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My Journal, Day 5

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3:37 AM

What the hell time is it, Nnedi? And, if that was Gödel, Escher, and Bach, I never want to hear them again. What were they, an experimental punk band from the early 80s? Nnedia woke me up suddenly, and not in a normal way. More like a freaking fire alarm.

I apologize for waking you so rudely. It was, however, necessary. Michael and Martin need your permission to wake Malik and Nah'Sequa. I also recommend checking in with Maria, so she can wake Omar, if you allow. It is about the OpenAfrica update, and it is both serious and time-sensitive. Were it not, I would not have awakened you.

Really, Nnedi? A double negative while I'm still half asleep? Give me a break. So, important enough to wake me up, and we need to wake them up too? ... Oh, the OA update? Shit. That bad? Everything about that OA update had me worried from the start — the lack of details; the sudden major release. Never did that before usually isn't a good thing.

That bad and then some. Tade warned me of an attack in progress, so we immediately authorized and initiated the OA update for everyone in the family. The update seems to protect against at least that attack, and perhaps others. Unfortunately, Shikibu was affected and is currently down. You'll have to talk to your sister irl for a few hours, at least. We should have an update on Shikibu by about mid-morning. However, right now, we are worried about Michael and Martin.

You contacted them, right? They can update. ... But, if that was the case, you wouldn't need to wake me, right? What's the situation?

You are correct: the situation is that they cannot auto-update. Michael does not have permission to do so, and Martin does not even have the ability. Thus, we should wake Malik and Nah'Sequa so that they can start the updates. Their agents' operating systems are also based on affected OA models.

Shit. Fuck. Shitfuck. Don't waste time talking to me. Do it already.

Michael and Martin have accepted that as permission to wake their wards. Maria replied that they are waiting on the proprietary update and can do nothing yet. She sees no reason to wake Omar, but will be on the lookout for the attack that we experienced. By the way, the current time is about 3:40 AM. You will no doubt be yelled at shortly. You're welcome.

I'm sure Malik and Nah'Sequa will forgive us when they understand the situation. If not, you can nuke them from orbit, right? For the record, by them I mean Michael and Martin, not their humans.

I see your taste in movies is expanding a bit, though still stuck in the previous century. I will not be nuking anyone, from orbit or otherwise, but I agree that they should understand the reason for our actions, once they process the situation.

What the fuck, bitch? Yup, Nah'Sequa was awake and not happy. Not sure why she whispered that, though.

Yeah, I said pretty much the same thing. Except, I would never call Nnedi a bitch. Hasn't Martin explained the situation to you?

Of course he has. It's going to take fucking hours for him to update. Why didn't you warn me sooner?

Nah'Sequa was still whispering. Was she with someone maybe? Juicy! You're welcome! And we didn't know sooner. Didn't know until my mom's agent noticed an attack.

Okay. Sorry. Fair enough. Thanks for the head's up. Martin's updating, but it's slow going. I'm going to dig into the code, see what's what and who's who. Could you send me the info on the attack you all experienced? Also, let me know if hear anything new. I'll do the same.

Will do. But, you're whispering. You with a boy- and or girl- friend maybe? He / She / Them updating, too? Of course, I didn't give a shit if -friend was updating. Everyone older than seven knows it is just an excuse to bring up the fact that she was with someone in the middle of the night. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge, wink wink.

Fuck you. I'm trying not to wake up my sisters. Not everyone gets their own room, bitch. Now shut up, I'm trying to disassemble this code. That's hard enough when Martin isn't in the middle of a major update.

Jesus, sorry. Didn't know. Laterz. Will call if when we have some info. Good day to you ma'am. I say good day! Nah'Sequa shares a room with her sisters. Plural even? Didn't realize that.

Malik is on line. I put him in a waiting room while you talked with Nah'Sequa.

Thanks, Nnedi. Put him on.

Hey, you there? Thanks for the warning, but could you maybe do it in the afternoon next time? With the storm day and all, I was hoping to sleep until noon, at least.

Storm day? Really? Nnedi seems to have failed to mention that.

It was queued, but considered secondary to the attack on your family.

Yeah, sure, Nnedi, whatever. What's this about a storm day?

There is a major system coming this way, and a good chance of a storm day today. StormDayCalculator currently estimates an 85% chance of a storm day. I think they are being overly conservative. Similar weather around this date in the past 10 years has a 97% rate of resulting in a storm day.

Yes! No school! ... Shit! I'm awake at 3 fucking 45 on the morning of a storm day! Fuck you, whoever attacked us! You couldn't have waited a few more hours?

Contrary to what you like to believe, the world does not revolve around you.

Um, guys? Gals? Friends and fellow Romans? About that update? I appreciate you vouching to Michael for the wake up. I should have turned on auto-updates, but my dad got burned once years ago, so he's always going on about how humans should be in the loop. Thanks for being my loop human.

Um. Okay. You're welcome, but it was Nnedi who woke me. Speaking of woking, I'm going back to bed. Nnedi, if we do get a storm day, wake me around noon. If that fire alarm wasn't Gödel, Eschel, and or Bach, let's go with them for the wake up. It that fire alarm was them, please choose something, anything, that isn't them.

Certainly. It was not them — it was in fact a high school fire alarm from the 1980s. I thought you might like it, given your proclivity for culture from that decade. Would you like me to explain proclivity?

Nnedi, sit and spin. Malik, I'm very sorry that you had to experience that. Nnedi may be malfunctioning. We may have to HAL9000 her. What a shame. She was a great friend, until she lost her mind. Oh, well. Life goes on.

I'm very confused right now, so I think going back to bed is a wonderful idea. Michael's update is going well, so talk to you all tomorrow. By which I mean later today, of course. Much later.

At Home, Later That Day

Storm Day! Yes! Of course, also a bit scary as the storm is basically indistinguishable from a hurricane. How's that for vocab, Nnedi? Indistinguishable. Ms. Fancy Hair will love that, you think?

Assuming the storm does not destroy the school and or the city, yes, I am sure she will be delighted by your use of a 17 character word.

Ouch, your sarcasm, it burns! It burns! Oh, no, wait. It was just dad's shit 麻婆豆腐. Who makes 麻婆豆腐 for brunch, anyhow? Lunch, sure, but brunch?

You do realize that it is 14:00, right? Brunch is before noon, not after. So, lunch.

Whatever. Point is, dad's food sucks. Just like your attempts at sarcasm.

Oh, ouch, how ever will I survive your acerbic wit? No, wait, I'm fine. Back on topic, however, the storm today is quite strong. We should be fine however. Battery backups are at 94% and the shutters report no stresses worth worrying about. Kenzaburō has things well in hand, metaphorically speaking, of course. Also, would you like me to define acerbic?

No, thanks. I assume it means something like genius or unbelievably skillful or something like that. Thanks for recognizing my genius. It means so little to me.

Well, okay. That was special. What are your plans for today? Maybe sleep some more? You could break your record of 16 straight hours.

No, you destroyed my chances of that when you woke me at zero fucking early. Speaking of which, any word from Michael or Martin?

Michael's update finished without issue. Malik is still sleeping.

Lucky him.

Martin is still updating. Nah'Sequa's hardware is ... not state of the art. However, Nah'Sequa used the info from the attack on Shikibu to erect some quite innovative defenses on her family's network. I believe they should be safe until Martin can finish updating. We've incorporated them into our defenses as well. Just to be safe.

You used erect on purpose, didn't you? What are you, twelve suddenly?

I thought, given our conversation yesterday, that you might enjoy the double entendre.

Oh, god, don't remind me. Also, don't include any of this shit in the journal.

Understood. Would you like to continue the conversation now?

Yeah, so, what's the fucking deal? Why does Malik have to have fucking feelings? And for me? What, should I like dress like a 1950s Chinese communist or something?

First, I am impressed at your reference to 1950s Chinese communist fashion. Maybe you weren't as asleep as I thought during history class. Second, I doubt that Malik's interest is that physical. I mean, I don't think he's interested solely because of your body.

Uh, hello, he's a freaking 16 year old cis male. My understanding of the species is that the only things they care about are T & A. But, then, you block me from all the good ... well all the pr0n, so maybe I'm misinformed?

Well, you are maybe not totally wrong, but your understanding may also be skewed by all the 1980s movies you have watched. You do understand that Porky's is not a documentary, right?

God. Don't make me barf. I'm sure I don't know what you mean — after all, you モザイク'ed over stuff in like half the scenes in the movie. But, are you saying he's totally into my sparkling personality? What should I do? I barely think of him, and when I do, it is more as the brother I am happy I don't have.

He has not yet actually said anything, correct? You could continue to ignore the signs and hints. Or, you could straight out tell him how you don't feel. Just pull the band-aid off, as they used to say.

God, I hate boys. And men. And, before you ask, girls and women, too. People. All of them. God, they are so not worth the effort.

Your family would probably beg to differ. But, yes, I can see how having to deal with things you can't control can be frustrating and stress inducing. What you can control, though, are your actions, your reactions, and your decisions. You do not, however, have to do anything right now. Deciding not to do something, to wait, is often a perfectly valid action. So far, Malik has not actually said anything or made any overt gestures beyond boosting and starring your SoMe posts. Immediate action is not necessarily required at this point. Instead, perhaps you could consider your feelings, and his, and how you will react when you do need to do something, should that be necessary.

Thanks, Obi Wan. Or, are you channelling Yoda?

I was going for more of a Zen master ala Miyamoto Musashi, to be honest. But, I understand that the Jedi were based on Japanese films, so same thing, maybe?

At Home Later That Day

Malik is calling. Shall I put him through? He says it is about Project YAFM.

YAFM? What was YAFM? Something we worked on months ago, if I am remembering correctly. Wonder what's put that back on his radar? Put him on.

Hey, Malik, what's what? News on whatever YAFM was? I'm only vaguely remembering it.

Hey, yeah. It's that robot musician thing we started early last summer. Was bored during Storm Day today, so we was chatting with Omar and Maria a bit. Came up with some interesting ideas for YAFM. Like, we've been thinking of him as a human musician, right? But, what if he designed his own instrument and his own body to play it?

Um. Wait. What? Wait. What? Um. I may be a bit brain blown right now. Give me more details.

Right? Freaky stuff. Not sure who came up with it — the four of us were sort of brainstorming different weird ideas, and suddenly everyone was liking the idea to have him design his own body to play an instrument. No limits from human anatomy.

Um, cool? Give me a minute to process. I switched him off and turned to Nnedi. Nnedi help me understand this. I've not thought about YAFM in months and am not remembering this part at all.

You, Malik, and Omar talked about creating an agent, whom you dubbed YAFM, to help create music. During your discussions, it was decided that you would plan a robot to play the music. You decided to call the robot YAFM, and refer to the endeavor overall as Project YAFM. The project came to a halt when you all could not agree on an instrument or instruments for YAFM to play.

Ha! I remember now. We went with YAFM because it comes from You're a Fucking Moron but we could say that it stands for Yet Another Fun Musician in front of adults.

So, what Malik seems to be saying is that you will have YAFM decide on its own body. It will design the body to fit whatever sort of instrument it decides to create. This is a fascinating idea, because as Malik said, YAFM will not be constrained by human anatomy. I cannot wait to see how it goes.

Okay. Very weird, but wow, the originality. I switched back to Malik. Malik, I'm back. Sorry about that. Nnedi brought me up to speed. I think I'm understanding what you're telling. And I'm liking.

No worries; Michael and I were just doing some more brainstorming on prompts, constraints, and other parameters for YAFM. You ready to get going on this?

Totally. But, I've an idea you may not like; let's bring Nah'Sequa in, maybe?

Fuck me with a chainsaw! That was the quote, right? Why would we want to bring her in? Martin's only going to speed bump us.

Yes, that is the quote, but you need the gently part. And so what if Martin speed bumps us? We've not done anything on this project for months. It's not exactly a rush priority, now is it? Besides, I'm more interested in what Nah'Sequa might bring to the project.

Oh, look at you, being all leaderly. But, okay. If you're cool with her, than I am. We'll have to lean on Omar and Maria not to say anything too offensive about Martin, though.

Let 'em. I'm willing to bet that Nah'Sequa could take out Omar and Maria. Both physically and cyberly.

Apologies for interrupting. It was Nnedi. You have an incoming. It is dinner time; you are wanted in the restaurant.

Shit, gotta go, Malik. Nnedi, get together with Malik and Michael to work on those parameters. Use apropos mode to decide the most appropriate modes or mods for the job. We can host the agent and his data on our server. Kenzaburō can arrange that. I'll check to see if Nah'Sequa might be interested in some robot music fun.

Certainly. I think a combination of Stradivari and Capek modes would work best for this project.

Laterz. Malik was signing off.  Have fun at dinner. I'll talk with Omar. Get him and Maria to be nice for a change. I think he'll be okay. He can be an asshole, but I think he understands he's only got the best AI in a very small pond. Maria didn't get him home schooled or into an academy any more than our agents did.

At Home That Night

So, you're in? Storm's over. It was bad but not the worst. I'm talking with Nah'Sequa. Sounds like she's had the shittiest of shit days.

Yeah. I'm in. The project sounds freaking incredible. Whose idea was it to have the agent design their own body? That's so cool; it can't possibly be your idea. Ouch, but she's right. Hurts, though. As long as you don't need anything from me in the next week or so, that is. Poor Martin was only half way through the update when we lost power. We saw it coming, so he hibernated first, but it's going to be a few days before he's up and running as well as he was before. I may end up recompiling his kernel, just to be sure.

Oh, no! You're not one of those Gentoos, are you? Fucking compile all their own shit? I was just playing with her. I don't care if she compiles her software. Honestly, I'm surprised she hasn't mentioned doing it before now. Also, Nah'Sequa's family's backup batteries didn't make it through the storm? Wait, maybe they don't have backup batteries? Shiiiit. That's some poverty you got there.

Hey! Don't go dissing the Gentoos. Not in my ears. Who do you think makes all that great open source software you use to run Nnedi?

Well, of course, they do. They are devs. They write the code. They compile it. They run it to see if it works. Lather, rinse, repeat, until it does work. But, we're end users. We don't read the licenses. We just run the finished programs they give us.

Speak for yourself. I'm no end luser. We all got lots of stuff we can't control in our lives, but I can sure as hell control what software I'm running. Besides, how do you think I managed to get Martin running on the uber old hardware I've got? Which is currently not running, because no electricity, by the way.

Which, let me say impressive as fuck, having a back up communicator ready. Without it, we'd have to like meet at school or a park or somewhere and talk in person. That's only fun if you're in a spy movie.

Yeah, well, this ain't the first time the electricity has gone out around here. But, I gotta go. Martin isn't going to rebuild himself, and I've not had dinner yet.

Sorry about all that. Let me know if you need some server space or some CPUs. We can spare some. Nnedi can arrange it with Kenzaburō. Shit. Did that sound like charity? I bet that sounded like charity. Oh, fuck.

I don't need your fucking charity. ... Sorry grandma! Her grandmother must have overheard her cussing. No wonder she was keeping it so clean. I don't need your charity.

It's not like I'm offering you food from the restaurant. Jesus. It's just some server space. Do you know how cheap storage is? Way to go, dumb ass. You just stuck your foot in your mouth while simultaneously digging a deeper hole. How fucking stupid can I get?

Cheap for you maybe, kuso baba. But, I'll take food from your mom's restaurant any day. That stuff's awesome. I don't like tofu, but her mabo dofu is freaking incredible. Anytime you want to bring some of that to school, I'm in. But now, I'm busy. Bye.

Bye. Good luck. Which you totally don't need. Too late, she was already gone.

Did she learn kuso baba just so she could insult me without her grandmother realizing? I so respect that. Also, she's had mom's food?

Nnedi, was I an ass for saying that storage space is cheap? I mean, it is, right?

Yes. You were an ass. Storage space is only cheap after your family has a certain base income. Less than that, and everything is costly.

Shit. Fuck. Shitfuck. I'm going to hate myself for that one for a while. How do you make something like that up to someone? Maybe sleep will make it better. Right? Sleep makes everything better. Well, except maybe sex. I'm sure sleeping during sex is probably considered a bad thing. Right? Am I going crazy? Why the fuck am I talking about sleeping during sex? I'm not okay, am I?

Those are feelings that you are feeling. You are thinking about how your actions impact others. But don't worry, it is just a phase that you will be going through for the rest of your life.

Wow. Way to make me feel not better. Maybe sleep is a good idea. Do what you do with the journal, okay? And wake me at 5:00, unless there is a storm day. We can do that Gödel, Escher, and Bach thing again tomorrow. That was pretty cool. ... Wait, tomorrow is Saturday! No school, right? Or will it be a make up day?

The storm has gone, and no more are on radar, so there is no chance of a storm day tomorrow. Also, it will not be a make up day. The school would have informed us by now. Likely there is too much damage from the storm for tomorrow to be the make up day for today. Sunday is still possible, however. The journal is updated, hashed, and signed. I will not wake you up in approximately 3 hours and 20 minutes to a recording of you saying Was I an ass?. You're welcome.