AMA - I'm Dustin, Hyrule.net found... Ask me anything!

[Du5t1n 57]

I hear AMA's are all the rage now! So without further ado, ask me anything.

[Sayubie 405]

Feeling lucky?

[Michael 290]

I hear AMA's are all the rage now! So without further ado, ask me anything.

Of the few years that you have been away from Hyrule.net, what were you up to? Anything exciting?

 

Feeling lucky?

[Du5t1n 57]

Feeling lucky?

 I wasn't until you came along.

 

 

 

Of the few years that you have been away from Hyrule.net, what were you up to? Anything exciting?

Graduated college (Computer Engineering), friends came and went, got a good job & created a multi-million dollar piece of software (working for a company of course so I only got a small fraction of that pie) at an amazingly fun company (for a while I described it to friends as like the hyrule.net chat; yeah, it's was intense and crazy!), went on work trips around the country, went to SXSW, met famous tech people such as people from Google, Dropbox.com, Static.com, hung out with some guys that host ebay.com, etc.  Now I work from home a lot, got a house & put in security cameras all around it to keep shady people away, partook of grass in vast quantities for a while, made a weather website http://precipitationstation.com/ , explored around walking 30+ miles in search of a cave -- when my friend and I were just about to give up we sat down to rest and saw something weird in the distance: the cave! As soon as we exited the cave I encountered a rock slide then immediately upset a bee nest and got stung and ran for my life ... I spent much of my younger years hanging out mostly on Hyrule.net so I kind of binged in experiencing the "real" world.  After sampling both, I feel that I got to know people in a 'real' way more online as people are more free to be themselves.  I greatly enjoyed those special moments when I really got to know people really well in person as well though.  I wish I could take my online relationships and port them into real life hanging out.  Going on adventures is super fun.  I discovered I enjoy hiking around exploring, much like Link.  I enjoy it most friend friends though.  Currently none of my IRL friends enjoy outdoors though unfortunately which is a shame. I need to find some people that like that stuff since Spring is almost here!  So yeah, nothing too extravagant, at least to me. Living the dream I suppose.

Edited 22 Mar 2013 by Du5t1n (see edit history)

[Sayubie 405]

Dustin, I can't talk to you... ever... ever again.

My inferiority complex will just cause the worst implosion. Tears through time and space.

Damn.

[Michael 290]

Graduated college (Computer Engineering), friends came and went, got a good job & created a multi-million dollar piece of software (working for a company of course so I only got a small fraction of that pie), went on work trips around the country, went to SXSW, met famous tech people such as people from Google, Dropbox.com, Static.com, hung out with some guys that host ebay.com, etc.

That's pretty awesome!

made a weather website http://precipitationstation.com/

This pretty neat, I remember when I used to use Typity all the time. I just logged into my account again and I still have a bunch of notes from like 3 years ago...

 

explored around walking 30+ miles in search of a cave -- when my friend and I were just about to give up we sat down to rest and saw something weird in the distance: the cave! As soon as we exited the cave I encountered a rock slide then immediately upset a bee nest and got stung and ran for my life ...

Reading this reminded me of playing minecraft, hah.

Edited 22 Mar 2013 by Michael (see edit history)

[Sayubie 405]

Tappy defeated Tappy in a duel!

[Luneth Uchiha 72]

Dustiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin.

 

 

Anything? What is the true key to understanding women?

[Du5t1n 57]

Dustiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin.

 

 

Anything? What is the true key to understanding women?

Understand that they grew up with different lives from you.  Much of the way children are raised, their experiences, and how they are treated is based on their gender.  We gendertype people strongly.  Much like it not being "manly" in our culture for a boy to cry or express his feelings, it is not "womanly" for a girl to not play her role as well.  This unfortunate aspect of our culture greatly shapes us, especially women as expectations can be quite high.  They are expected to maintain physical aspects (makeup, shaving armpits & legs, etc), see negative role models in movies (only 30% of movie roles are female, only 11% are protagonists; most female roles are negative stereotypes) which can result in statistically higher likelihood of low self esteem (not feeling good enough, needing more re-assurance, overly worrying about appearances, if they are loved, etc).  This is NOT a natural aspect of their gender.  Women are not inherently this way nor are all women still this way.  There are physiological differences between men and women of course, both body and mind, but they are not binary nor always to the extent we stereotype.  It is a trend that is sadly backed by statistics and is seen in our stereotypes of females. This is a sad side effect of our broken culture, which has very much been tampered with by media, marketing, and billion dollar corporations for cold hard profits.  Here's an example of how culture can change the way people think and feel about their own bodies: For hundreds of millions of years it was normal for females to have body hair.  Then corporations selling men's facial razors realized they could make a killing if they could more than double their market by selling to females. Corporations through marketing determined that if they could convince people that shaving body hair was attractive then they would be fucking rich -- but they didn't stop there.  They realized that a much more powerful motivator than becoming more attractive was that if they made it so not shaving would be seen as neglectful or disgusting, they would have a captive market that could not be swayed.  They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in that they utterly changed the culture of expectations in less than 65 years so that body hair on females went from 100% normal to actually disgusted males. Things got even better for the shaving industry.  This expectation expanded to even other females.  It was not seen as shameful to not shave oneself and you would be judged harshly if you did not shave. Natural was no longer an acceptable state for the female body if she did not want to become an outcast by both males AND other females.  Now all females must buy razors and other products to maintain their ability to be not only attractive but prevent being seen as a disgusting animal.  In short, who they are naturally is not only no longer attractive or sexy but GROSS.  They require purchasing products and performing tedious acts as a bare minimum just to fit in.  This is an obvious example of how culture (and false culture such as marketing) can completely change and set expectations and shape the way someone thinks and acts.  This also shows how small differences in culture can shape the way we think beneath the veil of the mind.  Us men can't understand how this shapes the way we see our bodies, minds, or thoughts.  But it does show us that our lives are indeed different.  And that difference is just one of many so it takes times and communication to understand each other.

 

So in short, what is the true key to understanding women? I think it's the same as understanding any human:  We all experience life from our own bubble of existence.  We all want to love.  We all want to be loved. None of us wants to be alone.  We all pretend that's not the case though as none of us want to be seen as vulnerable.  But in the end we are all vulnerable.  We all have secrets.  We all have dirty thoughts.  We all anger.  We are all horny and want to fuck someone.  We all want to trust and be trusted but often fear the pain that may come if it all fails.  We all have different desires and needs though on top of that.  And we all have experienced lives through different viewpoints and experiences.  Communication is the only way to truly understand women or ANYONE.  Open, honest, talking.  Don't lie to anyone and don't try to mislead.  Be a simple kind of man. Straight forward, no bullshit.  Be considerate to how your actions impact others and practice empathy.  Ask questions, explain, try to be clear. We are all equal.  All humans. Male, female, in between, trans, gay, straight, taco maker, doctor, slave, janitor, teacher, furry. Just different.  Anger is often described as one's lack of ability to understand or control a situation.  That frustration when you are angry at someone because they don't understand you or where you are coming from for instance.  Listen and try to connect.  Try to understand where others are coming from and try to connect.  The biggest problem in communicating is understanding due to lack of common ground.  As women live different lives from us men sometimes we struggle to find common ground to connect with.  If you communicate, get to know each other, listen, and be patient, you will go far.  Do this with anyone you care about, both male and female, and you'll go far.

 

There is no shortcut to understanding women or any other humans.  But it's possible.  Just keep at it because we all have one thing in common, both male, female, and everything in between:  we all some day will die. Every member of this site will die some day.  We all want to find happiness before that happens. That's one bit of common ground at least.

 

A note on empathy: Humans have what are called mirror neurons.  When you 'put yourself in someone elses shoes' for example, your brain fires neurons in the same way that it would be active if that were actually happening to you.  This is how you feel someone else's pain -- it's literal.  Your brain literally emulates what others feel when you experience empathy.  Most people are excellent at naturally empathizing with others.  If you see someone crying and it makes you sad, others smiling and laughing making you happy and smile, etc.  Unfortunately we learn growing up that this can hurt us or keep us from getting what we want (sadness seeing others bullied, feeling others pain when we steal from them because we want that cookie, etc) so we shut off this instinct and try to block it so we won't get hurt and so we can get the things we want without the negative side effect.  We see those around us hurting or getting in our way so we ignore it and don't think about it and numb those feelings.  This can make it additionally difficult to relate to others and empathize.  There is a lot of research done into studying the psychological aspects of politicians and many higher ranking officials and business people.  Frighteningly many seem to have severe lack of empathy, often to the level of being diagnostically psychopaths.  It wasn't that these positions made them this way though.  It was that being a psychopath provided the traits that worked well in getting them into the position they are in.  For example a cut-throat politician that lies, cheats, and steals can cheat his way to the top, while the honest guy gets screwed in the process.  Be human.  Humans are supposed to feel negative things sometimes.  Pain is normal.  Sadness is normal.  It's only a problem when the scales are tipped and we don't feel those things or it's all we feel.  Balance is important.  We are complicated creatures, but also very much still animals.

 

So that is kind of a weird AMA answer... I'm sleep-deprived and it's late so I may be being a bit 'weird'.

Edited 22 Mar 2013 by Du5t1n (see edit history)

[Sahaqiel 1232]

What's the most important thing to you right now?

[Cascade 741]

Obligatory small-talk favourite colour question (o;

[pheonix561 2080]

Do you still love me like I do you ;-;

This is my 11111th post

[LLmao ?✊? 1276]

What's your take on this zeldanig person? Do you agree that he is, in fact, a menace?

[Nightingale 9]

I'm the hero this forum deserves, but not the one it needs right now.

[LLmao ?✊? 1276]

So we'll hunt him.

 

Because he can take it.

 

Because he's not our hero.

 

He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector.

 

A Dark Nightingale.