Rebecca Heineman – from homelessness to porting Doom (2022) | Hacker News Reader

Rebecca Heineman – from homelessness to porting Doom (2022)

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244 pointsbirdculture42 comments

Related: Rebecca Heineman has died - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45960368

Here's a wonderful interview with Rebecca that goes into a lot of detail about her experiences as a trans person in the 80's and 90's. She said she doesn't like to talk about those things too much because she'd rather be admired than pitied, but the context makes her accomplishments more remarkable considering she played life on hard mode for a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SyIL6zAmhA

Did not realize the cofounder of Interplay also ported Doom for the 3DO. Looking at Fabien Sanglard's Doom Blackbook (https://fabiensanglard.net/b/gebbdoom.pdf), I just now noticed that Heineman actually provided some behind-the-scenes promotional photos to that book!

Looks like the link from Hacker News doesn't work, but if you navigate to the PDF from the blog it does. Post is here: https://fabiensanglard.net/gebbdoom/index.html

I'm extremely upset by her death as she was a real hero of mine. I was homeless in the 00's and could code and it was my way out of being homeless. I used to go to the internet cafe on Tottenham Court Road in London to hone my skills and work on a project I could use to get work. I ended up being lucky that a very kind guy offered me a job after seeing what I was doing and my life changed from that moment. Hearing her story since then made her feel like a kindred spirit.

May her memory be a blessing.

That’s a great story!

I never knew of her, before yesterday, but it does seem that she was quite a brilliant and decent person.

Why doesnt Wikipedia put peoples pre-transition name?

Its a part of that persons history and alot of search engine data is connected to that last name.

Might be that person's wish. A lot, if not most of trans people don't want anything to do with their deadname.

When someone gets a name change and they are well known by their old name it’s misleading and confusing to never mention it. Just like Muhammad Ali‘s wikipedia page mentions his previous name.

I don't know if Heineman was well-known under her previous name or not, but it's literally in the second paragraph of the wikipedia article on her. And wikipedia generally does mention former names in the cases you are describing.[1]

y'all are just imagining things to be mad about.

It would be rude to mention the name in these comments on a post posted in honor of her death though, please don't.

[1] "As the guideline on birth names and gender identity note, birth and former names of transgender and non-binary people should only be included in the lead section if they were notable prior to coming out… Instead, this information may be woven into an "Early life" section… In cases where the prior name is known only as the result of being outed, editors may feel it would be giving it undue weight to include it in the article, unless it was subsequently widely reported in reliable sources." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_LGBTQ%2B...

Right, the old name is correctly on the page. I haven’t mentioned the old name, but I don’t think it’s bad to do so to clarify who the person is. I don’t think it’s fair to pretend that someone didn’t have a previous name or that it’s taboo.

And neither does wikipedia. So what are we talking about?

Oops thats my bad! I didnt see it. Apologies! It is there! I was tired and missed it and spent a few minutes google searching. Just wanted to see her previous accomplishments!

I don't understand what is misleading or confusing about Rebecca or Ali. Either you respect someone else's personal preferences or not.

They may not be well known by that name. Ali is certainly well known by that name but many of his fights are under his previous name. I think the Wikipedia policy is fair, mention the old name. Even if someone doesn’t want anything to do with it, it should still be part of the biography.

It is in general (not just Wikipedia) good policy not to deadname trans people unless they request otherwise.

I appreciate that this creates problems in talking about people who transitioned mid-life and had substantial pre-transition accomplishments, like Sophie Wilson.

It is in the "Early life" section.

Thanks!

it is literally in the second paragraph of the wikipedia article. I think it would be rude to repost it in these comments however, so please don't. Also it is the same last name.

Thats my bad I missed it!

She's had a really impressive life!

She passed away. There's another story on HN about it

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45960368

Wow

Rebecca is currently fighting cancer and has a gofundme: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-rebecca-ann-heineman-fight-a...

She's very close to her goal!

Nov 16

Update:

Rebecca Heineman - Organizer

It’s time. According to my doctors. All further treatments are pointless. So, please donate so my kids can create a funeral worthy of my keyboard, Pixelbreaker! So I can make a worthy entrance for reuniting with my one true love, Jennell Jaquays.

My daughter Cynthia Elizabeth Heineman, will be making the arrangements

Horrific. Diagnosed to deceased in a matter of weeks.

Sadly, Rebecca passed away yesterday.

The report was adenocarcinoma, which can be a variety of cancers, including pancreatic. I assume it was one of the nastier varieties like that.

Oh damn, I hadn't heard :(

I hate every part of this. The pain and suffering and the struggle for money that family had to go through because the richest country on Earth can't be bothered to provide for its citizens. Rebecca should not have had to use a damn gofundme to get health care while struggling with cancer. Her family should not have been forced to publicize her care in the desperate hope that strangers might help her live. Utterly inhuman.

RIP Rebecca.

It’s a very sad situation, but she had an aggressive cancer that killed her in a matter of weeks. In Germany the healthcare option that would have been offered is hospice care. (Source: family friend runs a hospice facility in Germany and it’s much more common than in the U.S.) I doubt any other socialized healthcare system would have responded differently.

Germany most certainly covers treatment for aggressive adenocarcinoma, and it's covered at 100%. Germany is literally one of the best places in the world for all levels of oncology.

This isn't just with the hope of curing someone, even when you're terminal things like palliative chemotherapy are covered which can drastically ease your suffering.

>because the richest country on Earth can't be bothered to provide for its citizens

The USA spends more on healthcare per person than any other country

  Locations  2024  2023  2022  2021  2020

 USA     14,885 13,818 12,898 12,375 11,926
 Switz.   9,963  9,301  9,089  8,392  7,621
 Norway   9,393  8,909  8,533  7,890  7,221
 Germany  9,365  8,503  8,652  8,103  7,364
 Nederl.  8,436  7,615  7,517  7,317  6,516
 Austria  8,401  7,697  7,700  7,465  6,295
 Luxemb.  8,162  7,247  6,854  6,432  5,859
 Sweden   7,871  7,364  6,977  6,617  6,069
 Ireland  7,813  7,027  6,748  6,221  5,619
 Belgium  7,750  7,178  6,906  6,554  6,097
 Austral  7,469  7,015  6,907  6,546  5,819
 France   7,354  6,848  6,701  6,395  5,874
 Canada   7,301  7,046  6,876  6,906  6,209
 Denmark  7,071  6,555  6,661  6,913  6,147
 Iceland  6,770  6,134  5,956  5,556  5,010
 UK       6,747  6,412  6,188  5,785  5,381
 New Zea  6,700  6,479  6,480  5,213  4,571
 Finland  6,655  6,276  5,765  5,395  4,967
 Japan    5,790  5,619  5,984  5,454  4,855
 Slovenia 5,527  4,556  4,353  3,894  3,756
 Spain    5,346  4,927  4,744  4,405  3,996
 Portugal 5,212  4,713  4,594  4,208  3,555
 Italy    5,164  4,847  4,744  4,409  4,027
 Czechia  5,014  4,570  4,394  4,462  4,098
 Korea    4,797  4,586  4,634  4,106  3,618
 Israel   4,352  3,840  3,682  3,358  3,015
 Poland   4,284  3,560  3,066  2,752  2,510
 Slovakia 4,021  3,280  3,126  2,922  2,449
 Lithuani 3,870  3,306  3,242  3,146  3,092
 Chile    3,749  3,396  3,113  2,848  2,489

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...

That only because that spend is misattributed. Much of the money spent on US "healthcare" ends up wasted on admin in billings, collections and haggling with insurance co... Aka, not healthcare. I'd be very interested to see American numbers without the absolutely insane admin overhead...

unfortunately, many of the people who are in favor of providing more financial resources to patients are also in favor of a more extensive regulatory framework, so the two ideas don't get balanced.

"Regulatory framework?" What are you talking about? Centralized information processing is faster and carries much less deadweight loss from duplicated admin and roundtrips. Having a system built around profit maximization isn't one that minimizes cost, as you have shown in your previous post.

The resources spent is more important. Not to prove that you are wrong because I don’t know the answer too, but we should compare actual care per $. Like service and medicine and such, not just the $ amount.

Is this supposed to be a rebuttal? It's inability to provide for its citizens while spending the most is proof that its model for health care is an utter, abject failure. That money is going to incredible private profits, not the citizens.

was what I was responding to supposed to be a constructive suggestion?

>It's inability to provide for its citizens

provide some evidence, and also the counter evidence that shows that other countries don't leave people waiting for important procedures.

I don't claim to have the answers, but I will claim that you and GP for sure don't, I don't even think you are in possession of any facts.

except of course in USA 14,884 out of 14,885 went to … not care :)

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