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Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

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Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#31

Post by krastanov »

timaz wrote: post #21

I can't believe how far the electrical engineer ghostwriter has taken this online persona. If anyone's ever been to the hacker meetups in ShenZhen when "Naomi Wu" first started making these videos, you'd see someone lurking in the corner. It's getting kind of ridiculous where this guy gets Patreon every month now.. [0]: http://sexycyborgisaliar.blogspot.com/2017/05/naomi-sexy-cyb...

The article you linked to certainly raises an eyebrow, but it is far from a definite proof that her persona is fake... And it uses a bit too much slut-shaming in it (maybe not by puritan standards?).

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#32

Post by owebmaster »

lambda wrote: post #14
bllguo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's reductionist to the point of absurdity. WeChat does far more than WhatsApp. I'd say it certainly started off aping others, but WeChat has now grown into a substantially more innovative platform.

What does WeChat do that isn't handled by other, separate apps? For instance, I don't really see a need to have the same app do chat and payment (in fact, I'd prefer if they didn't). What about WeChat is particularly innovative, other than just bundling a lot of different functionality into one big app?

We are discussing innovation and if you look at how much money change hands inside WeChat it is clear that it is getting ahead of whatsapp and facebook messenger by leaps and bounds.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#33

Post by owebmaster »

SolarNet wrote: post #15
owebmaster wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but there are no chinese Googles or Samsungs There is no american or european WeChat.

Facebook arguably attempts to. The markets are different, and people prefer separate apps, rather than using facebook apps in the facebook app, but facebook still does the core part of all the different things.

Before WeChat people also "prefered" separate apps. That is why I'm calling it a true innovation.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#34

Post by owebmaster »

ajross wrote: post #27
owebmaster wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but there are no chinese Googles or Samsungs There is no american or european WeChat.

I guess. There's no one app, but nothing that WeChat does is serving a market that didn't exist in the west first. It's a triumph of integration, not so much innovation. So... sure. In some sense that makes it an exception that proves the rule. If China can be successful with WeChat where is its Tesla or Pfizer or Intel or Fujitsu or... I mean, there are times where a single counterexample can disprove a point. I don…

> It's a triumph of integration, not so much innovation.

So which system did they clone to become like this? Because if they are the first, I guess it is a lot of innovation.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#35

Post by timaz »

bm1362 wrote: post #26
timaz wrote: post #21

I can't believe how far the electrical engineer ghostwriter has taken this online persona. If anyone's ever been to the hacker meetups in ShenZhen when "Naomi Wu" first started making these videos, you'd see someone lurking in the corner. It's getting kind of ridiculous where this guy gets Patreon every month now.. [0]: http://sexycyborgisaliar.blogspot.com/2017/05/naomi-sexy-cyb...

Isn't that article about you?

It's not, I've just decided to use this name here as it was free

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#36

Post by timaz »

rdl wrote: post #29
bm1362 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that article about you?

pretty sure hn user timaz != reddit user timaz. I'd bet hn user timaz is the author of the blog post ("Brianna Wu"). I don't really care about the provenance of the work; it's a well-written article on tech in China. If it's a team of a western engineer and a local Chinese person (who happens to be far more attractive/better presenter, probably), I'm fine with that.

I'm not the owner of that blog.

I'm ok with the article being presented better, but I do think profiting off it bears ill-will. One of my favourite benefits of the internet is the ability to hide yourself. Pretending to be someone else more attractive and making up a story crosses the line for me.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#37

Post by chrischen »

timaz wrote: post #21

I can't believe how far the electrical engineer ghostwriter has taken this online persona. If anyone's ever been to the hacker meetups in ShenZhen when "Naomi Wu" first started making these videos, you'd see someone lurking in the corner. It's getting kind of ridiculous where this guy gets Patreon every month now.. [0]: http://sexycyborgisaliar.blogspot.com/2017/05/naomi-sexy-cyb...

The blog post doesn’t provide concrete evidence... but I did checkout some videos and in some of the non-scripted dialog her Ad-lib English skills (grammar) definitely don’t match the writing. That being said you do have much more time to correct writing and people can edit it for you...

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#38

Post by ajross »

owebmaster wrote: post #34
ajross wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess. There's no one app, but nothing that WeChat does is serving a market that didn't exist in the west first. It's a triumph of integration, not so much innovation. So... sure. In some sense that makes it an exception that proves the rule. If China can be successful with WeChat where is its Tesla or Pfizer or Intel or Fujitsu or... I mean, there are times where a single counterexample can disprove a point. I don…

> It's a triumph of integration, not so much innovation. So which system did they clone to become like this? Because if they are the first, I guess it is a lot of innovation.

Oh come on. I said it was good. It's just... not exactly the planar transistor or a CRISPR-CAS editing therapy, or even Android or iOS. It's a good company doing important but fundamentally simple stuff really well.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#39

Post by wanderingjew »

timaz wrote: post #21

I can't believe how far the electrical engineer ghostwriter has taken this online persona. If anyone's ever been to the hacker meetups in ShenZhen when "Naomi Wu" first started making these videos, you'd see someone lurking in the corner. It's getting kind of ridiculous where this guy gets Patreon every month now.. [0]: http://sexycyborgisaliar.blogspot.com/2017/05/naomi-sexy-cyb...

Just so everyone is aware, the argument that blog post makes is extremely tenuous at best, and blatant disinformation at its worst. The argument is, basically, 'someone on reddit was doing stuff in China, then stopped a few years ago. A few years ago, Naomi Wu a.k.a SexyCyborg started using reddit.'

Here's that same argument again: Isaac Asimov wrote a lot of stuff, then he stopped. Around the same time he stopped, I started writing a lot of stuff. Therefore...

To the more pointed criticisms given by 'Brianna Wu' or Timaz or whoever, I'm just going to disclose I'm an editor for Hackaday, I know Naomi, and all that entails. So:

"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.

"While we are talking about China. The Chinese government blocks sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram." -- Yes, and the Chinese government also blocks Hackaday. Luckily, our readers in China are the type who know how to get around that. Which gets into the next point...

"Strange that she doesn't have the same online presence in her home country as she does in the West. " -- I'd keep a low profile in my home country if I were her.

"How much do you think this stuff cost? RE: her lab" -- it's actually pretty cheap. Her lab is in Shenzhen, so I'm assuming the price for tools would be even cheaper than what Harbor Freight is selling them for. Additionally, it's not that much gear. It's a 3D printer, and I think a miter saw. Not expensive equipment, even in the US. And especially attainable if you're working remote, which Naomi is.

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.

[0]:https://hackaday.com/2017/03/28/source-parts-on-taobao-an-in...

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#40

Post by rawnlq »

chrischen wrote: post #37
timaz wrote: post #21

I can't believe how far the electrical engineer ghostwriter has taken this online persona. If anyone's ever been to the hacker meetups in ShenZhen when "Naomi Wu" first started making these videos, you'd see someone lurking in the corner. It's getting kind of ridiculous where this guy gets Patreon every month now.. [0]: http://sexycyborgisaliar.blogspot.com/2017/05/naomi-sexy-cyb...

The blog post doesn’t provide concrete evidence... but I did checkout some videos and in some of the non-scripted dialog her Ad-lib English skills (grammar) definitely don’t match the writing. That being said you do have much more time to correct writing and people can edit it for you...

Her natural english is actually pretty bad if you check out her reddit comments (which are not as edited):

https://www.reddit.com/user/SexyCyborg/comments/?sort=top.

She admits to getting help with english editing here:

> *As always when my English gets native I had help proofreading and editing. This applies and yes I get frustrated sometimes. Words are still mine. Lots and lots of people have met me in person and verified I am me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cosplaygirls/comments/4ufyy0/sexycy...

She also admits to needing a lot of technical help from other people:

> You know how overseas Chinese students in America all copy each others work to get answers? This workflow scale. How we work when older too. So if I have a question I open up QQ and have a few hundred friends. We all help each other with whatever. Many are engineers or work in factories here in Shenzhen. Most of the electronics in the world are made here and a lot of them designed and engineered here also. So easy to get very very professional help. This network has been called gongkai. Also why so many hardware startup here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/3c9l2m/my_diy_underlit...

But I think it's just an interesting cultural difference. It's not really "cheating" to ask for help. I don't know if we want to start calling everyone using stackoverflow merely "mascots" or "ghost writers".

It's interesting how people would rather dream up a conspiracy theory rather than believe that a woman can accomplish something technical.

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