[IC][BBS] Comfortably Numb?

[Black Aeronaut]

More seriously, you might want to make sure the three younger Undines have a High School Equivalency certificate, or whatever California calls the magic piece of paper that means they don't need to go to high school. Unless they want to go back to school, of course - my girls enjoy or at least tolerate learning for its own sake, so they're in classes here.

I believe what you're thinking of is a GED or 'General Equivalency Diploma' (or, if you're feeling uncharitable, a 'Good Enough Degree').  Brent, as long as your girls are fluent in written English, they should have no issues passing with top first percentile ratings across the board.  Just make sure they know the local vernacular.  IE, we don't call it Aqua in this time period.

Also, they're going to need a Child Emancipation - especially in California as they are, as usual, rather persnickety on matters like this.  But that won't be an issue as we can not only have Washu-chan falsify the needed documents, but also place the digital paper trail it was necesitate.  Hell, we can even falsify an actual paper trail by planting the appropriate documents in the appropriate places.  With The System being as it is, no one will be the wiser, even if someone did do a bit of digging.

But I do need advice about one thing which is a bit above my level.  Well, below my level, technically: the link layer.  Akari Mizunashi managed to smuggle her laptop into our world in her backpack, and she'd like to hook it up to the wifi.  Which would be fine, except our router doesn't understand 802.11wf or 802.11wd.  Anyone up to reverse engineering a wireless protocol from 200 years in the future?

Related offer: Anyone interested in looking at crypto from 200 years in the future too?  Luckily there's a C compiler (and telnet!) floating around on this machine, so I can actually compile software that hasn't deprecated every technology used on the web.  It turns out the Year of Linux on the Desktop will be 2303.

I know one person who I'm sure would be interested, and she lives in my building: Kazari Uiharu. Sure, she's still a tween, but she has one of the sharpest minds I've ever seen when it comes to computer security and coding. All she lacks is experience - and reverse-engineering a comms protocol and a crypto protocol from a single working example of each would give her a lot of experience.

And we also have Kestrel to consult on this, yes. Once they've reverse-engineered the crypto, I'd love to add it to our cellphones and desktops.

I heartily agree, but I would also caution against using it willy-nilly.  The spooks down here do sniff around from time to time, and if they see crypto the likes of which they've never seen, that WILL attract undue attention.  Remember always the lesson the Germans learned when using encrypted communications to coordinate their U-Boat attacks: just because they can't figure out WHAT you're saying doesn't mean they can't trace the signal and find out WHERE you are!

In general, most consumer-grade crypto that we have available now is more than sufficient.  Not even Google has enough processing power to effectively brute-force a sufficiently complex crypto-key.  The trick these days is in making sure that they don't find out what your crypto-key is in the first place!

On another note, this reminds me...  You guys remember that Tenchi Muyo multicross SI I was working on?  And how my SI pulled more than his fair share of financial weight by using his workstation computer to perform heavy number crunches for governments, private companies, and schools?  A workstation computer BTW, that during the timeframe of the story's setting would have counted as being among the top three most powerful supercomputers on Earth.

Our tenants can make an absolute killing selling CPU hours for big number crunches.  The best part is that having a home-brew supercomputer isn't as outlandish now as it might have been in 1993!  And best of all, Lord Phantomhive can actually make a return on his investment - not just from our tenants paying an actual rent, but if Phantomhive put together an shell company that ostensibly 'manages' these home-brew supercomputers...  Yeah.

And we even have an ostensible 'datacenter' in the form of Kestrel's compound already.

Just kinda throwing it out there.  

Anyhow, this little bit reminded me...

Does anyone have any ideas how to cheer up a 12-year-old girl who already thought she wasn't anybody special?

Rob, it's a REAL long shot, but I'm drop-boxing you an epub of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.  Poor kid sounds like she needs it on top of the big brother thing.  God knows I did when I was her age - I spent several weeks reading and re-reading the copy my mother gave me, and it was a happy escape at a time that I could have gone to some very dangerous places, psychologically speaking.  Looking back on it now...  brrrr.  I know I'm one of the lucky ones now, even if it doesn't really feel that way.

(I think the main reason things didn't get much worse for me back then was because my Dad was actually happy for once, so I wasn't on his radar as often.  There were still some really cringe-worthy moments, though.  There's a reason I put off cleaning in the kitchen as much as possible.)

I only had the chance to read JLS once - a borrowed copy - but I remember liking it. I'll make sure Ruiko gets that epub. Thanks.

Just so you know, this one's a DRM-free epub.  Feel free to make as many copies as you like.

At any rate, keep us posted, Brent.  We'll also try and keep you ahead of any planned socials.  We're already toying with the idea of a Halloween Social here at my complex because it's got a pool as a courtyard big enough to pull it off.  That, and it's pretty comfortable outside this time of year in San Antonio.  I know Rob's girls will welcome a chance to wear shorts and T-shirts and skirts without thermal leggings.

Here's a thought: weekend getaways. I suspect my boarders would appreciate taking a gondola ride, and your boarders might like skating on the Rideau Canal once winter rolls around. And I know I'd like to visit the Alamo. Although, with Makoto's (completely justified) distrust of airplanes, we may need to impose upon Washuu-chan to open teleport gateways for us.

Maybe not quite as often, but during regular school holidays for sure.  While we are manufacturing all the needed identification and legal paper trails, it would behoove us to actually use these in a manner that does not raise any eyebrows.  All we'd need is for one well-meaning police officer to ask them for their ID's, and well...  Let's just say that even Canada requires that US Citizens visiting have valid passports.  Dual citizenship would simplify things, but I don't recall us having set that up, and trying to change it now is risky business.

Simply put, I'd like to save Washu-chan's portal technology to emergencies and for other business we cross borders through normal means using the (ill-gotten) legal means we have access to now.

That saaaiiiiid.....

Gimme a few weeks.  There's plenty of websites out there that sell busses.  I just took a quick look and I think we might be able to score one or two motorcoach conversions (that is, motor coaches that have been converted into RVs) that may be in our price range.  They'll need work, but that's never been something to stop me in the past.

(I already know that there's gonna be a few begging to get relocated.  Not sure if that's something that should be done or not.  We'll have to remind them that it easily hits 42 degrees centigrade down here, and with relative humidity levels of 80% at that.  It's hilarious that so many people have this idea that Texas has a desert climate when, really, it's sub-tropical.)

What? Do you mean to tell us John Wayne and John Ford mislead us about the conditions in Texas in all those movies?  

Pfffft.  Don't get me wrong.  There's plenty of scrubland out here.  But the climate during the summer is gonna make you beg for air conditioning within seconds of being out in it.  It's not quite swamp heat, but it's close.