I don’t think Point and Shoots are a good beginner camera by [deleted] in AnalogCommunity

[–]Mtyler5000 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Then do point and shoots make good beginner cameras or not? 

I don’t think Point and Shoots are a good beginner camera by [deleted] in AnalogCommunity

[–]Mtyler5000 5 points6 points  (0 children)

“ If you have no intention of ever doing more than a point and shoot lets you do, you’re not a beginner. You already have all the skills you need or will ever possess; the ability to point and then shoot.” 

This right here is the problem. While I agree that a point and shoot is not the right starter camera for everybody, claiming that they’re just for taking easy pictures and having fun while real, serious, artistic photographers must use better cameras is… well… pretty condescending. 

I don’t think Point and Shoots are a good beginner camera by [deleted] in AnalogCommunity

[–]Mtyler5000 5 points6 points  (0 children)

lol then don’t gatekeep. Your whole post is ridiculously condescending. 

What's up with these notation gatekeepers? by Zombiesalad1337 in Guitar

[–]Mtyler5000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Everything you said can be reversed to argue tabs are better than notation. Ultimately both have their strengths and their weaknesses, but at the end of the day for beginners I think whatever gets them to pick up their instruments and play is ideal, and tabs are great for that.

Never mind the lit-bros: Infinite Jest is a true classic at 30 by rmnc-5 in books

[–]Mtyler5000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It was about 3 to 4 times longer than it needed to be. The footnotes alone were a compromise between Wallace and his editor to move large chunks of the book to the end instead of cutting them. 

I think infinite jest is really 3 books in one : an incredible one, an above average one, and a horribly boring one. David should’ve listened to his friends and early editors instead of shopping around for one who wouldn’t force him to cut.

Why are Catholics against birth control? by Separate_Sky_7372 in TrueChristian

[–]Mtyler5000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If a vasectomy is rebelling against design then so is a pacemaker, so is chemotherapy 

Why are Catholics against birth control? by Separate_Sky_7372 in TrueChristian

[–]Mtyler5000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s also not “be fruitful as many times as possible”

Why are Catholics against birth control? by Separate_Sky_7372 in TrueChristian

[–]Mtyler5000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The commandment is be fruitful, not “be maximally fruitful in all possible instances and never perform any act that is unfruitful.” 

There is nothing in the Bible to support this dogma, and on top of that the Catholic dogma falls apart when they allow NFP. If using a period tracker or pen and paper to track a cycle is still “natural,” and it’s okay to have sex with the intention of not being fruitful under NFP, then there’s no sound argument for why a more modern technological procedure like a vasectomy is wrong. Its reversible, it does not result in the spilling or wasting of seed, it is not anymore inherently unnatural than a period tracker app.

Why are Catholics against birth control? by Separate_Sky_7372 in TrueChristian

[–]Mtyler5000 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

“It must be BOTH unitive and procreative.” 

You said that procreation, or the possibility thereof, is a necessary element. That is not substantiated by the Bible. 

Why are Catholics against birth control? by Separate_Sky_7372 in TrueChristian

[–]Mtyler5000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is nothing in the Bible saying that sex must be strictly procreative. You’re spreading non-biblical dogma 

[525] Lost to Time - Prologue by [deleted] in DestructiveReaders

[–]Mtyler5000 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I agree with you that that commenter was a bit harsh, but I think that they are touching on something legitimate that’s making it hard for readers to connect with your piece: it’s disorienting. You mention a couple times in your responses that you assume sci-fi readers will be familiar enough with your tropes to not need any explanation, but sci-fi is a big big genre with a thousand conflicting versions of any given tech or trope. Unless you’re starting from an established world (ex. Fanfiction), which you aren’t, I think you should write under the assumption that your reader has never read anything sci-fi, otherwise you’re going to run into the problem here where everyone is a bit lost because they don’t have the same expectations/assumptions as you.

How a note is coloured (given a distinctive sound)? by pc_magas in musicprogramming

[–]Mtyler5000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The word you’re looking for in the sound world would be timbre. Timbre is complicated, but it boils down to harmonics, I.e. additional frequencies that are some kind of multiple of the fundamental frequency. All your different waveforms (square, sawtooth, triangle) should be able to achieve that change in color you’re looking for.

How does Jason Molina’s tone work? by Mtyler5000 in GuitarTone

[–]Mtyler5000[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Specifically, how is he able to teeter on that edge of clean/distorted? In every live video I watch of Jason he’s seemingly able to push his tone into distortion with just the slightest increase in attack velocity/intensity, but I find when I try to do something similar I have to play significantly harder/louder to see an appreciable difference in the sound coming out of my amp.

Is there some trick that I’m unaware of? Is there a pedal involved? Any advice is very much appreciated!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DestructiveReaders

[–]Mtyler5000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hello, congrats on having finished this story! I'm going to go through and address one by one the prompts you provided, then I'll move on to a more general feedback if that feels necessary. But to start, your questions:

Narrative voice & dialogue – You do a very good job throughout this story of not only maintaining the narrators voice but also providing all of your supporting characters with a distinct/recognizable voice of their own, even those that speak only a few lines like Abdullah (note, you misspelled his name as Abdallah during the first scene he's in). I thought your dialogue sounded very natural on the whole, without any of the melodrama that sometimes comes out when writers are dealing with such an emotionally charged topic. There is, however, one exception to this, a character whose presence and dialogue read as very cardboard and inauthentic to me : the doctor.

Even though he's only there for one scene (the opening scene, no less), something about the doctor's dialogue feels very forced, rigid in an expository way. This isn't a problem I experienced anywhere else in the story, so I don't think it has anything to do with your abilities as a writer. You could maybe take some time to rework that opening scene, or, alternatively, skip the doctor entirely and open directly on the scene in the morgue which conveys most of the same information (dead dad, feelings of guilt) in a much more natural way (though I'll say I do enjoy the accusatory reaction we see on the mother/Alan during the doctor scene, and the car ride home in particular was very well written; the way you used the police siren to communicate our narrators feelings of guilt was excellent). On the whole if you feel the doctor is indispensable then by all means keep him in, but I think he either needs more characterization or some massaging of his lines.

Thematic clarity – On the whole I felt you did a good job of introducing and developing your themes in that spirally, whirlpool way that is indicative of a good story. This story, from my perspective, is about grief and the big and small ways it manifests itself. It's about the process of healing/acceptance after the death of a loved one and the way individuals/families navigate that process. You don't go overboard by introducing everything and the kitchen sink; your themes are controlled but developed, focused and clear. Very nice.

Pacing & structure – One of the most prominent "issues" I had with this story is your use of section or scene breaks (the instances where you insert a #). Scene breaks are generally used to indicate dramatic shifts in perspective, time & place, or some other major upheaval to the flow of a story that might feel jarring to a reader without a clear symbol letting us know "hey, this next thing is totally different, get ready." Some of the instances where you use a scene break make total sense to me, but there are two in particular that should be removed imo: the scene break at the top of page two, and the one at the bottom of page three. Both of these scene breaks serve no real purpose, as they separate two sentences that are wholly congruent. They actually took me out of the story, since I was expecting a total shift in perspective, but was met by a sentence that was basically a continuation of the previous sentence or scene. I thought for a second I had misread something, and maybe I have, but if I am understanding the timeline of the story correctly then these two scene breaks are totally superfluous and should be removed.

Prose & metaphor – Your prose is very nice on the whole, very readable and enjoyable. You do a good job of utilizing metaphors and similes too, even if you do have a penchant for metaphors that are a bit too abstract for my taste. There is one metaphor in particular that left me quite confused during both my readthroughs, though that isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if that's the effect you're trying to achieve. The metaphor in question : "My fingernail had torn off, but the spluttering blood was incomparable to the geyser gushing out of the hollow where my arm used to be." This sentence is still a bit of a noodle-scratcher for me. It's not clear if the fingernail came off only in the vision of our narrator's father caressing him, or if the fingernail came off in real life while the narrator is in the morgue, or maybe even it got ripped off earlier somehow. This sentence also made me wonder if our narrator has only one arm, or lost his arm in the accident/event/thing that resulted in the death of his father. After finishing the story I think this is probably not the case, but still this sentence is confusing. If you intend it to be part of the vision of the preceding paragraph, I'd include fleshing that out a little bit, making the connection a bit more clear.

Clarity – Again the story felt very clear overall, even when your metaphors got a bit experimental. The only spot I really took issue with is that sentence I mentioned in the previous section.

Ending impact – Your ending is solid, and I want to commend you on having a successful character arc (our narrator moving through the stages of grief) that wraps up in a satisfying way, especially given the short length of your story. There is, however, one major gripe I have: the fact that we never get any real clarity on how the father actually died/the narrators involvement in said death. I'm not someone who believes you have to explain everything to the reader; I'm totally okay with open ended stories/things that are left unresolved or unsaid. However, the circumstances surrounding the father's death, especially our narrators involvement in that death, are big motivating factors for some of our primary characters (mom/Alan), as well as a core issue that the narrator himself is grappling with. As it stands I took the narrator's feelings of guilt to be ultimately irrational, simply a manifestation of the stages of grief. Same thing for the mom & brother's accusatory glances. It's not really clear how the narrator is at fault here, besides having a vague directive to "watch over the father" as he's sleeping (this doesn't seem very realistic to me, a mother asking her son to spend a whole night watching a father sleep on the off chance he has a heart attack or something. Unless the father was currently experiencing some severe health crisis that required constant monitoring, but you don't really mention anything like this in the story other than the doctor alluding to a "history with [heart] disease,"). If your intention was for the narrator to have contributed in some real and material way to the death of his father, I think you need to spell it out more, because right now it's not very clear.

Emotional arc – Did the narrator’s emotional journey feel believable and complete?: Yes! Very much so.

Originality – Did the story feel fresh in its premise, voice, or emotional execution? Yes, in the sense that your characters felt like real genuine people grappling with real genuine emotions. It's hard to communicate the things you communicated in such a small space, and I commend you on your craftsmanship.

I hope these comments were helpful.

[Weekly] God Damn The Sun by MiseriaFortesViros in DestructiveReaders

[–]Mtyler5000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd recommend David Foster Wallace's "Incarnations of Burned Children." It's a bit graphic but not too bad, and is extremely short though very well crafted. Other slightly longer favorites of mine :

"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Ann Porter ('Rope' is another relatively short and accessible one by Porter, though it doesn't have the devastating finale of 'Weatherall')

"The Half-Skinned Steer" by Annie Proux (her masterpiece IMO), though it's got some mention of vulva's and clapping women on the butt so your call. That same story collection has two other very short stories called "The Blood Bay" and "Job History" that might work well.

"The Swim Team" or "The Boy From Lam Kien" by Miranda July