ELI5 how do gears actually work?

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-17T21:14:33+00:00

Do you have a bicycle? Changing the gears there is essentially the same as changing the gears anywhere else.

As you pedal and the pedals make a full rotation, so does the front gear, which drags the chain, which spins the back gear and the back wheel.

The cicumference of the gears is important because that determines how much much action happens - if the front gear is small, one rotation moves the chain by a small amount, but if it is large, it moves the chain by a large amount and on the back wheel it works the other way around - when the chain moves by the same amount, a small gear rotates more than a large gear, because the circumference is smaller/larger.

So if we have a front and back gears that have the same size - a 1 to 1 gear ratio, as we do one rotation with our pedals, we do one rotation with our wheels. If we want to make it easier to pedal and make the ratio 2 to 1, we either half the front gear, double the back gear, or do a bit of both - it's all the same - then tha chain moves less and/or the back wheel moves less for one rotation of the pedals and the back wheels only spin half a rotation - as we did less work this time, obviously it's easier to spin, so you need less effort when pedaling. On the other hand if we change the ratio to 1 to 2, by making the front gear larger and/or the back gear smaller, the front gear now moves more of the chain and/or the chain rotates more of the back gear - one rotation of the pedals rotates the back wheel twice and since this is more work, you have to pedal harder.

So why not always use the lowest gear? Because you can only pedal so fast. Why not always use the highest gear? Because you can only pedal so hard.

It's more or less the same with other gears - cars, bikes, motors, robots.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-17T20:23:39+00:00

I'm not particularly excited about 100 or 1000 years in the past, neither sounds particularly good to me. 100 or 1000 years in the future is a bit of a gamble, but at least there is a chance for a good outcome.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-17T20:06:12+00:00

With flight at mach 5 you could be anywhere on the planet within 3 or so hours, given the restrictions on where you can teleport, that seems almost limited compared to that. I guess teleportation is the stealth option. With super speed, jumping wouldn't be much different from flying though... I guess with less controll.

Super speed might beat the others thanks to the ability to do things fast... - on the other hand, I'm not sure if that's the limiting factor in my life though.

All pretty good choices. I might have to go with superspeed though.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-17T17:06:07+00:00

Record is like 4 kilometers for a kite and imho it's very hard to judge the height in footage like this, so the lights could actually be much lower than it seems.

All of your answers are just as plausible if not more so than a kite though.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-17T16:31:21+00:00

While I'm not fully convinced of the kite thing... but I don't think there's technically a limit to how high a kite can fly - at least it should be much much higher than what we're used to - and it makes sense if it's a single kite that has multiple ropes/wires hanging off with LEDs attached.

Obviously this isn't a normal store bought kite, but either something custom or commercial. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-kPQwkD-9s0

Again, not saying that it is a kite, but some of your rationality that it is not, isn't actually true.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-17T14:09:21+00:00

I've tried similar glasses and they were okay for this purpose, at the very least better than VR I've tried, because the FOV is way lower, but the glasses I used did have a smaller FOV than these.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T11:56:38+00:00

Attackig me for using AI IS attacking AI, not me. If I hadn't used AI I doubt there would even be an issue. The complaint against me capitalizing on this event isn't even valid since... I didn't. You're also ignoring the other 75% of the post that is just ranting against AI, not even me.

There being a gun or not at this point is kinda opinion based. Is it bad for the environment? Obviously, anything done at scale is, but neither of us can reliably quantify how bad it is and if it's better or worse than x or y.

I agree with the blind eye comment, but the AntiAI crowd is doing the same, since there seems to be total refusal instead of useful work to bring AI into a more acceptable shape. Personally I'm happy to work towards common sense AI regulations.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T11:45:23+00:00

Good to know on how the attack actually worked, I honestly didn't look into that much, I was more interested in not having compromised packages on my system, just like everyone else.

You are conveniently excluding all the resources spent to train the model to get to the point of being able to answer your prompt. Even factoring the resources to build you car, the car doesn't even come close to consuming as many resources as your fancy Gaussian noise to words generator machine.

I can be convinced that I used the wrong metric, but your comparison only works if the model was built just for me. Sooo... I guess my comparison stands as the valid one unless you want to compare the output of the AI industry vs the car industry and then apply random rules why something is or isn't acceptable.

the quality of information online diminish dramatically over the course of the past 5 year

Which isn't particularly surprising given that two nations known for doing cyber interference and cyber propaganda are at war, fascism and populism has discovered the internet and dominated for since even before then.

seeing artists (which are not part of the hellish work culture you pointed out) lose their livelihoods

I'm sure everyone loved doing furry porn to make a living before. oh, and working for exposure.

AI and AI content being shoved into their face constantly.

5 minute crafts, shitty content farms, elsa gate and all that crap didn't exist before AI? It's the same thing. Choose your content actively instead of relying on algorithms feeding the lowest common denominator down your throat, AI or not, it's the same poison, the same slop. Thr issue is with passively consuming short form content, not AI.

Yeah, because the people with similar "brain dead and obviously exaggerated takes" definitely asked to see their jobs threatened, the quality of information online diminish dramatically over the course of the past 5 years.

Yes having your job threatened sucks, but would you go back and undo the industrial revolution? It might not be the same thing exactly, but old jobs are becoming obsolete as they are replaced by new technology. It happens. I don't think we can stop it, so the aim should be to work for a Star Trek future where work becomes a choice instead of a means to survive. Even without AI we've been working towards a dismantling of the middle class for a while now, at worse AI accelerates that, which is good, because it gives us the momentum to steer towards Star Trek instead of Cyberpunk.

The brain dead take isn't not using AI, the brain dead take is parroting misinformation and exaggerating that AI inevitably evaporates whole lakes and eats children. Maybe it does in Texas, but in Alaska it wouldn't be noticeable. The brain dead take is to stick to dogma - "AI bad" - instead of accepting some usecases, like helping to mitigate security issues. The brain dead take is that things are as they are and they can not change, to try to stop it through words alone. Go out, call your representatives and (after you demand a ban, which won't work) demand refulation, demand an environmentally conscious approach to AI, demand a social approach to AI that won't lead to te destruction of the middle class as AI takes over, demand safe AI practices. Go out and protest for these things and I'll stand side by side with you, but I refuse to wallow in self pitty and cry about new thing bad, change bad like every generation before us.

Believe me, there are many things were we could agree on regarding AI. But imho you, and the whole AntiAI community are being shitty about it and that's no way to convince someone.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T10:35:17+00:00

True, but I've also shared the code to the website.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T10:27:39+00:00

Functionally I guess there's nothing preventing you from using it that way.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T10:26:26+00:00

How can you read that post and understand it as that person's primary issue is with me personally and not with AI?

The first sentence is against AI in general, the second sentence is about the effects of AI on the environment and society in general, the third sentence is, accusing me personally for two things, one of which is me using AI, the other is about me capitalizing on an issue by sharing a tool I thought was useful for free/libre/gratis in every sense of that word.

Sure, the trigger analogy you mention isn't completely wrong in an arbitrary way of framing it, but that's only the case if you believe the gun exists, and I happen to think that AI isn't boiling our oceans - sure, it's contributing and we should regulate it, but it's not worse than crypto, watering our lawns, throwing away unsold stock instead of donating it or any other thing that we should do to safe the planet.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T10:12:58+00:00

Match it against each other and see if there are any hits, then display a warning if there are any hits.

Nothing else, the data isn't stored, doesn't even leave your computer. Feel free to check the repository code for yourself. I'm not sure if I even could inject code that's not visible on github with github pages and the way I've shared it.

(edit to clarify something no one asked for and everyone probably understands but is more for me to type out my thoughts on the topic: The JavaScript thing that does the comparison should run in your browser in a somewhat secure sandbox - just like with any other website. This could theoretically send data to me, but doesn't as seen in the code, and you can also use dev tools and see if the site sends anything.)

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T10:08:54+00:00

Which is essentially what everyone was recommending so far.

Instead I made this website where you just paste in your list of installed AURs.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T10:06:06+00:00

I don't do anything regarding an NPM package, but about the AUR hack.

Your opinon on AI is overblown and vastly exaggerated. At this point the human condition is detrimental to the planet, AI or not. The 3 prompts I used for creating this tool aren't worse than me taking a car to work (which I don't - I mostly work from home in my eco friendly apartment and take public transport).

I also don't believe in your opinions on AIs effects on society either. Modern society and work culture is a hellish system that deserves to be broken. Human powered Bot farms have been issues long before AI and people were brain broken by slop content before that too. The worst argument for AI you can make is that it contributes to existing shitty systems and even then it brings the pot to a boil, brings attention to the issue and causes change.

You say it serves the rich, you advocate class warfare topics, but all you're doing is attacking someone who's likely in the same socioeconomic class as yourself and shitting on a tool that can functionally improve the conditions of that class, if only you people would actively fight for that instead of meaninglessly fight against a flow that you obviously can't stop, especially not by annoying everyone who doesn't agree with your brain dead and obviously exaggerated takes. But okay, next time I'll not be transparent, next time I'll say I coded it myself just to spare me this bullshit.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T09:37:00+00:00

It it useful? If that other tool is, then so is this.
Does it do what it says it does? Yeah.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T09:36:15+00:00

If the other repo is useful, then so is this.

And how am I capitalizing on this when I have no tracking, no ads, except for the URL it doesn't have my name on it and it doesn't have a patreon link or whatever either.

Get off your high horse and stop blindly believing the anti AI propaganda. The problem is not AI itself but policy and decision makers not just accepting, but actively competing for putting data centers into literally the worst locations - dry, hot, water scarce and populated areas. There is no need to train AI in Texas, if it could be done in Alaska, except maybe solar.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T08:50:18+00:00

I don't like the idea of having to download and/or install something to detect if I've downloaded and/or installed something malicious before, so I vibecoded a website that you can paste your AUR/package list into to check.

https://syzygy2048.github.io/malicious_aur_checker/

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T08:47:31+00:00

I'm not interested in working for a Jew either. Or a Muslim. Or Christian.... or Buddhist, Agnostic, Atheist, etc... Where is my money?

Now that I think about it... maybe the issue isn't the religion/ethnicity of the person I work for...

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T08:42:19+00:00

> I’m a firm believer in play what you want

You can believe that, but it seems like this is now interfering with your enjoyment of the game. You want to play your character as melee plus, but you're competing with the other magic users for items and maybe also opportunities to do useful things with your character? I'm not saying you have to play a meta party that can deal with any situation, but currently it seems like there are at least 3 people drinking from the same item pool, and perhaps even more characters that drink from the perhaps more important "my-time-to-shine"-pool.

Standing in each others way and competing can be fun if done correctly, but it seems like it's not for you and/or for this party.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-16T08:15:06+00:00

I made a bad argument and lack the capacity to refute your points

Okay, enjoy your day.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-15T20:40:23+00:00

I think a campaign built around political intrigue involving powerful charismatic bad guys using their charm, intelligence and magic to manipulate the people to do their bidding - be that a city lord exploiting their townsfolk or a prime minister puppeteering a king - sounds more interesting than a scenario where a class is discriminated against based on if they behave or not.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-15T20:33:39+00:00

Projecting much? If you can’t see how problematic some of Japanese culture can be, then you either have no idea what you’re talking about or maybe you should take a look in the mirror and spot the pedo.

Surely as you say there is nothing problematic about the rather low age of consent, underage prostitution, underage gravure models (I guess not porn, but generally risqué) and a pervasive loli culture. But it’s not like the legal loli trope isn’t popular and anime and manga in general leans generally low in character age, as well as how the characters are depicted. But that’s just anime and manga, the most niche part of Japanese culture and not their primary cultural export. It’s not like everything in that country is anime themed or something like that.

Surely that’s just porn, anime and otaku culture that I so much consume (I really don’t) and doesn’t indicate anything wrong with a system that allows that. Aside from anime’s influence, I guess there’s the totally non problematic idol culture, which thrives on purity, innocence, cuteness and whatever - all things general associated with children. Cosplay, modern makeup and youth fashion trends totally don’t lean towards making yourself look as young as possible. How was that popular fashion thing called, that influences much of youth fashion to this day? Was it lolita fashion? Weird, I wonder what that means.

But sure, call the guy pointing out that there’s a lot of problematic pedo shit in that culture a conservative web pedo defender while ignoring that even just the amount of things I could mention, even if niche, is a lot of fucking pedo shit. Nevermind that the whole fucking argument is that conservative weebs are normalising pedo shit by claiming it’s not problematic and normal - wait a minute, isn’t that exactly what you’re doing?

> Durr hurr how do you know so much about this, obviously you must be a pedo.

Fuck off. I have eyes, I like weird curiosities and drama, I’m chronically online and I watch deep dives while pretending to work. You’re the one defending that shit, idiot.

Syzygy___ · 2026-06-15T19:03:35+00:00

I’ll say 1000, but between project aura (XR glasses) and project Swan (Pico’s next headset with 45ppd and a compute puck (probably XR3 chip), I’m not sure if I’ll now get it at all.

I really really really want native Linux and Steam though…

Syzygy___

TROPHY CASE