They Don't Make Them Like They Used To 124
`Sean writes: "Sosik-Hamor Projects has posted an article entitled 'They Don't Make Them Like They Used To' that, with the help of some semiautomatic weapons, documents the durability of old school hardware versus the flimsy cases being used in newer peripherals. The Sun 3/50 came out victorious and was stolen from the trash the next day, probably to be turned into body armor!"
I guess that... (Score:1)
Its an interesting point though. There is an old 286 next to me that has a case strong enough that I bet I could drive my car over. My current 400 Mhz machine has a case so flimsy I could not sit on it.
It would be fun to test hardware like this against ESD. Anyone have a Taser???
I remember my old IBM XT (Score:2)
It's been sitting in my parents garage for over 10 years. We fired it up this weekend and played commander keen and starflight.
They dont make em like they used to.
so what? (Score:1)
A couple years ago I dropped a hard drive down a flight of concrete stairs. It was fine. I've kicked the shit out of my Sony VAIO slim laptop, and it's fine (minus a plastic non-functional hinge cover).
If you buy cheap shit, it will break. This is not news. This guy had a POS CD burner and he's making it out to be the death of all quality. He needs to get a grip.
Re:I guess that... (Score:1)
Your firewall was pathetic. I haX0red r00t and am now doing an rm -rf on the root directory. Hmmmmmm. Now.. why is the sysadmin storming down the hall towards my office...?
Guide to Moderation (Score:1)
Interesting = Post is extremely vague.
Informative = Post contains a link.
Funny = Post bashes Microsoft.
Offtopic = Post is flamebait.
Flamebait = Post is offtopic.
Troll = Poster ran over moderator's cat.
Redundant = Post is first on-topic post on thread.
Overrated = "I am scared of meta-moderation."
Underrated = This moderation is only rumored to existence and has never been seen in the wild.
It's not just the cases... (Score:4)
In the 'good old days', you could buy a TV and it'll still be working 15 years later - now you are lucky if it lasts 7 before something major goes wrong. My old BBC (circa 1983) micro still works - it was in daily constant use for over 10 years with 5 1/4" floppy drive. I have trouble firing up a 1995 PC with harddrive - sometimes it just won't even get past the BIOS boot.
All in the name of economy... *sigh*
On the same vein, the egyptians had the hierographic writings which have lasted over 3,000 years - any 'modern days' records going to last that long? Nope..
Discuss: Have we really progressed?
Richy C. [beebware.com]
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Re:I guess that... (Score:1)
You have violated Yu Suzuki's Golden ule by including the Devil's Lette (also known as 'R') in you post. Please efain from using this vile lette in futue posts and epent so that Yu Suzuki may save you sinful soul. For you convenience, a coected version of you post appears below.
Yu Suzuki
This is interesting, (Score:2)
Although I guess it could be that a company that is shoddy on general physical construction may not care too much about other aspects of design. It could be, but it hardly logically follows.
IBM 286 Server! (Score:1)
I want to see more post at 2am+!!!
ISP's with guns (Score:3)
May I suggest a mirror? Quickly
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
Easy enough if you invest the same manpower in writing. But do you <I>want</I> all of todays writing to last?
Gun control laws (Score:1)
Re:This is interesting, (Score:1)
The hardware costs you a lot of money and if you can easily break it physically, its a design flaw.
I once lost a 1.6 GB data by accidentally dropping a harddisk from the height of a chair. This made me to purchase a few precautions - without hard case my new PalmVx woul be dead after a month (a cow-orker) accidentally dropped it off my desk and stuff). If would ptobably not withstand gunfire but it is safer for the data to be in hard case.
The same for other hardware. When you purchase a brand-new notebook for $3000 you would want to be able to break it by accidentally dropping. Not to mention data loss.
Gunfire is extremal but hardware should be durable and withstand heavu physical conditions.
Alex
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Can you say wearable PC (Score:4)
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
Given the cost of a computer case it is no surprise. I have seen some 'ruggedized' cases that can take anything you throw at them, drive over them, pour on them and possibly shoot at them. Of course one of these cases costs more than a current PC guts and all.
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:2)
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Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
Substitute 'Manpower of people knowledgeable enough to write that' with 'Salary costs of these people' and you won't get any problems. Just mak records like the ones that went out with the Voyager probes and store them somewhere safe. I'm sure they would last longer than 3000 years.
3000 years old spam and newspapers?!? *YUCK*...
Regards, Ulli
Re:IBM 286 Server! (Score:1)
Thank you for that sig. It made me realize that I'm reading Slashdot at 04:13 and that I should go to bed. Thanks. :)
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Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
USP BABY!!!! (Score:1)
Guns don't kill computers (Score:1)
Re:ISP's with guns (Score:1)
NU != Norway
NO == Norway
They're in the US. A cursory glance at www.shn.nu [www.shn.nu] reveals that it's hosted by a web hosting company they own.
Re:I'm Afraid of Americans (Score:1)
At least it does prove one thing: he doesn't believe computers are alive in any way, otherwise he'd be breaking his Rede by shooting at those poor defenseless pieces of hardware.
Note: I'm not Wiccan, though I did sling-shot around Wicca in my search for my own Path
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
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What a country! (Score:2)
I'm getting getting all misty-eyed and patriotic just thinking about it...in fact, I think I'll sing!
(Tue the tune of "America the Beautiful")
Oh beautiful for shotgun sights,
For butts in pure wood grain!
For purple mountains majesty
Where we go hunt our game!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee...
Where we can shoot
What won't reboot
And ev'ry dead P.C.!
Thank you, thank you, groupies always welcome...
(P.S. Yes, .nu is in the USA -- I have a shell account here in town, and the last letters of its extension are .nu...)
tinfoil hat !! (Score:2)
Oh man, that was some bad $3 crack.
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The time is now. Rise up from our trenches, our bunkers, and fight the great war [slashdot.org] against the mortal enemy [microsoft.com].You [127.0.0.1]. Now [gnu.org]. Fight [sourceforge.com]!
Re:Can you say wearable PC (Score:1)
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
I'm glad they don't (Score:1)
Re:ISP's with guns (Score:1)
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
Thank you Mr, Anonymous Coward (Score:1)
It was black.
It had a Sinclair logo it the top left hand corner
You connected a standard tape recorder to the back via a jack, the cheaper the better
It made a lot of noise when loading programs, and often didn't load them properly, crashing in the process
Clive Sinclair was bald at the time and wore glasses.
It wasn't as cool as the vic20 or commodore64
Violence in popular culture (Score:1)
Try with an X-BOX ! (Score:1)
Did someone mention a gun around here? I like guns (Score:1)
Hi honey. You made me eggs? ah thanks. I gotta get to work. boss'll be angry if i'm 1 minute late again.
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
Re:ISP's with guns (Score:1)
Pennsylvania"?
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:2)
ZX Spectrum (Score:1)
Re:Can you say wearable PC (Score:1)
It would get you noticed, I guess.
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:2)
For Sale: Beige Body Armor, 8 meg RAM, 200 meg HD (Score:1)
If I can't find a good home for it, maybe I'll do my part for the scientific community and see how well it stands up to NATO 7.62 mm rifle rounds (FMJ and solid steel AP).
Sam
Nothing new ... (Score:3)
Unfortunately there's not much you can do
We might whinge at the formula movies and crappy software but we only get what we pay for. The demand for high quality high reliability software (e.g. FAA flight control) is only a select market and if the average purchaser is not interested in paying extra for a higher mean-time-between failure (given today's disposable society) then you are just wasting scarce programmer resources. Perhaps OpenSource software could set a new standard but documenting and independently validating a set of 3 software metrics
- mean time between failure (reliability)
- total cost to repair/replace (quality)
- acceleration of learning curve (difficulty)
This should sort out the sheep from the goats.
LL
Now try the same experiment (Score:1)
Re:For Sale: Beige Body Armor, 8 meg RAM, 200 meg (Score:1)
How this can be useful on the job (Score:2)
Re:I'm Afraid of Americans (Score:1)
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
Re:Guide to Moderation (Score:1)
Sure, the moderator was "literally" correct in scoring it offtopic, but come on- it'd never be on-topic (unless slashdot posts some lame article about their own moderation system), and yet it still deserves to be recognized,
That's sick (Score:1)
Every other day I see some article
about some guy shooting some piece of hardware.
Is that some kind of Freudian stuff? Desire to shot something causing you much frustration?
P.S. I do not shot old SUNs - I use them.
Hardware abuse! (Score:3)
Sacrilege!
Putting down broken hardware is one thing, but killing still working Unix hardware boarders on blasphemey!
May their weapons jam and their clip's springs weaken!
Re:This is interesting, (Score:3)
Bad Mojo [rps.net]
Dropping Palms (Score:1)
J.
Be honest .... (Score:5)
Reminds me of a story from the Vietnam War protests in the late 1960s. A bunch of student radicals took over the computer center at a large university. If their demands were not met, they would Destroy the Computer, symbol of opression. Admin ignored them. So they tried.
This was a big IBM mainframe. The radicals discovered a number of interesting facts:
However, they did a real job on the console keyboard.
This is muchly a good thing (Score:1)
Yes, the Sun 3/50 is a sturdy machine. I set one up for my brother as an Xterm (also a loaded 3/60 with 24 MBytes of memory). But the damn thing cost about $10,000 for a base system in 1985!
Big servers like Sun Enterprises and large HPs are still sturdily build, like the large servers of yore.
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
About 15 years ago there was a flood at his place and the TV was left floating around downstairs in waist height water. Afterwards they just pulled it open and let it dry. Today it's still in daily use.
Sun 3's (Score:1)
Re:Gun control laws (Score:1)
When will you Americans.. (Score:1)
That's nothing! (Score:4)
One of my collegues had to attend the clean-up operation of one such attack at a large financial institution, roughly 7-8 years ago. This company used Banyan CNS servers, which were huge 386 or 486 ISA machines with integrated UPS. The case consisted of an aluminimum frame with removable side panels and top. Due to the integrated UPS, they had to be strong.
This site had suffered severe structural damage during the attack, so much so that at least 2 of these servers were acting as supports for the rest of the building. What's more, they still worked after the event, although a bit dusty.
Can anyone beat that..
Re:When will you Americans.. (Score:1)
this guy is from Norway.
Besides, shooting things worked pretty good
when we wanted our independence, and when we saved
your asses from the Krauts twice in a row...etc
etc
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
Meanwhile, the VCR I got in 1992 is a piece of junk now.
They don't build 'em ... at all (Score:1)
I was surprised nobody mentioned the old NeXT cubes - solid magnesium alloy case!
I never heard of anyone shooting one, but they could be burnt!" [simson.net]
Re:When will you Americans.. (Score:2)
While you're pondering your problem with Americans' propensity for shooting things, fella, just remember where y'all got those Mk-37 torpedoes that HMS Conqueror fired at the General Belgrano back in '82 during the Falklands War.
You're welcome, by the way.
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:2)
I got out, pick up the computer, and took it home, feeling embarrassed as hell. However, when I plugged it in, it still worked fine. Case was dented pretty good, but it worked.
There is a reason I have a facination with older electronic equipment. stereo equipment, telephone sets, and lots of other stuff. I've got a Western Electric touch-tone phone (think Beige Box) that was made in the days where AT&T was *THE* phone company, and they still leased equipment. Of course, to keep replacement costs down, AT&T had them built to last. As a result, you can literally bludgeon someone to death with one of these phones, and then use it to call the coroner. :)
The problem is this: Sometime after the industrial revolution, when assembly lines were standard, and companies were spitting out product like never before, someone had the bright idea that they were building a product that was *TOO* good. (I think this probably started with light bulbs.) Someone figured that they could cut some corners, and produce a product that was cheaper to make. Of course, it didn't last as long, but it gave the added advantage that the product needed to be replaced more frequently. If they didn't reduced the selling price for their product, the extra money lined their pockets.
Of course, this seems (to me) to be a massive waste of resources. We could build better products that were more durable, and individuals could save a lot of money on replacement. We also be saving natural resources, reducing trash, and freeing up monitary and physical resources to use for other purposes.
Yes, it's true that you can get products that are more durable then is the standard. It's also true you pay out the nose for them, and that most people don't need products that can survive bomb blasts and 20 foot drops. I contend, hoever, that it isn't that expensive to build products that can take some abuse and still hold up well, even with modern manufacturing techniques. For me, a perfect example of durability in modern manufactoring is my Nokia 6190. It's been dropped times, and yet it still works well. A little scratched, one latch tab for the battery finally broke off, but still, it's useable.
Hayes Transet 1000 Durability Testing (Score:5)
This was one of Dennis' brilliant brain-childs that was basically a marketing flop. It was supposed to be a print buffer (which it did an OK job at), a mailbox (before real internet-type e-mail), and a couple of other things we never were really clear on.
After the product was launched, all the developers were issued a personal Transet. There were those who worked in the project that thought it was a dumb idea to begin with, and decided to make a point about it.
The actual Hayes employee, whom I'll call Chuck, another Hayes employee (not involved in the project, but working there at the time), and myself (not a Hayes employee until many years later), took said Transet 1000 out the ol' shooting range in Marietta, named aptly enough "The Bullet Stop".
Diversion
The Bullet Stop was owned by Paul LaVista, an arms dealer and active mercenary. You may remember him being in the news about 6-7 years ago for shooting himself, them claiming to find a bomb in his Mercedes. All part of an attempt to divert attention of the ever-viligant IRS for not paying his taxes. (Doesn't everyone pay cash for their Stinger missles?). The first time we walked in there was with two 25lb (that's about 46 kilos) blocks of ice. Paul looked at us and said "You're sick puppies! I'd like to pop a couple of those!" That netted us two free magazines for the H&K MP5-A. We preceded to spend about $600, renting every dang weapon that was semi or full-auto in the place. The rule from then on was "Anything that's already dead, fits through the front door, and isn't in a Sherwin-Williams can"
After removing the EPROM from the Transet (those were expensive then, 128K x 8, and as hardware hackers, we coveted any such useful hardware) we clipped the Transet into the target clamp, ran it out about 30 feet, and proceeded to try to kill it.
In those days, Hayes modems, Transets and Chronographs (a collectors item, fetching as much as $300 in the right market, these days. I have 15 of them!) came in very nice
All in all, it was an enjoyable afternoon spent killing a Transet, bowling pins, and few other odds-and-ends. But it didn't quite end there...
Chuck decided that rather than just kill a Transet, we (he) should make a point with it. It was placed on Dennis' desk, before Dennis arrived. Upon find a representative of his beloved project mercilessly slaughtered, he became a tad irate. Word is he never found out who dunnit, but many references were made, and comments such as "A project like that might wind up like a Transet" were occasionally heard. I wish we still had that ol' Transet. It's a bit of Hayes history now...
Other things we shot up: A running Nova 1200 (with 48K of core memory), a self-propelled vacuum cleaner (fun), platters from disc-packs (they spark when a high speed round goes through them), vinyl records (boring), and numerous other bits of obsolete technology.
One word of warning: Next to the Bullet Stop was a bar called the Pew-n-Brew. It's very important to get the order correct: Go shooting, *then* go drinking. One of establishments gets a little annoyed if you get these reversed.
Re:Thank you Mr, Anonymous Coward (Score:1)
Tough Stuff (Score:1)
:)
Re:I'm Afraid of Americans (Score:1)
Blessed Be.
Re:I remember my old IBM XT (Score:1)
They should have tested HP laser printers... (Score:2)
A year ago, the sysadmin in our department wound up with a couple of HP LJ III-somethings that somebody was actually trying to surplus. He offered them to the department via a mailing list, and they were gone in about a minute.
We may never know if they really could survive gunfire, but I know I feel more comfortable in a room that has a LaserJet around so I can duck and cover. :-)
There are good cases out there... (Score:1)
By the way, on the topic of other hardware equipment, once when I was doing an upgrade on my machine, with the outer case off, my brother knocked over his newly-opened ginger ale, spilling a full 12 ounces of bubbling, mildly acidic liquid all over my CD-ROM and power supply, and from there it trickled down to thoroughly drench the motherboard, k6-2 processor, RAM, and various PCI/ISA devices. I nearly had a heart attack, but I realized the machine hadn't even noticed. Of course, I shut it off to clean it up, but the thing ran perfectly fine until I upgraded DirectX.
Re:ISP's with guns (Score:1)
ISP? ISP!?!? I don't need no stinkin' ISP! I have a T1 in my basement. I /.ed myself.
/Sean/
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What's with all the wimpy ammo? (Score:1)
Try it with a NATO 7.62 or a sabot round for that Mossberg.
Sadly, I'm out of tanks these days, or I'd take up a collection for testing with .50 cal or 105mm. .50 would have reduced any of these to junk in a single shot, 105mm sabot would drill a nice neat hole and 105mm HEAT practice (non-explosive) wouldn't have left anything much bigger than a marble.
Eric the mostly recovered
AS/400 destruction in Oz (Score:1)
This reminds me of the *attempted* destruction of an AS/400 I read about in the local IT press.
Someone broke into an office, dropped all the backup tapes into a bin of water, pushed the as/400 down the stairs, and repeatedly rammed it with a fork lift in the basement. (10 points for effort :)
The article said the machine was so extensiely damaged you couldn't tell the front from the rear. Even the disks had popped out of their enclosures. Regardless, IBM were able to repair it and get it booting again.
And when it looked like they would succeed in repairing the box, someone broke in and tried to destroy the machine again! This raised suspicion that it was an inside job and someone was trying to cover their tracks. I didn't hear what happened next.
Silly Eeeeenglissssh Type (Score:1)
You should know by now that we shoot the things we don't like, and fsck the things we do. Simple as that!
Re:What a waste (Score:1)
Hey...it had bad RAM and crashed randomly after booting and operating for a few hours, so I put holes in it. Had you graciously donated a new VME RAM expansion board, I gladly would have donated it.
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Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
(it's a Luma Lumetta LR 58 BM, which I'd love to hear some info about)
And yes, don't forget about the cars! It almost seem like some new cars never leave beta stage until the get shoveled out of the factory...
Re:When will you Americans.. (Score:2)
Re:When will you Americans.. (Score:1)
When will you Brits pay attention to the details, this guy is from Norway.
Actually, Pennsylvania. Go figure.
/Sean/
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Re:Guide to Moderation (Score:1)
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
Hmmm... well in the case of computer hardware that becomes obsolete in two years or less, why would a manufacturer trouble themselves to build anything more than the bare minimum to keep the innards from falling out?
Have we really progressed? No.
I'd rather have the older, better built stuff anyday (well, except for the fact that the price/performace was 100 times worse). I have the tower case from my first Gateway (386, 4mb, 200 Mb drive) and it is the best computer case I've ever had. Heavy gauge steel, solid frame, ample room for extra fans a drives, everything is easy to get at. It is obviously an AT tower so I had to do a little extra searching for mobo and power supply when I went to build it into a file/print server for my home network, but god is it cool. Something about having a PII-450 with 256Mb and a bunch of SCSI drives running Deb in a case that still proudly proclaims "386/33" just seems really great to me.
When it comes to a new system, I agree. The spit an toilepaper enclosures that pass for PeeCee cases these days are sad. I helped my Dad buy a new system last year and Gateway had the best stuff from what we looked at. It is still a far cry from the cases they used to put their gear in. I guess when you UPS each and every one of your units out of South Dakaota, every pound you shave of your computers pays off big.
Now, if you want it done right, you gotta do it yourself, right? The last system I built for myself I used a Supermicro SC750A. [microx-press.com] I highly recommend this case.
commander keen (Score:1)
Texas Instruments TI-99/4A (Score:1)
Speaking of not making 'em like they used to, anybody here have a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A?
If you had the "PEB" (Periperal Expansion Box), an expensive add-on that let you have card slots, you'd know why the old TI came immediately to mind.
The PEB protected all the cards from the outside world with *two* layers of steel. But that wasn't the best part.
The best part was that the cards themselves were housed in cast aluminum chassis. The 32k RAM expansion alone weighed 6 pounds. Imagine if your video card came like that today?
http://www.concentric.net/~Alxevans/ti99_4a.htmlRe:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
Up here in Canada we've got something similar.
The CBC Massesconfuser
It too is big and bulky and expensive to run. It's really quite bass ackwards.
But that there's the way we like it.
Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
Re:Can you say wearable PC (Score:1)
The chicks dig it.
At least I think they do, I know that the stare at me a lot.
Re:What a waste (Score:1)
Yup...it's worth my time to track down replacement parts for an old machine that no one would want to touch with a ten foot pole. Hell, the schools that I would have donated it to are giving me Mac Quadras and old PowerPCs and stuff because they don't want stuff older than 1998. The father in law is a teacher and offloads stuff on me all the time. Heck, even the local church doesn't want anything that won't run Windows 98.
Give me an address to ship the stuff to, mail me cash to cover shipping and I'll donate it.
/Sean/
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Re:It's not just the cases... (Score:1)
Re:Windows and Root? (Score:2)
Learn to use a search engine [google.com].
A root by any other name... (Score:1)
The fact that 9x makes all users superusers makes admins at organizations too poor to afford NT shudder.
Not all superusers on eunuchs systems are named root either [jargonfile.org]. Here's a good way to set up a boring system (excellent cracker deterrent [bomb.com]):
So a cr4x0r claiming to "h4v3 r007 0n 411 j00r b0x0rz" isn't claiming much.
Good name for a script kiddie tool: Roto-RooterRe:When will you Americans.. (Score:2)
Ahhhh, you're referring to the USS Phoenix (CL-46), which survived the Pearl Harbor raid on 7 Dec '41 and served in the PacFlt through the duration, then was mothballed and sold to the Argies in '58?
So much for a Phoenix rising from its own ashes...
Geez, this place is starting to sound like sci.military.naval....
XTs are the best (Score:1)
Re:USP BABY!!!! (Score:2)
Heh, it's true... (Score:1)
My new computer from Packard Bell? (ick, indeed) The thing's made outta plastic. They glue aluminum foil on the inside for RF shielding. I've warped the shielding so much, that I've had to rip both pieces out, which now means that I'm probably operating a FCC class A device!
Re:Can you say wearable PC (Score:1)
If the case had wheels, I suppose you could scoot along veeeery slowly... but the cheap plastic wheels always broke on me.
Not the sturdiest Sun box made... (Score:2)
I was given the machine from work. I live in an old house with very high ceilings. The first thing I used it for was to change a light bulb. (I now have Redhat 6.2 on it, but I needed a sturdy platform at the time and it was there...)
Reminds me that I have a bunch of old PC equiptment that needs to be taken out and shot.
Re:Hardware abuse! (Score:2)
So, it was a mercy killing <Audience: "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!">
That's OK then.
durability of storage media (Score:2)
WTF? (Score:2)
I seem to recall a time when hard drives cost a few hundred bucks for 20 megs. Nice, big-ass hard drive. It could probably stop a train. Or, we could spend that few hundred bucks on a current device, one that costs less to manufacture, and get a lot more for our buck.
Granted, huge advances have allowed us to get that much space. But if giving up the iron solar-flare paneling is going to save me 50 bucks on my next hard drive purchase, get rid of it. I don't take my machines in to areas where they are going to get shot.
Re:Be honest .... (Score:2)
Remember, outside of the US and Vietnam, no one really was all that involved in what was essentially a small bush fight
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