site banner
ArjinFerman  Tinfoil Gigachad  18d ago (text post)   498 thread views

Tinker Tuesday for August 18th, 2026

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.

0
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I spent the last 11 days camping without any Internet access. We engaged in primitive recreation like hiking to secluded hot springs, told stories around a fire and also wrote code without an LLM.

It was kind of hard, in dumb ways. I had to look up how APIs worked and couldn't because all I had were the C++ standard library headers, and those things are not meant for human consumption. I muddled through, but it reminded me of what it was like to program not only without an LLM but also without good online references.

We've come a long way.

So, I think I did overestimate my progress on the story board last week a bit (let's say it was 30% instead of 50%), but I managed to make up the difference, and the whole thing is done now, +/- details I keep picking at every once in a while. With that out of the way, I'll be back to finishing the grenade launcher in the game proper.

@Southkraut is on vacation, but I'm pinging for tradition's sake.

Gratefully noted.

Earlier this year I submitted my novel to four separate unpublished novel competitions. Having heard the results of the last of these today, I am now proud to announce that I didn't win or place in any of them, lol.

Going to try shopping it around to literary agents one more time, although I can't say I'm optimistic. If I haven't received an offer of representation or a request for the full manuscript by January 1st, I'm just going to post the whole thing online and be done with it.

I'm working on writing something too, with the direct expectation it's going to Royal Road and will never be formally published. Include me in the shoutout cabal.

I feel you man... Gearing up for my last round of agent submissions too. (I'll also have to send it out to a few smaller presses that take direct submissions, though I'm even less hopeful there...) Good luck to us anyways! And in the likely event that it isn't, we can swap shoutouts on royalroad.

Best of luck to you too. Once more into the breach, old friend.

we can swap shoutouts on royalroad.

I'll hold you to that!

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


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.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats