▲Rebecca Heineman – from homelessness to porting Doom (2022)(corecursive.com)
196 points by birdculture 9 hours ago | 14 comments
▲ddasdsasdkjasdj 7 hours ago
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

▲LarsDu88 8 hours ago
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!
▲stevenspasbo 7 hours ago
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
▲the_real_cher 2 minutes ago
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.

▲ChrisMarshallNY 5 hours ago
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.

▲QuantumAtom 7 hours ago
May her memory be a blessing.
▲welcome_dragon 7 hours ago
She passed away. There's another story on HN about it
▲ 8 hours ago
▲ 6 hours ago
▲fud101 8 hours ago
[flagged]
▲swatson741 6 hours ago
[flagged]
▲onethumb 3 hours ago
She was known as being _extremely talented_ at software development, particularly her knowledge of low level hardware and how to optimize around constraints.
▲mos87 4 hours ago
[flagged]
▲turbonegrofa 8 hours ago
[flagged]
▲mos87 4 hours ago
[flagged]
▲mos87 2 hours ago
[flagged]
▲cognitive-sci 8 hours ago
Wow
▲jonny_eh 8 hours ago
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!

▲cjcole 7 hours ago
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

▲stevenspasbo 7 hours ago
Horrific. Diagnosed to deceased in a matter of weeks.
▲nsxwolf 7 hours ago
Sadly, Rebecca passed away yesterday.
▲jonny_eh 4 hours ago
Oh damn, I hadn't heard :(
▲pfdietz 7 hours ago
The report was adenocarcinoma, which can be a variety of cancers, including pancreatic. I assume it was one of the nastier varieties like that.
▲TkTech 7 hours ago
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.

▲rayiner 7 hours ago
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.
▲TkTech 6 hours ago
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.

▲fsckboy 7 hours ago
>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...
▲markus_zhang 5 hours ago
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.
▲brohee 6 hours ago
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...
▲fsckboy 5 hours ago
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.
▲user____name 1 hour ago
"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.
▲TkTech 7 hours ago
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.
▲ 7 hours ago
▲fsckboy 6 hours ago
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.

▲bdangubic 7 hours ago
except of course in USA 14,884 out of 14,885 went to … not care :)
▲ 7 hours ago