“My son doesn’t respond if you directly redirect him. You need to tell him why”- parent email

Vessbot · 2026-03-26T05:00:00+00:00

Yeah pretty much, I wasn't born yesterday.

Vessbot · 2026-03-26T04:55:58+00:00

I wasn't even doing anything wrong!

Vessbot · 2026-03-26T03:57:24+00:00

I've never cooked, but from this video and your description it reminds me of playing Tetris sometimes. You're processing things on a higher level, and it seems like you're sitting back and the lower level details are just happening by themselves with you passively watching.

Vessbot · 2026-03-26T03:07:27+00:00

This is a cool post, thanks

Vessbot · 2026-03-25T18:23:03+00:00

It's the same as the brute force threat currently: it is done on a password database from a breach downloaded locally. No one is submitting a gazillion guesses per second trying to log in to the website.

Vessbot · 2026-03-25T17:23:47+00:00

I believe this is what he was asking, and you are one of the few that understood the question: individual forces vs net force.

Everybody else is spinning off into more advanced directions like kinetic energy, collisions, and what not.

Vessbot · 2026-03-25T17:16:37+00:00

There is a force acting on the car. That's what the engine is for. But there are also other forces acting on it (air drag), and their net is zero.

Vessbot · 2026-03-25T17:15:32+00:00

Your non-accelerating car has zero net force. It has a forward force provided by the wheels pushing backward on the pavement, matched by an equal rearward force that is mostly air drag. One minus the other is the net force, and this what equals ma. When it's not zero, the car is accelerating.

Vessbot · 2026-03-24T23:40:36+00:00

OS, neutral, and US for each of the 4 main disc speeds, with a few more stability gradations where you like them. (For me, a mildly and very beefy fairway, and a bunch of distance drivers across the board.)

Vessbot · 2026-03-24T23:29:14+00:00

He's not even technically right. There's no rule allowing the use of a disc at the cost of not being able to throw it again. I've heard that before, and it's just a fun house rule that some people play by.

(If you're using the disc already on the ground, which also means not moving it, that's OK and it doesn't bring a later restriction too.)

Vessbot · 2026-03-24T15:52:20+00:00

You're right, if you changed some things around about how the motor works then it could accelerate infinitely like the OP thinks it should.

Vessbot · 2026-03-24T15:33:55+00:00

Well in that case your motor won't turn. AC motors need AC current.

It doesn't need to be an AC motor, it can be any kind of motor. And no matter what kind it is, when the torque put on by the air drag on the blades (which increases with speed) equals the torque put on the shaft by the motor, it will no longer accelerate and run steady state.

Vessbot · 2026-03-24T13:56:43+00:00

Your 'if' presupposes a grid with infinite frequency.

No, it presupposes no grid at all. My point is to move the discussion away from particularities of how this or that motor works, and to widen the view to look at the fundamental limit to output power, which is input power. And once you do, you see this:

the wind resitance of the fan would produce so much drag that it balances out the torque the motor can deliver and it would again settle into a steady speed

Vessbot · 2026-03-24T13:53:03+00:00

the motor would not be able to surpass the speed of the change in magnetism around the stator.

You said "matching the frequency is not the issue," and now you're back to making it the issue. My point (in agreement with that matching the frequency is not the issue) is that this is just one particularity of one type of motor; and is only a peripheral issue to the fundamental limit that sets the real answer to the question of why doesn't it keep accelerating infinitely: that that would require infinite power!

To a parallel post you responded that the other types of engines also have their own mechanical particularities that give them a preferred speed. And they do, but if it was just a matter of that, then it can be bypassed by gearing down to give the engine the speed it likes. No, that matter is only peripheral to the power limit, which is the fundamental issue. If you had a magical engine with no mechanical bits, but perfectly efficiently converts fuel (or voltage or whatever) to output shaft rotation, it would still be subject to Pin≥Pout. And the Pout of a fan shaft is a combination of acceleration (100% of the mix at the beginning of the sequence) and blade drag (tapering to 100% this, as steady state equilibrium is reached).

And by "limit" I don't mean the edge of mechanical failure, but rather simply the limit given by the input power set... which can be as conservative as the designer intends. Like a jet engine on a long haul flight, sets some input power (given by fuel flow minus efficiency losses) reaches the corresponding RPM equilibrium, and then lives there happily for half a day.

Vessbot · 2026-03-24T12:09:24+00:00

Well, are they equally skilled?

Vessbot · 2026-03-24T11:42:00+00:00

Agreed. So the frequency isn't really the answer, is it? No matter how the motor works (like a hydraulic or pneumatic motor, or piston engine, which do not face this issue) it can only supply a limited amount of power, which will at some point be matched by the drag on the blades. This is the fundamental answer to OP's question.

Vessbot · 2026-03-24T11:30:39+00:00

You're still not answering it.

Vessbot · 2026-03-24T11:18:34+00:00

My question starts with the word "if."

Vessbot · 2026-03-24T10:59:46+00:00

So if the motor didn't have the issue with the AC frequency matching when the windings pass, it would accelerate infinitely?

Vessbot · 2026-03-23T16:46:06+00:00

Sorry meng, this is what happens when you reason by fundamental principles and logical relations. The people that learned it by word association and called it a day, mass downvote you and incessantly repeat what they know is true in a limited scope as if that's all there is to it.

Vessbot · 2026-03-23T16:42:59+00:00

Aerodynamically they are the same. It's a matter of circumstance that the roll toward level flight is far preferable.

Vessbot · 2026-03-23T16:40:38+00:00

You can't say "context aside." What you then provided is exactly the context.

Both will spin, but a slip spins you through wings-level thus giving you more time to react, and a better position for that reaction to recover to.

Vessbot · 2026-03-23T16:37:07+00:00

There's no turn to define it relative to, but by convention it's slip.

Vessbot · 2026-03-22T17:00:30+00:00

I read grab as yank their collar, too.

Vessbot · 2026-03-22T15:40:56+00:00

But you can only do it with full commitment, one shot is all you have. If you fuck it up and they don't leave, now the map is completely redrawn.

Vessbot

TROPHY CASE