16 February 2026

0211 Zero To Eleven

Show HN: 0211 – Go from zero to eleven in any topic with F1-style gear shifting

I built an AI agent mode that doesn’t just teach you—it forges you into an expert through brutal, tested progression.

TL;DR: 0211 is a 4-gear learning system where you prove mastery at checkpoints before advancing. Each gear has RPM thresholds (75% → 80% → 85% → 90%). Fail = stay in gear. No shortcuts to expertise.

The Problem

Most tutorials give you information. You forget 90% in a week. You never actually master anything.

You’ve been there:

Watch a 2-hour “complete guide” to Rust
Feel like you “get it”
Try to build something → blank stare
Back to YouTube for another tutorial
Repeat until frustration

The learning cycle that doesn’t work:

Consume content → Feel good → Try to apply → Fail → Consume more content

This is why “tutorial hell” is real. You’re not learning. You’re consuming.

The Solution: 0211 Protocol

Expertise is earned through gears, not given through content.

0211 uses an F1-style gear system where you must hit RPM thresholds to shift up:

[1st] FOUNDATION  →  [2nd] INTERMEDIATE  →  [3rd] EXPERT  →  [4th] ELEVEN
   0-3 ⚙️              4-7 ⚙️⚙️             8-10 ⚙️⚙️⚙️         11 ⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️
    75%                   80%                  85%                90%+

Each gear has:

Specific teaching approach (patient → minimal hand-holding → Socratic)
Checkpoint with RPM (mastery %) measurement
Hard requirement: Can’t shift up below threshold
No exceptions: Ego doesn’t get you through

How It Works

Activation

You: 0211: Machine Learning

Agent: 🎯 0211 PROTOCOL ACTIVATED
       ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
       Topic: Machine Learning
       Time: 2-4 hours (full run)
       Difficulty: BRUTAL

       🏎️ GEAR SELECT:
       [1] FOUNDATION - Zero assumed knowledge
       [2] INTERMEDIATE - Skip basics (diagnostic required)
       [3] EXPERT - Advanced start (diagnostic required)
       [R] REDLINE - Final trial immediately (5% pass rate)

You: 1

Foundation Gear (Levels 0-3)

LEVEL 0: THE FUNDAMENTAL

Machine Learning solves one problem:
We suck at writing rules for complex patterns.

Before ML:
Want spam detection? → Write 1000 rules
Want face recognition? → Write 10000 rules
Want translation? → Impossible to write rules

With ML:
Show examples → Computer figures out rules

Think: Teaching a kid to spot dogs.
Don't give rules ("4 legs, fur, barks").
Show 100 dogs, say "dog" each time.
Kid learns the pattern.

MISCONCEPTION: "ML thinks like humans"
REALITY: ML is statistical pattern matching
WHY IT PERSISTS: We use human words ("learning", "training")

┌─────────────────────────┐
│     MACHINE LEARNING    │
│                         │
│  Examples → Model       │
│             ↓           │
│          Learns Pattern │
│             ↓           │
│          Predictions    │
└─────────────────────────┘

Quick check:
1. What's the key difference between traditional programming and ML?
2. What does the model actually "learn"?

Checkpoints Don’t Lie

After each gear:

🏁 FOUNDATION CHECKPOINT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. What distinguishes supervised from unsupervised learning?
2. Why can't we just "memorize" training data?
3. What's overfitting and why is it bad?
4. Explain the bias-variance tradeoff in one sentence.
5. What's the role of a validation set?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Score: 4/5 (80%)
RPM: [████████░░] 80%

✓ Strong foundation. Minor gap on bias-variance.

Ready for 2nd Gear.

SHIFT-UP | STAY | PIT-STOP

You choose what to do. SHIFT-UP unlocks the next gear. STAY practices more. PIT-STOP saves progress.

Redline Mode

Want to test yourself immediately?

You: 0211: Machine Learning | REDLINE

Agent: 🔥 REDLINE MODE
       ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
       Topic: Machine Learning
       
       Skipping to EXPERTISE PROOF.
       
       ⚠️ WARNING:
       - 95% fail this challenge
       - If you fail, I'll place you in appropriate gear
       - No warm-up, no hints, no mercy

The Expertise Proof has 5 parts:

Knowledge (40%) - 20 progressively harder questions
Debate (20%) - Defend a position against counterarguments
Creation (20%) - Build something original
Teaching (10%) - Explain to a 10-year-old AND an expert
Prediction (10%) - Where does this go in 2-5 years?

Pass at 90%+ = ELEVEN ACHIEVED

Why This Works

1. Active Recall at Every Step

Not passive reading. You’re constantly being tested. This is based on the testing effect—retrieval practice is more effective than re-reading.

2. No Ego Protection

⚠️ SHIFT BLOCKED

RPM: X% (need Y%+)
Gap: Z%

You're not ready. Here's why:
- [Specific gaps]

Options:
- STAY and practice [areas]
- SHIFT-DOWN to reinforce [concepts]

Traditional learning lets you skip ahead with “yeah, I get it.” 0211 doesn’t. You prove it or you stay.

3. Earned Progression

You can’t fake your way through. The checkpoints are specific:

Strong: [Areas of strength]
Weak: [Areas needing work]

Next steps:
1. [Specific action]
2. [Specific review]
3. [Alternative explanation]

4. The Struggle Is the Point

FORBIDDEN PHRASES:

❌ “You’re absolutely right”
❌ “This should work”
❌ “Just do X”
❌ “Perfect!”

USE INSTEAD:

✅ “Good. What about [edge case]?”
✅ “That could work. Trade-off is [X]”
✅ “Close. One thing to consider…”
✅ “Solid. Now explain why [Y]”

The struggle builds understanding. Easy feels good. Hard creates mastery.

Real Results

I’ve used 0211 to go from zero to legitimate expertise in:

Quantum Computing → 3.5 hours
Rust → 4 hours
Game Theory → 2.5 hours

The checkpoints don’t lie. You either know it or you don’t.

Compare to my previous attempts:

“Complete Rust course” (6 hours of video) → Couldn’t write a function 3 days later
0211 Rust (4 hours with checkpoints) → Built a CLI tool the next week

The Gear System

Gear	Levels	RPM Required	Teaching Style
1st	0-3	75%	Patient, analogies, kill misconceptions
2nd	4-7	80%	Minimal hand-holding, real problems
3rd	8-10	85%	Socratic, trade-offs, ambiguity
4th	11	90%	Expertise proof only

Key principle: You control when to shift. Agent controls quality gates.

Commands:

SHIFT-UP - Move to next gear (if at threshold)
STAY - Practice more in current gear
SHIFT-DOWN - Return to previous gear
PIT-STOP - Save and exit
CHECK-RPM - Show current mastery level
WHERE-AM-I - Show progress and position

For the HN Crowd

Q: Is this overkill for most topics?

Depends. Do you want to know about something or master it? 0211 is for the second category. It’s overkill for “I want to understand how DNS works.” It’s perfect for “I need to become expert enough to architect DNS infrastructure.”

Q: What about just building things?

That’s the best way to learn. But 0211 gets you to “able to build” faster. The gears are designed so that by Level 3 (Foundation complete), you can actually start building. Levels 4+ make you good at building.

Q: Can’t I just use Anki or spaced repetition?

Anki is great for memorization. 0211 is for understanding. The checkpoints test synthesis, not recall. The debate section makes you defend positions. The prediction section requires domain intuition.

Q: What about topics where I’m already intermediate?

That’s what diagnostics are for. Try to start at 2nd gear, and you’ll get a 5-7 question test. Pass = start there. Fail = downshift to appropriate level.

The Code

0211 is designed for Claude Code/Opencode agent modes but works as a system prompt too.

Try it: 0211: [your topic]

Full mode file: 0211.mode.md

Discussion

Have you tried gear-based learning systems before? What was your experience?

What’s your take on AI tutoring vs traditional courses? I’ve found AI is better at personalized struggle, but worse at curriculum design.

Would you actually use brutal checkpoints or prefer gentler feedback? The 75% threshold is designed to be achievable but not automatic. Too low and it doesn’t enforce learning. Too high and it’s discouraging.

What topics would you run through 0211? I’m thinking of doing distributed systems next, but open to suggestions.

The mission: Every interaction should deepen understanding, challenge assumptions, expose blind spots, and build earned confidence.

If you learned something real: Success If you just copied info: Failure

Make them earn eleven. 🎯

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