Computer Geeks Outlet -- good personal experiences
Have you ever tried returning things to them? Prior to now my experiences with compgeeks had been good, but my most recent purchase (a 19" monitor) arrived DOA. It's been a real hassle trying to get it exchanged. Over a month later I've finally gotten an RMA number and gotten it returned, but still don't know when they're going to send me a refund or replacement.
Overall, I'd say that their prices are good and their selection is interesting but their service leaves much to be desired. ________________
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Well, you could do that, but if what you wanted was to run Office 2000 that'd be a pretty screwy way of going about it. You are correct however that VPC can run any x86 based OS. In fact they offer a version with Red Hat preinstalled. ________________
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Not going to happen. The basic idea behind Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is that your x86 Linux box can already run windows executables they're compiled to x86 machine language anyway. It just needs a little help with the various operating system/GUI functions. To quote directly from the horse's mouth:
Wine is an implementation of the Windows 3.x and Win32 APIs on top of X and Unix. Think of Wine as a Windows compatibility layer. Wine provides both a development toolkit (Winelib) for porting Windows sources to Unix and a program loader, allowing unmodified Windows 3.1/95/NT binaries to run under Intel Unixes. Wine works on most popular Intel Unixes, including Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris.
So anyway, you're going to need something that emulates an Intel chip before you can run windows programs on a Power PC under any operating system. I would imagine that your best bet would be to use Virtual PC although this does require the actual installation of a copy of windows. ________________
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Why don't broadband companies invest a few more dollars (offer to thier customers at a discount) good cable or DSL modems that have built-in routers with a bit of security.
I'm really not sure that I want the cable company deciding on what security policy is appropriate for my home network. Either it's going to be worthless and do something boneheaded like not block 139 or it's going to be so tight that I can't take advantage of the fact that I have a fast connection with a pretty much static IP address. I want to be able to have ports 22 and 80 open if I decide that I want that functionality. I want to be able to host my own e---------ma il domains if I decide that I want to do that. I want to be able to set up my own NAT box and set policies in the way that I see fit. I really don't believe that that's going to happen if the cable company sets things up for me.
What people need to start realizing is that an always on broadband connection to their home is a completely different ball game than any connection through AOL. The only hope I see at this point for broadband being useful to/.ers and for general users is if the market really does become open and we start to have real choice in ISPs with broadband. That way we can have ISPs like FlexNet for those of us who just want a raw internet pipe with none of the extras and AOL for those who want their online experiencefiltered down and spoon fed to them. ________________
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Re:Price-Performance of "iCubes" and other Macs
on
X On OSX Now Free
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· Score: 3
Back in the days of old Macs had better parts than PCs. The 2x price difference you'd see in CD drives etc. between the two different platforms was mostly due to the fact that Macs were a SCSI only outfit. This price difference is still true today, a 48 spin IDE CD-ROM drive will set you back between $40 and $50 while a 40 spin SCSI CD-ROM will set you back a little over $100. These drives are probably pretty comparable in data rate given the inherent speed advantage of SCSI. At least that's the feeling I get looking at egghead.
This has changed somewhat in the last 3-4 years. Macs are now shipped with IDE hard drives and CD drives. Any external devices are connected with cross platform USB cables rather than SCSI and ADB which were unique to Apple in the consumer market. In addition the PC industry has switched from 70 pin SIMMs to 168 pin DIMMs so memory for Macs is now the same parts as PCs. As a result of these changes it's now a lot easier to buy parts for a Mac and a lot cheaper too.
Apple has chosen to adopt more industry standard parts as an alternative to using only the best parts. This has lead to cheaper Macs at the expense of some of their really great quality that used to be worth paying extra for. ________________
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You have a very good point here. I'm not sure that I think Harry Browne is the best choice, but to each his own.
What I do know that that Nader is not a very good choice. After some time of observing him in the news and on his own website all I remain convinced of is that he has made a very good living for himself by complaining. I'm also not very convinced that he is an honest man. I would much rather elect for president an honest man that I disagree with than someone who tells me things that I like to hear. ________________
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The worst thing (or possibly the best, depending on how you look at it) about the @home service is that they don't even use the DHCP server to change your IP address on occasion. The DHCP server is just there to make it easier for the incompetent tech when he comes to your house to fuck^H^H^H^Hset up your computer. From a DHCP provides security standpoint this is a bug. I tend to think of it as a feature; I know my IP address.
The skill level of some of these techs is really poor too. When I first got @home a few months ago they sent a tech out to my place. I didn't want to let him near my Linux box (don't think that he would have touched it anyway) and intead let him do his setup thing on my girlfriend's mac. He had a really hard time with that, and we're talking MacOS here not some really oddball alternate OS. Not a chance in hell these guys know what they're doing enough to properly secure machines. I don't trust them any further than I can throw them
What I do think is quite good is an LRP firewall. Charles Steinkuehler has one that I have found to be quite easy to setup and quite secure on his web site. It's really nice to be able to boot the whole router machine from a write protected floppy and know that if someone does start to mess with it you're only a reboot away from a system w/o any root kits left behind by some k1ddy. Also included are a DHCP server, NAT, and port forwarding. Well worth checking out. ________________
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While I will admit that Citibank does have a decent cross platform web presence, I refuse to do business with them. I have been very unimpressed with their customer service on their web accounts. Recently my account with citi f/i was closed unannounced. As a result of their negligence in not informing me that this would be occurring several of my checks were not honored and now I'm out well over $200 in returned check fees. I am currently pursuing legal action of attempt to get them to apologize and return some of the money that I have lost as a result. ________________
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No, I'm really not a foaming at the mouth enviromentalist. I just don't like the idea of leaving a bunch of shit around knowing full well that you're never going to come back and pick it up.
I do have to agree with you that having some exploration of Mars is much better than having none and that if these little bouncy things help us to do that then it's a good thing. However, I think that it's something that should be discussed. That's why I posted my thought here, and it did in fact lead to some discussion, so I got what I wanted. Thank you for your input. ________________
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That was the greatest game. Nothing like the old PC Jr. I found an abondoned DOS demo version at download.com does anyone know of a full version of this game for either DOS or linux. I didn't find anything at the usual places. ________________
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Nifty engineering project. Overall it seems like a pretty cool toy. I'd love to have one of these to chase around a field someplace. Cats would probably get a kick out of it too.
However, I'm not sure that it's really all that wise to be sending all kinds of junk all over Mars. Now instead of 1 little wheeled thing per mission we could have dozens of bouncing machines littering the planet. Just reminds me a little too much of finding Bud cans laying all over after a rodeo. ________________
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The technology doesn't work so they're going to use the law instead.
The real irony here is that they're trying to use the technology because the laws didn't work. Oh shit. What kind of circle are we into now??? ________________
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128 kbps mp3s sound like shit. I really don't like to listen to them. If you use even a decent set of $20 headphones you can really hear the difference between 128 kbps and the original CD. If you're playing through a good stereo receiver and good tower speakers the difference is obvious. I will not pay money for any audio format that won't highlight the full capability of my stereo systems. I've spent quite a bit of money getting stuff that sounds really good and I'm not willing to give up quality sound so that the RIAA can turn a bigger profit. As stupid as these cartels are I think that they realize that without people like me getting on board these technologies aren't going to take off. If I tell my friends that a new technology really sounds like shit and that the CDs they have now are much better do you think that they're going to spring the cash for new players and new media? I think not. Am I going to be one of the first to buy the new stuff at inflated prices if I preview it at the local stereo stores and notice that the sound reminds me of listening to a farting contest on AM radio. Hell no. If they want this new format to take it's going to have to be better than the ones that I have now and MP3s aren't better than what I have now. ________________
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While these sort of lines do exist and may be worth checking out I wouldn't get my hopes up too much about it. My grandparents recently built a 4 unit condo. They are required by state law to have a telephone in the elevator for saftey resons. The cost of the line in the elevator is only about $2 less than a regular line and it is pretty severly limited. It can't receive calls and can only make outgoing calls to 911. ________________
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Just vote nader and walk away with a clear concious...
Knowing that you chose evil over stupid. Seriously, This man made himself famous for FUD. That's right, FUD! Or do you have a different term for "Unsafe at Any Speed"? ________________
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I think that you've got it exactly right. The "theft" that is being described here is more akin to the kid who ripped of Linux.com's web design. This article merely mentions a few ideas that will make it harder for people to rip off your firmware code.
I think that everyone here would agree that you shouldn't use someone's code without giving them credit, that's just fair. Why would you expect it to be any different with firmware? ________________
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Smart employees would buy their options and hold on to them for a year before selling, thus paying long term capital gains tax.
Why then would anyone want stock options? The great advantage of options is that they remove uncertianty from the stock market. If I'm willing to invest money into the company and incur the risk involved there are easier and faster ways of doing so than through stock options. The only case I can see for holding stock received from exercising options is if they are about to expire and you anticipate further increases in the stock price. ________________
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Nobody trades on the Dow. The Dow Jones Industrial average is an average of some of the largest companies in the US. The intention of this is to give an idea of how the stock market as a whole is doing. As it happens, Microsoft has been a member of this average for about a year now, but that is entirely separate from where people go to trade MSFT stocks. The place where people go to trade these stocks is the NASDAQ. ________________
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Why not? If a family wants to make sure that their kids don't get to these domains, I'm sure that this could be a marketing idea for family-type ISP's.
I have to agree that some of these new TLDs would be great for marketing, both by ISPs and by websites. It certianly would be handy to be able to accurately guess in advance that goat.kids is going to be really different from goat.sex. What concerns me most about ISPs deciding not to accept certian TLDs is that the ones that choose to provide full access will become the net equivalent of adult shops. This could quickly turn into a nasty bit of regulation (i.e. Such ISPs may not conduct business within 500 meters of any school, church or daycare center. Hours of operation will be limited to 7PM-midnight Monday thru Saturday...)
I'm not saying that any of this will happen, just that it could if things aren't handled properly. And then internet being what it is there is always a slippery slope. ________________
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This sectioning off of the web by content really concerns me. Are we going to get ISPs that refuse to carry.sex or.xxx on their DNS servers? Are we going to have some committee that decides when a site cannot register under the.com or.net TLDs and must register as.adult? I realize that it is still possible to get to sites without using DNS, but it's a lot harder. This raises the spectre of censorware becoming really effective, thereby we lose one of the best arguments against it. That would really suck. ________________
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This seems awfully complicated for just fetching beers. I'd suggest a remote control pick-up truck. The RC truck also has the advantage of being fast enough to be used for chasing the cat around after you've consumed the beers that it delivers. ________________
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Jon Katz is an industry Pundit. He writes really long editorials here on slashdot. For unknown reasons slashdot likes to call them features. I don't really mind his rants all that much, usually I find them at least somewhat interesting, but to each his own. I suspect that the reason why Slashdot lets him post is that he is really popular. Everytime he posts an article there are a thousand comments within minutes. So what if 997 of those comments contain the string "Jon Katz is a moron" it's bring traffic to the site. If nothing else, that'll run up the counters on the ad banners. ________________
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You take them to small claims court suing them for breach of contract.
You probably can't actually do this. Most likely your service contract specified the court in which any disputes under the service contract would be resolved. It is likely a court in DE, since big companies seem to prefer to do business in that state, it has good tax laws or something like that. Just be sure to have a good read over your contract before filing suit, if they had any sense at all they specified a means for resolving conflicts in the contract and it's probably the one that's convenient for their legal department and not the one that's convenient for you.
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Slashdot Mirror
Have you ever tried returning things to them? Prior to now my experiences with compgeeks had been good, but my most recent purchase (a 19" monitor) arrived DOA. It's been a real hassle trying to get it exchanged. Over a month later I've finally gotten an RMA number and gotten it returned, but still don't know when they're going to send me a refund or replacement.
Overall, I'd say that their prices are good and their selection is interesting but their service leaves much to be desired.
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Well, you could do that, but if what you wanted was to run Office 2000 that'd be a pretty screwy way of going about it. You are correct however that VPC can run any x86 based OS. In fact they offer a version with Red Hat preinstalled.
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Not going to happen. The basic idea behind Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is that your x86 Linux box can already run windows executables they're compiled to x86 machine language anyway. It just needs a little help with the various operating system/GUI functions. To quote directly from the horse's mouth:
So anyway, you're going to need something that emulates an Intel chip before you can run windows programs on a Power PC under any operating system. I would imagine that your best bet would be to use Virtual PC although this does require the actual installation of a copy of windows.
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I'm really not sure that I want the cable company deciding on what security policy is appropriate for my home network. Either it's going to be worthless and do something boneheaded like not block 139 or it's going to be so tight that I can't take advantage of the fact that I have a fast connection with a pretty much static IP address. I want to be able to have ports 22 and 80 open if I decide that I want that functionality. I want to be able to host my own e---------ma il domains if I decide that I want to do that. I want to be able to set up my own NAT box and set policies in the way that I see fit. I really don't believe that that's going to happen if the cable company sets things up for me.
What people need to start realizing is that an always on broadband connection to their home is a completely different ball game than any connection through AOL. The only hope I see at this point for broadband being useful to /.ers and for general users is if the market really does become open and we start to have real choice in ISPs with broadband. That way we can have ISPs like FlexNet for those of us who just want a raw internet pipe with none of the extras and AOL for those who want their online experiencefiltered down and spoon fed to them.
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Their - Belonging to them
This has changed somewhat in the last 3-4 years. Macs are now shipped with IDE hard drives and CD drives. Any external devices are connected with cross platform USB cables rather than SCSI and ADB which were unique to Apple in the consumer market. In addition the PC industry has switched from 70 pin SIMMs to 168 pin DIMMs so memory for Macs is now the same parts as PCs. As a result of these changes it's now a lot easier to buy parts for a Mac and a lot cheaper too.
Apple has chosen to adopt more industry standard parts as an alternative to using only the best parts. This has lead to cheaper Macs at the expense of some of their really great quality that used to be worth paying extra for.
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What I do know that that Nader is not a very good choice. After some time of observing him in the news and on his own website all I remain convinced of is that he has made a very good living for himself by complaining. I'm also not very convinced that he is an honest man. I would much rather elect for president an honest man that I disagree with than someone who tells me things that I like to hear.
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Who cares? Just pirate the IP address that you have now and set it as a static one.
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The skill level of some of these techs is really poor too. When I first got @home a few months ago they sent a tech out to my place. I didn't want to let him near my Linux box (don't think that he would have touched it anyway) and intead let him do his setup thing on my girlfriend's mac. He had a really hard time with that, and we're talking MacOS here not some really oddball alternate OS. Not a chance in hell these guys know what they're doing enough to properly secure machines. I don't trust them any further than I can throw them
What I do think is quite good is an LRP firewall. Charles Steinkuehler has one that I have found to be quite easy to setup and quite secure on his web site. It's really nice to be able to boot the whole router machine from a write protected floppy and know that if someone does start to mess with it you're only a reboot away from a system w/o any root kits left behind by some k1ddy. Also included are a DHCP server, NAT, and port forwarding. Well worth checking out.
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While I will admit that Citibank does have a decent cross platform web presence, I refuse to do business with them. I have been very unimpressed with their customer service on their web accounts. Recently my account with citi f/i was closed unannounced. As a result of their negligence in not informing me that this would be occurring several of my checks were not honored and now I'm out well over $200 in returned check fees. I am currently pursuing legal action of attempt to get them to apologize and return some of the money that I have lost as a result.
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I do have to agree with you that having some exploration of Mars is much better than having none and that if these little bouncy things help us to do that then it's a good thing. However, I think that it's something that should be discussed. That's why I posted my thought here, and it did in fact lead to some discussion, so I got what I wanted. Thank you for your input.
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That was the greatest game. Nothing like the old PC Jr. I found an abondoned DOS demo version at download.com does anyone know of a full version of this game for either DOS or linux. I didn't find anything at the usual places.
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However, I'm not sure that it's really all that wise to be sending all kinds of junk all over Mars. Now instead of 1 little wheeled thing per mission we could have dozens of bouncing machines littering the planet. Just reminds me a little too much of finding Bud cans laying all over after a rodeo.
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The real irony here is that they're trying to use the technology because the laws didn't work. Oh shit. What kind of circle are we into now???
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128 kbps mp3s sound like shit. I really don't like to listen to them. If you use even a decent set of $20 headphones you can really hear the difference between 128 kbps and the original CD. If you're playing through a good stereo receiver and good tower speakers the difference is obvious. I will not pay money for any audio format that won't highlight the full capability of my stereo systems. I've spent quite a bit of money getting stuff that sounds really good and I'm not willing to give up quality sound so that the RIAA can turn a bigger profit. As stupid as these cartels are I think that they realize that without people like me getting on board these technologies aren't going to take off. If I tell my friends that a new technology really sounds like shit and that the CDs they have now are much better do you think that they're going to spring the cash for new players and new media? I think not. Am I going to be one of the first to buy the new stuff at inflated prices if I preview it at the local stereo stores and notice that the sound reminds me of listening to a farting contest on AM radio. Hell no. If they want this new format to take it's going to have to be better than the ones that I have now and MP3s aren't better than what I have now.
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While these sort of lines do exist and may be worth checking out I wouldn't get my hopes up too much about it. My grandparents recently built a 4 unit condo. They are required by state law to have a telephone in the elevator for saftey resons. The cost of the line in the elevator is only about $2 less than a regular line and it is pretty severly limited. It can't receive calls and can only make outgoing calls to 911.
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Knowing that you chose evil over stupid. Seriously, This man made himself famous for FUD. That's right, FUD! Or do you have a different term for "Unsafe at Any Speed"?
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I think that everyone here would agree that you shouldn't use someone's code without giving them credit, that's just fair. Why would you expect it to be any different with firmware?
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Why then would anyone want stock options? The great advantage of options is that they remove uncertianty from the stock market. If I'm willing to invest money into the company and incur the risk involved there are easier and faster ways of doing so than through stock options. The only case I can see for holding stock received from exercising options is if they are about to expire and you anticipate further increases in the stock price.
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Your = belongs to you.
You're = you are.
Get a fucking clue.
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Nobody trades on the Dow. The Dow Jones Industrial average is an average of some of the largest companies in the US. The intention of this is to give an idea of how the stock market as a whole is doing. As it happens, Microsoft has been a member of this average for about a year now, but that is entirely separate from where people go to trade MSFT stocks. The place where people go to trade these stocks is the NASDAQ.
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I have to agree that some of these new TLDs would be great for marketing, both by ISPs and by websites. It certianly would be handy to be able to accurately guess in advance that goat.kids is going to be really different from goat.sex. What concerns me most about ISPs deciding not to accept certian TLDs is that the ones that choose to provide full access will become the net equivalent of adult shops. This could quickly turn into a nasty bit of regulation (i.e. Such ISPs may not conduct business within 500 meters of any school, church or daycare center. Hours of operation will be limited to 7PM-midnight Monday thru Saturday...)
I'm not saying that any of this will happen, just that it could if things aren't handled properly. And then internet being what it is there is always a slippery slope.
________________
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This sectioning off of the web by content really concerns me. Are we going to get ISPs that refuse to carry .sex or .xxx on their DNS servers? Are we going to have some committee that decides when a site cannot register under the .com or .net TLDs and must register as .adult? I realize that it is still possible to get to sites without using DNS, but it's a lot harder. This raises the spectre of censorware becoming really effective, thereby we lose one of the best arguments against it. That would really suck.
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This seems awfully complicated for just fetching beers. I'd suggest a remote control pick-up truck. The RC truck also has the advantage of being fast enough to be used for chasing the cat around after you've consumed the beers that it delivers.
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Jon Katz is an industry Pundit. He writes really long editorials here on slashdot. For unknown reasons slashdot likes to call them features. I don't really mind his rants all that much, usually I find them at least somewhat interesting, but to each his own. I suspect that the reason why Slashdot lets him post is that he is really popular. Everytime he posts an article there are a thousand comments within minutes. So what if 997 of those comments contain the string "Jon Katz is a moron" it's bring traffic to the site. If nothing else, that'll run up the counters on the ad banners.
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You probably can't actually do this. Most likely your service contract specified the court in which any disputes under the service contract would be resolved. It is likely a court in DE, since big companies seem to prefer to do business in that state, it has good tax laws or something like that. Just be sure to have a good read over your contract before filing suit, if they had any sense at all they specified a means for resolving conflicts in the contract and it's probably the one that's convenient for their legal department and not the one that's convenient for you.
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