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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   1967 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 13, 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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What was your first computer?

Mine was a Commodore 64. I remember going to Sears with my dad to pick up the disk drive; finally we wouldn’t have to wait for a tape drive to load a program. It lasted us a good ten years, from Tooth Invaders and Frogger in elementary school to GeoWorks word processing in high school.

Our second computer was a 486-33 DLC: the math coprocessor was not integrated like an Intel 486-DX but was added to the motherboard. It had a Turtle Island sound card I ruined by running a text file through the DOS MIDI player.

I was born in 1988, one of my first memories is my dad reading out Zork on an Apple II while waiting for my suggestions around 1991. Later, I was allowed to use his 3.1/95 computers under his supervision, and with the 95 I was given a full 2 hours of encarta per day in the family den.

I was given my own pc, a Dell with Windows 98 for my 11th birthday, with the understanding that I could only use the dial-up internet service (AOL) when my mom wasn't using the phone. I made point and click games in powerpoint and played a ton of Civ II, and set up a geocities site for my friends to roleplay our favorite action cartoons- DBZ and Gundam Wing.

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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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