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ArjinFerman  Tinfoil Gigachad  3mo ago (text post)   3067 thread views

Tinker Tuesday for May 13, 2025

This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.

Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.

If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service

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114k on my NaNoWriMo project. I would like to say that the end is in sight, but who knows. It actually feels like it's getting harder and harder the closer I get to the finish line. If I'd known that, when I'd finished my initial 50k words at the end of November, that would represent less than half of a first draft - I'm not sure I would have started in the first place.

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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