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Ask HN: Women who've applied to YC?

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Re: Ask HN: Women who've applied to YC?

#91
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still hope to figure out how to support myself via some kind of online income. I am 45, a lot older than most of the YC applicants as I understand it, I have a very serious medical condition and two grown sons who still live with me. I have lived in the SFBA previously, in Fairfield about 45 miles from San Francisco (halfway between SF and the state capital). My sons are very against returning to Cali. I liked it b…

That's a really good idea. What's the diagnosis and what is your view on it that you want to get across? (If you don't mind me asking.)

I was diagnosed with "atypical cystic fibrosis", which is a relatively mild form of CF. I made a lot of dietary and lifestyle changes. CF involves a miscoded protein called the CFTR. The protein handles trafficking of certain molecules into and out of the cell, one of which is sodium chloride (salt). The misprocessing of salt is such a well known trait that a "sweat chloride" test is the most common test for the condition, yet doctors hardly address it at all. I found that consuming a good quality sea salt high in brine (a mixture or other minerals) and the right fats and carbs so it absorbs properly can reverse a lot of my symptoms. CF also generally encourages the body to be extremely acidic. I found that addressing PH balance and correcting it back to normal also does a lot to reverse symptoms. My reading has indicated that both of these factors -- PH balance and salt/mineral balance -- being extremely out of whack inside the cell will promote misfolding of proteins. This suggested to me that if you can address those issues, you can get the body to produce more functioning CFTRs and thereby get the body to function closer to normal. And, in fact, my son and I do function a lot closer to normal as long as we stay on top of the PH balance and get adequate amounts of good quality sea salt. We also engage in a lot of practices to reduce exposure to microbes, toxins, etc.

For me, it is more complicated than that because I was so very sick, so I had to address a lot of complicated infections and stuff. But my son had not been on antibiotics for over three years prior to being diagnosed, so it is clear to me that the right kind of support from an early age can drastically reduce the issues this disorder causes (at least in most cases -- in some cases, the CFTR is completely missing and I assume that would be different). Most medical intervention is focused on drugs and surgeries and vaccines. There is very little nutritional information available. Most research seems to be drug studies and the standard wisdom doled out by CF doctors is to eat great quantities of junk food because it is high calorie, high fat, and high salt. A "high calorie, high fat, and high salt" diet is the current state of the art advice for people with this disorder and I think it does a lot of harm. Instead, I went for aggressive nutrition to reverse a lifetime of nutritional deficiencies and began getting healthier and getting off all the drugs.

It's complicated and playing around with these ideas when you have no idea what you are doing can cause problems, so I understand why it goes over so badly with other people. A more information dense means to safely convey how this works looks to me like the only means to get more people to adopt this approach.

Re: Ask HN: Women who've applied to YC?

#92
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still hope to figure out how to support myself via some kind of online income. I am 45, a lot older than most of the YC applicants as I understand it, I have a very serious medical condition and two grown sons who still live with me. I have lived in the SFBA previously, in Fairfield about 45 miles from San Francisco (halfway between SF and the state capital). My sons are very against returning to Cali. I liked it b…

I've been programming games and simulations since I was a kid, and I have an interest in making educational and therapeutic games. So if you'd like any advice or anything, just contact me (details in my HN profile).

I will take you up on that.

Re: Ask HN: Women who've applied to YC?

#93
post #20
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask why you're hiding your gender on HN? I know of many potential reasons, just curious what yours is.

Honestly? You're all so anti-sexist it sickens me. Whenever a female posts, you put away the boxing gloves and take out the kid skin gloves. The only people that actually say negative things are the unapologetic sexists, and no, I don't like that either. But it doesn't bother me as much. So it might just be my imagination, but just to be safe I prefer to be one of the guys for my recreational forum activities.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Women who've applied to YC?

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be implicitly assuming that everyone can resist temptation through sheer force of will. Even if you're that way, a lot of people aren't; they have to carefully engineer temptation out of their lives. (There's a known cognitive bias for assuming everyone else is psychologically like yourself, but for the life of me I can't remember what it's called right now.)

Why are you determined to identify a subtext in my remarks? First monogamy, now self-denial - you're disputing ideas which I don't hold. There are a good many people in open or group relationships who are happy, stable and committed to each other as they are, rather than on a conditional basis. People generally don't carefully engineer temptation out of their lives by signalling in such detail. The belief that others…

Why are you determined to identify a subtext in my remarks?

I'm interpreting your comments as straightforwardly as I can.

In the general case, though, it's a dick move to criticize the merits of a complete stranger's marriage. The exact substance of your criticism is a comparatively minor issue.

Re: Ask HN: Women who've applied to YC?

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually you move to the Silicon Valley, not Cambridge anymore. Technically, having living expenses to cover 3 mo in SV would make most out-of-state startups happy. :) $17k for 2 founders to last 3 months doesn't seem that bad to me personally, but to each their own.

So, are you interested in "discussion" so you can justify your choices, or did you actually want to know why I didn't do it? "Actually" everything I said is true, because it is about my decision, when I made it.

Was that vitriol really necessary?

I thought your comment was talking about YC as a whole and your opinions on them. I thought I was correcting a mistake on your part about YC today, and then giving a counterpoint. I believe discussions usually consist of two people talking and giving opinions.

Re: Ask HN: Women who've applied to YC?

#96
My sister applied for the Winter 2011 batch with me as a co-founder. Frankly, her idea puts to shame all ideas I've ever had.

In my opinion, women possess a unique perspective of what people may want. With 99% of founders being male, it sounds that women founders are likely to introduce unimaginable ideas.

I may have pushed her a bit to apply, and she may have needed the push, but she had no trouble filling a well thought-out application.

(I am dying to see the response)

Re: Ask HN: Women who've applied to YC?

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you determined to identify a subtext in my remarks? First monogamy, now self-denial - you're disputing ideas which I don't hold. There are a good many people in open or group relationships who are happy, stable and committed to each other as they are, rather than on a conditional basis. People generally don't carefully engineer temptation out of their lives by signalling in such detail. The belief that others…

Why are you determined to identify a subtext in my remarks? I'm interpreting your comments as straightforwardly as I can. In the general case, though, it's a dick move to criticize the merits of a complete stranger's marriage. The exact substance of your criticism is a comparatively minor issue.

I see.

Re: Ask HN: Women who've applied to YC?

#98
I'm a female co-founder (Mockingbird - http://www.gomockingbird.com). My co-founder is a guy. We interviewed with YC last year, though we didn't end up getting funded. Best of luck with weddingtype and your application; whatever the outcome, I think the process itself can't help but be useful.

Re: Ask HN: Women who've applied to YC?

#99
post #6

Not me. Co-founder (3-person team) is @mediamum who is doing a PhD as a Research Assistant at the School of Computer Science at CU (alum include David Morin from Facebook and Woz). She's doing research into the use of social media for crisis communications (hurricanes, wildfires etc) in the Crisis Informatics Lab there. Doesn't hang out on HN so much (must be startup and PhD getting in the way). Interestingly, Woz go…

> She's doing research into the use of social media for crisis communications (hurricanes, wildfires etc) in the Crisis Informatics Lab there. Oh, interesting. Do you know if she did any research into the use of Twitter etc for communication after the recent earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand?

They're trying to capture data for as many as they can, and I'm pretty sure they tracked that. Recent events tracked also included the Boulder wildfires, Haiti earthquake (ie range is from local to international significance)

Re: Ask HN: Women who've applied to YC?

#100
post #6

Not me. Co-founder (3-person team) is @mediamum who is doing a PhD as a Research Assistant at the School of Computer Science at CU (alum include David Morin from Facebook and Woz). She's doing research into the use of social media for crisis communications (hurricanes, wildfires etc) in the Crisis Informatics Lab there. Doesn't hang out on HN so much (must be startup and PhD getting in the way). Interestingly, Woz go…

To which CU are you referring?

Yep, as noted above it's University of Colorado. Woz's autobiography iWoz includes a few interesting stories about it too.
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