A Clash of Cultures - <AUTHOR> https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046 <comment><USER2> A friend of mine has a strange approach to tech, at least in my opinion.

She didn't buy a computer till 5 years ago, only used the library ones to write and print some documents.

Then suddenly she bought a laptop and setup Linux on it. Took her a few weeks, but she got everything up and running without any help.

Also, she had an old cellphone for years and then she bought a Nexus 4, rooted it and installed an OS of her choosing on it. It took her at least a month to get the thing because she never used eBay or PayPal before.

My girlfriend also rooted her smartphones multiple times when they got no updates anymore and installed Cyanogen mod.

Both these women aren't what you would call tech affine, if you interact with them on a daily basis.

Somehow they got rather complicated technical issues fixed without any help.

This really challenged my perspective on technical know how.

<comment><USER3> "This really challenged my perspective on technical know how."

A good 25% or so of "tech knowhow" is just thinking that you can in the first place. A lot [1] of "tech ignorance" isn't actually tech ignorance, but people who have for one reason or another simply decided they can't.

[1]: And as I've come to learn the Internet's ability to misread things over the years, let me note that had I meant to say "all of", I would have. There are some who have decided they _won 't_, for instance, and that's different, along with all sorts of other special cases. But I know a lot of people in my life who can't use tech because of what is basically a self-fulfilling prophecy.

<comment><USER4> There's also the "stacked problem" thing.

Most problems we encounter in tech have multiple layers of problem-solving: we're installing this, when that goes wrong. To fix that we discover that we need to change this other thing. Changing that other thing means the jobbie over there breaks. Fixing that involves installing a widget over here, and so on. When you reach the end of the chain, and this fix means that thing works, which means the other thing suddenly springs into life, and so on up, is a great feeling.

I've discovered that some people can only do this one or two layers deep: as soon as this fix depends on that, which depends on the other... they give up because it's "too hard"

Everyone I know with "an aptitude for tech" is pretty comfortable going at least five layers deep.

I know this has no relevance to the gender discussion from the OP. I just find it interesting ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There must be a lot of backstory and context here that is going unmentioned, because I can't understand what this Dale guy is accused of doing. He "questioned her authenticity?" What does that mean? Was he implying she was some kind of non-human robot or something? What was the actual tweet? I feel like I walked into a movie 30 minutes late and missed the important part.

<comment><USER6> Naomi (@sexycyborg) is a well known maker who happens to have a lot of risque maker projects and plenty of photos of her online would be scandalizing for more socially conservative people.

She has been blamed to be the face for a manufactured persona, to be generally incompetent at anything maker related, etc. The explanation for why she (and her "handler") would do that, is that they get hired to endorse products. Plenty of sexism, slutshaming, and circumstantial "evidence" (e.g. the comment about almost cutting her finger this one time) have been used against her.

It is a generally disappointing story of slutshaming.

Now a well known media persona in the maker community decided to entertain those allegations and ruined her reputation.

<comment><USER7> Our industry is (rightfully) going through a lot of self-examination on how we treat women as sex objects and here is a technically savvy woman projecting herself (among other things) as...a sex object. While it is certainly her right to do so it seems that a bit of push-back is expected (and potentially warranted).

That said, being called "fake" may be wrong. I have no knowledge one way or the other.

<comment><USER8> > it seems that a bit of push-back is expected (and potentially warranted).

It is generally useful to use a reversal thought experiment to check for logical consistency.

Would a photogenic young man who wore tight clothes while presenting their hardware projects be told he's not a real person because he had the audacity to own his sexuality? Would that be warranted or expected?

<comment><USER7> The ranks of the tech industry are dominated by men so if a man tried to use his sexuality to capture more eyeballs he'd likely be ignored or widely mocked. Also, since men do not endure the sexual harassment or objectification like women do in the tech field, I'm not sure if the situations are easily reversed.

How about this thought experiment: what if I made a poster of Wu and put it on my office wall next to the posters of Steve Jobs and Limor Fried? Would I be creating a hostile environment for my female coworkers?

Wu can dress how she wants in her private life and it's none of my (or our) business; commenting negatively on her private attire would indeed be slut shaming. However she is projecting a highly sexualized image into a field that has problems with sexualizing women; that is what opens her to criticism.

<comment><USER9> I must have missed the tweets where Dougherty tried to destroy the career and livelihood of, say, Taylor Swift or Beyonce or Miley Cyrus.

In what universe does "a field that has problems with sexualizing women" mean the opening for criticism is on the women, not the problem of "the field"?

Dougherty needs to stop pretending he's a fit and appropriate person to lead or speak for a major company - and go learn a bit of respect and restraint. Right now his reputation is lingering around Jake Applebaum, Frank Artale, Dave McClure, and Harvey Weinstein.

I'd like to hope Tim O'Reilly realises the damage Dale's doing to the Make and Makerfaire brands, and reacts as well as 500 Startups and Ignition Ventures both (eventually) did... But, as you point out, we're in "a field that has problems with sexualizing women".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sometimes I wonder whether IRC really does have an advantage over richer media communications.

I do not know or care about the identity of someone who helps me with a tricky question in #emacs beyond their current nick. This lack of information is, in many ways, an asset.

I think the only place it goes wrong is that eventually you'll have to interact with people in the real world, and the easiest assumption to make on IRC is that everyone i'm talking to is basically me, but smarter, and there's some guaranteed weirdness when it becomes clear that this is not the case.

<comment><USER11> On IRC, if you stay in a channel long enough, you'll find that (depending on the channel) communities there do have their own slew of personalities and politics.

People may eventually reveal information about themselves (gender, age, ethnicity, etc.), and if the information happens to be real, whatever harassment or bigotry that's made in response to that can do just as much damage as if it were done over another medium.

<comment><USER10> This is all true, but the degree to which I get to control how much other long-time channel denizens know about me is much more under my control. I can even mask my IP pretty easily.

A real-name, photo-required, rich-media equivalent (i.e, twitter) tips the balance of mandatory disclosure away from my favor.

<comment><USER12> Twitter doesn't require a real name or photo (I use neither) and has as much rich media as the IRC channels I sit in.

<comment><USER10> i'm not a twitter user, but i have been led to believe that eggs are generally not trusted.

<comment><USER13> When they say eggs they mean accounts that literally do not have any avatar image, and are thus probably operated by newbies or bots.

A quick check of my feed shows that at least half of the accounts I follow don't have an image of a person or a name that could be a real name. Of those that do, some are clearly not the picture or real name of the user of the account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In light of the commentary on Naomi Wu's choice of clothing in her content, I wanted to share an excerpt from an interview in another article to give a sense of cultural perspective here: [http://www.makery.info/en/2017/01/30/sexy-cyborg-la- communau...](http://www.makery.info/en/2017/01/30/sexy-cyborg-la-communaute- maker-est-reservee-aux-privilegies-blancs/)

 _Why and how did you create this "Sexy Cyborg" character? Is it all persona or is it also the real you? Basically, when you are not being a maker, do you still dress just as sexy?_

It's the other way around, I actually wear more conservative clothing when taking maker pictures and video for English-speaking social media than I do normally just walking around and running errands. Westerners just seem to get enraged over silly clothes. Well, Americans and British mostly. Europeans and South Americans just think it's funny and exciting, like Chinese do usually.

I have what I call the Auntie Test: Do Chinese women over about 50 or so have any problem with my clothes? The Auntie who cleans the halls in my apartment building has twice sent me back home for a sweater, but that is just because it was winter and catching a cold calls for Chinese Traditional Medicine. I was raised properly and am respectful. If the day comes and the neighborhood Aunties tell me not to dress so sexy, I won't. But so long as they smile and wave at me, I don't really think it's anyone's business what I wear in my own country.

</comment><comment><USER14> Steelmanning Dale's position here.

([https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man))

It seems like the root questions here are:

1) Does Naomi do all of the work for all of her projects, without external help?

2) If answer to (1) is "No", does she ever represent herself as doing all the work, or claim that she doesn't get external help?

3) If answer to (2) is "Yes", Does this cause harm to people deceived by her public character as a "maker"?

The balance of evidence for (1), if you believe Dale's account and some others, is "No". There's piles of internet evidence for this (I don't want to drag them up, but can maybe find links if people are curious). This fact doesn't actually seem to be in active contention, so I'll move on.

The balance to evidence for (2) seems to me also like a "No". I don't think Naomi has ever claimed that she does 100% of the work for all her projects herself -- and that's totally fine! She's a figurehead / movement leader, she doesn't need to be a personal expert in every maker field to make a positive impact. If you read some of her FAQs ([https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs](https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs)), it doesn't seem like she's making this claim.

(3) is an interesting question that I will leave to the crowd. I'm already tired of writing this comment and realize that I actually don't care. So nevermind about all this.

<comment><USER15> I think part of the irony of this situation is that Make Magazine publishes tutorials and features white American childrens' projects who have almost certainly received extreme hand-holding help from parents.

If the standard is truly "without external help", are people following tutorials in Make magazine not 'real' makers?

If the standard is "represent as doing all the work", to what extent does Make verify that the (often privileged) children it features are doing all of the work themselves? Has the CEO ever called out a child for getting too much help?

Children is certainly a bit of a straw man, but I suspect they feature many young-20-something white male Americans whose parents have taught them technical things from young age, can afford maker equipment to experiment with at home, can ask their parents for technical help when they get stuck, have mentors in their family's social network that are experts in the field, etc.

I guess my point is _EVERYONE_ in the maker movement needs lots of help if they are not from the highest levels of privilege. There is a ton of info to learn, and nobody has the time to trial-and-error brute force their way to expertise. Implicit standards that everything must be done and figured out yourself creates a bias to only feature people who "need" the exposure least and are most privileged. Anyone working 'alone' has likely received enough help on previous projects that they were able to build off those skills to self-teach the rest of the way.

Obviously, Make magazine appreciates the value of help and instruction within the maker community: that is their reason for existence. Thus, I believe Dale is holding Naomi to a higher standard than he does for most male American makers because of his own biases.

<comment><USER14> I agree with all of this!

(Normally I'd just upvote, but want to clarify that this is my actual position and that I don't hold some ulterior motive from being frank & critical of the story as presented).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I remember lurking here on HN quite a while back (err, maybe a few months ago) and saw someone who was making the claim of the following:

         Naomi Wu was a hack
         Naomi Wu had multiple handlers.
         There was some "shadowy guy" lurking in most photo ops.

I didn't think anything of it, other than a hater. I even saw one of these claims on a few other sites I visit...

Found it: [https://imgur.com/gallery/O3Yq0](https://imgur.com/gallery/O3Yq0) (Imgur indicates timesignature May 6, 2017)

To be honest, I have __NO __clue what 's going on. I just have a good memory of previous stuff I've read and saw. Maybe this'll give more hints about what's going on here

content edit: Turns out the URL was from steveklabnik , which points towards this: [http://sexycyborgisaliar.blogspot.nl/2017/05/naomi-sexy- cybo...](http://sexycyborgisaliar.blogspot.nl/2017/05/naomi-sexy-cyborg-wu-is- liar-and-fake.html) and the cached content here: [http://archive.is/GE0he](http://archive.is/GE0he)

When you search for that URL, you see only 5 hits. The very first one is on [http://krautkanal.com/b/12075357](http://krautkanal.com/b/12075357) by user mandalareopens. This just stranger and stranger. :/

Edit: For those that downmodded me, I don't believe this stuff. I'm saying there's a history of __someone __running a smear campaign against her.

</comment><comment><USER17> My issue with her isn't with her at all, but rather with what Bunnie calls the Idol Effect. She posts projects on Reddit[0] from time to time, and they pretty much always gets upvoted way beyond their technical merit. One was a pair of 3D printed shoes with storage for lockpicks and a wireless router, the album was close to 40 pictures, several of them of her in a very small dress.

I don't follow her, I don't have anything against her. I don't like how people upvote her projects simply because of girl.

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/user/SexyCyborg](https://www.reddit.com/user/SexyCyborg)

<comment><USER18> 1\. Reddit. Seriously. Pictures of cats get upvoted way beyond their "technical merit".

2\. A pair of shoes with storage sounds like a great idea. I believe she described how hard it is for women to find storage space when they dress up. Men's clothing have pockets everywhere, but women's clothing often don't. I don't think it's easy to find shoes with storage.

3\. What's wrong with her wearing a small dress? Feminism means women can wear whatever they want. She goes into this issue in depth on her blog. She makes a fair point that the response to it is social/cultural. In China, she doesn't get the same sexually-related responses. Puritanism doesn't quite run the same over there.

4\. Her perspective on the maker movement is fair and diverse. White, balding middle-aged males aren't going to have the same problems or concerns as an attractive, young asian female. What's wrong with bringing her perspective into the milieu?

<comment><USER17> > 1\. Reddit. Seriously. Pictures of cats get upvoted way beyond their > "technical merit".

Not on r/DIY or r/hacking.

> A pair of shoes with storage sounds like a great idea.

Yes, it probably is. Is it hacking? The fact that she put a battery powered router and a set of lockpicks in the storage doesn't make it hacking.

> 3\. What's wrong with her wearing a small dress?

Nothing. But is it necessary with several images of it in an album on r/DIY? Is the post upvoted merely because of the 3D printed shoes? Does a post about a 3D printed Raspberry Pi case with makeup and a mirror need 11 pictures of her holding it first? [0]

> 4\. Her perspective on the maker movement is fair and diverse. White, > balding middle-aged males aren't going to have the same problems or concerns > as an attractive, young asian female. What's wrong with bringing her > perspective into the milieu?

I never claimed there was anything wrong with her bringing her perspective. I specifically said "I don't have anything against her". My problem isn't with her, it's that people see a skinny young woman with large breasts doing technical stuff and automatically think that because she breaks the mold her work is more interesting that it actually is. It's a little insulting to women that doesn't use the same gimmicks.

[0] [https://imgur.com/a/4aAPS?grid](https://imgur.com/a/4aAPS?grid)

<comment><USER19> >Yes, it probably is. Is it hacking?

Yes, it's hacking. It utilizing something (shoe heels) in a way that was not intended by the people who designed it to solve a problem.

Putting a router into a shoe that has storage isn't hacking. Changing the shoe to make it possible is.

>My problem is that people [...] think her work is more interesting that it actually is.

Ah, my apologies then. Of course, there is an objective, intrinsic metric that measures how interesting something is, and you clearly are someone with the ability to compute it, unlike the unwashed masses, who are all wrong, and are definitely guilty of the sin of finding something _more_ interesting than you do.

It is especially daunting since never in the history of humanity, and especially on Hackernews, has interest in something been connected to the person who made it in any way.

<comment><USER17> Nice use of [...] to cut away my point there. I make no claim of representing any objective truth, only my own opinions, as I assume you do too. And one of my opinions is that I prefer more silicon than silicone in my technical articles.

> Putting a router into a shoe that has storage isn't hacking. Changing the > shoe to make it possible is.

She didn't change any shoes, she 3D printed them. And she called them "3D printed platform heels for hackers", and claimed that she made them to be used for pentesting. Here you go, the first image from her pentesting gallery posted to r/diy, r/hacking, and r/lockpicking: [https://i.imgur.com/7aiOCYR.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/7aiOCYR.jpg) Out of 37 images there are 5 that shows the build process.

I'm not trying to put down the shoes themselves, she has a whole backstory constructed for how they could be used and the reasoning behind them. I still think a lot of people find some parts of the gallery more interesting than the actual work being displayed, and she knows that. How many would find a gallery of a pair of 3D printed shoes as interesting if it only had pictures of said shoes?

I find that most times interest on Hackernews is centered on a person it's because of that persons previous achievements or demonstrated technical ability, not their appearance. Her work isn't particularly interesting in isolation (maybe I should add IMO for much needed clarity), yet here we are with a big Hackernews discussion thread about a post made by Bunnie Huang about a post by the CEO of Maker Media, all centered on her.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Her positioning of her public persona here is not doing her any favors. On the one hand, if she can get taken seriously while showing herself off as a _sexy cyborg_ with her bod strongly highlighted, this may help break some stereotypes. On the other hand, women already get pigeonholed as being only good for one thing. Playing up the sexy angle is going to make it generally harder for other people to perceive her as anything else.

I have never heard of her before. I have no idea what she is doing that she chooses to pursue this positioning as someone sexy as her primary identifier. But it strikes me as inherently problematic to take that positioning in a male dominated field.

It is something I have wrestled with. I don't think there are any easy answers here. Women are damned if they do, damned if they don't. If heterosexual men find a woman attractive simply for being, for example, an intelligent woman, it winds up being a huge challenge to combat that. It can happen no matter how conservatively she dresses or what she looks like. If being "old and ugly" cured the issue, I wouldn't spend so much time contemplating such questions. I have joked that I am still waiting to become old and ugly enough for this to stop being an issue.

But, you know, I can't control what the world does. I can only kind of sort of take a smidgeon of control over my limited choices in life. And I found it helpful to take a different approach than this.

<comment><USER15> You may be interested in her FAQ: [https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs](https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs)

" __How can you wear those clothes? __

Not an issue here in Shenzhen. No one bothers me. They notice but there is no problem. Our sex workers do not wear this kind of clothing as Chinese men prefer an innocent /cute/childish look. You can see from my 360º videos on YouTube that aside from curious looks no one bothers me or cares very much. Mostly they enjoy the novelty and ask to take pictures with me.

Beside personal taste, the other issue is my appearance is effective. Female Makers- or Women in Tech are rarely featured in Chinese news, it's just not something that gets much interest and there is no community of like-minded women I can look to. Sexy girls are still the delivery vector for nearly all messages in tech here. If I want to get my message out- that these new technical tools are accessible, and that there are well-paying jobs available for women that master them, I have to do so in a way that will actually reach my audience. I'm sure the high road is nice- but in China, no one will hear a word you say while you are on it.

For people making negative comments- while sex workers in your country might wear some similar clothing, women in your country also wear and do things that only sex workers in other, even more conservative countries would do. While we all would like to think our country sets the standard for the World it's polite not to impose our standards on each other- no matter how surprising the differences. You can be sure if I visited your country I would dress so as to not cause offense."

<comment><USER20> Thank you. I think I still don't really agree, but maybe I will mull it over and blog about it rather than try to talk about my reservations here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > _If someone asked you to draw a picture of an engineer, who would you draw? > As you draw the figure, the gender assigned is a reflection of your mental > prototype of an engineer – your own prototype bias. Most will draw a male > figure._

How about it being a reflection of status quo?

If one sees more male engineers, they are more likely to draw a male one than a female one.

Ever more so if their goal is to draw a representative or "median" engineer, and not an activist one (to help increase the number women in engineering roles) when doing the drawing.

<comment><USER22> Right, but the point the author is trying to make is that having that vision of the 'prototype' in your head changes your behavior and keeps people who are not the 'status quo' out of the field.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Men generally seem to take issue with women who own their sexuality, combine that with the general level of misogyny and sexism in the tech industry and the general level of gate keeping that surrounds "nerd" culture and you get this.

Disappointing but not surprising.

<comment><USER24> Please stop repeating the myth that tech industry is somehow extremely misogynistic or sexist. It's not more than other industries, in fact I strongly suspect it is actually less.

<comment><USER25> Did GP imply that tech is more misogynistic than other industries? Or "extremely" so?

I do not think they did.

Even if tech is on par with, or less than, other industries with regards to misogyny, what then? We (HN) largely work in tech. It (the industry) has a problem. Let's talk about what to do about it, not pretend it doesn't exist because "it could be worse".

<comment><USER24> I think they did hint at it, to quote "combine that with the general level of misogyny and sexism in the tech industry"; but only they know. If they didn't - good!

> We (HN) largely work in tech. It (the industry) has a problem.

No, it's a social problem. Tech industry per se has nothing to do with it. I can see many social problems (and worse ones, let's be real) unrelated to tech that we can and should talk about and not pretend they don't exist.

I mean, look at it from the other side - we shouldn't ignore a social problem because it _isn 't_ an issue in tech - for example, homelessness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I always get sad when I see such issues happening to fellow female engineers.

Throughout technical school, CS degree and companies I have worked on, most of them were and are, top noch when compared with many of us.

If I was doing a Mission Impossible kind of team, many of the faces would be female.

Yet sexism keeps being a thing.

<comment><USER27> I suspect the cause of her issues is not that she is female, but that she uses her physical attractiveness to promote herself in a community that has traditionally valued pure technical ability over all.

If you look at her YouTube channel, it's full of her showing off scantily clad outfits, which has allowed her to amass a relatively large audience. Had she been male, her same projects wouldn't have allowed her to attain any sort of similar notoriety (the fact that many of them center around fashion aside).

Contrast the lack of similar reactions towards Jeri Ellsworth.

<comment><USER28> I don't think I've experienced this rarefied field where people were valued purely by their technical ability. I would love to be in that field!

In my opinion, no one should be penalized for their attractiveness or lack thereof and no one should be penalized for the clothes they decide to wear. Any shame you may feel over being attracted to someone is kind of your own thing and, surely, doesn't impact that person's ability to do their work, technical or otherwise.

For sure, many workplaces have certain dress requirements. This is someone blogging on their own time, from their own home or workshop. They can wear whatever they like.

<comment><USER27> She is not being penalized for her attractiveness, quite the contrary. Her choice of clothing has allowed her to gain a substantial media following without the need for advanced technical ability - she has admitted herself that most of her projects were on a "middle-school level" (hyperbole, but still demonstrative).

It's not the case of a person who happens to be attractive doing technical things and being judged for it - it's the case of a person becoming popular because of their attractiveness, with the technical abilities being secondary.

Plus, if you look at the media reaction to the events, it is almost entirely supportive. Dale Dougherty was blasted by the media and had to apologize for his remarks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm a Naomi Wu fan so I am biased but I want to point out that we shouldn't doubt people as a front because they prepare what they say beforehand from the internet or other sources or even because they have to do research or ask for help from other sources before doing a video. I'm a programmer and yet surprise I use Stackoverflow. In the end, points of authority are still people and should be seen as such, they are not all-knowing sources of truth or some kind of tech Buddha.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't know anything about this particular case, but it reminds me of a similar episode in 2015 against a South Korean Hearthstone player. [https://www.gamespot.com/articles/witch-hunt-against-fake- fe...](https://www.gamespot.com/articles/witch-hunt-against-fake-female- hearthstone-player-/1100-6425551/)

Point 3 about the asymmetry of a prominent CEO spreading rumors without consequence is troubling.

</comment><comment><USER31> I googled to find out who Dale is, and saw that he issued an apology over Twitter and linked to the open note on Makezine: [https://makezine.com/2017/11/06/open-note-to-naomi- wu/](https://makezine.com/2017/11/06/open-note-to-naomi-wu/)

<comment><USER28> I also found this apology to be pretty weak sauce. Obviously the damage can't be undone, but why not take a stab at trying? He owes it to this person, after all.

Things I dislike:

\- The actual apology is one sentence long

\- He doesn't state what he did wrong

\- He doesn't acknowledge the harm he has caused

\- It's not clear he's learned anything from this event

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-be- grown/201206/how...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-be- grown/201206/how-craft-the-perfect-apology)

<comment><USER32> This piece on the apology includes a response from Ms. Wu making similar points: [https://thenextweb.com/asia/2017/11/07/make-magazine- founder...](https://thenextweb.com/asia/2017/11/07/make-magazine-founder- apologizes-after-accusing-chinese-maker-of-being-not-a-real-person/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> For the record, the tweet in question is on Naomi's twitter page header. It reads:

"I am questioning who she really is. Naomi is a persona, not a real person. She is several or many people".

Also more pictures of Naomi on her twitter- I have to admit she looks like a booth babe and the first thing that came to my mind when I saw here pictures was "fan service".

But that means nothing of course. In fact, if I think about it- having a poor sense of style is _so_ being an engineer.

</comment><comment><USER34> > Western men visiting China often feel entitled to the attention of local > women, says Wu. When she declines romantic or sexual advances from American > ex-pats, Wu says they often respond with rage. [1]

Sounds like Dale was turned down.

1\. [http://www.newsweek.com/naomi-wu-sexy-cyborg-misogyny- silico...](http://www.newsweek.com/naomi-wu-sexy-cyborg-misogyny-silicon- valley-704372)

</comment><comment><USER35> A few years ago the video game convention PAX instituted a policy, under pressure from attendees, that amounted to "no booth babes." This applied to hired models whose only job was to dress provocatively standing in a booth, but also to cosplayers who demonstrated a level of creativity in costume- making and performance matching Naomi Wu.

In that case, a class of creative professional who are passionate makers and enthusiastic fans of a medium were denied a chance to ply their trade because the organizers felt it was a salacious distraction from the core proposition from the show.

Here is some coverage: ([https://kotaku.com/5900134/skimpy-outfit-gets- lollipop-chain...](https://kotaku.com/5900134/skimpy-outfit-gets-lollipop- chainsaw-cosplayer-asked-to-leave-pax)).

The sense I get is that Dale is being criticized because he's seen to be questioning an individual's technical skills based almost exclusively on her physical appearance. I get that, and that criticism is fair.

However, my read of his comment is that he shares the view of the proponents of PAX's policy. In that case, Jessica Nigri was a creative enthusiast, but her presence made the show less comfortable for other attendees for a variety of reasons, e.g. promoting unrealistic body images, adding a sexual dynamic to what is supposed to be an all-ages show, etc.

I'm curious if the uproar would be at all diminished (or exacerbated) if Dale had framed the original decision to not have her present along one of these lines of argument:

1) If he was dismissive of her work, but not her as a person.

"Naomi Wu is an impressive young maker with a large following, but we feel like her popularity is driven more by her appearance rather than the quality or originality of her work."

2) Or if it was presented as an editorial decision:

"We've not invited Naomi Wu to present because her work, while interesting, is sexually charged and outside the scope of projects we want to highlight at MakerFaire."

3) Or a commercial decision:

"Naomi Wu has not been invited to present at MakerFaire because while we believe makers should feel free to pursue a wide range of interests and modes of self-expression, her presence may prove distracting to the busloads of first-graders who make up a large portion of the audience, and uncomfortable to our sponsors."

4) Or even if it was a moralistic judgement:

"Naomi Wu has not been invited to present at MakerFaire because we believe women in tech face huge amounts of latent sexism and our judgment is that featuring work in this style would worsen, not improve the problem."

Would these have been better or worse?

FWIW, I had the good fortune to spend a few hours with Dale and some of the O'Reilly crew circa 2008. It's hard for me to imagine a more "woke" group of people at the head of a large tech company. They were focused on diversity and inclusion well before the topics took on the wide-spread buy-in that they have today.

<comment><USER36> Just to pick on one thing:

> promoting unrealistic body images

How does this work? Mere existence is an automatic promotion of your body?

Should Gregor Clegane not go to cons because it would make small guys feel bad?

<comment><USER35> I don't know how it works, but it's an argument that gets made, often by the same people who are now protesting Make. I don't see a major difference between the women who were told to cover up or get out at PAX and Ms. Wu. Both have carved out a niche at the fringes of a tech industry by flaunting their physiques. I understand the arguments for and against celebrating them, but their treatment seems inconsistent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is an absurd story.

Of course a woman can be a "maker". Of course an attractive person can be a "maker". But Naomi Wu's entire shtick seems to be "skimpily dressed girl with fake tits does stereotypically nerdy male activity". Look at her Youtube channel [1] - every video starts with an anime cartoon of her, obviously intended to titillate.

People have frequently criticised startups for using sex to promote their products. (E.g., Geeklist, a few years back [2]). Now a scantily clad woman is a feminist icon? I get that there's a view of the world whereby the Geeklist woman was being exploited, and Naomi Wu is simply owning her sexuality, or whatever. For most outsiders it simply looks like fashion. Using sex to promote tech products was passe, and now it's in again and slightly edgy, but only if you're cool enough to pull it off.

She has an explanation about how the breast implants really express her interest in bodyhacking and the outfits reflect the cyberpunk style of Shenzhen. (B.S., by the way - most of Shenzhen is just a normal Chinese city). And when all her photos and videos are of her in a skimpy outfit, wearing makeup and with hair styled - she's choosing to present herself in a certain way. She could do a video wearing a sweater, working on a late night project with a ponytail and bagged eyes, but she doesn't. She knows looking good will get her videos more clicks. (It takes a lot of effort to look good consistently, which is why engineers and scientists of either gender are stereotypically not good-looking. They're spending too much time on other things).

Then there's the fact that her Twitter [3] simply doesn't sound like a mainland Chinese girl. No, I can't prove this. But I spent enough time studying Chinese and living in China, speaking with a wide range of Chinese people, and I'd bet any amount of money that those tweets were written by an American. Even when translated by a native English speaker, Chinese has a ton of idiosyncratic phrasings and sentence patterns that give it a distinctive style. (For an example, see ChinaSmack [4], which translates Chinese internet culture into English).

Not only do Naomi's tweets lack that style completely, they definitely do not sound like they were written who grew up in a Confucian culture. China favours modesty, hierarchy and conforming to the group. Sure, there are sassy, independent young Chinese women, but they don't sound like sassy, independent young American women. Naomi Wu sounds like an American woman. (Specifically American and not generically Western - Europeans don't have that brash aggressiveness). Again, I can't prove this, but her Twitter postings simply do not have the slightest hint of Chinese-ness. [Edit: having listened to more of her videos, it is highly unlikely the girl in the videos made those tweets].

Then there's the fact that she screenshotted his tweet and uses it as part of her Twitter header photo [3]. And the huge pile-on to a guy who made one tweet and later apologised for it. She even goes digging and trying to associate him with Donald Trump on fairly spurious grounds [5]. This whole story designed to hit the tech industry's buttons and incite everyone to pontificate about "tech bros". My guess is that her company is intentionally using this episode as a guerilla marketing/PR exercise, but I have no idea.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdk4Zw2oYdc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdk4Zw2oYdc)

[2] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/03/23/women...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/03/23/women- party-favors-eye-candy-shanley-kane-women-in-tech/#61547ed4960e)

[3] [https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg](https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg)

[4] [https://www.chinasmack.com/renren-statuses-by-chinese- univer...](https://www.chinasmack.com/renren-statuses-by-chinese-university- students)

[5] [https://twitter.com/dalepd/status/926813927769440256](https://twitter.com/dalepd/status/926813927769440256)

</comment><comment><USER38> Interesting article, kind of wish it started off with some context and simple reporting on the situation though -- I'm not familiar with the story.

</comment><comment><USER39> Who did what? and why is relevant? Sorry but you don't put the whole story and the context, then its just a personal opinion.

</comment><comment><USER40> Mods, please fix the title. "A Clash of Cultures" is very broad and says very little about the article's contents.

<comment><USER41> The title is neither clickbait nor misleading. It's perfectly fine to have to read something to find out what it is.

<comment><USER40> I think a lot of people would consider that linkbait. Not revealing the contents of something. The appeal of mystery. Is that not bait? Manipulation?

<comment><USER41> A lot of these people would be wrong.

What are these well-known essays about, judging from the title alone? If they were linked on HN, would you like the titles changed?

As we may think

A modest proposal

Unto this last

Total eclipse

The emperor's old clothes

The cathedral and the bazaar

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> In my opinion, the article also unwittingly reveals the fetishization of Asian women in North America.

How dare an Asian woman who has breast augumentation surgery and risque photos call herself a technologist? How dare she use her physical attractiveness to woe the attention of men other than getting naked in front of your computer screen?

<comment><USER43> "How dare"? Who is saying anything like that? I think the original accusation focused on the deleted account of an experienced engineer associated with Naomi.

But you know what?

> How dare she use her physical attractiveness to woe the attention of men

I'm just gonna go ahead and say this is, in fact, a questionable thing to do. Especially in a community with a name like "Maker" that purports to be about technical ability.

<comment><USER42> > I'm just gonna go ahead and say this is, in fact, a questionable thing to > do. Especially in a community with a name like "Maker" that purports to be > about technical ability.

Are you even remotely aware of your own biases here that I'm trying to highlight?

So communities that purports technical subjects should enforce strict Puritan dress code for women to fit your own world views?

> You're not wrong, but it's a touchy subject and the word "slutshaming" > polarizes people pretty effectively in the current year.

In your comment you invalidate 'slutshaming' completely, do you think it might have impact on what you are writing?

<comment><USER43> > So communities that purports technical subjects should enforce strict > Puritan dress code for women to fit your own world views?

Come on, this is an obvious strawman. There's a gradient between a "strict Puritan dress code" and "let's get naked!". If I showed up to Strange Loop in a slingshot speedo do you think that'd be okay?

> In your comment you invalidate 'slutshaming' completely, do you think it > might have impact on what you are writing?

I don't think I "invalidate slutshaming completely". I said it's a polarizing topic, which it is.

<comment><USER42> Well the main complaint seems to be that she was dressed too 'sexy' without taking the context into factor. Her aims were marketing and she succeeded.

> If I showed up to Strange Loop in a slingshot speedo do you think that'd be > okay?

It's okay if you are okay with it, regardless of what others think. I'd imagine this example was created to illustrate how unsexy for a grown male (which I assume here) is to wear a speedo whereas it would work for female (assume hetero). I'm sure some folks at Strange Loops will find your attire attractive.

Which is pretty much the entire point of me trying to explain the underlying sexist bias that's at play here.

Calling 'slutshaming' a touchy word and a modern trend _are_ invalidating remarks because you minimize it's importance and that it's not worthy of discussion because it's merely superficial like a trend. It's real and the only reason why you might not think so is simply because you haven't experienced it which is not valid grounds to say 'slutshaming' isn't real.

Things that are inappropriate in your head are that way because of your own emotional relationship with those "inappropriate things". In this case, seeing somebody in a sexy light and blaming them for arousing you is inappropriate initself. It might warrant as harassment of sorts. Do you walk up to your female co-workers (just the sexy ones) and tell them they can't wear what they feel is within their rights because you are uncomfortable with your own feelings which is entirely within your control?

<comment><USER43> > Do you walk up to your female co-workers (just the sexy ones) and tell them > they can't wear what they feel is within their rights because you are > uncomfortable with your own feelings which is entirely within your control?

No, HR does that for me. Have you even seen Naomi's pictures? If she wore anything like that at work in the USA it would absolutely be a problem. It's not "my own emotional relationship".

<comment><USER5> I think that says more about the USA than anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Incredible how this person has been treated. Just indefensible.

</comment><comment><USER45> Oh wow! Impressive

</comment><comment><USER46> Key takeaway:

>why would Dale want to slander Naomi?

>I don't know the background, but prior to Dale's tweet, Naomi had aggressively dogged Dale and Make about Make's lack of representation of women.

>Dale could have recognized and addressed this core issue of a lack of diversity. Instead, Dale elected to endorse unsubstantiated claims and destroy a young female Maker's reputation and career.

Are there other sources that corroborate Dale's supposed sadism?

<comment><USER28> I think "sadism" may not be the appropriate term. Based on what I have read, it sound more like Dale is simply sexist. His doubts and concerns have a pretty sexist bent, as do his actions.

When a person really thinks another class of person simply cannot do a particular thing, this is what you get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This 'controversy' could be settled if Naomi would just say whether the assertion is right that the 'timaz' user is either her boyfriend or someone she is in contact with.

</comment><comment><USER25> An asymptote of this phenomenon is Curtis Yarvin ("Moldbug", basically a fascist, and also a programmer) being denied a slot at the Strange Loop conference: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin#Controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin#Controversy)

How does that compare with this situation? Is it similar? Different? If so, why?

</comment><comment> at-fates-hands The problem with this is what I've been experiencing for years. Online shopping is fine, but what if I need something right now, and I can't wait for overnight shipping?

What if I need something for a Halloween costume, in December? What if I need a tie or pair of pants for an interview? What if I forgot to get a gift for my nephew? Malls don't require that you have a meticulous plan for everything you might need in the next month. Malls make it easy for me to go to, get something I need and get out. No matter how fast online buying is, they can't compete with local stores that allow me to get something as fast as I need it.

I first started seeing this when a bunch of convenience stores went under after 2008. Now it's getting worse. CompUSA and other tech stores used to carry a lot of PC hardware stuff I needed and could get when I needed something. Radio Shack, CompUSA, and bunch other shops all went under. Now if I need something, I'm left with Best Buy's paltry offerings and the closet Best Buy store is a good 20 minute drive one way because they already closed three of the shops that were within a five minute drive.

The death of the Malls and retail in general is already killing the convenience of being able to get something when I need it. Now I have to drive further, spend more time trying to find a retail store which is still open, and then hope their minimal offerings will do the trick.</comment>


Show HN: Desktoppr - Dropbox Wallpaper Syncing - <AUTHOR> http://www.desktoppr.co

<comment><USER2> I think you guys should play up the "discovery" side of this product too. Initial impressions are good, wish there were some way to remove duplicate pictures at the selection page though (more control in filtering by resolution ought to cover this)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I think we need to think about that some more. The duplicate wallpapers are a bug that we don't know how to fix. They have different dimensions, so its hard for us to figure out if its already in our database.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks awesome, but I tried to sign up for the beta, entered in my email address as greeted with a prompt saying that it failed to add me because it thought I had already signed up. I click "OK" and the tab I had open closed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, check your email. We just sent out a heap more invites.

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is the best thing since varied width sliced bread.

Also loving the chrome plugin to display new wallpapers as time goes on, with my screen saver suddenly showing interesting images.

</comment><comment><USER5> So what does it do? I can't find it anywhere on the website. It syncs Wallpapers through Dropbox? How is this different from me just chucking my Wallpapers folder on Dropbox anyway?

<comment><USER6> You can browse the site and add/remove wallpapers from you collection with one click.

Also you could upload your entire wallpaper collection, to the site and then remove them from your collection, only keeping the wallpapers you want to see at any one time. It's useful if you've got a lot of wallpapers and a limited dropbox size.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really cool. It's easy to jump on every day and add a few new wallpapers to my rotation.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is cool. Made me finally change away from my default OSX wallpaper.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wicked - that is all.</comment>


Congress's vote to eviscerate Internet privacy could give the FBI massive power - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/congresss-vote-to-eviscerate-internet-privacy-could-give-the-fbi-massive-power/2017/03/30/0feae55e-1550-11e7-9e4f-09aa75d3ec57_story.html <comment><USER2> I am a bit confused as I have read that this bill only reverses a bill that was past last year and isn't even in effect yet. Would also explain the split right down the political ile. Or am I interpreting this incorrectly?

Internet privacy in the US may be non existent but it hasn't changed in many years from what I can tell.

The outrage seems overblown or at least misplaced as nothing has actually changed if that is true.

<comment><USER3> What you have read is propaganda. ISPs have never been allowed to do what they are about to do. Between the move to common carrier until the new privacy rule was to go into effect ISPs could theoretically have started new data selling programs but they had not because of the legal uncertainty and they knew the new rules were coming.

As usual some of the best technical reporting on the issue is at ars [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2017/03/how-i...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2017/03/how-isps-can-sell-your-web-history-and-how-to-stop-them/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> honestly can we stop fanboying over Comey's twitter account and see some real action against this shit - tech giants super quiet this past week

<comment><USER4> p.s. Ajit Pai is a puppet

<comment><USER5> Why do Republicans really seem terrible?

The party of hypocrisy - eg had only one 9/11 commission but ten Benghazi commissions, or eg cared about deficits only when Democratic president is in power

Gerrymandering (REDMAP)

Threatened US default over debt ceiling

Wanted to gut ethics committee as soon as they could

Refused to hold a vote on a supreme court justice indefinitely as long as a Democrat president nominated him/her

Told CBO not to calculate cost of repealing Obamacare

Want to roll back civil rights of gays

Want to roll back environmental protections

Want to make coal and fossil fuels win over clean energy, are angry about investment in green energy

Want to roll back privacy and net neutrality

Want to use taxpayer money to expand the army already past ridiculous levels

Are angry about universal healthcare even though rest of the developed world has it and has cheaper better outcomes

What is the explanation for why they seem to be against everything that a person would normally consider good?

I realize they say they want personal freedom and smaller government. But then they want to expand the army, keep increasing fossil fuel subsidies, etc.

And when someone is incompetent, they seem applaud it... they seem to be against college education, teaching evolution, skeptical of global warming to the end, etc. and (with some exceptions) are ok with Donald Trump's blundering and appointments of people to agencies who have explicitly said in the past they want those agencies eliminated.

Why? Am I really being partisan and Democrats break just as many rules? I just don't see it. Both parties have their problems but Democrats seem to at least care about competence and fairness while Republicans honestly seem to find new rules to break all the time, on top of everything I mentioned above. And then when the Democrats follow suit they get upset.

<comment><USER6> > Refused to hold a vote on a supreme court justice indefinitely as long as a > Democrat president nominated him/her

Republicans have confirmed Democratic supreme court nominees before [1]

> Want to make coal and fossil fuels win over clean energy, are angry about > investment in green energy

Not true, they want a market based solution to clean energy

> Want to roll back privacy and net neutrality

They want a market based solution to privacy and net neutrality

> Are angry about universal healthcare even though rest of the developed world > has it and has cheaper better outcomes

Republicans believe in individual liberty and individual responsibilty and that healthcare is an earned right.

> I realize they say they want personal freedom and smaller government. But > then they want to expand the army

Republicans believe that defense is within the purview of government.

Also, note that if you give people freedom they will use it. So you will see some crazy people among Republicans, but it is preferrable ( atleast to some people ) to the politically correct groupthink present on the left.

But the anti-science crictism of Republicans is valid. They need to do better.

But it is surprising to me how much Republican bashing goes on in this site. I am not American, but still I find it annoying.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/31/us/politics/07...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/31/us/politics/0731-sotomayor- vote.html)

<comment><USER7> > > Want to roll back privacy and net neutrality

> They want a market based solution to privacy and net neutrality

See, this is annoying. Because of telecom regulation, there is no 'market' so to speak. Lets roll back the regulations and allow some actual, legit last- mile competition, and then this might make sense.

As it stands now, in most markets, there is no choice of a high-speed ISP that isn't drooling over the collection of internet usage data.

<comment><USER8> I think people on HN over-estimate the consumer demand for privacy. One need only look at how many people use Facebook or other social networks to know this really just isn't important to them. So the market for people who care enough about usage data collection in order to actually speak with their wallets is incredibly small. If the market does demand it, then WIFI routers will start to advertise easy VPN setup with various vendors as a feature. Or maybe some other solution will arise. The market will provide one way or another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Would states individually have the ability pass laws that restrict this Federal law in their territory, making it virtually inapplicable?

<comment><USER10> [https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/03/minnesota...](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/03/minnesota- senate-votes-58-9-pass-internet-privacy-protections-response-repeal-fcc- privacy-rules/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If Google, Facebook and other major tech giants did lobby recently, then I consider the passing of this bill a major failure for those companies on lobbying effort. Would it be okay for Mark Zuckerberg to donate a huge private money to the Republican Party and overturn the ISP's influence?

<comment><USER12> None of this is ok.</comment></comment>


The details of how Tumblr built its data firehose - <AUTHOR> http://derekg.org/post/21776647775/blake-matheny-tumblr-firehose-the-gory-details

<comment><USER2> Why can't I scroll down on this post in Chrome or Firefox?

<comment><USER3> It works for me in Firefox, Chrome, and Safari

The last sentence is "Blake is the special unicorn"</comment></comment>


Taking the Plunge (MIT engineer's advice on surviving elevator fall) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/science/what-is-the-best-option-in-a-free-falling-elevator.html?ref=science

<comment><USER2> Getting yourself flat on the floor of a free-falling elevator could be interesting, as you will be experiencing zero-G at the time.

You could wait for air resistance on the elevator to take effect as it accelerates, but I imagine that its terminal velocity would be quite high so this might take a while.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depending on the failure, you could fall _up_ rather than down since the elevator is counterweighted. If the cable breaks, the car will fall down. However, if the drive train breaks in a car that is loaded less than the counterweight (very likely), the car will likely fall _up_ since the counterweight will weight more than the car. My MechEng prof in college was involved as an expert witness in a case of this: the bolts holding the drive pulley sheared, letting the pulley free-run. Bad.

Interestingly, Otis is famous for his invention of the elevator _safety brake_. <http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/elevator.htm>

<comment><AUTHOR> According to this New Yorker story: [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_paumgarten)

There are almost no cases of an elevator's cable just snapping and going into downwards free fall - with the exception of (possibly) during 9/11 and an incident in 1945 where a bomber pilot rammed a building. The elevator operator dropped 75 floors but miraculously survived:

> __One of them fell from the seventy-fifth floor with a woman aboard—an > elevator operator. (The operator of the other one had stepped out for a > cigarette.) By the time the car crashed into the buffer in the pit (a > hydraulic truncheon designed to be a cushion of last resort), a thousand > feet of cable had piled up beneath it, serving as a kind of spring. A pillow > of air pressure, as the speeding car compressed the air in the shaft, may > have helped ease the impact as well. Still, the landing was not soft. The > car's walls buckled, and steel debris tore up through the floor. It was the > woman's good fortune to be cowering in a corner when the car hit. She was > severely injured but alive __

<comment><USER4> So maybe it's better to ignore the MIT guy's advice and cower in the corner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would hesitate putting my head against a flat surface, maybe sitting down would be a better alternative assuming that a few broken bones are OK but serious head trauma is a lot worse.

<comment><USER6> I was thinking the same, but you'd have the issue of spinal compression to deal with. A 10G force could easily fold your spine in half if unsupported. Even if you sit against the wall, you're going to experience a significant amount of spinal compression. Think of someone dropping a 100 lb weight on your head.

I think a good solution would be to cross your arms and place them under your head. I'd gladly suffer two broken arms to cushion the impact on my cranium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Could the back of your skull sustain the impact? Might you bundle up your coat and use it as a pillow?

<comment><USER8> If you look at x-gamers when they fall, they are trained to land on their side - I would think that you would want to do the same here for just that reason. Probably with your arms on either side of your head. You still don't have the spinal compression, but you don't risk your head getting slammed.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Requisite knowledge recommender for a given book, what's involved? - <AUTHOR>

I had this idea, and thought I'd share it with the community. Given the scale, it seems like it would be ideal for open source:
I was reading a book recently and realized that in order to approach it, I needed to do a lot of prior reading. It was a book on Schoenberg and 12 tone classical music and it was full of references to a ton of other music and writings and works that I'd never heard of before.
So, it made me think: what's the app for telling you what books and subjects you should have a handle on before reading a given book?
It's similar to prerequisites in a college course catalog, but for individual books. For autodidactic folks, it could be very useful.
Is this an approachable problem? What does everyone think? <comment><USER2> I've thought of making something like this, but can't think of an elegant approach. One starting point might be to show closely related books in chronological order of publication.

<comment><AUTHOR> Except, better books on a given subject could easily come along at a later date. Time of publication doesn't seem like a good basis for grouping.

<comment><USER2> I didn't mean to use time of publication as an indicator of quality, but instead to find out material which has more chances of being foundational (because it came before).

<comment><AUTHOR> I get you, but I just think that prerequisite knowledge is often not going to be chronologically published.

I was thinking along the lines of the Netflix recommendation engine based on topics covered in a text and the overall 'grade level' of the book. There's been some good work done in the latter, eg "The Art of Plain Talk" which has a system for analyzing the grade level of a given piece of writing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tesla gets stolen with keyfob hack on camera in seconds - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2019/08/22/tesla-stolen-keyfob-hack-camera-how-to-prevent-it/ <comment><USER2> Apple Watches can be used to unlock MacBooks and are immune to relay attacks like these because the laptop only accepts signals with a small enough roundtrip latency. Due to the speed of light, it's impossible to unlock it from farther than a few feet away, even with a relay. Why don't key fobs do the same thing? It must take more expensive radios/hardware, but I feel like it would be worth it for a car like a Tesla.

<comment><USER3> I don't think so. Amplification attacks with the right hardware adds only a negligible delay. At the same time the protocol is not constant time, requiring some margin.

The main difference to Tesla hack is that you don't keep your MacBook outside the house at nights. And thief's don't need to unlock it to steal it, they just take it and leave.

<comment><USER4> The BMW i3 is known to be immune to amplification attacks, so it can be done.

<comment><USER3> Any idea how they do it?

<comment><USER5> Nobody wants an i3 so no reason to build software to steal one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand how anyone in a security role in the car industry can accept a system like this that's been broken and abused for years. Is the convenience of not having to push a button on the key fob as you approach the car really worth the risk of having it stolen fairly easily?

<comment><USER7> Car security systems always were this unreliable. Earlier systems were vulnerable to replay attacks or had weak encryption. I think they are made to protect against random person walking by, not a professional and well-equipped attacker.

<comment><USER8> Ultimately a professional can just turn up with a trailer and load the car onto it if they are really determined. Deterring the more casual end of theft is the right solution.

What's happened is that the accessibility of the technology to undertake eg replay or relay attacks has increased so that's now become a more casual theft vector. It's a cat and mouse game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This was a headline in all the Swedish newspapers a few days ago. Apparently a gang of car thieves has been sweeping through parts of the country and stealing dozens of Teslas in a very short time span.

<comment><USER10> i think i saw that movie...

<comment><USER11> The bus that couldn't slow down

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When you unlock your Mac with an Apple Watch, the OS makes sure the watch is actually close to it by measuring the distance it takes the signal to travel to the device. Why won't car manufactures do that? Is there any reason?

[https://bgr.com/2016/06/27/macos-auto-unlock-security- apple-...](https://bgr.com/2016/06/27/macos-auto-unlock-security-apple-watch/)

<comment><USER13> What prevents the thieves from just standing closer in that case?

<comment><USER14> The signal still has to travel from the car to the authentic key, the thieves are just amplifying the signal, they can't make it faster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Everyone commenting on this should be aware that Tesla has different generations of keyfob technology. The Model 3 keyfobs for instance make a different tradeoff with convenience versus security, being slightly less convenient and way more secure. The car in the story was a Model S.

<comment><USER16> The main problem with the earlier Tesla keyfobs is that they used a known- broken 40-bit encryption scheme that allowed them to simply be cloned by an attacker. I'm not sure what they fixed other than upgrading the crypto to something that wasn'y horribly insecure. That's also the reason they introduced the PIN feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> While I really hate that this attack is even possible, a nice feature with a car manufacturer that regularly and often update the software/firmware is this:

"In response to those attacks, Tesla started rolling out [...] If an owner activates the "PIN to Drive" function [...] anyone entering the car will have to know your PIN in order to be able to drive away."

And why wouldn't the car (all vulnerable cars) deactivate when it one minute later (or X meters) doesn't detect the key in the car? Ie do a second poll of the key.

<comment><USER8> > And why wouldn't the car (all vulnerable cars) deactivate when it one minute > later (or X meters) doesn't detect the key in the car? Ie do a second poll > of the key

This has been a solved problem for some time in luxury/expensive vehicles. Vehicle tracking systems detect if the car is moved without the tracking card in it and silently inform their control centre of the fact, along with vehicle's location. Control centre then calls owner and verifies if it's them. Doing it this way has the advantage that if the driver is being threatened (carjacking for example), it doesn't put them at further risk.

<comment><USER9> At least in the recent case of Tesla thefts here in Sweden the car thieves also blocked/disabled the GPS tracking before driving away so tracing the cars was impossible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why are cars with keyfobs like this designed to be able to keep driving when the keyfob goes out of range?

<comment><USER19> Having to rely on some wireless connection to stay connected while driving doesn't sound like a good idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Very interesting seeing how this attack is performed. I'd imagine that future keyfobs would use a time of flight based system of call and response to prevent this sort of thing.

<comment><USER21> Something like a gyro/accelerometer could ensure the keyfob is on a person, and not just sitting on a table.

<comment><USER20> Not a perfect solution.

Keys are sometimes set down in the vehicle before starting. A time based rule (motion within last x) won't help because sitting in a non-running car is something that happens often enough that keys not working would be a problem.

Also, someone could steal your car while you have your keys in your pocket inside your house, or walking around a store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What I can't believe is why the carmakers are not liable for the loss since their locks use such piss-poor cryptography.

<comment><USER23> To me, locks of any kind are just a deterrent, they aren't meant to be impossible to circumvent, there just meant to deter casual thieves.

Should Yale be responsible for all the stuff stolen from a house after someone picks the lock? I don't think so.

<comment><USER24> Depends on how they advertise that lock imo.

If a locks manufacturer market a lock to be secure giving it a 8 out of 10 rating but that lock could be decoded without any tools in a very short period of time then I believe that the manufacturer should bear some responsibility.

But then again Master Lock still exist lol... Take the 174SSD for example. Master Lock list it for $38 so not a bargain basement lock. They say it's "best for" For: Residential Gates & Fences, Sheds, Workshops, Garages, Storage Lockers, Tool Chests, Tool Boxes[0], the packaging boasts about its security[1] and yet it can be quickly decoded without tools[2].

Now I'm sure the people on this site are aware of the quality of Master Lock but is your avg Joe walking into the hardware store? IMO there is a point where your performance can't back up your marketing you become libel.

But in Tesla's case I don't think they market the security of their keyless entry/start. I would say they are aware of the security risks of the tech and is why they released an OTA update that enables the need of a passcode to start the car. The question for me then becomes, If Tesla we're aware of this risk and added a protection against it but didn't advise customers of the risks of keyless entry/start and the protections against it enough could they have at least a little liability? OTA Cuts both ways, Yes it allows for easy updating in the field, but it also provides a direct communication point with your customer to be able to advise them of "such new information".

[0] [https://www.masterlock.com/personal- use/product/174SSD](https://www.masterlock.com/personal-use/product/174SSD)

[1] [https://imgur.com/a/iaffVut](https://imgur.com/a/iaffVut)

[2] [https://youtu.be/CTLY4b3sG9E](https://youtu.be/CTLY4b3sG9E)

EDIT: Cleared up some spelling (fucking auto correct). But I would also like to make it clear that I wouldn't expect a lock manufacturer to always be responsible for the items the lock is "protecting". For an example: You put a high security lock of your front door to protect your home, A burglar cases your joint and instead of picking the lock which will take too much time they break a window and enter your home though that instead. The lock did its job so I couldn't hold the manufacturer responsible at all.

My gripe is when weak locks, or locks with known defects are being sold to the general public as "secure". If a car manufacturer said their car was safe in a crash, giving themselves a high safety score but it found out that "safe" meant that it was only deemed safe under lab conditions were the impact was at exactly 55mph but in the real world a defect meant it was hit and miss that the airbags would actually deploy in the event of a collision people would be up in arms about it, lawsuits filed, recalls issued, etc.

I don't expect any lock to be 100% secure (nor any car 100% safe in a collision) but when the marketing team for a manufacturer take it on themselves to talk up the security then I don't think its wrong to expect that manufacturer to held to account when their claims don't hold up.

<comment><USER24> Replying to self as I can no longer edit:

Tesla released an update in 2017 giving users the ability to disable keyless entry. That paired with OTA I wonder if it would be wise of them to push an advisory to all cars with keyless entry still enabled advising the customer of the risk of keyless entry and asking the customer if they would like to disable it? If you have made it explicitly clear that keyless gives a convenience bump at the sacrifice of security but the customer still decides to leave keyless enabled that is a choice the customer willingly made.

Just thinking outloud.

<comment><USER25> I seems to me it shouldn't be too expensive to offer a key upgrade, if the new models are safer.

<comment><USER24> I thought a key upgrade might work if they can get the time of flight working correctly to kill of amplify attacks. But it was more an "in the mean time" fix until they release new keys with time of flight or your new service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm glad my car has a keyfob that I can easily turn off. Relay attacks don't work then. In fact I'd much rather have a keyfob where I have to push a button to unlock the car; I don't really see how not having to push a button adds all that much convenience.

<comment><USER24> When you are wrangling your kids and your keys are in a bag somewhere.

Just one instance of not having to push a button could be a convenience.

Not that I disagree that I much prefer having keyless entry disabled on my car. Just giving a situation where I could see keyless as being more convenient because I'm an argumentative little shit ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> One can get RF blocking pouches for the keyfob. It's a cheap countermeasure; a bit inconvenient, though.

<comment><USER15> The newer Tesla keyfobs don't emit RF unless you either click a button, or are inches away from the RFID reader on the driver door pillar.

Maybe could still be defeated with a very long range RFID reader? I don't know how long range they get.

<comment><USER25> I read about ~1m boosting, though not sure what type of technology it was. It might still be a good idea to limit time-of-flight to eliminate relay attacks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What happens the next time they want to start the car?

<comment><USER29> What car? You mean that pile of ready-to-fence parts over there? And the big- ass battery that'll fetch $4,000? And those seats that I just listed on eBay? ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Israeli thieves (well, mostly Palestinians) are already over that- they open a door (or smash a window), open the hood and in seconds change the car's computer with one the bring with them.

Insurance companies try to fight that by forcing the installation of a "safe" around the computer

</comment><comment><USER31> Are Tesla seriously that bad at crypto that they can't prevent a replay attack? A time-based MAC (Message Authentication Code) system like those used by bank 2FAs can go quite a long way. You just have to resync the clock when you change the battery.

E.g. See Tuomas Aura's most excellent paper:

[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.69....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.69.1965&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

<comment><USER32> The article said it's a relay attack, not a replay attack:

[https://hackernoon.com/signal-amplification-relay-attack- sar...](https://hackernoon.com/signal-amplification-relay-attack- sara-609ce6c20d4f)</comment></comment>


Gamers use speedrunning events to raise millions for charity - <AUTHOR> http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/need-for-speedrunning <comment><USER2> It seems like just yesterday politicians were banning video games. Now gamers found a way to play video games to help charity. Its pretty cool</comment>


The Constitution in the 100-Mile Border Zone - <AUTHOR> https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone <comment><USER2> I've been searched well within the country (probably 70 miles from the Mexican border) by some kind of border patrol/immigration officials, who randomly stopped me and kept me there for over an hour. Their reason? My car was riding low, and looked like it might be loaded with drugs. Are drugs even that heavy? I had long hair at the time.</comment>


Show HN: libgit2.js - git running in your browser - <AUTHOR> http://xuanji.appspot.com/libgit2-js/wrap.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys, author here. I compiled libgit2 to javascript (libgit2.github.com) using emscripten. libgit2 is a C library of core git methods and I managed to call the functions from the browser.

A fun way to begin playing with it is to run git commit -m "a commit message", git checkout master, git commit -m "hello" etc and watch the graph change.

The number of libgit2 functions I have exposed is very limited, and help is appreciated.</comment>


Fossilized Insect Discovered Not in Amber, but in Opal - <AUTHOR> https://entomologytoday.org/2019/01/18/fossilized-insect-discovered-amber-opal/ <comment><USER2> Confusing title. Fossilized life is what Opal _is_. When you have fossilization processes add different minerals in distinct, microscopically thin layers (because the skin/shell/tissue is thin), the resulting fossil has brilliant colors in the visible light, just like a streak of oil on water or an insect's wing reflects and refracts sunlight. Opal mines are basically underground fossil hunts, and it's no coincidence that the major Opal producing sites are also in paleontological areas.

What seems to have happened here is that an insect got trapped in amber, and then that amber got fossilized, which resulted in much more structure being visible than is normally the case.

</comment><comment><USER3> Couldn't it be vegetable in origin? Seed pods can be very complex

[http://i.huffpost.com/gen/848622/images/o-SVJETLANA- TEPAVCEV...](http://i.huffpost.com/gen/848622/images/o-SVJETLANA-TEPAVCEVIC- SEED-POD-PHOTOS-facebook.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER4> That is pretty amazing.

</comment><comment><USER5> Can we build a park with it?

<comment><USER6> No:

Absence of Ancient DNA in Sub-Fossil Insect Inclusions Preserved in 'Anthropocene' Colombian Copal [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0073150)

<comment><USER5> Excellent. Thank you. Do you think there is any hope of finding intact DNA from something as old as Triassic period for example?

<comment><USER6> Doubtful. DNA is stable, but its stability is maintained by a cushy cellular environment which is full of scaffold molecules and repair enzymes. By contrast upon death outside the safety of an intact nucleus DNA will immediately start getting chewed apart by DNAses. Then there is UV, which will slowly but surely degrade DNA over time. I think the record for intact DNA is less than a million years; there is zero chance we could get something from 65 million years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Was excited when I thought this had something to do with stop codons</comment>


Robinhood for Desktop - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sagivo/StockStalk <comment><AUTHOR> Author here,

I wrote Robinhood for desktop out of the necessity of staying up to date with my Robinhood investments.

It's open source - [https://github.com/sagivo/StockStalk](https://github.com/sagivo/StockStalk)

Like you, I spend most of my day in front of a computer and I need a quick way to see how my Robinhood portfolio is doing.

StockStalk will show you your status on the mac bar (green/red) and click on the tray will show you how each stock is doing. I also plan to allow buy and sell directly within the app. This way there is no need to check your phone all the time and get notified via desktop notifications on sharp changes. At the moment I have a mac version but windows&linux are coming soon.

Important to notice that no sensitive information is sent to anywhere. the credentials are all stored locally and sync directly with Robinhood API.

Take a look and tell me what you think. Hope you'll find it useful as it's for me.</comment>


WhatsApp Google Drive Backups no longer count towards your quota - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/16/17705194/whatsapp-google-drive-backups-free <comment><USER2> oh cool so now i can share my unencrypted chat history with both google and facebook at once!</comment>


Lessons Learned Taking Parental Leave as a Solo Entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2010/07/15/how-to-take-parental-leave-as-a-solo-entrepreneur/

<comment><USER2> I ended up taking three _months_ off (after thinking it might only need a couple of weeks!) and even then it was hard work getting a good schedule back due to everything that needed doing. Having a baby is hard work, especially when you take on an equal share of the work (or more in the first six weeks for me - the wife had to have a C section and all housework/transport/carrying baby about was my pleasure).

As a work-at-home type, it was only after about four months that things clicked into place. I work till about 7am dealing with the baby's feeds/changes overnight (only one of these now at 9 months, but it used to be 2 - 3 times) then sleep till early afternoon.

<comment><USER3> Uh oh, we're at week two now, in what sounds like a very similar situation. I was hoping I could do a decent amount of work by 4-6 weeks. 12+ weeks of feeling crazy/no work is going to be tough. Well... fingers crossed I guess.

<comment><USER4> It's pretty fun though. You get a lot more time when you're _forced_ to just think. Which means when you do get a spare moment to work, you're pretty efficient because you've already worked everything out in your head...

That was my experience anyway :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> New parentage and development are a rough combination. I'm on #3 and while the routine is more familiar, the workload increases almost exponentially with each new one, especially when they're spaced close (<18 months apart) together. It will improve, but the OP's ruthless time management tips will serve him and any new parent well.

</comment><comment><USER6> And I thought my day job got in the way...

</comment><comment><USER7> Congratulations!

That's all.</comment>


Ask HN: What is cheapset method of data storage? - <AUTHOR>

 What is cheapest message of data storage per gigabyte? <comment><USER2> That depends on what you expect to do with it, and how much you have.

To take some extremes: data you read and change very frequently might be cheapest stored on RAM disks (backed by SSDs) - CPU time is heat and electricity, and in a datacenter that can become very expensive.

a small amount of data you can afford to read very slowly if/when you need it could be cheaply stored in Amazon's Glacier service.

Data where redundancy and ease of management are unimportant can be happily stored on 2TB commodity hard drives which you can get readily for $40/TB.

If it's the right amount, time and place, there're freebie USB pendrives, at a cost of ~$0/MB if you have one lying around.

So, what's your use case? That will lead you to your storage.

<comment><AUTHOR> I saw Amazon's Glacier service but I'm interested to know if there is anything cheaper. I don't need particularly fast reading or writing abilities, just the ability to do it when needed.

<comment><USER3> How long will you be storing the data?

How important is the data?

What level of redundancy do you need?

How much data is there?

How frequently will you be writing new data into the storage set?

<comment><AUTHOR> As long as the service can store my data with a less then 1% chance of loosing it in a given year and allows me to access it at the rate of a few gigabytes per month I'd be happy. I'd be storing anywhere from a few gigs to a few terabytes.

<comment><USER3> I don't think you're going to get cheaper than Glacier. You could probably colo an atom server with 2x 6TB drives fairly cheaply somewhere but then you'd have to amortize the $8000~ cost of the server over how long you plan to keep it running.

<comment><USER3> Meant to write $800, not $8000.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google Drive has become very cheap with essentially the same price per GB as Amazon Glacier without the same limitations or transfer costs.

</comment><comment><USER5> pen and paper</comment>