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abracar's comments

abracar | 11 years ago | on: Amazon Echo

Don't despair, it's going to improve eventually but it takes time. Those companies need to put effort into training their services specifically for accented speech - in the same way they do it for child voices etc. I'm pretty sure it's already on their roadmap!

abracar | 12 years ago | on: Hire from your user base

True, some people use a different address for each service (ie. [email protected]), and they tend to be the the kind of people one would want to hire as engineers! I wonder if Sourcing.io figured it out somehow, but at least compared to option 1 it seems better to look them up manually.

abracar | 12 years ago | on: It's Different for Girls

from HN's FAQ: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

abracar | 12 years ago | on: It's Different for Girls

I also liked how Heidi Roizen tried not to extrapolate on her own experience now that she is a VC. When you get older, more assertive and less of a 'target', it's too easy to forget what younger women might encounter. [edit: grammar]

abracar | 12 years ago | on: It's Different for Girls

Thanks for saying that. Still, it may not be how applicants see it. For instance my take from PG's "How to apply" (http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html) was that posting here could definitely be a plus — and that's one of the reasons why your role is so important. I know sama mentioned improving the quality of HN comments as part of the roadmap for YC to get to fund more women and I couldn't agree more.

abracar | 12 years ago | on: It's Different for Girls

I can't downvote yet so I'm not one of those who did - I was trying to give an explanation. I don't know the exact rules for downvoting but I assume some use it to say " not helpful".

abracar | 12 years ago | on: It's Different for Girls

Right - I also find it helpful to judge them for their actions in general, and not just for one stupid thing they may say.

abracar | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: Ideas for tech in developing countries?

Infant mortality is definitely one. There's a team from Stanford who developed a baby warmer for areas where electricity is an issue http://blog.ted.com/2010/07/09/fellows_friday_4/ http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_chen_a_warm_embrace_that_saves... Even if you go for a different problem, it's an interesting case to look into method-wise - I read somewhere else about how they iterated based on feedback from local community but I can't find it...

abracar | 12 years ago | on: Identify mystery text, win $1000

For some reason this reminds me of Google's Prizes.org (RIP) - too bad it never really took off, bounty-based crowdsourcing is an interesting approach for projects like this one.

abracar | 12 years ago | on: Codebabes.com | Learn Coding and Web Development the Fun Way

Under-representation doesn't only have to do with "women being wired differently". See, even women who have studied STEM are more likely to drop out from STEM jobs - for a series of reasons, but sexism seems to be one of them, so it's not off-topic here.

By the way, I do think we should also support diversity in some jobs where men are underrepresented, like teaching - I was reading a psychiatrist explain how the "girlification of elementary school" can be damaging for boys. (http://www.esquire.com/features/drugging-of-the-american-boy...)

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