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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   2116 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 26, 2023

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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You can do this, through various SIP or other voice services. But a lot of normal people can't or won't be able to call you, including a lot of services that you may specifically be after a phone number to support: a large portion of Americans don't even know how country codes work and may literally have never used one other than 1, a VOIP solution I've deployed defaults to not recognizing any of them at the dial plan level, and a lot of businesses that require phone numbers to talk to you won't recognize anything but 10 digits (or may find that their shitty phone TFA doesn't work).

So there are tradeoffs.

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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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