Ridicule ( rid·i·cule/ˈridiˌkyo͞ol/) The subjection of someone or something to mockery and derision.
Yes, ridicule. I expect it. To those who will mock, I respond, “Well deserved, but it is not to you that I owe an explanation.” Owed that explanation is my conscience and my wife. Hope you’re both reading.
I interpret “why” as relating to two things: (1) cubing and (2) documenting it. Continue reading
Against my better judgment — and fully anticipating ridicule, mockery, and outright bullying — we begin. A blog is born. It generally takes me over 100 hours to properly birth a blog. I’m a perfectionist. I fiddle with every pixel of spacing in CSS, get crazy with jquery and php switches, and tinker in Photoshop until my eyes glaze over. Not this time. This blog gestated for just over an hour. Why the short shrift? Mostly because I have time for this, and should be quartered by my bosses, wife, and children for even contemplating it. But also because I’m not confident this will go anywhere. So, a hosted blog, free theme, 20 lines of CSS, and we’re off…. Continue reading
I’ve been learning more and more about F2L, as I explained in the tutorials I prepared. This video records my first timed solves using F2L. They come in at an average of 2:06 (2:12, 2:09, and 1:58).
At that speed, these are about a full minute slower than my fastest recorded beginner’s method solves. That slow-down from a new method is common, I understand. As I practice more, my guess it that I can get that down pretty quickly — and, if theory holds, below the 1:09 at which I’ve plateaued with the beginner’s method.
Having read a bunch of tutorials online and watched a couple dozen on youtube, I decided to throw one together myself. I had just started the transition from the Beginner’s Method to F2L (First 2 Layers). Under the former, after forming the bottom face cross, you fill in the bottom layer corners with R U R’ and L’ U’ L. Then, you attack the middle layer edge pieces with a slightly more complicated algorithm. Both steps are relatively easy and require little memorization or concentration. But they are also inefficient. F2L, by contrast, solves both the bottom layer corners and middle layer edges simultaneously. It does so by forming pairs in the top layer and then placing those pairs into the 4 slots comprised of the bottom layer corners and middle edges. It takes a little more concentration and thought, but is far more efficient in the end.
As I struggled to learn the technique (mostly through Badmephisto’s cheat sheet and videos), it occurred to me that there is no better way to master something than being forced to teach it yourself. Continue reading
So, I just recorded two 1:09 solves in a row using a GoPro HelmetCam that I borrowed from my company. These are among my fastest solves (I got a 1:03 the other day), and definitely my fastest recorded ones.
Apologies for the jarring difference in the soundtrack, with String Cheese Incident covering Weather Report’s “Birdland” on 9.5.03 for the first solve and Skrillex’ “Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites” for the second. I probably ought to have chosen from less extreme poles of my music collection when trying to find fast/anthemic/inspiration tunes.
adventures in cubing 