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Naomi Wu has had poor experiences with western news outlets - Vice news outed her against her will in a piece they wrote on her, and she lives in a country that

Naomi Wu has had poor experiences with western news outlets - Vice news outed her against her will in a piece they wrote on her, and she lives in a country that doesn't have an especially liberal attitude towards homosexuality. So there is understandably some salt on that basis, but also... In this case plenty of other news outlets have covered her in their articles about Martha: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/iron-lung-maker-community https://www.wired.co.uk/article/iron-lung-maker-community As far as "tech/white/male", you really only have to read the comments people post in any thread about her on Reddit to figure that one out. I can't even imagine what her inbox must look like.

junon 5y ago
Especially since for anyone reading the article it's clear why she's (rightfully) annoyed. > She has only a handful of collars left. "I really am desperate," she says. "That's the most scary thing in my life right now — is not finding anybody that can make those collars." Naomi does a lot of interesting work and is snubbed quite a lot. She made it quite public that this was happening and yet NPR still snubbed her.
- morelisp 5y ago
  I mean there's also plenty of other options, like the parts didn't fundamentally work and it's easier to just forget about it and write a new article than risk another media blowup by bringing a Twitter personality into a story that's not really about her?
  - junon 5y ago
    That makes absolutely zero sense, though. She's also not a twitter personality. She's a full-blown engineer with a very popular Youtube channel and following and has done these sorts of things quite often.
    - morelisp 5y ago
      Whatever else she also is, she's absolutely a social media personality. > full-blown engineer This, I seriously doubt. As far as I know she's very deep in the DIY/maker scene, but I don't think she's been flashing around a PE cert. Or maybe we have a difference of opinion what a "full-blown engineer" is.
      - vangelis 5y ago
        There's a lot of engineers out there who wouldn't count as engineers by that metric.
      - sho_hn 5y ago
        Naomi Wu is not a US citizen (the English name is a pseudonym). The NSPE is a US-only entity.
      - brokensegue 5y ago
        i'm an engineer and i'm not even sure what "PE cert" stands for. certification means very litte.
        lapetitejort 5y ago
        A Professional Engineer certification can mean "We trust you to work on things where human lives may be at stake". Gatekeeping engineers use this to exclude everyone else. If your screw-up doesn't cost human lives then you're not a real engineer.
        junon 5y ago
        > If your screw-up doesn't cost human lives then you're not a real engineer. This is such a ridiculous, asinine, and outright wrong assertion that it warrants no reasoned response.
        dang 5y ago
        In that case please follow the site guidelines, which ask you not to reply. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29023822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29023822 also broke the site guidelines. That's not cool, regardless of how bad other comments are or you feel they are. Would you please review them and take the intended spirit of this place more to heart? We'd appreciate it.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    That makes absolutely no sense, Wu is in china so some back and forth in order to get the collars to fit correctly is to be expected. Following which you're done because the chinese shop can make the collars to order whenever that's needed. > bringing a Twitter personality into a story that's not really about her? Wu was already involved in this. Per her comments she'd already sent packages of collars to be tested and altered / fitted. Hell, mentioning that there was a volunteer / grassroots effort to produce new collars would have been more honest than the article going "collars where?"
    - morelisp 5y ago
      It's a light human interest story, not a comprehensive international assessment of iron lungs parts suppliers or formal inventory and provenance check of Martha's stock.
      - junon 5y ago
        > It's a light human interest story It's NPR. There's no excuse for poor sensationalist journalism even from them.
        morelisp 5y ago
        A brief retrospective of iron lungs and the technical difficulties faced by people who still prefer them is among the least sensationalist pieces of writing I can imagine. Where you normally get news that's so sedate by this standard?
- mrighele 5y ago
  She has the right to be annoyed with those that were supposed to deliver and test the collars, not with Martha Lillard or NPR. From the point of view of M.L., she is maybe one of several that promised to help but could do it (not a fault of Naomi Wu of course, but of those that first contacted her for help and then left things unfinished), so it doesn't surprise me that she was not mentioned.
  - junon 5y ago
    NPR asserted in their article that help was few and far in between when this wasn't the case. Naomi has certainly gone above and beyond in attempting to help. It should be noted that the difficulty is not in finding help, but in the logistics. It reads very much like a plea to emotion, how NPR worded it.
- Chris2048 5y ago
  Did Martha herself not reach out to Naomi? It would seem to make more sense to me than NPR doing so..
fxtentacle 5y ago
Her handle is called "RealSexyCyborg" and she's reviewing gaming tech in a bikini. I'm pretty sure it was a deliberate trade-off on her side to present herself like this. EDIT: This is my reply to the reply to "The amount of [..] anti-[..]white/male [..] is incredible."
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Explain what you mean. I'm not able to connect the threads unless you're just making a bad pass at discrediting her.
  - fxtentacle 5y ago
    GP: "The amount of [..] anti-[..]white/male sentiments packed into such a small thread is incredible" P: "you really only have to read the comments in pretty much every thread about her to figure that one out. I can't even imagine what her inbox must look like." And to P I'd like to reply that I agree with GP: It appears to me that she has voluntarily joined fighting the anti- white/male fight.
  - Jiro 5y ago
    Having that name and wearing the bikini means that much of her popularity will be because of sex appeal, with relatively little being because of the merits of her actions or her writings. As this is Hacker News, not Virtual Idol News, this absolutely means that anything about her that is related to her actions or her writings should be viewed with the utmost skepticism. Also, calling herself sexy and wearing a bikini is specifically aimed at males, so no defense of her should include the phrase "white male". Of course most people paying attention to anything she does are male--she's doing that deliberately! Finally, the Halo Effect is a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect
    - klyrs 5y ago
      > Also, calling herself sexy and wearing a bikini is specifically aimed at males Women who are attracted to women exist. It's possible to think that yourself is sexy without desiring external attention. What you're doing here is projecting and victim-blaming.
nend 5y ago
That article is from a previous donation years ago. Naomi herself says her recent donation wasn't used[1]. Is NPR obligated to mention all failed attempts to acquire new collars? It seems unlikely they excluded this information because of Naomi's gender or race. It's great that Naomi donated successfully before and has tried to again, but as you noted she's received plenty of positive media from her donations already. [1] - "I just could not get anyone to visit her and do final fitting and troubleshooting on the collars I had manufactured for her." - https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1452895907855273986 https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/145289590785527398...
sho_hn 5y ago
Beyond the outlets, I think it's useful to be familiar with this episode: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046 https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046 Dale Dougherty later posted an open letter in apology.
reallyagain 5y ago
"Poor experiences" are not an excuse for bigotry against a group of people based on a combination of their race, sexuality, and gender. It's amazing to me how people will bend their principles because they admire someone.

junon 5y ago

Especially since for anyone reading the article it's clear why she's (rightfully) annoyed. > She has only a handful of collars left. "I really am desperate," she says. "That's the most scary thing in my life right now — is not finding anybody that can make those collars." Naomi does a lot of interesting work and is snubbed quite a lot. She made it quite public that this was happening and yet NPR still snubbed her.

morelisp 5y ago
I mean there's also plenty of other options, like the parts didn't fundamentally work and it's easier to just forget about it and write a new article than risk another media blowup by bringing a Twitter personality into a story that's not really about her?
- junon 5y ago
  That makes absolutely zero sense, though. She's also not a twitter personality. She's a full-blown engineer with a very popular Youtube channel and following and has done these sorts of things quite often.
  - morelisp 5y ago
    Whatever else she also is, she's absolutely a social media personality. > full-blown engineer This, I seriously doubt. As far as I know she's very deep in the DIY/maker scene, but I don't think she's been flashing around a PE cert. Or maybe we have a difference of opinion what a "full-blown engineer" is.
    - vangelis 5y ago
      There's a lot of engineers out there who wouldn't count as engineers by that metric.
    - sho_hn 5y ago
      Naomi Wu is not a US citizen (the English name is a pseudonym). The NSPE is a US-only entity.
    - brokensegue 5y ago
      i'm an engineer and i'm not even sure what "PE cert" stands for. certification means very litte.
      - lapetitejort 5y ago
        A Professional Engineer certification can mean "We trust you to work on things where human lives may be at stake". Gatekeeping engineers use this to exclude everyone else. If your screw-up doesn't cost human lives then you're not a real engineer.
        junon 5y ago
        > If your screw-up doesn't cost human lives then you're not a real engineer. This is such a ridiculous, asinine, and outright wrong assertion that it warrants no reasoned response.
        dang 5y ago
        In that case please follow the site guidelines, which ask you not to reply. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29023822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29023822 also broke the site guidelines. That's not cool, regardless of how bad other comments are or you feel they are. Would you please review them and take the intended spirit of this place more to heart? We'd appreciate it.
- masklinn 5y ago
  That makes absolutely no sense, Wu is in china so some back and forth in order to get the collars to fit correctly is to be expected. Following which you're done because the chinese shop can make the collars to order whenever that's needed. > bringing a Twitter personality into a story that's not really about her? Wu was already involved in this. Per her comments she'd already sent packages of collars to be tested and altered / fitted. Hell, mentioning that there was a volunteer / grassroots effort to produce new collars would have been more honest than the article going "collars where?"
  - morelisp 5y ago
    It's a light human interest story, not a comprehensive international assessment of iron lungs parts suppliers or formal inventory and provenance check of Martha's stock.
    - junon 5y ago
      > It's a light human interest story It's NPR. There's no excuse for poor sensationalist journalism even from them.
      - morelisp 5y ago
        A brief retrospective of iron lungs and the technical difficulties faced by people who still prefer them is among the least sensationalist pieces of writing I can imagine. Where you normally get news that's so sedate by this standard?
mrighele 5y ago
She has the right to be annoyed with those that were supposed to deliver and test the collars, not with Martha Lillard or NPR. From the point of view of M.L., she is maybe one of several that promised to help but could do it (not a fault of Naomi Wu of course, but of those that first contacted her for help and then left things unfinished), so it doesn't surprise me that she was not mentioned.
- junon 5y ago
  NPR asserted in their article that help was few and far in between when this wasn't the case. Naomi has certainly gone above and beyond in attempting to help. It should be noted that the difficulty is not in finding help, but in the logistics. It reads very much like a plea to emotion, how NPR worded it.
Chris2048 5y ago
Did Martha herself not reach out to Naomi? It would seem to make more sense to me than NPR doing so..

fxtentacle 5y ago

Her handle is called "RealSexyCyborg" and she's reviewing gaming tech in a bikini. I'm pretty sure it was a deliberate trade-off on her side to present herself like this. EDIT: This is my reply to the reply to "The amount of [..] anti-[..]white/male [..] is incredible."

whimsicalism 5y ago
Explain what you mean. I'm not able to connect the threads unless you're just making a bad pass at discrediting her.
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  GP: "The amount of [..] anti-[..]white/male sentiments packed into such a small thread is incredible" P: "you really only have to read the comments in pretty much every thread about her to figure that one out. I can't even imagine what her inbox must look like." And to P I'd like to reply that I agree with GP: It appears to me that she has voluntarily joined fighting the anti- white/male fight.
- Jiro 5y ago
  Having that name and wearing the bikini means that much of her popularity will be because of sex appeal, with relatively little being because of the merits of her actions or her writings. As this is Hacker News, not Virtual Idol News, this absolutely means that anything about her that is related to her actions or her writings should be viewed with the utmost skepticism. Also, calling herself sexy and wearing a bikini is specifically aimed at males, so no defense of her should include the phrase "white male". Of course most people paying attention to anything she does are male--she's doing that deliberately! Finally, the Halo Effect is a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect
  - klyrs 5y ago
    > Also, calling herself sexy and wearing a bikini is specifically aimed at males Women who are attracted to women exist. It's possible to think that yourself is sexy without desiring external attention. What you're doing here is projecting and victim-blaming.

nend 5y ago

That article is from a previous donation years ago. Naomi herself says her recent donation wasn't used[1]. Is NPR obligated to mention all failed attempts to acquire new collars? It seems unlikely they excluded this information because of Naomi's gender or race. It's great that Naomi donated successfully before and has tried to again, but as you noted she's received plenty of positive media from her donations already. [1] - "I just could not get anyone to visit her and do final fitting and troubleshooting on the collars I had manufactured for her." - https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1452895907855273986 https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/145289590785527398...

sho_hn 5y ago

Beyond the outlets, I think it's useful to be familiar with this episode: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046 https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046 Dale Dougherty later posted an open letter in apology.

reallyagain 5y ago

"Poor experiences" are not an excuse for bigotry against a group of people based on a combination of their race, sexuality, and gender. It's amazing to me how people will bend their principles because they admire someone.