RIP, Zhanchi No. 1

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PROLOGUE: We can make type look like HEADLINES or fine print; emphasize the important parts with color, boldfacing, italics, or highlight; use superscript or subscript notation; strike-through to show edits,

blockquote (like this) to draw focus,

and switch to fixed-width to show code. But there is no neat, and tidy way to indicate “hey, I’m about to get all facetious and sardonic on you.”

I hereby propose Comic Sans as the official signal of sarcasm on the internet.And, even if you never read another word on my blog again, I’ll be ok — as long as you promise to read this McSweeney’s opus: “I’m Comic Sans, A**hole.” So. Friggin. Good.

My Zhanchi died last Thursday. FUBAR. In the middle of learning the N Perm, it locked up on me. And not just an align-better-and-proceed lock up (à la Rubik’s brand cubes). Jammed. Stuck. No bueno. With some elbow grease, I eventually got it unstuck, by which I mean that the yellow-green-orange corner and yellow-orange edge each violently ejected. The corner piece was gnarled and twisted so badly that, even after straightening it by hand, the cube would barely turn when I replaced the pieces. Open heart surgery — some heat, crazy glue, counter-twisting, etc. — barely helped. The re-assembled cube just didn’t want to turn any longer. I pronounced the cube dead a few minutes later. Continue reading →

PLL corner cycles (A Perm)

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As I earlier posted, I’ve been learning OLLs and PLLs at a moderate pace, trying to move past the inefficiencies of the Beginner’s Method. About half-way through learning A Perm, a light bulb went off: It corner cycles the same way as the penultimate Beginner’s Method algorithm of R’ F R’ B2 R F’ R’ B2 R2 — with Aa as the far less re-grippy surrogate, and Ab (its mirror) more efficient than serial application of the Beginner’s Method algorithm. (Slowly, it’s all coming together….)

I find the A Perm one of the easier cases to recognize, with its characteristic 2x2x1 block in a top-layer corner, the block having matching colors on either side. I set up by AUF‘ing the 2x2x1 block into the front-left corner, with the 2×2 block matching the middle and bottom layers (as in the diagram to the right). If the headlights (green-xx-green in the below diagrams) are in the back, you do the Aa Perm; if the headlights are to the right, you do the Ab Perm.

A Perm (Corner Cycle)

Aa PLL(CLOCKWISE)

(Lw’ U R’) D2(R U’ R’) D2 (R Lw)

Ab PLL(COUNTER-CLOCKWISE)

(Lw’ R’) D2 (R U R’) D2 (R U’ Lw)

Continue reading →

PLL edge cycles (U Perm)

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UPDATE: I’ve replaced this set of algs with M-slice versions.

Over the past couple months, I’ve tried to exorcise all remnants of the Beginner’s Method. F2L replaced the corner-first/edge-next approach a while ago, and several OLLs have made top-layer orientation a (generally) single-algorithm affair. But my PLLs were still a bit all over the place. I got to the two-look stage pretty easily (with no illusions about being able to one-look it for a while still), but realized that I was still using the Beginner’s Method algorithm for edge cycling — to wit, F2 U(’) R’ L F2 R L’ U(’) F2. Although I got freakishly quick at that algorithm, it required all sorts of awkward hand movements and lent itself to no finger tricks.

Since almost every one of my solves requires an edge cycle — with H and Z perms or the rare PLL skip as the lone exceptions — this bull-in-a-china-shop algorithm had to go. Enter the U perm:

U Perm (Edge Cycles)

Ua PLL(COUNTER-CLOCKWISE)

(R U’ R U) (R U)(R U’) (R’ U’ R2)

Ub PLL(CLOCKWISE)

(R2 U) (R U R’ U’)(R’ U’) (R’ U R’)

Continue reading →

lies, damn lies, and (sorta) statistics

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OK. So, maybe I’m not the archivist I claim to be. This whole notion of cataloging everything sort of died on the vine — as I became more focused on my knowledge and understanding of the cube, rather than my times solving it or collection of hardware. On balance, I prefer what came of this blog. Either way, this post is somewhat stale now.

I’m an archivist by nature. I like collecting things, sorting them, tracking them, seeing them change and grow. I believe in elaborate backup systems and in preserving all the digital information I can (photos, videos, emails, college and even high school papers, etc.). A six terabyte NAS at home, mirrored to one at my office, stands as proof.

I enjoy sifting through data. I should have been a scientist or analyst or the like. Anything but a lawyer.

I also have a strange affection for Google. They seem to get it right more often than other companies. Google is to the internet what Apple is to hardware.

So, when I started cubing six months ago, I missed no opportunity to record, track, and preserve as much info as I could. That is, in a nutshell, this blog’s raison d’être. From the beginning, I kept two Google spreadsheets for myself — one tracking my personal best solve times and the other tracking my feverishly expanding cube/puzzle collection. I added a third when I started to learn more OLLs and PLLs. Last week while running (when I seem to do my best thinking), it suddenly occurred to me that I should publish those spreadsheets and embed them here in this blog. Why not?

You’ll notice in the sidebar to the right a new “personal stats” section that is in dire need of rebranding. It links to pages embedding the aforementioned spreadsheets. (Nav sprites, in case you’re wondering.) Continue reading →