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ArjinFerman  Tinfoil Gigachad  3d ago (text post)   461 thread views

Tinker Tuesday for February 25, 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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Since this time last week I've written just under 4,000 words of my NaNoWriMo project, 71,000 in total. Dying to finish the first draft (now projected to run to 95-100,000 words) as soon as possible so I can have my evenings back, then come back to the second draft with fresh eyes. I know there's loads of stuff I'll be able to cut out, but I don't want to start cutting until the first draft is finished.

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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."

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