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Christ, none of the issue is with women using tools. It's everything but that. The blog post's focus is clearly that someone as apparently young and busy as this isn't merely a jack of all trades, but a master. Gender isn't what is making people stop and think here.

>I'm just going to tell you, OP, and everyone who agrees with you right now: fuck off.

This kind of debate shutdown is better suited to Facebook political groups, not HN.

Ever meet Jeri Ellsworth? She's usually in Silicon Valley and fairly visible. She can do both software and hardware. She made money selling a box with a joystick that connected to a TV and all the Commodore-64 games in it. She built race cars as a teenager. She's now working on augmented reality, while fooling around with ham radio.

Jeri is one of those rare people who thinks things through from first principles. She does mods few people would think to try - changing the frequencies of crystals through vapor deposition, spin-coating her own wafers, and converting a satellite receiver to a radar transmitter by reversing a transistor in the low-noise amp.

I have, along with several members of her entourage. She seemed like a genuinely nice and generous person (on top of being an extraordinarily talented and productive engineer), who has surrounded herself with other awesome people.

Her work is more geared towards education, and Naomi's is more geared toward entertainment. I think there's a place for both.

How is she a master? She looks like an amateur hobbyist, the main positive she has is that she looks fairly active and she's actually building stuff. Looking at her youtube I saw 3d printed bikini cups, what looked like her putting together some shelves and a skirt with lights under it. That's not masterful, but it does take a little dedication and maybe some nights or weekends.

I don't know why you think that Hackaday is blocked in China, since I read the article just fine on a filtered connection. (As opposed to the Blogspot post, which I won't bother firing up a VPN for.)

Of course the blocks don't always stay the same, and sometimes they depend on your internet provider, but from my point of view, it seems like you haven't stirred the ire of the regime yet.

> "The grammar and formatting are well beyond a lot of even native English speakers" -- Yes, because we edit her posts (top link to this submission and [0]). Additionally, Naomi has said she has a team (maybe of expats?) that edit her work for grammar and idioms. Also, if you follow her twitter, she's really locked in on Internet culture, which would give her a leg up on the memes and idioms.

I can echo this. Over the years i have been taken as being American because of how i write. But back in school my english grades sucked.

It was only after got online and thus had to regularly practice that my writing picked up. But if i have to try to speak the language, i will butcher it in a myriad of ways.

> I'm just going to tell you, OP, and everyone who agrees with you right now: fuck off. There's nothing inexplicable about a woman being able to use tools. The fact that your comment was voted up to the top in this Hacker News submission says a lot about Hacker News itself. Go feel shame, because you deserve it.

Regardless of what your opinion is of anyone on this forum, using profanity is inappropriate and uncalled for.

Profanity is not synonymous with abuse. People use profanity all the time here. Similarly, the mods will still take a dim view of you if you keep it clean while abusing someone.

My comment doesn't imply that profanity and abuse are synonymous. The HN guidelines state clearly that you should be civil in your contributions. The OP's comment, profanity or not, was not.

From the guidelines:

> Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say face-to-face. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

There's nothing inexplicable about a woman using tools.

The main thing I take issue with is someone literally parading a girl around in less-than-underwear for their own profit.

Low profile in their home country.. like showing your face and naughty bits on camera and attending conventions?

Like I said, this really makes no sense when you add things up.

Tools are cheap in China for the Westerner, but not for the average Chinese person (much less that of a girl). Do you know how much a "good" job makes in China? Someone working in a government position with a pension and all makes maybe less than $1000 USD a month.

And a flat in ShenZhen of that size? Also really expensive for the average Chinese to afford.

Edit: I'd love to be proven wrong on this by the way. Bucking this stereotype of Chinese girls all being face-deep in WeChat and food pictures is what China needs.

I don't understand your problem with someone having a mentor. I've been a sysadmin for approaching a decade now and I have a mentor, and no-one's ever called me a fraud at any stage. So what if she has help from someone more skilled than her? She clearly does at least some of the work herself, from her time-lapse videos.

Why is it that women in tech aren't allowed to have intermediate technical skills without copping shit for it? "What, you had help? Such a fraud!"

> Bucking this stereotype... is what China needs

Perhaps one way to buck it is to not try on every little excuse you can find to discredit someone, birther-style?

>She clearly does at least some of the work herself, from her time-lapse videos.

I do ALL of my builds myself and keep cameras running from beginning to end to prove it. What other technical help I get is always disclosed in the presentation and build log.

There is no proof I can offer that will be accepted and he harder I work, the more evidence I offer, the more I study and try, the angrier they get. Now this shit- I write a reasonable article and they jump in to try and discredit builds that are not even relevant to the discussion.