Elixir Wizards

SmartLogic LLC

Elixir Wizards is an interview-style podcast from SmartLogic featuring conversations with developers, engineers, and industry leaders about the Elixir programming language and the broader software development landscape. Each episode explores how modern systems are built, from distributed architectures and infrastructure to developer workflows, security, and emerging technologies like AI. While rooted in the Elixir ecosystem, the show often branches out to compare approaches across languages, platforms, and disciplines. Whether you’re working in Elixir or just interested in how software is evolving, Elixir Wizards offers practical insights and thoughtful perspectives from the people building today’s systems.

  1. The State of the Open Internet with Mallory Knodel

    7 hrs ago

    The State of the Open Internet with Mallory Knodel

    In this episode of Elixir Wizards, Charles Suggs and Emma Whamond are joined by Mallory Knodel, executive director and founder of the Social Web Foundation, to talk about internet governance, open standards, and the future of the social web. Mallory shares how her work as an activist, systems administrator, and public interest technologist led her into the organizations and working groups that shape how the internet functions, including the IETF, W3C, ICANN, and ITU. The conversation explores how the internet shifted from a collection of open protocols toward a small number of dominant platforms, and what that centralization means for users, developers, and independent service providers. Mallory explains how decisions made at the protocol level can affect everything from email deliverability to identity, data portability, trust and safety, and the ability to move between platforms. We also discuss the Social Web Foundation, ActivityPub, the Fediverse, and the idea of building a more multipolar social web. Mallory also looks at what happens when AI agents, automated accounts, and algorithmic feeds enter open social ecosystems. She shares her perspective on privacy, usability, encrypted messaging, and designing technology around user needs rather than engagement alone. Key Topics Discussed What it means to be a public interest technologist How internet governance affects everyday software development The role of global internet standards organizations How the IETF and W3C develop technical standards Corporate influence inside internet governance and standards bodies The internet’s shift from protocols to centralized platforms Email deliverability and the hidden costs of centralization How platform control affects identity and user autonomy Why data portability remains difficult across social platforms The mission behind the Social Web Foundation How the Fediverse connects independent social platforms ActivityPub and Activity Streams as open web protocols AT Protocol, an alternative to ActivityPub How federated servers exchange content and user activity Why a multipolar web differs from decentralization What Meta’s ActivityPub adoption means for federation The embrace, extend, extinguish risk for open protocols Discoverability challenges across federated social networks Trust and safety for smaller platform operators How protocol decisions can affect human rights AI agents entering open social web ecosystems Whether federated platforms should block automated crawlers Designing algorithmic feeds around values and user choice Privacy-first principles for developers building social software Encrypted direct messaging for the open social web Elixir projects building across the Fediverse ecosystem Links Mentioned: Mallory’s Website https://malloryknodel.net/ Internet Protocol (IP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet\_Protocol Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) https://www.ietf.org/ International Communication Union https://www.itu.int/en/ Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) https://www.icann.org/ World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) https://www.w3.org/ Huawei https://www.huawei.com/en/ Cisco https://www.cisco.com/ Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M³AAWG) https://www.m3aawg.org/ Social Web Foundation https://socialwebfoundation.org/ ActivityPub https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ AT Protocol https://atproto.com/ MeWe Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DNSP) https://dsnp.org/about/MeWe-use-case.html BlueSky https://bsky.app/ Mastodon https://joinmastodon.org/ Internet Society https://www.internetsociety.org/ Fediverse https://fediverse.party/ NCSA Mosaic Browser https://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/research/project-highlights/ncsa-mosaic/ Webring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring https://tags.pub/ Elixir projects: Pleroma https://pleroma.social/ Akkoma https://akkoma.social/ Bonfire Networks https://bonfirenetworks.org/ Mobilizon https://mobilizon.org/

    1h 5m
  2. The State of the Power Grid with Mike Ratliff

    Jun 18

    The State of the Power Grid with Mike Ratliff

    In this episode of Elixir Wizards, Charles Suggs and Emma Whamond are joined by Mike Ratliff, co-founder and CTO of GridVar, to talk about the role software plays in the changing energy infrastructure. With over 30 years of experience in technology, Mike shares the path that took him from the early internet and cloud computing into energy and utility software, along with what he has learned about staying adaptable as the industry continues to shift. Mike explains why building software for the power grid comes with a very different set of constraints than building a typical web application and breaks down some of the challenges utilities are facing, including grid interconnection delays, power quality, increasing energy demand, and the growth of distributed energy resources. We also discuss demand response, microgrids, virtual power plants, battery storage, and how software can help utilities better understand and manage a grid that is becoming more complex. Mike also explains why Elixir and the BEAM are a strong fit for always-on energy systems, how an Erlang MQTT server first led him into the ecosystem, and what it takes to introduce Elixir inside an established organization. The episode closes with a broader look at AI-assisted development, the value of domain expertise, and why technical leaders still need communication, judgment, and a compelling story to move important ideas forward. Key topics discussed in this episode: Mike Ratliff’s path from software to energy technology Lessons from three decades of technology industry change The value of generalists in modern software engineering Why good technical judgment remains difficult to replace Building software that interacts with physical infrastructure Why utility technology adoption can move slowly Understanding today’s grid interconnection backlog Power quality challenges affecting new grid connections Using simulation to accelerate utility engineering studies Centralized and distributed approaches to grid management How solar energy creates the duck curve Using demand response to balance electricity consumption Edge devices supporting real-time grid coordination Microgrids and resilience in distributed energy systems Cybersecurity considerations for increasingly connected power grids Preparing utility infrastructure for extreme weather events Battery storage and the growth of renewable energy How virtual power plants coordinate distributed resources Why Elixir works well for energy software BEAM reliability for always-on utility infrastructure Discovering Elixir through Erlang and MQTT Building an early virtual power plant with Elixir Making the business case for an Elixir migration Why technical leadership also requires effective storytelling Links Mentioned: GridVAR https://www.gridvar.com/ GridPoint https://www.gridpoint.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackout Demand Response: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_response Virtual Power Plant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_power_plant Microgrid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microgrid Volts podcast: https://www.volts.wtf/

    54 min
  3. Curiosity, Courage, and the Human Side of Software with Ellyse Cedeno

    Jun 11

    Curiosity, Courage, and the Human Side of Software with Ellyse Cedeno

    In this episode of Elixir Wizards, Charles Suggs and Emma Whamond are joined by Ellyse Cedeno, founder of Heuristic Salvo and a software engineer and product leader with more than 25 years of experience across early internet platforms, gaming, health tech, and distributed systems.   Ellyse shares the winding path that took her from early search engines and Netscape to game development, medical research at Mount Sinai, and eventually to Elixir. Along the way, she talks about staying curious over a long technical career, rediscovering joy through side projects, and why being willing to feel like a beginner again can be one of the most useful skills a developer can build.   The conversation explores what it means to grow as an engineer in a world where AI tooling is becoming part of the everyday workflow. Ellyse makes the case that technical skill still matters, but the human parts of software development (like judgment, curiosity, communication, trust, and influence) are becoming increasingly important.   We also talk about soft influence and how developers can create change inside organizations without relying on hard authority. Key Topics Discussed in this Episode: Ellyse’s career path through early internet platforms, gaming, health tech, and distributed systems Moving from Netscape and search engines to medical research and software consulting Discovering Elixir through an interest in concurrent and distributed systems Why beginner’s mindset still matters after decades in tech How neurodivergence, curiosity, and deep focus shape Ellyse’s approach to programming Rediscovering joy in programming through side projects and experimentation Building an MMORPG game server in Elixir Exploring hardware, Nerves, and live theremin demos The role of passion projects in professional growth Protecting time for learning in productivity-focused environments Work-life balance differences between the U.S. and Europe How AI tools are changing expectations for modern developers Why AI does not replace judgment, taste, or technical understanding Understanding business needs instead of only focusing on technical preferences Introducing Elixir into a TypeScript-heavy organization Using Elixir microservices to solve specific technical problems What “soft influence” looks like in engineering teams Building trust through one-on-one conversations Knowing when influence is working and when it is not Negotiating technical decisions without turning them into power struggles The relationship between technical competence and interpersonal skill Managing imposter syndrome during pair programming and collaborative work Documentation as a visibility and ownership tool Community involvement, conference speaking, and finding your people Staying curious without burning out Why the human side of software development still matters Links Mentioned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai https://icahn.mssm.edu/ Evernote https://evernote.com/ Joplin https://joplinapp.org/ Book: Elixir in Action by Saša Jurić https://www.manning.com/books/elixir-in-action-third-edition Book: The Little LISPer https://www.scribd.com/doc/263131641/The-Little-Lisper Ellyse’s Goatmire Talk https://goatmire.com/speaker/ellyse-cedeno Nerves https://nerves-project.org/ xHain Hack & Makespace in Berlin https://x-hain.de/en/ https://cursor.com/ Haskell Programming Language https://www.haskell.org/ Java Programming Language https://www.java.com/en/ Clojure Programming Language https://clojure.org/ Scheme Programming Language https://www.scheme.org/ TypeScript Programming Language https://www.typescriptlang.org/ Nostrum Library https://hexdocs.pm/nostrum/intro.html Gleam Programming Language https://gleam.run/ Book: Getting Past No by William Ury https://www.williamury.com/getting-past-no/ “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hx4gdlfamo Ted Talk: Do schools kill creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson https://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY Ellyse’s Codeberg https://codeberg.org/ellyxir Ellyse’s Game Server Repo https://codeberg.org/ellyxir/gameserver Goatmire Elixir & NervesConf 2026 https://www.goatmire.com/

    1h 1m
  4. The Missing GitHub Status Page with Marek Šuppa

    Jun 4

    The Missing GitHub Status Page with Marek Šuppa

    In this episode of Elixir Wizards, hosts Charles Suggs and Emma Whamond sit down with Marek Šuppa, creator of the Missing GitHub Status page, a project that reconstructs GitHub's historical uptime data and reveals discrepancies between official status reporting and the platform's actual reliability.   Marek tells us about his dev journey from open source contributor at DuckDuckGo to machine learning engineer at Cisco-acquired Slido. Then, we discuss GitHub’s evolution from a hosted Git service into a critical developer tool. We cover reliability, transparency, AI-driven platform growth, developer workflows, and the challenges of balancing convenience with resilience.   Along the way, we cover alternative platforms, self-hosted solutions, and whether recent outages are changing how developers think about ownership, dependency, and the future of software collaboration.   Topics Discussed in this Episode:   Why did Mr. Shu create the Missing GitHub Status Page? GitHub's reported uptime versus developer experiences How open source contributions shaped Marek's career The evolution of GitHub from tool to critical infrastructure Centralization risks in modern software development Git's distributed roots and today's platform-centric workflows Developer reactions to GitHub outages Transparency and accountability in status reporting AI's impact on developer platforms and infrastructure demands Microsoft's stewardship of GitHub Forgejo, Codeberg, and alternative Git hosting platforms Self-hosted Git solutions and tradeoffs Network effects and platform lock-in The social side of software collaboration Building resilience into developer workflows What GitHub outages teach us about infrastructure dependency   Links Mentioned: The Missing GitHub Status Page https://mrshu.github.io/github-statuses/ Slido https://www.slido.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/ The official GitHub Status Page https://www.githubstatus.com/ Statuspage.iohttps://www.atlassian.com/software/statuspage Zig Leaves GitHub https://ziglang.org/news/migrating-from-github-to-codeberg/ Ghostty Leaves GitHub https://mitchellh.com/writing/ghostty-leaving-github GitLab https://about.gitlab.com/ Codeberg https://codeberg.org/ https://git.kernel.org/ Forgejo Lightweight Self-Hosting https://forgejo.org/ Former GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke launches Entire https://entire.io/news/former-github-ceo-thomas-dohmke-raises-60-million-seed-round Update on Spain and LALIGA blocks of the internet https://vercel.com/blog/update-on-spain-and-laliga-blocks-of-the-internet

    42 min
  5. The State of Code Quality with Saša Jurić

    May 28

    The State of Code Quality with Saša Jurić

    In this episode of Elixir Wizards, hosts Charles Suggs and Emma Whamond sit down with Saša Jurić, Elixir mentor and author of Elixir in Action, to discuss software craftsmanship in the age of AI. As AI coding tools become increasingly capable, Saša argues that the real challenge isn't generating code, it's maintaining quality, clarity, and shared understanding within a codebase.   We explore the difference between correct code and good code, and why code is more than a set of instructions for a machine to execute. Code is also documentation, communication, and a long-term investment that future developers must be able to understand and maintain. Saša shares his concerns about the growing "theater of pull requests," where teams go through the motions of code review without creating meaningful opportunities for learning, feedback, or knowledge sharing.   The hosts and Saša talk about practical ways to work effectively with AI, including taking smaller steps, carefully reviewing AI-generated code, and using AI as a collaborative tool rather than an autonomous developer. Throughout the discussion, Saša challenges the industry's obsession with speed and makes the case that the principles of good software development (incremental progress, clear communication, and human judgment) remain important in the age of AI.   Key Topics Discussed The difference between correct code and good code Code as communication, documentation, and shared understanding The "theater of pull requests" and ineffective review practices How AI is changing software development workflows Using AI as a collaborator rather than a replacement Why smaller, incremental changes lead to better outcomes Human oversight in AI-assisted development Balancing development speed with maintainability Pull request size and review effectiveness Commit history as a tool for storytelling and context The risks of accumulating technical debt faster with AI Testing and validating AI-generated code Refactoring AI-generated solutions for clarity Applying agile principles to AI-assisted workflows The role of experience and judgment in software design Why software craftsmanship still matters in the age of AI   Links mentioned Code Complete by Steve McConnell https://khmerbamboo.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/code-complete-2nd-edition-v413hav.pdf Harness AI for DevOps, Testing, and AppSec https://www.harness.io/ Claude Code https://claude.com/product/claude-code Claude Code GitHub https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code Pull Request for Oban https://github.com/oban-bg/oban/pull/331 SMPP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Message_Peer-to-Peer OpenAI Codex https://chatgpt.com/codex/ Opus AI https://opus.ai/ Tidewave https://tidewave.ai/ Credo Static Code Analysis https://github.com/rrrene/credo https://smartlogic.io/podcast/elixir-wizards/s11-e09-static-code-analyzer-elixir-credo-ruby-rubocop/ Link to Sasa’s X post https://x.com/sasajuric/status/2029522378196238503 Saša Jurić “Tell Me A Story” at Goatmire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOrKfCs-mr0 https://meks.quest/blogs/the-theatre-of-pull-requests-and-code-review Looks Good to Me: Constructive Code Reviews by Adrienne Braganza https://www.manning.com/books/looks-good-to-me Towards Maintainable Elixir: Testing https://medium.com/very-big-things/towards-maintainable-elixir-testing-b32ac0604b99 TDD, Where Did It All Go Wrong (Ian Cooper) https://youtu.be/EZ05e7EMOLM Special Guest: Saša Jurić.

    56 min
  6. Cloud Fragility & Distributed Systems with Somtochi Onyekwere

    May 21

    Cloud Fragility & Distributed Systems with Somtochi Onyekwere

    In Elixir Wizards S15E04, Charles Suggs and Emma Whamond are joined by Somtochi Onyekwere, a software engineer at Fly.io and contributor to the Corrosion distributed database project, to talk about distributed systems, infrastructure resilience, and the growing fragility of centralized cloud platforms.   We discuss what recent outages across major providers reveal about modern infrastructure and why more teams are starting to rethink assumptions around reliability, failover, and system design. Somtochi explains how Fly.io approaches geographic distribution, eventual consistency, and replication across nodes, along with the trade-offs that come with building systems this way.   The conversation explores CRDTs (Conflict-free Replicated Data Types), consensus, split-brain prevention, and what actually happens when distributed systems fail in production. We also talk about testing strategies, rollback planning, property-based testing tools, and how teams can reduce blast radius when things inevitably go wrong.   Along the way, we discuss AI infrastructure, sandboxing AI agents, and how newer workloads may add pressure to already centralized systems. The episode closes with practical advice for developers who want to build more resilient applications without over-complicating their architecture. Topics Discussed in this Episode: Corrosion and distributed database replication Centralized cloud fragility and recent outage patterns Distributed systems versus traditional cloud architectures Multi-region deployment strategies for Phoenix applications CRDTs and conflict resolution in distributed systems Eventual consistency versus strict consistency tradeoffs Consensus, leader election, and split-brain prevention Testing failover and recovery scenarios Property-based testing and Antithesis Rollback planning for database schema migrations Reducing blast radius through system isolation Health checks and blue-green deployment strategies Fly Proxy request routing and replay behavior Cross-region synchronization and replication challenges Single points of failure inside “redundant” systems Backup restoration testing and disaster recovery planning Network partitions and failure handling in production Infrastructure monitoring and operational visibility AI infrastructure workloads and operational strain Sandboxing and securing AI agents Sprites and AI workflows at Fly.io Latency improvements from geographic distribution Distributed systems tradeoffs in real-world environments Transitive dependency failures across cloud providers Practical resilience strategies for modern engineering teams Links Mentioned: https://fly.io https://github.com/superfly/corrosion https://docs.gitops.weaveworks.org/ FluxCD https://fluxcd.io/ Fly.io Stateful Sandbox Environments https://sprites.dev/ Cloudflare Workers AI Inference Platform https://www.cloudflare.com/products/workers-ai/ “An AI Agent Just Destroyed Our Production Data. It Confessed in Writing” Twitter post from PocketOS founder: https://x.com/lifeof_jer/status/2048103471019434248 Oct 2025 AWS Outage https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/24/amazon-reveals-cause-of-aws-outage Dec 2025 Cloudflare Outage https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/05/another-cloudflare-outage-takes-down-websites-linkedin-zoom July 2025 Crowdstrike Outage https://www.ibm.com/think/news/recent-crowdstrike-outage-what-you-should-know March 2026 Stryker Cyber Attack https://www.stryker.com/us/en/about/news/2026/a-message-to-our-customers-03-2026.html https://aws.amazon.com/ https://cloud.google.com/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us https://fly.io/docs/elixir/ CRDTs!! https://smartlogic.io/podcast/elixir-wizards/s13-e03-local-first-liveview-svelte-pwa/ https://antithesis.com/docs/resources/property_based_testing/ https://hex.pm/packages/proper

    46 min
  7. The State of Hiring and Jobs in Elixir with Greg Medland

    May 14

    The State of Hiring and Jobs in Elixir with Greg Medland

    In Season 15 episode 3, Charles Suggs sits down with Greg Medland, aka “The Elixir Fixer,” to talk about the current state of hiring and the software jobs market in 2026.   Greg shares what he’s seeing from both sides of the hiring process as an Elixir-focused recruiter, from shifting company expectations to the growing importance of specialization, communication skills, and real-world product thinking. We discuss how the market has changed since the 2021–2022 hiring boom, why things feel more uncertain today, and how developers are adapting to a slower, more competitive landscape.   The conversation also explores how AI is affecting hiring workflows, résumé quality, technical interviews, and even the rise of fraudulent candidates. Greg explains why human relationships and reputation still matter more than ever, especially in smaller ecosystems like Elixir where community connections carry real weight.   Along the way, we talk about what junior developers are up against, why senior engineers with domain expertise continue to stand out, and what developers can do to position themselves more effectively in today’s market. Greg shares practical advice for building a sustainable career, developing a clear professional identity, and navigating a rapidly changing industry.   Topics discussed in this episode: The current state of the Elixir job market Hiring trends and market shifts since 2021–2022 How AI is changing hiring and recruiting workflows Fraudulent candidates and AI-generated résumés Domain expertise vs. generalist engineering skills Product thinking and customer-focused development What companies are looking for in 2026 Junior developer challenges in the current market Why senior specialists remain in demand Networking and relationship-building in tech Open source contributions and visibility in the Elixir community Standing out in a crowded hiring environment Résumé quality and application strategies The role of personal branding for developers Remote work trends and geographic hiring patterns Technical interview expectations and evaluation changes Startup vs. enterprise hiring differences Human connection in an increasingly automated industry Career resilience and long-term positioning Building a sustainable software engineering career   Links mentioned: Socially Responsible Recruitment https://sr2rec.com/en/ Greg’s LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/elixirfixer/ Greg's email address: greg@sr2rec.com

    51 min
  8. Supervised State Replication in Elixir with Micah Cooper

    May 7

    Supervised State Replication in Elixir with Micah Cooper

    In Season 15 episode 2, Elixir Wizards Sundi Myint and Charles Suggs chat with Micah Cooper to talk about distributed systems, data replication, and what it actually looks like to build these ideas in Elixir.   Micah shares his journey from Ruby to Elixir and walks us through Visor, a library he’s building based on the Viewstamps replication algorithm. Inspired by systems like TigerBeetle, Visor explores how you can replicate state across nodes using GenServers, giving you fault tolerance and recovery without relying entirely on traditional database patterns.   We talk about the difference between distributed systems and data replication, where things tend to get misunderstood, and what changes when you start thinking about state this way. The conversation also touches on event sourcing, tradeoffs in system design, and how Elixir’s distributed model makes some of these concepts more approachable than you might expect.   Along the way, we talk about building for curiosity, experimenting with new ideas, and how projects like this push the ecosystem forward.   Topics discussed in this episode: Building Visor and working with the Viewstamps replication model Replicating GenServer state across nodes Distributed systems vs. data replication Lessons from TigerBeetle and financial system design Event sourcing challenges and tradeoffs Rethinking database-first architectures Snapshotting, recovery, and fault tolerance The role of Elixir’s distributed model Experimentation, learning, and building for curiosity   Links mentioned: Micah’s GitHub https://github.com/mrmicahcooper Micah’s GitLab https://gitlab.com/mrmicahcooper The Visor repository: https://gitlab.com/mrmicahcooper/visor Visor Hex Package https://hex.pm/packages/visor Ruby on Rails https://rubyonrails.org/ Phoenix LiveView Framework https://www.phoenixframework.org/ Zig Programming Language https://ziglang.org/ TigerBeetle https://tigerbeetle.com/ TigerBeetle internal docs https://github.com/tigerbeetle/tigerbeetle/tree/main/docs/internals The BEAM https://www.erlang-solutions.com/blog/the-beam-erlangs-virtual-machine/ GenServer https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/GenServer.html Apache Kafka https://github.com/apache/kafka RabbitMQ https://www.rabbitmq.com/ Redpanda https://www.redpanda.com/ SQL https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/structured-query-language Kubernetes https://kubernetes.io/ YAML https://yaml.org/ Nomad Workload Orchestrator https://developer.hashicorp.com/nomad Flutter https://flutter.dev/ Commanded https://hexdocs.pm/commanded/Commanded.html Go Programming Language https://go.dev/ Clojure Programming Language https://clojure.org/ Nebulex https://hexdocs.pm/nebulex/Nebulex.html Mnesia https://www.erlang.org/doc/apps/mnesia/mnesia.html Cachex https://hexdocs.pm/cachex/Cachex.html libgraph https://hexdocs.pm/libgraph/Graph.html Horde https://hexdocs.pm/horde/Horde.Registry.html NocFree split keyboard https://www.nocfree.com/ Micah’s LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/micah-cooper-4a737560/

    47 min

About

Elixir Wizards is an interview-style podcast from SmartLogic featuring conversations with developers, engineers, and industry leaders about the Elixir programming language and the broader software development landscape. Each episode explores how modern systems are built, from distributed architectures and infrastructure to developer workflows, security, and emerging technologies like AI. While rooted in the Elixir ecosystem, the show often branches out to compare approaches across languages, platforms, and disciplines. Whether you’re working in Elixir or just interested in how software is evolving, Elixir Wizards offers practical insights and thoughtful perspectives from the people building today’s systems.

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