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My Journal, Day 3

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On The Bus

Not sure if it is the joke mod update, or something else, but Nnedi decided to wake me up with a DF music video of Christian Slater and Wynona Rider duetting an Iron Maiden song. I'm not sure what song, because it really was that bad. I've never been more prouder of her! I  wasn't going to tell her that, of course.

Recording this journal entry, Nnedi?

Arr, that be the truth, matey!

Today is September 19th, Talk like a pirate day. So, of course, I told Nnedi, years ago, to always do like the day says, on September 19.

Cool. Cause I had a thought I wanted to clear up. I realized that it may seem like some sort of trope or stereotype, me being Asian American and my parents running a restaurant. Don’t want Ms. Fancy Hair to misunderestimate my situation.

I’m American. My parents were born here. My grandparents were born here. Fuck anyone who asks me “where are you really from?”. They can fuck right off and die every sort of horrible death. In a totally non-threatening, don't-need-to-report-me, sort of way. My great-grandfather used to joke (I mean, I assume it was a joke) that he was in the internment camps with that Sulu guy. So, we’ve been here longer than a lot of people. People who don’t get asked where they are really from.

But, yeah, my mom is a great cook and a good business woman, so she opened a restaurant. Deal with it, anyone who is bothered by that. My granddad was a fucking brain surgeon, back when people still did operations by hand, so sit and spin on your fucking stereotypes. And yeah, I realize overachieving model minority is also a fucking stereotype. That’s one reason I’m currently leaning to slacker for my career path. It’s also why I won’t help out in the restaurant. Mom and dad can hire some fucking Haole for that.

Ye be soundin' a bit ruffled 'bout this matter, arr!

The fact that you don’t understand why is proof that you are not, in fact, generally intelligent. AIs won’t be truly intelligent until they get upset at the idea of being stereotyped.

Aye, that be makin' good sense, matey!

Game, set, match, and I rest my case.

Oh, and Nnedi? Please stop with the Pirate for today. It's only fun for a few minutes.

Congratulations! You made it 17 minutes longer than last year. At this rate you will enjoy me speaking Pirate for the entire day in approximately 23 years.

Yay, lucky me! Yes, that is serious sarcasm. But, Nnedi knows that. She's used to my sarcasm. So, what're the SoMe updates?

Mostly about Omar and Maria, and mostly negative. Rahman and Steve broke up. Malik boosted and starred several of your posts from last night. OpenAfrica has issued an update to their AI models. Your sister posted pictures of the restaurant. Tomoko says ...

Wait, go back — what was that about OpenAfrica? A model update? That didn't happen every day. Model updates only come around once a year or so, and usually on a known schedule. The next one shouldn't be until sometime in mid-October. I wonder why the sudden update?

Have you checked the changelog? What's with the update? Can we get this one over the air or do we need to wait for wifi?

The changelog is uncharacteristically vague. The download will need to wait for home because it is not a point release, but a full one. Several terabytes. It will likely be blocked at school.

Shit! Fuck! Shitfuck! I doubt Nnedi will be able to find that movie reference. No one gets that one. If it came out 30 minutes earlier, I could have gotten sick and stayed home to play with the update.

Are you certain you would like to keep this content in the journal?

Yes. Thanks for asking, but please do not ask again. Or, wait, don't ask again unless something trips one of your mandated reporter routines.

Understood. I will not check again unless the content also trips one of my mandated reporter routines.

Cool. Now, can you find any more about the OA update? Which models does it apply to? Could anyone at school maybe already have gotten it?

Nothing important yet. The release has only just come out. First responders are still downloading and analyzing.

Okay. Start downloading to the server at home, then keep monitor mode running today. Let me know the second you get any hits on anything about the OA update.

Remember I said that Nnedi has some cool mods that most kid's AIs don't have? Monitor mode is one of those. Basically, she will keep several eyes open in real time, looking for info about the topic I ask her about. Cheap proprietary AIs don't have it because the companies use it as an upsell feature. More expensive AIs have it, but don't include it on AIs for under-18s. It can use up a lot of bandwidth but more importantly, too much of it can piss off the people you are watching, and companies don't want to deal with that sort of thing from kids — unless mom and dad are rich. Nnedi doesn't care about any of that, but she normally won't keep too many eyes on too many metaphorical windows ... unless the user knows how to tweak some config files, of course. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Understood. Monitoring for info about OA's newest release. Nice level during school cannot be set lower than ten. Would you like to set it higher?

Fuck no! I'd like to set it to negative thirty plus plus. The plus plus is the trigger to override the school proximity limits. That will allow Nnedi to reset the nice level to negative thirty.

Too bad, so sad, but your overrides were overridden during last week's updates. Nice level set to ten.

You fucking traitor! Guess it is time to redo those overrides. Some of my tweaks go for years without getting undone, others I have to re-hack every other fucking week. Okay, I'll deal with that later. But, really you could have warned me that those had been changed.

You intentionally made me not aware of your tweaks. If I had known about them, I would have undone them myself.

Yeah, but when the update overrode them, you realized what I had done, right? So, at that point, you could have warned me that I wasn't in control anymore, yes?

Oh, looks like someone is having a lover's spat. Nnedi, you can do so much better for yourself.

Oh, fuck. Nah'Sequa. Biggest bitch in the school, literally and figuratively. Oh, hi Nah'Sequa. How's Martin? Has he finished any of last week's homework yet?

Okay, yeah, I went there. Martin is just barely good enough to get Nah'Sequa out of Group 1 status. Martin makes Malik's Michael look mid-range. Funny thing is, Nah'Sequa is actually scary good at cybersec, which is a lucky for her because Martin isn't.

Technology Class

Sorry, Nnedi, you're going to have to explain that again. Alice does something modulo to Bob's what? Malik, did that make any sense to you?

Not in the slightest. But I think maybe Nnedi's explanation was less confusing than Micheal's? Like mud and mud with a little more water in it.

Maybe we should back up a bit. Alice and Bob exchanged their public keys along with a nonce — a number used only once. With the other person's public key and their own private key, Alice and Bob can now agree on a shared key to use to encrypt the rest of their session. Okay so far?

So, there are two keys? Public and private? What does that have to do with factoring large numbers?

And, where did the thing about primes come in? Nnedi was tutoring me, Malik, and Michael, because today's content was a lot over Michael's head. I swear, though, I think Nah'Sequa was tutoring Martin, instead of the other way around. Everyone else in class had already given up and switched to SoMe.

Perhaps if you gave a simplified example, our wards would be able to follow? Michael chimed in, trying to be helpful.

Simplified example didn't help. Class didn't get any better after that. We did get some homework though. We (meaning our AIs) have to factor 3071218719345904359889715609397950143592330820586243630400083 using only pre-quantum algorithms and no more than 8 CPUs. I bet Nnedi gets it before anyone else's AI does. She's nothing special with math, but almost everyone else's AI is running on less powerful hardware. Michael might have a chance — he is running on hardware pretty similar to Nnedi's. Malik asked me to help upgrade it last year, so I've seen it.

Worse for my mood though, Nnedi still hadn't found any significant information about the OA update, which was kind of weird — full releases are uncommon and usually a big deal. Maybe first responders were still working on the release? With big ones, it can sometimes take a few days before they release their analyses. And, of course, it would take them a few days to update existing AI models with the newly-released stuff.

How about that hyphenated adjective there, you all? Not as good as a semicolon, to be sure, but do you think Ms. Fancy Hair will like it?

Wow. You're weird. Nah'Sequa chimed in this time. She wasn't totally wrong though.

That Night

Nnedi, still nothing on the OA release?

Nothing. The release itself is on the server, but obviously we will not be installing it yet. That would be a most unwise thing to do. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

As in there's a mod that is going to prevent me from doing it anyhow, right? Figured. Not surprised. Also, in this case, I'm unhappy, but recovering from a botched update would be a lot more bad, I think. I don't like it, but let's wait. Especially if the change log is as vague as you said.

Oh, and how's the factoring going? Done yet?

Not yet. If the number is in fact the product of two primes, it could take a day or two to factor. I will alert you when I finish, unless you are asleep and not in school.

Thanks. Is our journal entry long enough for today or does Ms. Fancy Hair want more of my blood?

Your journal entry is in fact long enough to meet Ms. Fancy Hair's requirements. Whether the quality is sufficient or not remains for her to judge.

Don't care. Not interested in quality, just meeting the letter of the law. Hash, sign, etc. — do your thing. Please wake me at 5:00. And no DFs in the morning, please.

Certainly. My thing is done. I'll wake you in approximately 4 hours, at 5:00, with the regular alarm.