), or alternatively, to give them NOTHING AT ALL (if you actually take the unleveraged, illiterate third world, full of Humans™ who can't leverage their lives into excellence with computers *at
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
all*, into account.)
<whitequark>
on one side, you have Facebook privacy settings and silent mode after 23:00, and so on. on other side, you have... turing-complete stuff, generally.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
‘programming’ shouldn't be divided into A) Facebook's privacy settings and my father's iPhone's ability to schedule sleep patterns, and B) MotherFucking Haskell, Bitch™
<whitequark>
for *both* cases, your most important ever thing to do is:
<whitequark>
make it easier for humans to argue about dynamic behavior as locally as possible.
<whitequark>
aka, good design.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
with the only attempt at something in the middle being a horribly-executed, nobody-really-put-any-care-into-it visual copy of the ‘MotherFucking Programming Languages’ from 2006.
<whitequark>
yes, that is what I was going to say
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
anyway. need to go eat.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
you can really, easily summarize *me*, and what I care about or will argue for online, as:
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
‘Wants that graph to be a bell-curve.’
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
or ‘Wants to *make* that graph more of a bell-curve.’
<whitequark>
I think the problem here is more fundamental
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
Whether that's taking blind stabs at the completely unpopulated middle,
<yorick>
ELLIOTTCABLE: wouldn't you rather want just any kind of binomial distribution?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
or pumping up the anemic low-end (making Facebook's privacy settings more usable, for instance),
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
or shoving some of the over-hyped high-end downwards to fill in the middle-high.
<whitequark>
well
<whitequark>
then we just agree
<whitequark>
if you actually insist on research instead of cargo-culting some existing UI testaments onto the new field.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I think a lot of what we disagree about, is whether people ‘know what's best for them’
<whitequark>
they don't?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
You don't think they do.
<whitequark>
i.e., I don't think they do.
<whitequark>
yes.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
whereas I think what *they* think, is all that matters.
<whitequark>
(by the way, isn't that, like, Apple motto?)
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I see this feeling in the programming-capable, atheistic, liberal community a lot: “It's all marketing.” “Anything marketed is a lie.”
<whitequark>
(which they execute with great success. do something cool, shove it into throats, everyone thinks it's crap, then it's all amazing.)
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
Marketing's hugely important to *leverage* what you have, but marketing, across all categories, is an equal. You can *under-*market your idea or product, but you can't over-market it. You *actually do* have to change people's lives.
ELLIOTTCABLE changed the topic of #elliottcable to: — do something cool, shove it into throats, everyone thinks it's crap, then it's all amazing.
ELLIOTTCABLE changed the topic of #elliottcable to: #ELLIOTTCABLE — do something cool, shove it into throats, everyone thinks it's crap, then it's all amazing.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
need to run get food.
<whitequark>
sure
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
excellent topic. would love to chat more when I get back.
<whitequark>
then explain what the hell did you mean
<whitequark>
yeah
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
what the hell did I mean about what?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
“These are signs that calculus is hiding somewhere.”
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
BEST THING
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
“Surprise, physics!”
<whitequark>
offtopic: you said "atheist", and I just realized: there's a third option, it's called "I do not identify myself with a group of people based on my religious beliefs or lack thereof", and that's how you stay sane
<whitequark>
"x-ist" is sold to you as "I agree with dictionary definition of x-ism", but actually that is "I agree and belong to a group of people callign themselves x-ists", and the two have literally nothing in common.
<whitequark>
I think there was a bunch of essays about this on feminism, lately, but it's applicable in general.
<whitequark>
also, sort of obvious.
<whitequark>
(what the hell did you mean) well, just continue
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<evaryont>
ELLIOTTCABLE: 'sup
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
Hi! Web-gateway? Really?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
evaryont: I've got irccloud invites, if you'd like one.
<evaryont>
ooh, interesting
<evaryont>
not sure if I would use it much though
<evaryont>
I'm just too lazy to open my laptop which has a bouncer
* whitequark
pokes ELLIOTTCABLE
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
hi
<purr>
ELLIOTTCABLE: hi!
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
what
<whitequark>
ELLIOTTCABLE: 13:29 <+ELLIOTTCABLE> excellent topic. would love to chat more when I get back.
<whitequark>
so
<whitequark>
you seemingly contradict yourself
<whitequark>
on one hand, "people know what they want". on other one, "shove it into their throats".
<whitequark>
elaborate?
<evaryont>
bbl, I must sleep and drive and work and be boring.
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<whitequark>
by the way, FEZ is fucking awesome
<whitequark>
both from the view of a programmer and a player.
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<ELLIOTTCABLE>
omg this animation of convolving
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
but I don't understand, I don't understand ;_;
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
“At certain points, the lag is close to 0, when the resonance frequency matches and slides into phase. When applied to animation, resonant filters can create jelly-like motions. When applied to electronic music at about 220 Hz, you get Acid House.”
<cuttle>
whitequark: sure, math is great, but 50% of computer science is math and the other 50% is people, and there is no point in ignoring people
<cuttle>
whitequark: like, being all virtuous and refusing to make things fit the structure of the human brain
<cuttle>
humans are the only things in the universe that can decide what matters
<cuttle>
so basically making things fit the human brain is all that matters
<cuttle>
like, that's not exactly how i meant to say it
<cuttle>
but like, you're not appeasing hyper-logical aliens who will kill us if we're too wishy-washy and user-friendly. all you're doing is just hurting the quality of life of everyone everywhere if you insist on not making things fit human cognition
<cuttle>
whitequark: yeah fez is just so so so polished
<cuttle>
so much care went into every detail
<whitequark>
cuttle: re cognition
<whitequark>
I explicitly support the opposite
<whitequark>
13:21 <+whitequark> for *both* cases, your most important ever thing to do is:
<whitequark>
13:22 <+whitequark> make it easier for humans to argue about dynamic behavior as locally as possible.
<whitequark>
13:22 <+whitequark> aka, good design.
<whitequark>
math doesn't even come into the big picture.
<whitequark>
math is how you *implement* things.
<yorickpeterse>
math is hard
<cuttle>
whitequark: there's no reason you can't do both
<whitequark>
cuttle: I don't see why
<whitequark>
why would I want that.
<cuttle>
...because your'e a human
<cuttle>
and everyone else is a human
<cuttle>
and you want your tools to gain usage in the market, and you want to improve yours and everyone else's quality of life
<whitequark>
um, what?
<whitequark>
did you understand what I just wrote?
<whitequark>
I never *ignored* people. Quite the opposite.
<whitequark>
What I was saying (earlier) is that there is a difference between making a good instrument for people and making an instrument anyone could use.
* cuttle
nods
<cuttle>
but you dislike the iphone/UI design
<whitequark>
I dislike iphone design, and the fact that for far too much people, iphone design = ui design in general.
<whitequark>
it's not even fair to compare it to literacy
<whitequark>
iphone is a tool for communication. talking, if you wish. for centuries, pretty much anyone could talk to anyone.
<whitequark>
grmpf, too sleepy to explain myself coherently
<cuttle>
iphone is *so* much more than a tool for talking
<cuttle>
._.
<cuttle>
god
* cuttle
skips class again because i'm too sick to feel like going anywhere
<whitequark>
cuttle: the rest follows naturally
<yorickpeterse>
isn't the iPhone also a way for the NSA/Apple to track you wherever you go?
<whitequark>
all cellular phones are
<yorickpeterse>
Mine isn't, Firefox OS is too buggy for that
<cuttle>
whitequark: not at all. we had phones for talking for decades before we had phones that let us text, and again before we had "phones" that let us play games and read the news and listen to music and shit
<alexgordon>
whitequark: I kind of agree
<alexgordon>
cuttle: the iphone's primary function is communication
<alexgordon>
whether that be by phone, email, text message, facetime, whatever
<cuttle>
alexgordon: look at ipod touches
<cuttle>
much less communication
<alexgordon>
right, they're not iphones
<cuttle>
but all the other stuff that is part of an iphone
<alexgordon>
cuttle: ok but just taking the communication part of the iphone
<cuttle>
they demonstrate that communication isn't the *primary* function, since there's a market for the iphone minus communication
<alexgordon>
yeah yeah ok, it's a major function then
<alexgordon>
if not primary
<cuttle>
alexgordon: ok, just taking the communication part, I would agree the primary function of that is to communicate
<alexgordon>
:P
<cuttle>
:P
<alexgordon>
I meant, if we could just talk about the design of it for communication, which is a major use of a phone
<alexgordon>
it's not that great
<alexgordon>
there's all these different "apps" for communication in different mediums
<alexgordon>
with different identities
<alexgordon>
it doesn't feel unified
<cuttle>
yeah
<cuttle>
but i mean that's probably good
<cuttle>
we communicate just fine and i don't think we'd communicate any better if it were unified
<alexgordon>
you still have to think *how* you are going to communicate using, instead of what you want to say
<cuttle>
well that will *always* be true
<alexgordon>
need it be?
<cuttle>
we do it on a very unconscious level
<cuttle>
like we have forever
<whitequark>
the fact that you have all of sms, facebook and email is more due to corporate interests
<cuttle>
we adapt to communications media
<whitequark>
it's the same shit basically
<cuttle>
whitequark: not really
<alexgordon>
it doesn't seem as futuristic as I'd like
<whitequark>
cuttle: how so?
<alexgordon>
I want to say "send this photo to mum"
<cuttle>
twitter and facebook are *very* different in purpose from sms and email
<cuttle>
and sms and email are built on entirely different communications infrastructures
<cuttle>
so you can't realistically talk about merging them
<cuttle>
beyond what's already been done
<whitequark>
infrastructure? fuck that
<alexgordon>
not "take a photo, click the share button, type in mum's email address, type in a subject, send the email"
<whitequark>
apart from that mms = email, pretty much
<cuttle>
sure facebook *messages*, but faceboo as a whole
<whitequark>
so no
<cuttle>
whitequark: uh infrastrcture is how things are in the *real world*
<whitequark>
cuttle: hence "corporate interests"
<cuttle>
if you want to define
<whitequark>
and as I've said: mms already pretty much is email. it's not a problem.
<cuttle>
constraints on physics and physical resources
<cuttle>
as corporate interests
<cuttle>
then sure
<whitequark>
um, nope
<alexgordon>
cuttle: but I'm just saying, the app design is indeed flexible, but it still feels a step away from how it ought to be
<whitequark>
there is no physical constraint which would require using sms for communication between people, today
<alexgordon>
maybe google glass will be better
<cuttle>
whitequark: to set up a system for billions of people to send messages to each other
<cuttle>
you need a lot of money
<cuttle>
there's no avoiding that
<whitequark>
cuttle: what?
<cuttle>
time and physical resources
<alexgordon>
one of the problems with the iphone is that it has so much resources that programmers aren't constrained
<alexgordon>
programmers are best when they're resource-constrained ;)
<cuttle>
you can't just snap your fingers and now you have merged sms and email
<whitequark>
money, yes
<whitequark>
physical resources? which ones?
<alexgordon>
they devote their attention to optimization and simplification, instead of adding features and bugs
<whitequark>
if we were talking about a realistic migration plan, even
<cuttle>
whitequark: cell phone towers, for instance
<whitequark>
start with a shift to MMS.
<whitequark>
cuttle: yes, what about them?
<cuttle>
egh i'm tired of this conversation :p
<whitequark>
you already have all the capacity you need for email, everywhere it matters.
<whitequark>
the only reason sms for consumers still exists *at all* is because operators can bill you literally higher than it costs to send data to hubble
<jvulc>
SMS is still carrier and device agnostic though.
<whitequark>
which is not to say that sms costs them *anything*, per se. it's sent over the system channel in GSM, meaning they don't even need to allocate spectrum for it.
<whitequark>
jvulc: email is carrier agnostic.
<whitequark>
you could argue that email is not device-agnostic, but 1) an overwhelming majority of phones today is smartphones
<whitequark>
2) *if* anyone wanted to migrate from sms, see above, it is not technically complex to implement email in dumbphones. you already have 50% of it done.
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<ELLIOTTCABLE>
niggler: me, why?
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<niggler>
ELLIOTTCABLE any way to add an npm serch
<niggler>
*search
<niggler>
id like to do something like !npm kue
<niggler>
and have it produce a link to npm.im/kue along with the description
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
where did that entire conversation between whitequark, cuttle, and alexgordon come from? It appears to have just started out of nowhere at 11:25.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
cuttle: re: iPod touch vs iPhone … I know several people who can't afford an iPhone, or at least not the plan that comes with the iPhone. They all communicate *heavily* with iMessages, or at least Facebook Messenger, on it, even heavilier than others I know with actual iPhones. They are all suuuuuuuper-obsessive about finding WiFi wherever they can, so
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
they can continue their conversations, and interact.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
cuttle: which kind of defeats that point; because that means the concept of an iOS touch device is *so rooted* in communication, that it still comes out as primarily a communication device, *even without a SIM card*.
<niggler>
iPod touch + cell phone isn't that much cheaper than iphone
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
niggler: most of them don't have cell-phones.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
niggler: absolutely, re: npm search. don't have time now. remind me later? and I will.
<niggler>
no rush
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<ELLIOTTCABLE>
yrashk!
<yrashk>
ELLIOTTCABLE!
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
yrashk.
<yrashk>
ELLIOTTCABLE.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
what's up!
<yrashk>
a lot
<yrashk>
busy days!
<yrashk>
for the path... umm many months
<yrashk>
past*
<joelteon>
this is neat
<joelteon>
a⃝
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