Gear Guess #

A gear guess is a dated, sourced procurement hypothesis. It says what we would buy now, why, what could change the answer, and how the object enters the studio. It is firmer than a research note and more honest than a buyer's guide. Prices move. Ports lie by omission. The guess keeps both facts visible.

Shape #

Source lives in papers/gear-guess-<slug>/<slug>.tex and loads papers/ac-paper-gear-guess.sty.

Every gear guess contains these moves, in this order:

Best guess — one concrete recommendation, including capacity/config.
Price rail — observed or budgeted prices, an as-of date, and a walk-away threshold. Estimated prices must say that they are estimates.
Alternatives — the next two credible choices and the condition under which either becomes the better answer.
Compatibility catches — ports, protocols, filesystems, thermals, warranties, and platform-specific limits that can erase the headline spec.
Day-one score — a checkable setup and operating sequence. Buying the object is not the end of the paper.
Source shelf — direct URLs, publisher/vendor names, and the date checked.
Canonical object plate — product photography from the manufacturer's own page or press kit, linked back to that page. Keep the exact image-asset URL in figures/product-images.md; do not silently substitute retailer thumbnails, generated renders, or an image of a neighboring SKU.
Buy link layer — images and product names always resolve to canonical manufacturer pages; BUY NOW resolves through the instance's buy-links.tex. This keeps image provenance separate from commerce.

The title block labels the artifact GEAR GUESS, not “review” or “buyer's guide.” A guess is allowed to expire. Put the date on page one and say what would change it.

Posture #

Prefer one opinionated answer over a cloud of technically acceptable ones.
Separate measured speed, manufacturer claims, and studio estimates.
Name the weak link in the system, not just the fastest component.
Treat current prices as observations, never timeless facts.
Link primary product/spec pages. Add an independent measurement when a manufacturer's performance claim matters to the decision.
Show the objects. Canonical manufacturer images are part of the evidence, not decoration; captions identify them as manufacturer images.
Make purchase links explicit. Affiliate links set \gearaffiliatetrue, which adds (paid link) beside each button and the required page-level disclosure. Never add a tracking tag that does not belong to the publisher.
End with a use score: labels, mounts, folders, verification, and backup.

Reusable TeX surface #

\documentclass[10pt,letterpaper]{article}
\usepackage{../ac-paper-gear-guess}

\gearsetshorttitle{short running title}
\hypersetup{pdftitle={Title — a gear guess}}

\begin{document}
\gearGuessTitle
  {title}
  {the one-line job this gear has to do}
  {22 July 2026}
  {guess 1}

\begin{bestguess}
The concrete answer and the sentence that makes it legible.
\end{bestguess}

\gearproduct
  {figures/product.png}
  {Exact product name}
  {preferred}
  {\$000 observed}
  {https://manufacturer.example/product}
  {\buyExactProduct}

\section{buy this}
\begin{gearcard}{component}
\gearprice{Exact model}{\$000}
Why it belongs in the system.
\end{gearcard}

\begin{gearwarning}
The catch that could change the answer.
\end{gearwarning}

\gearsource{Source name}{checked 22 July 2026}{https://example.com}
\end{document}

The format is single-column US Letter, print-friendly, cream-backed, and built with XeLaTeX through the paper stack. Shared colors, Processing display faces, links, headers, cards, warnings, prices, checkboxes, and source rows live in the style file; each instance owns only its decision and evidence.