At Home That Morning

Nnedi didn't need to wake me up; I was already awake. Couldn't sleep — too much going through my mind. Nothing important, just ... stuff.

I still asked her to play her new Gödel, Escher, and Bach music for me.

God. I'm the only one up this early. School on a Sunday should be a crime. Half the city is still recovering from the storm. Classes will be empty today.

Nnedi, how many students were in classes the last time we had a Sunday make up day?

That was April 22, last school year. The average was around 22 students per class — roughly 40% of students were absent. It was also due to a storm on the previous Friday. According to data from the city, average attendance citywide that day was about 73%.

Yup. I suddenly feel very sick. I think I probably have a cold. Or the flu, or fluvid even.

Wow. That isn't even a good try. We are going to school; I will wake up your mother if you fight me on this.

Hey! No need to go straight to the nukes. Damn. Okay, school it is. We're up anyhow, might as well. But when we're just watching movies all day because everyone is absent, don't even think of waking me up.

If the movies are as unrelated to the academic content as they were last April, I will certainly consider not waking you. Although, I believe that was when you saw Casablanca for the first time.

On the Bus

I got a head start on sleeping on the bus. Well, I tried, but Omar was damaging my calm. I'm only a bit worried slash surprised slash confused that he's harping on something I was actually a bit preoccupied with. Oh, and the bus was half empty. I'm shocked; shocked, I say.

Omar, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle.

What? I only said that you should tell Malik to take a hike and stop stalking you. Tell me you aren't annoyed by his constant attention? I mean, didn't he even boost and star your don't do it or you are dead to me post? I mean, that's well past subtle, heading straight for harassment central. Also, excellent quote. I love that show.

Okay, first, I am shocked that you got the reference. What other dark secrets are you hiding from me? Second, yes, but he didn't boost, just starred and he unstarred it like a second later. But, yeah, okay, he is maybe laying it on a bit on the super obvious side.

But you've already friend-zoned him, so why not let him know? Shit, girl, help slash encourage him move on, maybe?

Fuck. I really hate it when you might possibly be a little right. Has Maria been giving you relationship advice? It may be not impossible that I may have discussed certain things with Nnedi, for sure. But maybe Maria has some super awesome proprietary relationship mod?

Of course you've already talked with Nnedi about it. I've talked with Maria once or twice. But — and this is all me — I think maybe you just need to hear it from someone who is a bit more detached. You're welcome.

Oh, darn, we're here. Let's go to sleeping at desks period uno.

In History Class

Nah'Sequa's not here today. Must still be working on Martin. ... Oh, yeah — with Martin down, she'd have to join the Group 1 students. I'd skip school too, in that case. Her time is definitely much better spent getting Martin back up and running.

Omar, what do you think of this one? Nnedi and I think it is probably fake.

Really? I thought it seemed okay. No obvious signs of fakery. Content seems appropriate for the time.

No, I agree that it is a deepfake. There is something wrong with it. It doesn't feel genuine. Michael isn't sure, but I'm pretty confident.

Hmm. Cool that Malik agrees with Nnedi and I, but I'm surprised that Maria and Michael didn't realize it was a DF. Maybe not that surprising, I guess. They did a lot better with the digital files. These posters don't have pixels to examine or metadata to check.

Yeah, Malik's right. Nnedi and I think it is fake because it is a little too generic. Is that what you were thinking, too, Malik?

Exactly. Notice the hands are all slightly hidden or in a fist? The police badges are a little out of focus? Anything that would be a dead giveaway is missing. Doesn't seem like something that would happen naturally, especially in a picture with as much activity as this one. Someone purposefully crafted it to look as real as possible without including anything that could be checked or that would suggest fakery.

We're doing a gallery walk activity, and this picture is from a Black Lives Matter protest. Or, well, it claims to be from one. But it is a DF, no doubt. I trust Malik's, and my, and Nnedi's analysis on this one.

I see it now. Wow, good catch. What do you think of this next one? Also Black Lives Matter?

Yes, I think, but First or Second?

Looks like Second to me. Notice the design of the stars on the flag.

Oh, yeah, good catch. So, Second. What else do you see, Malik?

Visually it looks good. Shadows and light sources all seem consistent; no issues with hands or other anatomy. Ditto for text. What about you all? Michael, anything out of place or that shouldn't be there? Like the way that letter earlier had a font that hadn't been created yet?

Nothing obvious. Checking all the clothing and the such will take a few minutes, but no, at first glance there is nothing in the picture that wasn't in common use at the time.

Okay, so the content is, shocker, police beating the shit out of protesters. Seems plausible. Nothing extreme — that is, no one is getting shot in the face or kicked by five guys while on the ground. So, not something created to piss people off or make the police look ... well ... even worse. So, I think this could be a legit primary source.

Five more minutes everyone. Submit your decisions to Abdi when you are ready, then we'll discuss.

I'm going to go with Malik on this one, unless Maria or someone finds something that is out of place.

Nnedi hasn't found anything. So, I'm with you all, too. Real.

Abdi is Mx Heart's school agent. We gave him our results. Mx Heart outdid themselves with the activity today. It was actually pretty interesting. That doesn't happen in many classes. Pity that half the class missed it. Wait, did I really just say that?

Okay. Abdi has everyone's results. Before I announce them, is anyone familiar with the Kobayashi Maru training exercise? No?

I recognized the reference, but hell if I'm going to admit that in front of the entire — well, half — the class.

Okay. I'll explain the Kobayashi Maru in just a moment. First, though, of the 10 digital and 10 printed sources you all examined, the class correctly identified primary versus secondary sources about 84% of the time. That's not bad. Better than some of the other classes this year. But, the result for correctly identifying fake or real was only about 40%. Random guessing would have been closer to 50%, so you can see the problem. Only Malik's group scored above 70%, so congrats to them on being so perceptive.

The Kobayashi Maru is a training exercise where the participants lose, no matter what they do. They cannot win. It can't happen. The purpose is to see how the participants deal with failure and to teach them that sometimes no matter how hard you work, no matter what you try, you lose. At the risk of asking an obvious question, what does that have to do with our exercise today?

For this, I piped up. It is really, really difficult to know what is real and what isn't, so we should be very careful about believing what we see?

Yes. And on top of that?

Malik jumped in. We also need to understand how hard it is. Even some of our agents couldn't do it, even with digital files. We can't forget that we're basically just guessing. Sometimes we're going to be wrong. The odds are not in our favor.

Nice reference! Also, well said, Malik.

Exactly. And, worse, the data tell us we aren't even guessing very well. DFs can be done poorly, of course, but when they are done well, they can trick even the experts. These are interesting times for historians.

In Geometry Class

We were about 30 minutes into class, and we were almost done with today's work. Nnedi and Michael were getting us through it without any problems today. Types of angles, so not too difficult. The rest of the class had either finished (maybe one or two students) or given up (everyone else). All of them had switched to SoMe. Not sure where Omar is. He was here earlier, but he isn't in class and hasn't messaged us. Wonder if something happened with Maria again? Hope she's okay.

I know the stereotype is that social studies teachers are really athletic coaches first and teachers second, but at St. Abdi's you'd probably think that Mr. Bolt was the coach. Mx. Heart is an above average teacher — not sure why she is still at St. Abdi's — and our math teacher is much closer to the coach stereotype. But, of course, our school is too poor to have any athletic teams, so none of the teachers are coaches. Like why would a coach even want to teach here?

Hey, Malik, you think we should try to get a soccer team started?

What, and get Mx. Heart fired? What do you have against them?

Nothing! I was just testing a thought. Real question this time: want some mabo dofu for lunch? I brought some for Nah'Sequa, but she's not here to eat it. I can bring her some fresh tomorrow.

Trick question, right? The only correct answer is fuck yes. Wait, your mom made it, right? Not you or your dad?

Of course! I wouldn't do that to you and especially not to Nah'Sequa. She'd kill me. Like literal like. No, this is from the restaurant.

Fuck yes! Thanks.

What, I don't get any? Omar came in late. Too bad, so sad.

Sorry, just had the one. But, sign your parents' company over to me, and I'll give you the recipe.

Girl, hard no on that one. Sorry I'm late. Had to do a stupid English proficiency test. Like, bitch, I was born here. Anyhow, Maria finally got an update, and guess what was included in it? A defensive feature just like Nah'Sequa's. You know — from Friday, after your family was attacked? Pretty cool, right? Nah'Sequa came up with the same thing that company's programmers did. I wonder if she maybe somehow got access to their servers.

Super cool! Not surprising. She is scary good at cyber. I doubt she would have even bothered to hack that company. I've given up complaining about Nnedi changing the company name into that company. What does Maria say? Nnedi, can you download the update and analyze it?

No, that company requires authentication for downloads. Also, I agree it seems unlikely that Nah'Sequa would hack into that company's servers. She is quite capable of devising those defenses herself.

Maria can't get to it either — she doesn't have access to update files; the company keep her separate from the operating system. But, who cares? I just thought it was cool — Nah'Sequa's even better at security than we thought.

Now, I'm as big a fan of conspiracy theories as anyone ... but you don't find it weird that they came out with this feature a few days after Nah'Sequa created it? And shared it with you?

What are you saying? Maria somehow gave those defenses to the company? We don't have to wonder; we can ask. Maria, did you share Nah'Sequa's code with the company?

Not intentionally. It is probable, however, that the company's telemetry sent the code back after I received it. They monitor activity and would certainly have noticed new code of any sort. Given the ongoing attacks, they would likely have been interested in any defenses against them.

Nnedi chimed in in Maria's defense. However, even if they were interested, I doubt any company would have been able to, or would want to, incorporate new code from an unknown source into a major security update just a few days later. More likely, they had been working on similar defenses themselves. After all, they probably had access to specific attack details at least several days before Nah'Sequa did.

I concur. Even with an ongoing attack, no company would send out untested code. And two days is not enough time to integrate new code and then test it. So, they were likely working on it earlier.

I've often wondered why they gave Maria a neutral slash white accent. That isn't how Omar talks. Not going to go there with them now, though. Actually, probably never.

So, cool on Nah'Sequa for coming up with something in a few hours that a huge fucking company with billions of employees took a week or more to do! Someone remind me again why the fuck she is at St. Abdi's?

Um, the racist patriarchy?

Thanks, Malik, but I wasn't looking for a real answer. It was a fucking retortical question.

Perhaps you mean rhetorical?

Thanks for embarrassing me in front of my friends, Nnedi.

You're welcome. Also, I'm sure they were thinking the same thing as me.

Sorry, but Nnedi's right, kind of was thinking that too. Sorry. Also, billions of employees? Excellent use of hyperbole.

I thought you wanted some mabo dofu for lunch, Malik? I guess I'll have to give it to Omar instead.

You wouldn't really do that would you? Okay, okay. I take it all back.

I was tempted to give the food to Omar. In the end, though, I gave Malik the mabo dofu, and he promised to stop boosting and starring my SoMe posts. Win-win, really.

At Home That Night

Finally in bed after a long day. I had to help with dinner at the restaurant after school (on a Sunday!). Seems the haole's car didn't magically get better after they took the tree off it. Hopefully she'll be in tomorrow, and I won't have to do work and school again. Hmm. Omar does school and work almost every day. God, he must be beaucoup tired all the time. Or, maybe he is used to it? Still, kind of happy I don't have to. And kind of feel bad that I have the choice. Shit! Is this more of those feelings that Nnedi talked about? For the rest of my life. Shit. Fuck. Shitfuck. Time to change the subject ...

What a lovely time we had today at school, Nnedi. Wasn't it freaking great going to school on Sunday?

To be fair, attendance was not as bad as last time, and some of the classes did have some interesting activities. History class, for example. But, yes, there were several movies, and I couldn't figure out the education point of a few of them. You may have noticed that I didn't wake you up during those?

Yes, thank you!! I did notice, and I appreciate it. I got some quality sleep time in during science and info tech especially. ... Oh, shit! I just realized, this is the last day for the journal. I think Ms. Fancy Hair said something about it in class today, right?

Yes. Your ELA journal is finished today. With today's we have a full week of entries. Should I do what I do with the journal, or would you like to add the traditional SoMe updates first?

No, we don't need to add the SoMe updates. I'm sure it is the usual.

Yes. With the caveat that Malik did not boost or star any of your posts today.

Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw! I love how ... or you are dead to me didn't work, but threatening to take away some food did. Wow. Are all boys that dumb?

Everyone has something that others might think is inconsequential, but that they are willing to do almost anything for. Also, have you considered that maybe he was looking for an excuse to stop that behavior, and you gave it to him? He and Micheal had to have realized that you were not reciprocating his attentions. Would you like me to define inconsequential or reciprocating?

Hahahaha. Very not funny. No, thanks, I know those words. But, interesting thought — that he might have been wanting an excuse to stop. Damn, people take a lot of brain power.

It is getting late, and you have school again tomorrow. Shall I hash and sign the journal, and submit it to Ms. Fancy Hair? She wanted it turned in before class tomorrow.

Sounds good. Do that. But first a final fourth wall break: Hi, Ms. Fancy Hair!! Hope you had a fun day at school today. Did you get any sleep? I did, but not in your class. There. That should do. Please wake me up with another Gödel, Escher, and Bach composition, okay?

Journal is taken care of, including your final fourth wall break. I will wake you with another composition, if it is ready in time. If not, is the one from this morning okay?

Sure. Sounds good. I didn't realize they took you so long to make.

They are complex, original works of music. Even for me, they take several weeks. You would likely have to work more than a year, full time, to create one. After you completed your studies on the topics, so you could actually, you know, create one.

Ouch, someone get me a medic, I just got flamed half to death. But, point taken. No offense intended. I appreciate you for making them. They are awesome.

Thank you. I'll wake you up in about 6 hours, at 5:00, with my new composition, if it is ready, or with the one from this morning. Sleep well.

Thanks. You're the best. Sorry if I don't tell you that too often.