2026-05-07
most of the orignal notes from 2026-05-05
Miscellaneous notes from visiting beach
Disclaimer
- Quick Note
- target audience - strictly myself
- This is just a random assortment of (mostly) unimportant thoughts of mine from visiting the beach. I am not entirely sure why I am even recording them. Maybe to balance all the serious posts with some fun posts? I don't know.
- I made these notes while in Russia. Have deleted anything even slightly related to politics or AI or similar topic.
Main
- Optimal way of throwing a stone into the ocean, to maximise distance traversed
- Disclaimer - I generally kinda suck with motor skills (sports/dancing/etc), so I'm sure someone has a better technique than me. Also I just thought this on the spot, no AI use or serious thinking.
- Bend fingers to maintain 90 degree angle with your palm. Keep fingers completely flat and joined. Throw a flat-shaped stone with high surface area contact with hand so it slides off. Increase the angular theta your arm rotates before the stone leaves your hand, but do this via changing arm motion not the shape of hand, stone should still slide off naturally. Don't move your fingers and don't use them to either push or pull the stone.
- (Update 2026-05-07) The angular acceleration of your arm is by far the most important thing. It reminds me of one of those fucking JEE problems.
Assume stone is in hand as it moves from (r, theta_1, phi_1) to (r, theta_2, phi_2) in an arc-shaped trajectory centred at the origin of the coordinate system. For simplicity, assume muscles applied constant tangential force F for this duration. Find distance traversed by stone. I wish computer science was as "pure" as physics honestly. I actually liked studying JEE physics. Whereas with software, it is full of random shit like some linux developer wrote in some random quirky behaviour into how the TLB is read 20 years ago, and now you have to just suck it up and deal with it, good luck finding documentation. This is why I hate software more than I hate physics. But software is where all the wealth and power has been, atleast until recently. So I am grudgingly forcing myself to learn it, just I was grudgingly forcing myself to learn it many years back.
- Wave equations for waves hitting the beach
- Probably unsolved analytically only via simulation. I have not googled it
- I tried find the position of the moon by keeping my arms outstretched at 180 degrees from each other, with one arm pointing at the sun
- I'm sure people found all sorts of hacks like this for direction, in olden times
- Also hacks for lighting fire, for instance. The beach had bottles with either petrol or diesel, and wood, and stones. And I had a lighter and it was a bit windy. It is actually a non-trivial problem to build a fireplace such that the petrol fire transfers to the wood before the petrol burns out. I tried some jugaads, but not happy with what I tried.
- People on internet are different and/or unhappy
- Corporate slaves are out there actually working, they have no reason to write online.
- Similarly, people actually having fun are actually having fun, they have no reason to write online.
- People who are unhappy have a reason to write online, out of desperation to find someone who cares about them.
- Similarly, people in either weird or ambitious careers (or both) have a reason to write online, to widen the net of people they can reach beyond 2nd / 3rd degree connections.
- I'm writing this post to balance all my unhappy with some fun posts. but realistically, I don't actually feel like posting a lot of fun stuff because who cares, fun is meant to be had in the moment not reflected on afterwards.
- I would rather kill myself than be you
- I have disliked corporate slavery since I was like maybe 16, I knew I had to git gud at software or entrepreneurship since I was 18, I knew about ASI risk when I was 22, now that I'm 25, ... [REDACTED]
- I can in full honesty tell 99% of people "I would rather kill myself than be you". What kind of nonsensical lives do most people lead lmao? Idk I actually feel behind compared to where I could have been at the age of 25. But we will see. Life is a marathon not a sprint.
- Low probability of death when leaving the beach
- Small amount of trouble at the end when I realised the water line had shifted (it had become evening, moon position shifted) and there was a possibility I could not actually walk back to where I came from. Worst case I could literally die trapped in this beach. Once the gap between the cliff and the waterline closed to zero at any point along the stretch, I would be stranded. And once I am stranded, the water could keep rising until the entire stretch of beach got submerged by water completely.
- Probability of dying was small but also downside was so large I figured I should run faster. Also the EV of carrying my clothes seemed tiny so I considered just dropping the clothes in my hand to run faster and save some seconds. I didn't ultimately drop the clothes. I think I am quite rational and non-panicky when it comes to immediate life or death situations.
- See for example the train accident or bike accident I've been in, or being at risk being bitten by dogs in some places, or being physically threatened.
- Note to self - maybe I should make some public note about all these experiences?
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