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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1322 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 24, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Due to our support contracts, we occasionally have to release security patches for very old releases of our product.

How old? Ten years? Twenty?

I think we recently had to have a stern-yet-loving talk with a customer who was still resisting an upgrade after eleven years.

I am happy to work at a place that has a firm policy of "if your version is more than 2 years old, we love you but if you want any fixes or assistance you're going to need to upgrade. We will help you if you want but we're not gonna dig up a prehistoric version of code and try to figure out what's going on there".

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Why are you called The Motte?

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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