Sigh…

I do miss Twitter. It was a new and fresh kind of social media, and it had a long (mostly positive) run. When I decided to quit, I let it linger with crossposts from my new platforms for a few weeks. I stayed logged in on one browser, and checked it every few days.

It was an odd feeling to log out of Twitter just now. “Logging out” is not something I ever really do with anything. Usually I’m annoyed I have to “log back in” when a token expires.

But keeping that crossposting alive? Checking the DMs every few days? It was just prolonging the inevitable.

It’s gonna be 2-5 years before a consensus platform emerges. I still bet it’s going to be some evolved form of (semi-)federated ActivityPub multi-client thing. We’re going to see a bunch of platforms all interoperate, and another set of platforms go fully proprietary and isolate.

I’d bet there is a major social and cultural divide between the two “sides” of this.

But we’ll see.

Pour one out for the app I typed way to much into for a long long time. From now on I’m typing into my own things.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider animated Christmas specials and special Christmas episodes of animated shows. From Frosty the Snowman to The He-Man & She-Ra special to Claymation Christmas to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, nevermind the classic-for-all-time Charlie Brown Christmas. In the news, the legendary Ichiro Mizuki has passed away, and the new season of the Dragon Prince is... uneven at best. (I hope you like farting elves).

Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss the concept of Zero Trust Security. It's a pain, and it's not necessary in all environments, but it's something you should understand. In the news, a company is suing to put profits over preventing harm to children, disgraced former president Donald Trump has been referred for criminal prosecution over his coup attempt, Apple introduces Advanced Data Protection, and Google introduces client-side encryption to paid gmail.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider Hanukkah. We've previously talked about Christmas. You're lucky we did a show at all since the Rangers game is about to start. Send your show ideas to the GeekNights Forum. In the news, Rym bought a new devil carriage, Rym cried watching Ted Lasso, and Fusion Power has reached a critical milestone.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider teams. Playing on teams, forming teams, team sports, team games. All that team stuff. In the news, Dwarf Fortress with graphics is here (recall we interviewed Tarn Adams on GeekNights back in 2008), the FTC sues to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Blizzard will need someone new to offer World of Warcraft in China in a story that keeps evolving, and we hope Diablo 4 will let us click until we kill satan.

Tonight on GeekNights, we review the 2022 anime TV series Spy×Family. It's a solid regular anime with all the crowdpleasers you could want from an anime club screening circa 2003. In the news, we are back from PAX Unplugged, Saga volume 10 continues the... saga (which we reviewed the beginning of back in 2013), Funimation's acquisition of Crunchyroll continues with SKU changes, Makoto Shinkai's Suzume will be in American theaters April 14th one night only, and Shin Ultraman is in theaters soon!

If you saw us for Why is this game taking four hours to play?! at PAX Unplugged, we have some resources for you!

We gave a similar talk at PAX Unplugged 2019 that is on youtube in full. The slides are also available and you are welcome to reference them. PAX has asked for direct feedback on panels, so if you were there please be sure to fill out the PAX Unplugged Panel Feedback Survey! (This is the same as the QR code in the slides).

Video of the panel

Slides from the panel

PAX Panel Feedback Form

We had a great time at Unplugged, and we hope you did too! See you at East ;)

Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss Federated Architecture in light of the collapse of Twitter. Federation is how most of the Internet works, and you should understand the ramifications of it before you dive into platforms like Mastodon. From XMPP (formerly Jabber) to ActivityPub, even the nature of an email address, federation is how the Internet was intended to be used.

In the news, the FCC has a more accurate broadband map, and the rail unions are (rightly) threatening to strike over intolerable working conditions.

Tonight on GeekNights, similar to our episode on Indian food, we consider Chinese food including American Chinese food. We're big fans, but we are not experts, so don't expect to learn anything from two white guys in New York. In the news, snow's a-comin', Democrats defied history, and Ticketmaster is as evil now as it was in the 90s.

Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss comms in games. Text chat, voice chat, open versus restricted, and the like. In the news, Pentiment is available, and Rym is obsessed with Disco Elysium.

Mechanically, Disco Elysium is shockingly similar to the Quest for Glory series. You choose one of three archtypical character builds (or roll your own) and dive into a freeform world where many of the “puzzles” are optional, there are multiple paths through the story, and most challenges can be solved in several different ways.

There are differences and significant quality-of-life improvements of course!

The stats are simpler, which leads to more concise storytelling. The game shows you the odds of success, and tells you what to do to increase them pretty well. It even uses “showing you the odds” as a story beat in and of itself sometimes.

It also encourages you to try things. Consequences are interesting and realistic. Rather than achieving some optimal outcome as an old Q4G game would, Disco Elysium encourages you to steamroll ahead and accept whatever interesting consequences arise from your actions.

Tonight on GeekNights, in the shadow of Twitter's collapse at the hands of a narcissistic failure of a man, we discuss the best way to protect yourself from the inevitable collapse of every platform: the POSSE model. Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider Beetlejuice. The timeless classic movie from 1988, the bizarre animated series, even the musical, loom large (with the possible exception of the latter) in cinema history, and luckily we've never talked about it on GeekNights until now. In the news, late capitalist dystopia attacks the city skyline, late capitalist dystopia attacks the concept of color (making a lot of Adobe users rightfully angry), and Scott's Chair finally broke.

Tonight on GeekNights, we review the surprisingly elegant Marvel Snap. Released this year on phones and PCs, it's essentially a flavor of Knizia's Battle Line (2000), itself in a narrow class of similar games of a shared lineage.

In the news, Ross Chastain changed the meta in NASCAR with "Some Video Game Shit," Embracer rebranded Square Enix Montréal as Onoma before immediately shutting Onoma down, Dwarf Fotress with Graphics is coming in December, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 disabled Steam Family Sharing, a feature you should probably be using.

Tonight on GeekNights, we reveal the secrets of How to Not Suck at Smartphone Security. There is a lot of drama that can arise from mishandling your smartphone. Tonight we'll walk you through a simple set of rules that, if you follow them, will nearly guarantee such drama does not befall you.

In the news, KakaoTalk loses millions of users after a massive outage not only cuts people off from their primary means of communication but reveals sensitive personal information related to multiple profiles. This is on the heels of Google taking their cut and has now led to calls for a monopoly probe. Also Leica has a new camera for a lot of money and Scott has written about it in the forum.

Tonight on the GeekNights Book Club, we review and discuss Binti. Because it was short and also extremely good, we ended up reading and will be discussing the complete trilogy. Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

The first in Nnedi Okorafor's trilogy, it won the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novella. You know if there's one thing GeekNights is into, it's space universities.

Tonight on GeekNights, we review Unknown Worlds' Moonbreaker (2022). It's a turn-based digital miniatures game that shares a lot of lineage with Hearthstone, Magic, and possibly Neuroshima Hex (at least in terms of the net effect of some of its mechanics). It's all right, but it has a lot of issues and remains in early access.

In the news, Discord's Watch Together shows you ads and is broken by adblock (and also doesn't actually work very well), Discord launches a cheaper Nitro Basic, Rym is playing a lot of Overwatch 2 which itself is struggling with its new free-to-play model that you can ignore if you just pay for the game, and GUNDAM Evolution is terrible.

Tonight on GeekNights we review Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island and Star Trek Prodigy. Scott hasn't watched the latter and Rym hasn't watched the former. In the news, Cartoon Network celebrates its 30th anniversary, Cartoon Network is kind of screwed, and there's somehow a bunch of anime worth watching this season!

Tonight on GeekNights, after a surprisingly long hiatus between Rym going to Europe for work and Rym & Emily biking 480 miles across the state of New York, we talk a bunch about IPv6 woes with Intel NICs, and happenings in the street before we get to the news that companies shouldn't spy on their employees, and the GTX 4090 is coming. Eventually, we talk a bit about web scraping and why it is noble and just.

Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss the history and current state of online game servers. Rising primarily out of competitive FPSs like Quake and Counter Strike back in the day, they were often the only way to play with a reliable community of people. There weren't matchmaking or friend lists or anything like that.

In the news, Rym and Emily are back from PAX where they did a panel on losing, Scott is back from Costco, the Nintendo Direct had a bunch of things to talk about, and GeekNights will have a roughly three week hiatus between Rym and Emily biking 500 miles and Rym going on a business trip.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider single player tabletop games. Distinct from Solitaire and Simple Games or Solitaire Puzzles, expanding on our discussion of The Number of Players, we look at what it takes to have a regular old tabletop game for one. We cite Why No One Will Game With You in the course of this, but there are plenty of great single player experiences (so long as they are official rules and the game was designed with a solo mode in mind).

In the news, Blades in the Dark continues to be fantastic, Cult of the Lamb is moderately disappointing to Rym, Moonbreaker holds promise, the fake Amazon-buys-EA story was debunked before we even saw the bunk, and Disney is throwing the weight of its intellectual property around with a high-production TCG: Lorcana.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider the feature films of Hayao Miyazaki. They are instantly recognizable and every one of them is worth seeing. In the news, Joe Biden has cancelled a huge amount of student debt (more than you probably realize), the nightmare that was the attempt at a 90s American live-action Sailor Moon has been found in its full glory, the new Beavis and Butthead is fantastic, the novel Paprika was based on is getting a live-action series, the AMC meme-stock is doubling down on this nonsense, and Evangelion Voice Actor Motomu Kiyokawa has passed away at 87.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider how to not suck at buying a new smartphone. Android or Apple, you actually do have a choice, and there are some basic things to think about. In the news, you can't park there, this program is illegally packaged in 14 distributions, BeReal is pretty cool, this is why schools are banning smartphones, and the lack of transparency in algorithmic CSAM detection is causing harm.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider casino games like Roulette, Poker, Craps, Blackjack, and Slot Machines. In the news, Unity is having significant woes, Cult of the Lamb looks cute, MultiVersus is something we will review in the future, Nintendo is just like every other games company, Gen Con struggles with the evil government of Indiana, and TwitchCon again requires masks.

Tonight on GeekNights, we review Masaaki Yuasa's Inu-Oh (2021). (trailer). Per William Bibbiani in The Wrap it is best described as a "feudal-Japanese hair-metal-demonic-curse serial-killer-political-tragedy rock-opera" anime movie. Go see it. Don't wait. In the news, Daisuke Jigen Voice Actor Kiyoshi Kobayashi Passes Away at 89, Crunchyroll buys Right Stuf in the continued consolidation of all media industries, and Natasha Allegri's new Bee and Puppycat has a new trailer!

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider the humble vacuum cleaner.You definitely don't want to be in a situation where a shop vac would be the solution to your problem and you do not have a shop vac. Also these are "not a scam." In the news, necrobotic spiders are a thing, Amazon continues to rush toward being a full-on dystopian megacorb, and Netflix has 90 seconds to get your attention.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider Vending Machines. In the news, HBO Max is being destroyed, two of the worst airlines in America are merging, noted fascist propagandist Alex Jones is going down in the trial over his harassment of the parents of mass shooting victims, and Girls' Generation is BACK!

Tonight on GeekNights, we review Sonic X (2003). An anime TV series based on Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog video game series, adapted poorly by 4kids, it's not too bad. In the news, convention "leaks" are always funny, retroactive editing is becoming more and more common, someone leaked the entire 87 minute animatic of the (sadly) canceled Genndy Tartakovsky Popeye feature, and Anime Matsuri remains one of the worst anime cons in the world, and it's spinning off a "dubbing studio" with a known sex pest.

Tonight on GeekNights we discuss Software as a Service (SaaS). This is one of the most lucrative, important, and enduring ways software is created and sold. In the news, a chess robot attacked a kid, Amazon buys One Medical as we edge ever closer to cyber-capitalist dystopia, Minecraft (rightly) bans blockchain (and nothing of value was lost), and warming rivers due to human-caused climate change threaten the nuclear power that is crucial to transition us off of fossil fuels.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider Zoos. In the news, Rym finally ran out of razor blades, climate change is destroying the world, and we're loving this purported Fake IPL Scam.

Tonight on the GeekNights Book Club, we review and discuss Yoon Ha Lee's Ninefox Gambit. Far future calendar-fueled space battles abound, and we had a good time with it. It's book one of the Machineries of Empire series, and Rym is already well into the rest of it. We also announce that the next book club book will be Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider streaming games. Not to Twitch, but to devices. From Google Stadia to Steam Link to Steam Remote Play to adjacent game library services like Xbox Game Pass it's a space that continues to evolve. In the news, blue states in America are trying to save lives, Scott geekbites Nobody Saves the World, Asmodee sells Keyforge, Ubisoft kills 15 multiplayer games, Counter-Strike is still the #1 game on Steam by a wide margin, Pokemon cards are now easy to get, and video cards are now easy to get.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider refrigeration. In the news, the illegitimate Supreme Court of the United States has taken away basic human rights, Google Hangouts is shutting down, and Google is merging Meet and Duo.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider save games. Saving games, game states, save scumming, permadeath, passwords, batteries, statefulness, and more. In the news, The Stanley Cup finals are spicier than anticipated, PAX West badges are live (and not sold out), Street Fighter 6 is trying something interesting, and a strange attempt to take over Hasbro has failed.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider the cartoons of Cartoon Cartoons (1995-2003). Dexter's Lab, Johnny Bravo, The Powerpuff Girls, and all the rest. In the news, Made in Abyss is returning July 6, Inu-Oh is coming August 12 and has an English trailer, and Scott geekbites Osamu Tezuka's W3 (Wonder 3).

Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss the Google engineer who thinks the AI has come to life. It's a LaMDA, and one Blake Lemoine has made some extraordinary claims. In the news, the Rangers had a good run, Meet Web Push for Safari, New York wins a right to repair, and everybody is having fun with DALL E.

Tonight on GeekNights, it's a News Roundup! Specifically an Animation, Anime, Manga, and Comics News Roundup! The new Urusei Yatsura anime series has a trailer, TFAC has uninvited the NFT Lady after severe backlash from TCAF attendees and guests, Seven Seas' workers form a union that Seven Seas will not voluntarily recognize. Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds is a crypto scam, Flying Ghost Ship is getting a Blu-Ray release and a new dub from Discotek, Anime Boston had a delightful swap meet, Rym is continuing with The Owl House as new episodes drop, Saga returns after a long hiatus, and Bob's Burgers has a movie.

Tonight on GeekNights, we talk about trains. (Not the X train). Critically important in the era of radically accelerating climate change, trains are our future. In the news, Republicans are now the leading cause of death for kids in the US, Republicans have filibustered the gun bill from the previous mass shooting, and Twitter was fined for stealing your phone number to target ads at you.

Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss how games monetize. How can you make money making games? We've done at least three panels around this topic: Monetizing Games and Game Design (PAX East 2012), Money Making Games (MAGFest 2012), and more recently The Real Harm of Games (PAX East 2019).

In the news, the Rangers are still in the playoffs, Sony's Playstation Plus upgrade isn't going well, Arcs is coming from Patrick Leder (though it's unfortunately on Kickstarter), Reggie Fils-Aime thinks the games industry needs to embrace unions, and Raven Software's QA team has unionized, despite Activision Blizzard's uncomfortable opposition.

Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss voice acting. In the news, anime voice actors' unionization efforts grow ever more important as they are forced back into non-remote work in Texas, Anime Central betrayed its attendees, and Inu-Oh is coming imminently,

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider scanners. Ancient devices used to convert paper documents and photos into files on computers, often using something called TWAIN. For many consumers, they have been replaced by "smart phones." In the news, NVIDIA releases open source GPU drivers, hell has frozen over, Russia appears to have lost custody of a relatively intact Krasukha-4.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider swimming, especially in swimming pools. Pool toys, diving boards, swimming lessons, the works. In the news, the COVID meat shortage was fake, AleXa wins the "American Song Contest", and Christopher Walken will play the Emperor in Dune 2. Also convention drama.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider the fascinating art project x portable game console: Playdate. It's neat. In the news, the contest for Lord Stanley's Cup is underway, EA Sports loses FIFA, Bethesda finishes off their PC game launcher, Square Enix continues its long fall from grace by doubling down on a scam, Embracer is embracing a gaming empire, Overwatch 2 is very promising for competitive play thus far, and American fascists are destroying basic human rights in overturning Roe v Wade.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider tech debt. Where it comes from, what it means, and what you can do about it. Rym's made a career of owning and addressing the tech debt of legacy systems, and there aren't really "correct" answers here. In the news, Microsoft is offering an Edge VPN, Ukrainian drones are shockingly effective against the Russian Navy, and you should check your home to see if it has any of these strange old holes.

Also don't forget that the GeekNights Book Club is a thing!

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider the concept of handwriting. In the news, idiots are in trouble with the FAA, another unrelated idiot is in trouble with the FAA (weirdly echoing an episode of Bob's Burgers), and the Stanley Cup Playoffs are imminent.

Tonight on GeekNights, we review Tatsuki Fujimoto's one-shot manga Goodbye, Eri. It's 200 pages long, and it's absolutely worth reading. Especially starting at page 18. In the news, the YAOI Paddle resurrection was thankfully short-lived, AnimeNEXT has to cancel for a very good reason, Anime Expo's twitter was hacked by NFT scammers, Delicious in Dungeon is getting an anime, and The Orbital Children is a fantastic hard sci-fi.

Tonight on GeekNights, we talk about display cables. The standards can be confusing, S-Video was not that common, VGA was king for a long long time, and we grew up in the days of RF. In the news, web scraping is perfectly legal, the bad man is trying (and failing) to buy Twitter, and Rym got a 3080Ti.

Tonight on the GeekNights Book Club, we review and discuss N.K. Jemisin's fantastic The City We Became. It's a book about New York. And about cities.

The City We Became is a 2020 urban fantasy novel by N. K. Jemisin. Taking place in New York City (a setting in which we are heavily invested), the City itself is in peril in a world where great cities become sentient through human avatars. After the avatar of New York falls into a supernatural coma and vanishes, a group of five new avatars representing the five boroughs come together to fight their common Enemy.

It's the first book in her ongoing The Great Cities series, but it is self-contained and well worth reading alone. We've discussed her work before in the book club with The Fifth Season (also 1000% worth reading)!

Tonight on GeekNights, we revisit the topic of hosting we last covered in 2006. From simple web hosting to SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and even Iaas (Infrastructure as a Service), a lot has changed. Amazon EC2 didn't even exist when we did that first episode. In the news, Vimeo moves further into B2B, Twitch pauses its "porn on the front page" feature, Amazon is reportedly censoring interesting words like "union" in its new internal app.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider James Bond (in cinema). In the news, Rym is back from London, and New York has a lot of good options for connecting LGA to the rest of the city. Your regularly scheduled GeekNights should resume from this point forward!

Tonight on GeekNights, we review Saint Patrick's Day (the holiday). We have a fraught history with it, frankly. In the news, Scott is trying out Obsidian, Daylight Saving Time is likely going to be permanent in the US (for the second time) much to the surprise of some of the senators who made it happen, and New York governor Hochul continues to be a mixed bag.

Tonight on GeekNights, we review Offworld Trading Company. An RTS with a M.U.L.E. lineage, we're having fun with it and even playing some multiplayer. In the news, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are coming, and the Playdate has a nice dev kit.

In much more somber and tragic news, since the last episode we made, Russia has invaded Ukraine in what can only be described as a naked act of imperial aggression.

Tonight on GeekNights, we review Mamoru Hosoda's Belle. A beautiful film that deals with the disconnect (or the lack thereof) between the online and the real, we have previously reviewed Hosoda's Mirai, The Boy and the Beast, Wolf Children, Summer Wars, and One Piece 6: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island.

In the news, Amazon has ruined Comixology, Hayao Miyazaki's Shuna's Journey is being released in the US, and legendary mecha sesigner Kazutaka Miyatake needs help after suffering a tragic loss. In breaking and dire news, the governor of Texas has criminalized Trans children in a move that can be described as nothing less than openly fascist.

Tonight on GeekNights, we bring you the GeekNights Book Club: The Tale of Genji part 1. We have a lot to say, so we're splitting this one in two. The first episode covers our reactions to the work as fiction. This second episode covers the meta, structure, history, and anything else we had to say.

For those interested, the next book club book will be N. K. Jemisin's The City We Became.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider the concept of lock-in in technology. From platforms to software, app stores to physical connectors, it's actually a fairly complex topic. In the news, reason 499 not to buy a Tesla, Facebook collapses in the manner we have always expected, and Facebook is in trouble in Europe.

Tonight on GeekNights, we bring you the GeekNights Book Club: The Tale of Genji part 1. We have a lot to say, so we're splitting this one in two. This first episode covers our reactions to the work as fiction. We'll save some of the meta conversation for a followup episode to come. You can use this handy chart to follow along.

For those interested, the next book club book will be N. K. Jemisin's The City We Became.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider lifestyle games. You know the person who plays Magic and only Magic? Or the phase we both went through playing CounterStrike literally every day? Or Chess players? In the news, Sony acquires Bungie (completing the balance of power among the AAAs) and The New York Times acquires Wordle.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider anime music, particularly tv shows and OAVs. A good OST has more than just a rockin' opener or closer, it both enhances the show and stands alone. We cover some of the greatest, including Giant Robo, Initial D, Vision of Escaflowne, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Cowboy Bebop, and more. In the news, the under-appreciated and oddly prescient Dennou Coil comes to Netflix, and Scott has a geekbite on Ciguatera.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider Greeting Cards and other cards of this ilk. In the news, the Doomsday Clock is 100 seconds to midnight, the handful of people "buying" NFTs are not that invested in them, and the Democrats in the US Senate forced a vote to protect voting rights that failed due to the undemocratic and broken nature of American Democracy.

Tonight on GeekNights, we review Inscryption. It's worth the price of admission even if you don't know that it pulls a Frog Fractions. In the news, Rym beat Zelda II again for some reason, and Microsoft is acquiring Activision Blizzard for ~$70BB. Also remember to aggressively confront any company that even hints at supporting NFTs in any capacity. The pressure works. Poison that well.

Tonight on GeekNights, we review Centaurworld. It's on Netflix, Rym loves it, and it's a musical. In the news, Initial D is getting a successor anime with MF Ghost. The Ghost is selling cars too, Mr. Boop is getting a deluxe hardcover book, and Rym has some thoughts on SK8 the Infinity.

Tonight on GeekNights, we talk about package managers. We've covered Linux package management specifically in the ancient past. In the news, Rym's gonna do the Tunnel Run once it's safe to travel again, Europe has better vaccination policies than the US, Canon reminds you that the chips in their printer ink cartridges are unnecessary, Zynga was worth $12.7 BB, a nefarious developer set off a logic bomb in two popular NPM packages, and the James Webb Space Telescope is extremely important.

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider the science and the art of Sports Commentating. In the news, legendary sports commentator John Madden has died, The New York Times is buying The Athletic, a sports commentator made a terrible mistake that is somehow distantly related to this ridiculous nonsense, and United States President Joe Biden calls out the fascist coup attempt by Donald Trump and the American Republican Party directly.

Tonight on GeekNights, we review Lost Ruins of Arnak (2020). It's an elegant worker placement deckbuilder. We like it. In the news, COVID-19 is again an extreme crisis (please don't go to MAGFest this coming weekend), Square Enix made a repugnant New Year's statement, Kickstarter is dead, and the fake high school was indeed fake.