Author Topic: Cashless Australia  (Read 26390 times)

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Online Halcyon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #125 on: March 15, 2021, 01:47:05 am »
There are cheaper alternatives to Paypal, for example Square. You can buy an NFC/chip reader for $60. They charge 1.9% on card payments (versus 2.6% Paypal charge).

 

Offline Red Squirrel

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #126 on: March 15, 2021, 02:04:57 am »
Ofcourse it is. There are many micro-payment platforms. You can use your mobile phone for that. Over here I can send a payment request from a mobile phone and the other person can pay immediately. The money goes straight into my bank account. I'd say it is more convenient compared to Paypal and no direct fees (the service comes with the bank account and is supported by all major banks).


The issue with this is it requires both parties to have a phone, and the same app.   Look at a FB marketplace type scenario.  With cash, you show up to that person's house, hand over the cash, take the item, and leave.  If they get rid of cash now you have to fiddle around with installing some app, setting up an account etc...  and since it's tracked, the government is also going to want a cut from that money.   

I guess there is always Interac etransfer.  Most banks do support that.  So you could just pay in advance before going to get the item.    But still, for small non business transactions nothing really beats cash.   I always try to pay cash at a small business as well, since with interac/credit card they need to pay a fee per transaction.
 

Offline TopLoser

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #127 on: March 15, 2021, 02:15:18 am »
I moved to France from England 9 months ago. Since I’ve been here I’ve not used cash at all, not a single cent. The only time I had a need for cash was for a coin for a supermarket shopping trolley, but I just used 2 hand baskets instead.

Contactless, debit card, ApplePay, PayPal, all have worked flawlessly at all times. Wouldn’t even consider keeping cash on me now, and haven’t for 9 months.
 
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Offline Monkeh

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #128 on: March 15, 2021, 02:18:25 am »
I moved to France from England 9 months ago. Since I’ve been here I’ve not used cash at all, not a single cent. The only time I had a need for cash was for a coin for a supermarket shopping trolley, but I just used 2 hand baskets instead.

Contactless, debit card, ApplePay, PayPal, all have worked flawlessly at all times. Wouldn’t even consider keeping cash on me now, and haven’t for 9 months.

I guess you never made impact at the bottom of the stairs. Good to see you're still alive across the wall.
 

Online Halcyon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #129 on: March 15, 2021, 08:44:32 am »
I moved to France from England 9 months ago. Since I’ve been here I’ve not used cash at all, not a single cent. The only time I had a need for cash was for a coin for a supermarket shopping trolley, but I just used 2 hand baskets instead.

Contactless, debit card, ApplePay, PayPal, all have worked flawlessly at all times. Wouldn’t even consider keeping cash on me now, and haven’t for 9 months.

That is pretty much the situation here (although you can buy "tokens" for shopping trolleys which attach to your keys).

Most card terminals here are backed by cellular data, so even if a venues own broadband connection goes down, there is a backup. I do recall once some payment networks were experiencing problems with card payments on a state/national level, but the terminals seemed to revert to some kind of fallback mode where provided that the correct PIN/valid card was supplied, the payment was honoured from the customers perspective, but were queued in the store's terminal until connection was re-established at which point the customer's bank account was debited. In the case where the account did not have enough money, negative balances were possible (and most banks will hit the card holder with an additional fee). I don't think this works for card-not-present transactions however.

 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #130 on: March 15, 2021, 08:15:08 pm »
Ofcourse it is. There are many micro-payment platforms. You can use your mobile phone for that. Over here I can send a payment request from a mobile phone and the other person can pay immediately. The money goes straight into my bank account. I'd say it is more convenient compared to Paypal and no direct fees (the service comes with the bank account and is supported by all major banks).


The issue with this is it requires both parties to have a phone, and the same app.   Look at a FB marketplace type scenario.  With cash, you show up to that person's house, hand over the cash, take the item, and leave.  If they get rid of cash now you have to fiddle around with installing some app, setting up an account etc...  and since it's tracked, the government is also going to want a cut from that money.   

I guess there is always Interac etransfer.  Most banks do support that.  So you could just pay in advance before going to get the item.    But still, for small non business transactions nothing really beats cash.   I always try to pay cash at a small business as well, since with interac/credit card they need to pay a fee per transaction.

A friend of mine who is from China just told me a horrendous story about somebody who got into an argument with one of the people who hold a secret official position  in addition to their official one (I think she was trying to explain the former Soviet concept of the commissar, or political appointee.. similar to the named, or nomenklatura, they also used to be.But anyway, this one guy who had it in for the person whose was subjected to this abuse apparently deleted or somehow modified this persons official citizen number. The result of this was that he lost everything and was blacklisted from everything. All his businesses could not do business, he could not even ride public transport because he could not show the barcode showing he was healthy on his smartphone. There was no way or place to challenge or appeal it either. This is what cashless world will be like. All the protections we have will be absent. Many people have already had the experience of having these unaccountable internet companies, who have no officiial means of contacting a human being for customer service. stonewall them.

I have been looking at the stories on the robodebt class action and they are just insanely horrid. These companies were hired based on known to be faulty data, and they went after people often demanding money they did not owe. Many people were harassed so much they committed suicide. The Morrison government does not seem to comprehend the magnitude of what they have done. Hounded poor people to death. I think they are already starting some other programs with the potential to have the same of similar problems.  They did the same thing in England (Universal credit) but ut seems nobody sued them, although I had heard of people who died because of it. A chronically ill man, I read, had died from starvation died of starvation.

If anybody knows what is driving this horrid trend in these English-speaking governments, why they are doing this. Its not going to get these people jobs or make them healthy. What has changed? I'd like to hear your opinions.
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Offline Simon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #131 on: March 15, 2021, 08:26:01 pm »
You are making some rather ludicrous links, we are talking about something that we already 95% use, according to you the last 5% will create the like of George Orwells 1986. I fail to see how using cash will protect us from what you talk about. Don't pollute this thread!
 
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Offline nctnico

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #132 on: March 15, 2021, 09:29:44 pm »
Ofcourse it is. There are many micro-payment platforms. You can use your mobile phone for that. Over here I can send a payment request from a mobile phone and the other person can pay immediately. The money goes straight into my bank account. I'd say it is more convenient compared to Paypal and no direct fees (the service comes with the bank account and is supported by all major banks).

The issue with this is it requires both parties to have a phone, and the same app.
No and no. Over here this quick payment system works between all major banks. And you don't need the app or a phone. E-mailing a link and paying from a browser also works.

And you are not doing small businesses a favour by paying with cash. Depositing cash is expensive nowadays; it costs more compared to an electronic payment.

The only places I use cash are small, locals oriented swimming pools in France or Germany which are too cheap to have their payment terminals accept foreign debit cards.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2021, 09:36:24 pm by nctnico »
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Offline Nusa

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #133 on: March 15, 2021, 11:47:29 pm »
Don't pollute this thread!

It's probably not correct to call it pollution, since it's his thread and premise to start with.
 

Offline Bud

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #134 on: March 16, 2021, 04:54:55 am »
Of course this is total bollocks story. Party leaders do not sneak at night to databases and change data. The guy was what, an SQL poisoning guru or something, between fulfilling his secret and non secret duties?
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Offline Simon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #135 on: March 16, 2021, 07:34:12 am »
Don't pollute this thread!

It's probably not correct to call it pollution, since it's his thread and premise to start with.

Yes but that is totally not the direction to go. It has nothing at all to do with a cashless society and the links drown are totally unfounded.
 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #136 on: March 16, 2021, 10:32:04 pm »
A friend of mine who is from China just told me a horrendous story about somebody who got into an argument with one of the people who hold a secret official position. But anyway, this one guy who had it in for the person whose was subjected to this abuse apparently deleted or somehow modified this persons official citizen number.

Any references? If this is true, we just found a way to change a person's USCI (unified social credit identifier), which is equivalent to SSN in the US. You do realize how powerful this will be right, this will free anyone from any debts and criminal records even pending charges, and create clean record citizens from illegal immigrants and refugees. If someone has access to do that, I recommend befriending with him, you just found a shortcut to be a multi millionaire.

I think she was just pointing out how horrible a totally cashless surveillance society could become by telling me this story she heard second hand. If you want to read moe about the implications for Europe, Norbet Haerings site has a lot. Here in the US, a book recently came out about The Digital Poorhouse. And that ios a good search term to find out more. (Along with "robodebt" "centrelink" "Better than Cash Alliance" etc. cashless cities. (The credit card companies are ecstatic about this I am sure)  Jane Kelsey is a law schoiar at the University of Auckland in New Zealand who has spoken extensively about the business side of it, how the big US internet companies see it, and the trade aspects of it. SHe speaks about "GAFA" (Google Apple Facebook Amazon) as well as about the Chinese ecosystem for online business and credit. I think her insight is very good. Also, Sanya Reid Smith at TWN (Third World Network) is very good. Both have lots of content on YouTube they are featured speaking in (though neither posts content themselves, I am pretty sure, neither does TWN)
« Last Edit: March 16, 2021, 10:40:21 pm by cdev »
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Offline GodIsRealUnless DefinedInt

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #137 on: March 16, 2021, 10:37:41 pm »
A third of my family are Australian, my grandfather on my mother's side lived in regional Victoria and did not even trust his money in the bank. He was one of the iconic people with all his money in cash under his mattress. The value of paper money is nothing in an emergency. Value is in the eyes of the other party and if you had some epic natural disaster and everyone has bought out all the water bottles and emergency supplies and you offer them extremely inflated prices to part with all your cash on hand do you really think the other person will give up survival rations for paper? And cashless, if you present your credit card to someone will they also part with survival rations? In that respect you seem to be in the same boat regardless of the scheme used. Paper money used to be backed by the gold standard, now its backed by wishes and hopes and everyone agreeing it still has some sort of value. Going paperless is a hell of a lot easier to keep track digitally of everyone in the country and their spending habits though.
 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #138 on: March 16, 2021, 10:44:52 pm »
at if the country your specific money is denominated in is subjected to some judgement that exceds its entire GNP? They are all working overtime to make it possible for anyone to alienate (sell) any right. What this means is that countries money could become worthless suddenly, although its unlikely, it seems we're headed in that direction. I don't trust national politicians any more because Ive seen them lying about things I know and care about. Shamelessly.
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Offline Simon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #139 on: March 16, 2021, 10:46:41 pm »
A friend of mine who is from China just told me a horrendous story about somebody who got into an argument with one of the people who hold a secret official position. But anyway, this one guy who had it in for the person whose was subjected to this abuse apparently deleted or somehow modified this persons official citizen number.

Any references? If this is true, we just found a way to change a person's USCI (unified social credit identifier), which is equivalent to SSN in the US. You do realize how powerful this will be right, this will free anyone from any debts and criminal records even pending charges, and create clean record citizens from illegal immigrants and refugees. If someone has access to do that, I recommend befriending with him, you just found a shortcut to be a multi millionaire.

I think she was just pointing out how horrible a totally cashless surveillance society could become by telling me this story she heard second hand. If you want to read moe about the implications for Europe, Norbet Haerings site has a lot. Here in the US, a book recently came out about The Digital Poorhouse. And that ios a good search term to find out more. (Along with "robodebt" "centrelink" "Better than Cash Alliance" etc. cashless cities. (The credit card companies are ecstatic about this I am sure)  Jane Kelsey is a law schoiar at the University of Auckland in New Zealand who has spoken extensively about the business side of it, how the big US internet companies see it, and the trade aspects of it. SHe speaks about "GAFA" (Google Apple Facebook Amazon) as well as about the Chinese ecosystem for online business and credit. I think her insight is very good. Also, Sanya Reid Smith at TWN (Third World Network) is very good. Both have lots of content on YouTube they are featured speaking in (though neither posts content themselves, I am pretty sure, neither does TWN)

Can't you take a hint?

Just go talk to someone that has made themselves bankrupt to find out how hard doing anything may became! you fall foul of your governing system your life gets hard, it does not matter where you live. A work colleague has just found out how screwed he is because he was furloughed during this pandemic and can't re-mortgage, and our employer is is doing just fine, they just picked the two highest payed in the office and got the government to pay their wages.... now they suffer due to the system of the banks, be it cash or cashless they would have had this problem.
 

Offline GodIsRealUnless DefinedInt

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #140 on: March 16, 2021, 10:47:55 pm »
Instant devaluation/worthlessness/hyper inflation has already happened during the war years in our past history and in countries today like Venezuela, its a very real thing when you are faced with it vs armchair discussions.
 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #141 on: March 16, 2021, 10:51:11 pm »
I feel highly constrained talking about this subject due to Dave's being a youtuber.
Dave, please diversify don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I think that people should be considering that anything deemed 'too big to fail' especially banks, are a danger to so many people they really do need to be broken up.

Also, everybody things that the so called Digital Econony or Digital Trade will create many jobs, enough to make up for the ones it eliminated. Well, they are almost certainly wrong.

When I did that kind of work, basically my job was automating processes, and that means automating your own job so it does itself!
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Offline EEVblog

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #142 on: March 16, 2021, 10:51:58 pm »
You can get a card reader from paypal. It connects to your phone and you can take payments anywhere your phone can get a signal.

I have one of the first models of those, been around a long time now. Used it at a trade show once to sell meters from the stall, worked well.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #143 on: March 16, 2021, 10:54:01 pm »
I feel highly constrained talking about this subject due to Dave's being a youtuber.
Dave, please diversify don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I've been diversified for the last 10 years doing this full time, I'm not a fool. I've said that countless times over the years.
Youtube could shut down my channel entirely tomorrow and I'd be fine.
Can't say the same for many fellow Youtubers. I can't even convince some of them to even diversify onto Odysee. If they did it a couple of years ago when I told them to they'd be sitting pretty now with a confortable backup and a decent amount of LBC they can convert to fiat.
« Last Edit: March 16, 2021, 10:55:47 pm by EEVblog »
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #144 on: March 16, 2021, 11:02:23 pm »
It's what, $10-$30 to put through a bitcoin transaction? Crypto solves nothing.

There are countless other crypto systems that provide negligable transaction fees.
"Crypto" isn't just bitcoin.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #145 on: March 16, 2021, 11:09:46 pm »
The other consideration is, if you're facing bankruptcy, one should take a good long look at themselves. The individual is almost always to blame, not someone else. Its a tough lesson to learn, but not one that doesn't have light at the end of the tunnel. Bankrupt does not equal homeless, nor does it equal unable to live. In fact, personal insolvency rates in Australia fell by over 23% in 2019-2020 across all states and territories. It's as low as it has been since around 1999-2000. Once the stats come out for this current financial year, I reckon we'd be looking at instances not seen since the early to mid 1990's.

https://www.afsa.gov.au/sites/default/files/annual_personal_insolvency_summary.xlsx

Wasn't there a moritorium on insolvency here? That would have duped a lot of people in trouble into a false sense of security for a while instead of fixing whatveer underlying financial problem they had.
Yes, it won't be pretty this time around.
Then we have the mortgage eviction and foreclosure moratorium that ends in Sepetember. I would not be buying a house in Australia until some time after that date, you might suddenly find a lot fo stock on the market.
 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #146 on: March 16, 2021, 11:22:01 pm »
Yes, not long ago I read a very good book, it was an account of hyperinflation in Austria during the 20s and 30s..
It must have made people nuts.


Actually, real inflation is very bad now based on many products people buy.  Read this article by a German economist. I find his blog really interesting. There is a lot on this cashless issue there.
https://norberthaering.de/en/economics/cost-of-thriving/

Instant devaluation/worthlessness/hyper inflation has already happened during the war years in our past history and in countries today like Venezuela, its a very real thing when you are faced with it vs armchair discussions.

It happened in India quite recently, read this article on it.


A well-kept open secret: Washington is behind India’s brutal Experiment of abolishing most cash

« Last Edit: March 16, 2021, 11:56:48 pm by cdev »
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Offline bdunham7

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #147 on: March 16, 2021, 11:32:44 pm »
It happened in India quite recently, read this article on it.

I try to avoid controversial topics like this but the conspiracy theories regarding Indian demonetization and secret US interests, which seem to involve the well-worn tropes of Bill Gates, the Ford Foundation, etc etc are utter rubbish.  Stop it.  Your source is an idiot and hasn't a clue about Indian politics.  Demonetization, which was simply the withdrawal of the Rs. 500 and 1000 notes with the requirement that they be deposited in a short limited time, was a mess for many reasons, but did not and was not intended to eliminate cash from the economic system.  There is still cash. 
A 3.5 digit 4.5 digit 5 digit 5.5 digit 6.5 digit 7.5 digit DMM is good enough for most people.
 
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Offline GodIsRealUnless DefinedInt

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #148 on: March 16, 2021, 11:34:23 pm »
India made my newsfeed today as they are also seem to be going to ban doing anything with any cryptocurrencies.
 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #149 on: March 17, 2021, 12:09:29 am »
It happened in India quite recently, read this article on it.

I try to avoid controversial topics like this but the conspiracy theories regarding Indian demonetization and secret US interests, which seem to involve the well-worn tropes of Bill Gates, the Ford Foundation, etc etc are utter rubbish.  Stop it.  Your source is an idiot and hasn't a clue about Indian politics.  Demonetization, which was simply the withdrawal of the Rs. 500 and 1000 notes with the requirement that they be deposited in a short limited time, was a mess for many reasons, but did not and was not intended to eliminate cash from the economic system.  There is still cash.

Yes, it still exists.

A great many Indians don't have bank accounts or even computers, they are poor. (Many cant even read or write thei own name, because of deep poverty has meant that many could not afford school. , but no worries, now with the cashless digital ID system AArdhaar, hey can sign a contract to sign their rights away by blinking.  No public education necessary. The middle class are often quite clueless about everything having to do with the poor. And so they often make the biggest most destructive mistakes, imaginable. They are not always intentional. But sometimes they are.

A previous US Administration generously traded market access away leaving dozens of service sectors under a cloud. Overnight, they could be globalized like computer services have been.

India and the US for a long time, seem to be trading favors that they both seem to be trying to hide. The US wants cheap high skill labor, and India wants the good jobs. The US also wants IP-maximalism beyond our wildest dreams. The huge job trade enabled by US sectoral commitments in the WTO includes engineering services. Another thing the US wants from India is extending patent terms on lifesaving drugs and the elimination of generic AIDS drugs that have saved at least 30 million lives, (see the prize winning film "Fire in the Blood" by Dylan Mohan Grey.) Indian evergreening of drug patents, Australia's pharmacy benefits plan likely is struggling with this IP-maximalism ideology too. If its to be found, its likely on bilaterals.org. Imagine having diabetes and having to pay hundreds, perhaps a thousand dollars a month for insulin to keep yourself alive. When the basic technology to make it was given by its inventor to the world for one dollar. , he wanted it to be non-profit. But the Big Pharma took care of that.. your money or your life, my friend.. This is the world we live in. Also check out the ip-health mailing list at KEIonline.org for more on the access to medicines issue.

So the claims by Catalyst's Malick, (he claims Haering misquoted him) dont seem well founded.

Also your claim that Haering is not credible seem to be refuted by Haerings position in the world of economics. He has always seemed quite credible to me. Highly subjective, yes. But I have a right to my opinion.;

I feel strongly about these issues because we are supposed to live in a democracy, which means that the peoples votes matter. All these things that these insanely rich people are trying to do are tantamount to takings from all of us. The least powerful of us. I don't want to get rid of digital payments, I just think they are trying to do much more than just that., things that will make society a harder more unfair one to poor people. Look at it this way, they snuck this deal to steal democracy behind our backs (at least here in the US) can they be trusted when they did that?

So, Norbert Haering's report seems to me toboth be quite consistant with what I know and see, i.e. have a sound basis in fact. Certainly, a lot of what Bill Gates and the WEF and other related self styled global economic governance organizations have been doing is not in the public interest as they would have us believe. Nor is it the product of a democratic consensus. Nothing could be less democratic. The highly undemocratic nature of their agenda is what bothers me. The things they are doing seems to be saying, that democracy - now that people are more aware of the behind the scenes interests trying to manipulate us and the outcomes they seek, has to stop. Thats not fair. Nor is it democratic. Democracy is what gives governments their legitimacy. Not the divine right of kings . Might doesn't make right. Then or now.
Corporations are not people either, and do not deserve human rights.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2021, 01:07:53 am by cdev »
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