Tag: google

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Review: Nest Hello

With stars in our eyes as we admired a little red house that was in our budget — and in a safe, walkable neighborhood near public transit — we overlooked a lot of little issues and placed an offer.

Fast forward to living in the house and we noticed a small, nagging issue (one of those we overlooked): no doorbell.

I figured we’d just go to Home Depot and buy a regular shmegular doorbell but my husband declined this option. He’s not a technophile or super into keeping with the Joneses or anything like that. In fact, as a woman working in technology teams, I’ve always been the tech nerd of this couple. However, when it came to the doorbell, he insisted we get a video doorbell. Essentially, with the blank slate of nothing existing to replace, let’s go big or go home!

Continue reading “Review: Nest Hello”
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In the Eye of a Hurricane

In case you’ve been living under a rock, there was a massive hurricane that impacted the Gulf Coast (Hurricane Harvey) and now another even bigger storm heading toward southern Florida (Hurricane Irma). I’ve now gotten to the point where I’ve typed the word hurricane too many times; so much so that I’m starting to doubt that I’m spelling it correctly.

I knew some people in Harvey’s path but most of my family could potentially be in Irma’s path so it’s more top of mind for me. I haven’t yet turned on the (cable) news because I have a feeling it’s going to be devastation porn so, in order to get a sense of where this storm is going, I’ve been looking at my Weather Underground app (which I love) that has a hurricane tracker and also googling a bit for pieces of information here and there.

And this is where technology gets a little weird. Continue reading “In the Eye of a Hurricane”

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Why I Can’t Read the Googler’s Manifesto

I think you may have heard about one Googler’s manifesto, but I can’t bring myself to read it.

Segmentation Fault
Was I not the only one who wanted to throw her computer out the window after hearing about the manifesto?

Let me preface this by saying that I strongly believe in free-flowing discourse and dialogue. I believe that we should question our assumptions and seek solace in facts and figures. I also believe in seeking out patterns in our past behavior to help predict future actions, or break out of them. But first and foremost, I believe that we owe it to our fellow humans to empathize with their experiences on this earth.

And, from what I understand of this manifesto, the writer doesn’t seem to understand the shifts that women have seen in the last 30 years with regard to technology. The number of women graduating with Computer Science degrees is steadily decreasing; as Wired Magazine notes in their interview with Melinda Gates, 1 in 3 women in the 1980’s has decreased to less than 1 in 5 earning a Comp Sci degree. Continue reading “Why I Can’t Read the Googler’s Manifesto”