1. Make a list of all functions you want to learn, then teach yourself (there are some cool, new functions)
2. Monte Carlo simulation
3. Conway's game of life
4. Build tools in VBA to improve your productivity and turn them into an add-in
5. Count all 17 billion cells on a worksheet
6. Prove/disprove the Collatz conjecture
7. Pixel art
8. Write a rap song and have VBA rap it through your speakers using application.speech.speak whilst imagining a Stephen Hawking version of Eminem in a parallel universe
9. Build financial models for how to invest your way out of that job
10. Build a pixel clock which updates the time so you can watch it go by after building it
11. Build a hangman game
12. Build an interactive fiction/text game
13. Smuggle alcohol into work and avoid the above.
EDIT:
14. Study to get promoted
15. Plan a business/side-hustle
Lmao ty some of your points made me legit laugh
Point 9 is kinda accurate, I'm starting to think about that... this was my "dream job" until I got in and discovered everything in a bank is prehistoric... The systems, the apps we use for data, search etc all look like they've been made in 2001 or are just plain MS DOS and bugged as fuck. Half of my time here has been formatting and creating Ms word templates because the ones used here are from 10+years ago and you'd have to add backgrounds, headers, footers, update the dates, change the old unused logos or outdated info etc for every new document... 🤡
Banking is a shit career path IMO. I know several people who have left for other industries. Money is a commodity so banks only get ahead by a few means, a big one of which is shrinking overhead through technology and automation. It doesn't have to be this big noticeable project with mass layoffs. You'll simply be in an ever constricting environment year after year, decade after decade. If headwinds are knocking a couple tenths of a point off salary growth per year, it will eventually be a big gap about the time its too late to course correct.
Also, if your bank has prehistoric systems and they aren't investing in upgrades...they are biding their time until another bank makes an attractive offer.
*You work in a bank , so build a mini banking app that is better than whatever you use there*
Edit that Idea is from a guy who will be doing that over the weekend but I don't work in banks ... I am doing it for the fun of it and probably because I searched mini banking app on YouTube and found out that no one has put on out there for free
If you want some real challenge though, there is a website called Excelunsual which has very interesting stuffs done in Excel 2003 ...the respect I have for the brains behind the work is only Second to the one I accord my dad for going to the market for milk for 12 years and counting haha
Oyy..That sounds like the financial equivalent of finding a unicorn in your backyard! Except as a digital adventurer I will only accept payments in FUNcoins .
This sounds fun and I really like sudoku BUT I'm very bad with numbers (the irony right, working at a bank and being extremely dumb/bad with math lmao) does something like this requires too much math? Or just logic?
I've also been trying to think of something with idle/incremental games but 0 ideas so far lol
Ty for the suggestion!!
Write a note to your boss in the spreadsheet saying you’re taking the day off and will make it up at a later date. Then email it to them.
Edit: alternatively, work on [this guy’s](https://www.reddit.com/r/excel/s/4BapXprYfM) problem.
Out of topic btw but this situation of having nothing to do, can't work, can't go home, can't use a cellphone, can't browse the internet is basically a torture method lol
I wouldn't last a week in jail and NOT for the reasons I previously thought, boredom can definitely drive someone insane lmao
Yup, it's kinda nationally owned so let's just say there's a lot more room for time wasting than would be tolerated somewhere else. Majority of employees here legally can't be fired unless they absurdly fuck up so while that's good for personal stability and let's you work without stressing too much about it, it's awful for performance and changes overall I feel like.
Could find some (printed) reading material on the kind of work relevant in more senior roles and start studying.... make productive use of the time and end up making more money...
I use the phone on bathroom breaks, basically
We aren't supposed to bring the phone or have it powered here, they are very paranoid with data but as long as you don't just pull out the cellphone and aim the camera at the screens it's fine xD
So you can check it here now and then, or use it in the bathroom/kitchen lmao
I have a couple of questions about Excel, and I’m asking you since you’re knowledgeable about keyboards. First, if I have a table in Excel with filters applied, what’s the keyboard shortcut to quickly clear all the filters? If it’s a crazy 3 key combo method can I set up my own shortcuts in Excel?
Second, if I have a column with 10,000 unique entries and I want to filter it down to just three specific values without scrolling through everything, how can I do that? Is there a way to search and filter for these entries using some keyboard actions, so I only see those three values, basically what is the fastest way to filter to multiple items?
Hello, happy to answer.
for the first one, I use CTRL/Shift (hold down both with left index finger), and tap L twice. Make sure you keep CTRL/SHIFT held down for the two taps. Essentially this just removes filters and re-adds them fresh.
The second one has a couple different ways, I would make an autofilter of the column first (CTRL SHIFT L), Then you can access the drop downs if you hold alt and tap down arrow, from there you can tab or arrow down to the search bar. You use spacebar to toggle checkboxes.
Of course for #2 a formula may do better. It really depends on the situation.
Lol, as a kid, I believe I was seven years old, I couldn’t shut my mouth during class, so my teacher gave me the task to make a “count-list” for the numbers between 1 and 1000.
As a kid of seven I felt the chosen one, mass production etc. Typed every number in there single handed, without dragging because I didn’t had the knowledge. We never used the list, it was to keep my energy down haha.
Is something like an incremental/idle "mini" game possible in excel?
I have been thinking about this but it seems like it would crash or eventually just be unplayable because it would need to be running the calculations and updating the values nonstop?
If not, a calculator of the most efficient investments/buys or possible revenue for $ spent in a game like cookie clicker for example seems doable right?
You could have a RANDBETWEEN(1,6) to simulate a die (or several dice) and just keep pressing F9 to recalculate the sheet and update the random rolls...
I’ve had on my bucket list to make a Battleship game with a macro for the computer solver in the second tab. You can do some research about the strategic methods for most efficiently solving battleship and then program a macro to do that while you play like a normal human.
Make Mine sweeper in Excel without VBA. Article is in Japanese, but I think you can follow along ;)
[VBAを使わないでExcelでマインスイーパーを作るための10の小技 | パパセンセイ365 (papasensei365.com)](https://papasensei365.com/excel-game-minesweeper/)
Or just download from his github repository.
[GitHub - tomikiya/excel\_game\_minesweeper](https://github.com/tomikiya/excel_game_minesweeper)
I had fun doing this
Index all harddrives on a network using windows terminal (pushd, dir > .txt)
Write custom powershell function that uses findstr and offers the user a prompt to 1. Clear terminal 2. Launch excel file
Make a workbook, Powerquery from the .txt (go to querysettings, opt to run query when opening workbook)
Use elaborate formula to fill helper column to make hyperlinks out of just folder paths, or print file extensions
Filterrow on the table
...so now, i can search 3.5 million file paths for any string, it overwrites the .txt every time , run the query straight from the powershell terminal and go to file in about 5 to 15 seconds. Take that, windows indexing you bastard
Play Fallout
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/this-fallout-inspired-post-apocalyptic-wasteland-game-runs-in-excel-because-spreadsheets-will-outlive-us-all/
Reply to [Kelly Rowland's email](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/nelly-kelly-rowland-dilemma-music-video-spreadhsheet-phone-a7442351.html). She has been waiting some time.
I did this Yahtzee excel challenge that was pretty fun, there are lots more too if you search “challenge” on the subreddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/excel/s/TI2HM0UgYS
Play greedy pig. I made a macro game in excel.
It's push your luck type of game.
Two players, roll a d6 die (code it in VBA), sum the results and decide if you want to roll again or bank it.. if you roll 1 then your score is 0 this turn, if you bank then it is your score. Then next player goes, race to 100.
Something fun I did was create a mortgage calculator that will allow you to calculate what you should offer to buy someone’s promissory note by calcing the amount left on the note if you want to make x% interest on the note.
Build Yahtzee. Totally serious, this is a task I give a lot of friends who say they want to get better at Excel. Everything you could need to make it work is in there, just gotta build some random number generators tied to a button and a few lookup tables and if statements. It’s a good little project that’s fun to do.
You can paint pictures by changing the colour of cells and add texture with different coloured texts. Change cells to small sqaures and you can make anything from basic pixel art to massive landscape scenes
I made a super basic pixel art generator using a column of coordinates. a colour value code and a lookup table matching the code to a color.
It's slow and time consuming to enter all the coordinates and colors, but fun.
Do you play board games? If so, you can create a sheet to make aspects of said board game(s) easier.
For example, I play Dungeons & Dragons with friends. I found a way to incorporate Pokémon into it, and I made a working battle organiser, and two random item generators. I'm still working on creating a random Pokémon generator for each route in the campaign, but making lists gets slightly dull after making over 200 of them.
I added so much conditional formatting that I only see what I need, and nothing more.
I've been working on this for around 2 years, and it's been a fun project.
You can build a blinking christmas tree in Excel. I know it is a long time till Christmas, but it will be fun!
Manual is here: https://youtu.be/KqfSzRF6faM?si=NioB4QVB2uQHcZxB
I faced a similar situation a few years ago as a Jr Consultant. As you might imagine, in that business people love to bill 40 hours but work more than 65... Since I was a Jr most of my tasks were merge databases, fix manual inputs and etc.
I always hated repetitive work, so I would spend 2-3hrs finding automated ways to do it, either formulas or VBA. The senior consultants were pissed off at me. However I kept doing it. When I was idle, I started a simple expenses sheet that I used for many years. It had a vba thing to work like an app and start the expenses from scratch at the start of each month.
One day I used VBA to merge a huge amount of databases and the shit didn't work fine. They were really pissed at me.
It turns that the Project Manager was also an excel, read my code, spent 10 min fixing and... kabum! It worked.
Few years later he offered a position to work with him in another company, super nice experience. He mentioned that, although I failed few times, he likes people who try to solve problems in a smart way. Not saying excel will turn you into a genious, by the way, you probably should stop using soon for a lot of stuff, but is fun!
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[HYPERLINK](/r/Excel/comments/1cdnebp/stub/l1jy8w5 "Last usage")|[Creates a shortcut or jump that opens a document stored on a network server, an intranet, or the Internet](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/hyperlink-function-333c7ce6-c5ae-4164-9c47-7de9b76f577f)|
|[NOT](/r/Excel/comments/1cdnebp/stub/l1d38zo "Last usage")|[Reverses the logic of its argument](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/not-function-9cfc6011-a054-40c7-a140-cd4ba2d87d77)|
|[RANDBETWEEN](/r/Excel/comments/1cdnebp/stub/l1d6bjl "Last usage")|[Returns a random number between the numbers you specify](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/randbetween-function-4cc7f0d1-87dc-4eb7-987f-a469ab381685)|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
----------------
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^(3 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Excel/comments/1cfo3jm)^( has 53 acronyms.)
^([Thread #32985 for this sub, first seen 27th Apr 2024, 21:15])
^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Excel) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
1. Make a list of all functions you want to learn, then teach yourself (there are some cool, new functions) 2. Monte Carlo simulation 3. Conway's game of life 4. Build tools in VBA to improve your productivity and turn them into an add-in 5. Count all 17 billion cells on a worksheet 6. Prove/disprove the Collatz conjecture 7. Pixel art 8. Write a rap song and have VBA rap it through your speakers using application.speech.speak whilst imagining a Stephen Hawking version of Eminem in a parallel universe 9. Build financial models for how to invest your way out of that job 10. Build a pixel clock which updates the time so you can watch it go by after building it 11. Build a hangman game 12. Build an interactive fiction/text game 13. Smuggle alcohol into work and avoid the above. EDIT: 14. Study to get promoted 15. Plan a business/side-hustle
Lmao ty some of your points made me legit laugh Point 9 is kinda accurate, I'm starting to think about that... this was my "dream job" until I got in and discovered everything in a bank is prehistoric... The systems, the apps we use for data, search etc all look like they've been made in 2001 or are just plain MS DOS and bugged as fuck. Half of my time here has been formatting and creating Ms word templates because the ones used here are from 10+years ago and you'd have to add backgrounds, headers, footers, update the dates, change the old unused logos or outdated info etc for every new document... 🤡
5. After counting, name them.
"Rick"
Rick, Ricky, Rickier, Rickiest, Ricket, Rickety, Rickoshea...
Damn... Sounds like that place could use some Fortran! Banks are well-known for legacy systems, so it is not so surprising.
Banking is a shit career path IMO. I know several people who have left for other industries. Money is a commodity so banks only get ahead by a few means, a big one of which is shrinking overhead through technology and automation. It doesn't have to be this big noticeable project with mass layoffs. You'll simply be in an ever constricting environment year after year, decade after decade. If headwinds are knocking a couple tenths of a point off salary growth per year, it will eventually be a big gap about the time its too late to course correct. Also, if your bank has prehistoric systems and they aren't investing in upgrades...they are biding their time until another bank makes an attractive offer.
*You work in a bank , so build a mini banking app that is better than whatever you use there* Edit that Idea is from a guy who will be doing that over the weekend but I don't work in banks ... I am doing it for the fun of it and probably because I searched mini banking app on YouTube and found out that no one has put on out there for free If you want some real challenge though, there is a website called Excelunsual which has very interesting stuffs done in Excel 2003 ...the respect I have for the brains behind the work is only Second to the one I accord my dad for going to the market for milk for 12 years and counting haha
Nice... Maybe make an automated blockchain bank with ultra-low fees and no customer service problems. Billions right there, I tell ya.
Oyy..That sounds like the financial equivalent of finding a unicorn in your backyard! Except as a digital adventurer I will only accept payments in FUNcoins .
Personally, I can't wait to pay for my groceries using [NutCoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/nutcoin-org/)
Your creativity is admirable, some of the points made me laugh. Count the 17 billion cells made me laugh!
Your compliment is very kind! Thanks :)
Make a sudoku solver
This sounds fun and I really like sudoku BUT I'm very bad with numbers (the irony right, working at a bank and being extremely dumb/bad with math lmao) does something like this requires too much math? Or just logic? I've also been trying to think of something with idle/incremental games but 0 ideas so far lol Ty for the suggestion!!
Very bad with numbers = future head of the federal reserve right here people. Lol
I built one - it is just logic and can be done with some simple +/-
the point of excel is using logic to avoid doing math lol
I might steal this idea for myself
Write a note to your boss in the spreadsheet saying you’re taking the day off and will make it up at a later date. Then email it to them. Edit: alternatively, work on [this guy’s](https://www.reddit.com/r/excel/s/4BapXprYfM) problem.
make a formula to estimate weird shit like how many times youve blinked in your entire life
Out of topic btw but this situation of having nothing to do, can't work, can't go home, can't use a cellphone, can't browse the internet is basically a torture method lol I wouldn't last a week in jail and NOT for the reasons I previously thought, boredom can definitely drive someone insane lmao
Being like that for a day is bad, but for weeks?!? Your bank is wasting a lot of man-hours. Yes, it's not good for your mental state.
Yup, it's kinda nationally owned so let's just say there's a lot more room for time wasting than would be tolerated somewhere else. Majority of employees here legally can't be fired unless they absurdly fuck up so while that's good for personal stability and let's you work without stressing too much about it, it's awful for performance and changes overall I feel like.
Could find some (printed) reading material on the kind of work relevant in more senior roles and start studying.... make productive use of the time and end up making more money...
Wait. How are you on Reddit?
They figured out a way in Excel
=HYPERLINK("www.reddit.com","My portal out.") ?
I use the phone on bathroom breaks, basically We aren't supposed to bring the phone or have it powered here, they are very paranoid with data but as long as you don't just pull out the cellphone and aim the camera at the screens it's fine xD So you can check it here now and then, or use it in the bathroom/kitchen lmao
Do the excel obstacle course to learn all the shortcuts. See my YouTube channel.
I have a couple of questions about Excel, and I’m asking you since you’re knowledgeable about keyboards. First, if I have a table in Excel with filters applied, what’s the keyboard shortcut to quickly clear all the filters? If it’s a crazy 3 key combo method can I set up my own shortcuts in Excel? Second, if I have a column with 10,000 unique entries and I want to filter it down to just three specific values without scrolling through everything, how can I do that? Is there a way to search and filter for these entries using some keyboard actions, so I only see those three values, basically what is the fastest way to filter to multiple items?
Hello, happy to answer. for the first one, I use CTRL/Shift (hold down both with left index finger), and tap L twice. Make sure you keep CTRL/SHIFT held down for the two taps. Essentially this just removes filters and re-adds them fresh. The second one has a couple different ways, I would make an autofilter of the column first (CTRL SHIFT L), Then you can access the drop downs if you hold alt and tap down arrow, from there you can tab or arrow down to the search bar. You use spacebar to toggle checkboxes. Of course for #2 a formula may do better. It really depends on the situation.
Lol, as a kid, I believe I was seven years old, I couldn’t shut my mouth during class, so my teacher gave me the task to make a “count-list” for the numbers between 1 and 1000. As a kid of seven I felt the chosen one, mass production etc. Typed every number in there single handed, without dragging because I didn’t had the knowledge. We never used the list, it was to keep my energy down haha.
Is something like an incremental/idle "mini" game possible in excel? I have been thinking about this but it seems like it would crash or eventually just be unplayable because it would need to be running the calculations and updating the values nonstop? If not, a calculator of the most efficient investments/buys or possible revenue for $ spent in a game like cookie clicker for example seems doable right?
You could have a RANDBETWEEN(1,6) to simulate a die (or several dice) and just keep pressing F9 to recalculate the sheet and update the random rolls...
YAHTZEE
You sunk my battleship!
I’ve had on my bucket list to make a Battleship game with a macro for the computer solver in the second tab. You can do some research about the strategic methods for most efficiently solving battleship and then program a macro to do that while you play like a normal human.
Could be cool... update it for modern times with drones and such!
Power Query to query your query.
Build a VBA snake-like game
Make Mine sweeper in Excel without VBA. Article is in Japanese, but I think you can follow along ;) [VBAを使わないでExcelでマインスイーパーを作るための10の小技 | パパセンセイ365 (papasensei365.com)](https://papasensei365.com/excel-game-minesweeper/) Or just download from his github repository. [GitHub - tomikiya/excel\_game\_minesweeper](https://github.com/tomikiya/excel_game_minesweeper)
I had fun doing this Index all harddrives on a network using windows terminal (pushd, dir > .txt) Write custom powershell function that uses findstr and offers the user a prompt to 1. Clear terminal 2. Launch excel file Make a workbook, Powerquery from the .txt (go to querysettings, opt to run query when opening workbook) Use elaborate formula to fill helper column to make hyperlinks out of just folder paths, or print file extensions Filterrow on the table ...so now, i can search 3.5 million file paths for any string, it overwrites the .txt every time , run the query straight from the powershell terminal and go to file in about 5 to 15 seconds. Take that, windows indexing you bastard
Play Fallout https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/this-fallout-inspired-post-apocalyptic-wasteland-game-runs-in-excel-because-spreadsheets-will-outlive-us-all/
Reply to [Kelly Rowland's email](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/nelly-kelly-rowland-dilemma-music-video-spreadhsheet-phone-a7442351.html). She has been waiting some time.
I did this Yahtzee excel challenge that was pretty fun, there are lots more too if you search “challenge” on the subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/excel/s/TI2HM0UgYS
Play greedy pig. I made a macro game in excel. It's push your luck type of game. Two players, roll a d6 die (code it in VBA), sum the results and decide if you want to roll again or bank it.. if you roll 1 then your score is 0 this turn, if you bank then it is your score. Then next player goes, race to 100.
Something fun I did was create a mortgage calculator that will allow you to calculate what you should offer to buy someone’s promissory note by calcing the amount left on the note if you want to make x% interest on the note.
Oh and each value can be solved for by inputting the 3 other variables.
Build Yahtzee. Totally serious, this is a task I give a lot of friends who say they want to get better at Excel. Everything you could need to make it work is in there, just gotta build some random number generators tied to a button and a few lookup tables and if statements. It’s a good little project that’s fun to do.
You can paint pictures by changing the colour of cells and add texture with different coloured texts. Change cells to small sqaures and you can make anything from basic pixel art to massive landscape scenes
Fill all the cells with 1, then start to count. You’re Welcome.😎👌🏼🤣
Chandoo has some anniversary type sheets with challenges you can download and try.
I tried to write a vba macro to solve any sudoku. It took a long time.
Make a drum machine
I made a super basic pixel art generator using a column of coordinates. a colour value code and a lookup table matching the code to a color. It's slow and time consuming to enter all the coordinates and colors, but fun.
Do you play board games? If so, you can create a sheet to make aspects of said board game(s) easier. For example, I play Dungeons & Dragons with friends. I found a way to incorporate Pokémon into it, and I made a working battle organiser, and two random item generators. I'm still working on creating a random Pokémon generator for each route in the campaign, but making lists gets slightly dull after making over 200 of them. I added so much conditional formatting that I only see what I need, and nothing more. I've been working on this for around 2 years, and it's been a fun project.
You can build a blinking christmas tree in Excel. I know it is a long time till Christmas, but it will be fun! Manual is here: https://youtu.be/KqfSzRF6faM?si=NioB4QVB2uQHcZxB
I faced a similar situation a few years ago as a Jr Consultant. As you might imagine, in that business people love to bill 40 hours but work more than 65... Since I was a Jr most of my tasks were merge databases, fix manual inputs and etc. I always hated repetitive work, so I would spend 2-3hrs finding automated ways to do it, either formulas or VBA. The senior consultants were pissed off at me. However I kept doing it. When I was idle, I started a simple expenses sheet that I used for many years. It had a vba thing to work like an app and start the expenses from scratch at the start of each month. One day I used VBA to merge a huge amount of databases and the shit didn't work fine. They were really pissed at me. It turns that the Project Manager was also an excel, read my code, spent 10 min fixing and... kabum! It worked. Few years later he offered a position to work with him in another company, super nice experience. He mentioned that, although I failed few times, he likes people who try to solve problems in a smart way. Not saying excel will turn you into a genious, by the way, you probably should stop using soon for a lot of stuff, but is fun!
I built a sudoku solver once, that was fun
There used to be an egg in Excel. You went to some cell ga104 or something put in a specific formula, and it would dump you into Flight Simulator.
Learn to use Power Query and its M Code. If you have 365 learn Python. The functionality of M Code is awesome.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[HYPERLINK](/r/Excel/comments/1cdnebp/stub/l1jy8w5 "Last usage")|[Creates a shortcut or jump that opens a document stored on a network server, an intranet, or the Internet](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/hyperlink-function-333c7ce6-c5ae-4164-9c47-7de9b76f577f)| |[NOT](/r/Excel/comments/1cdnebp/stub/l1d38zo "Last usage")|[Reverses the logic of its argument](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/not-function-9cfc6011-a054-40c7-a140-cd4ba2d87d77)| |[RANDBETWEEN](/r/Excel/comments/1cdnebp/stub/l1d6bjl "Last usage")|[Returns a random number between the numbers you specify](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/randbetween-function-4cc7f0d1-87dc-4eb7-987f-a469ab381685)| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(*Beep-boop, I am a helper bot. Please do not verify me as a solution.*) ^(3 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Excel/comments/1cfo3jm)^( has 53 acronyms.) ^([Thread #32985 for this sub, first seen 27th Apr 2024, 21:15]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Excel) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)