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.

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.

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.

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?

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?"

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.

> It's a light human interest story

It's NPR. There's no excuse for poor sensationalist journalism even from them.

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?

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.

Naomi Wu is not a US citizen (the English name is a pseudonym). The NSPE is a US-only entity.

There's a lot of engineers out there who wouldn't count as engineers by that metric.

i'm an engineer and i'm not even sure what "PE cert" stands for. certification means very litte.

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.

> 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.

In that case please follow the site guidelines, which ask you not to reply.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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.

I'm fairly sure the post you're replying you was interpretative-facetious.

I got that, it was directed towards the engineers who act this way. I've met too many of them as well.

Please do not post in the flamewar style to HN, regardless of how bad another comment is or you feel it is. We've had to ask you this multiple times before. That's not cool.

You also broke the site guidelines by crossing into personal attack below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29025655

We're trying to avoid this kind of thing here, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

I also live in Europe. The term Engineer is used in many contexts outside of "what you build could kill people" contexts.

Get off your high horse.

Spaniard here. I doubt it. Maybe in the UK, but in the rest of Europe being an Engineer is not a bragging wannabe title.

Did Martha herself not reach out to Naomi? It would seem to make more sense to me than NPR doing so..

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/145289590785527398...

"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.

Beyond the outlets, I think it's useful to be familiar with this episode: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046

Dale Dougherty later posted an open letter in apology.

Because real hackers are unwashed, unshaved and live in hoodies?

As a community we are not really a suit and tie sort of affair. Whether that means a bikini, a nice cotton henley or your favorite cyberpunk cosplay - who cares?

The comment that I replied to said that she has a valid point being anti-male because she receives so much unwanted attention. And my reply is that I believe the sexualized attention isn't unwanted but instead it's part of her marketing strategy which includes - among other things - the "sexy cyborg" branding and 18+ videos.

In a similar vein, if I wanted to make a YouTube channel that appeals to true hackers, I might stop shaving and showering for a few days and wear the hoodie. That sounds like a great marketing strategy to stand out from the boring suit & tie crowd ;)

EDIT: Marketing agencies already beat me to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcLsNOMqyD8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aTGB1KFgII

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M71fnJNNeE

Wu has been clear that her reasons for her dress style is her interest in women, not attracting the male gaze.

One of the traditional hacker values is personal agency - doing things because you like them, not to fit in or sell.

In general we need to take people at their word and not supply our own beliefs. We diminish ourselves when we minimize the agency of others.

"In general we need to take people at their word and not supply our own beliefs"

You will have a difficult time navigating the real world if you approach public personas with such a trusting approach.

"I just want you to know I’m not a pedophile" Jeffrey Epstein

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Bill Clinton

"I'm a benevolent dictator." Harvey Weinstein

In my opinion, Wu is a public persona, too, because the majority of her income directly depends on the public's perception of her. Also, her influencer marketing with the Creality printer brand is probably conditioned on her presenting in a certain way. So regardless of whether she dresses that way for guys or for girls, I'd argue that my point still stands: She made a calculated decision to publicly present herself in that way and given that she appears to be highly intelligent, she was probably aware of the consequences (including male attention) beforehand.

There's a reason I prefaced with the word "generally" but you can replace that with the longer "Lacking evidence to the contrary".

In case this hasn't been explained to you yet: Someones fashion choices are not an excuse to behave inappropriately or give them unwanted advances. If she wants to dress that way and someone behaves inappropriately towards her, the issue isn't with her.

Explain what you mean. I'm not able to connect the threads unless you're just making a bad pass at discrediting her.

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

She’s explained many times how the gay and lesbian scene that she identifies with works in parts of Asia. I think she’s sincere as she’s mentioned her relationships on Twitter. She’s not appealing to males. She’s appealing to specific types of lesbians.

I think this part of her complaint with western media is legit. They all just assume that she’s doing it for the views. Ignore the gay and lesbian scene in Asia entirely to come up with a fake narrative. Completely ignore that she has done some good work just because of the way she looks. Then go on and on about inclusivity and LGBT rights.

Even Adam Savage’s Tested.com seems to have snubbed her. They requested a few CR-30s be sent over for review but then <some shenanigans> And the review never came and I guess they never sent them back to her.

>She’s not appealing to males.

Calling yourself "sexy" and dressing in a bikini appeals to males, and males greatly outnumber lesbians, and that will lead to lots of male twitter followers who would not follow her if all she had were her actions and words. She can't not know this stuff.

You can argue that she isn't deliberately appealing to men, but at some point, "in the knowledge that" is indistinguishable from "deliberately" by anyone who can't read minds.

I’m sure she knows that her appearance has a massive overlap with male fantasies and that affects her followers.

But what does that have to do with the work she does? And why is that her problem? Given the snubs she’s received, I’d argue that her appearance actually costs her. If she looked more like the western ideal of a female lesbian hacker she’d get more work and sponsorships.

>But what does that have to do with the work she does?

She's doing something that makes it look like she's gaining fans for reasons unrelated to the quality of her work. People will be skeptical of the work of a person who trades on something other than her work.

Skepticism is one thing. But it certainly appears that she continually gets snubbed.

After all this time the media, popular personalities, maker communities that espouse inclusivity didn’t once look at her work? Got the first mass produced Infinite Z printer to market - still skeptical? Got Chinese companies to comply to open source licenses - still skeptical? Makes a bunch of stuff - still skeptical?

Naomi certainly does seem right that all these communities are judging her on her appearance.

> 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.

> 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.

I think that honestly underestimates the amount of work that goes into being a consistently successful tech-themed content creator: Wearing a bikini isn't enough to brave competition and short-lived attention spans in that space. Being attractive helps in media, for sure, but you can't go on without putting work into the essential content for very long.

Last time I wore a bikini I was at an all-women's conference. I thought I was wearing it because it was hot, I was in Palm Springs, and I was at the pool. Thank you for telling me I have been doing it wrong. No wonder I was underpaid at the time....

A pool is a social context in which a bikini is expected. Investigative reporting isn't.

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.