Wow. Is this the attitude that people in SV usually have/tolerate towards women? No wonder there are so many complaints. Somehow 'doing difficult programming jobs' entitles you to act shabbily towards women? And somehow she needs to be thankful for all this? Wow, just wow.
That's alright, as an Indian I support this action, and am ready to face the consequences. After all, we have 'socialist' in the constitutional definition of the republic. It's about time we invoked it for a good cause once in a while.
We have pretty quaint notions about FDI. Foreign capital is always looked at with distrust (at least by the older set of politicians) so there is a lot of political hand-wringing about how allowing 100% FDI in retail will destroy small traders, etc. Of course, this stance is also encouraged by food suppliers/speculators, so this will take some time to work itself out. But most people say allowing 100% FDI in retail is only a few months away. So Amazon might just be preparing ground for a eventual entry.
I heard this guy tell his story to a live audience in Chennai a while ago. He's an electrifying speaker. You should see his passion for his project. He is an inspiration, reminded me of Dr. Varaprasad Reddy of Shantha Biotechnics, who also has a great story to tell.
Oh, why the venom? I'm an Indian, and I personally found it interesting (though it tells me nothing new) but I find it irrelevant to what HN is. Like I mentioned in the reply above, geo-political news is irrelevant to HN discussion unless it has a direct bearing upon startups/programming. I miss the link here.
About the gender imbalance, it's easy - dowry is still very prevalent in India and other parts of Asia. Which is what skews the numbers in favor of men (people abort female babies on a regular basis to avoid paying dowry when they grow up). When people realize there aren't that many females to go around, the dowry concept will reverse, it will be men paying to get married. Then the economic incentives will reverse, and the ratios will balance. That's how the market solves it. Hopefully by then rising prosperity and gender equality will eliminate this practice before the scales tip the other way again.
I think the other part that makes you good is actually liking the process. When you don't care what the outcome is, the journey becomes the reward. And that can lead to some pretty awesome creative work :)
"Android doesn't want it" is untrue. What would be more accurate is that it doesn't care for that level of "magic". Yet. As the platform matures, there will be a lot of developers who will try to bring the same aesthetic as their iOS apps to Android too. And some of them will succeed.
I had to choose, and though in retrospect it would've never worked long-term, I still regret that I told her that my work is more important than her. The relationship was never the same after that, and I wish I had the wits to hold my tongue. Ah, some things, you learn the hard way :). My advice would be this: let them choose. If you still like that person, just maintain that stance.