advancing the cross

Adventures in Cubing7 Comments

For the most part, I still currently use the Beginner’s Method (as taught by RobH0629‘s very accessible and excellent tutorials) to solve a 3×3 cube.  Although I’m amazed that I’ve gotten down to 1:09 using that method, I realize that I’ll need more advanced techniques to cut my times.  For example, on even my fastest solves, the cross takes me an average of 15 seconds; with new techniques, I should be able to halve that.

When I say cross, I mean forming a cross/plus-sign in the bottom face (usually white) by placing the white/red, white/blue, white/orange, white/green edges with their white halves facing down and colored halves lined up with each side face’s center cube.  Like so:

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magnetic dice cube

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I frequently use CubeTimer.com to time my solves.  I just noticed a “Links” link above the timer, clicked it, and stumbed onto MagneticCube.com — which sells, not suprisingly, magnetic cubes.

The video below shows how they work. Although it appears to require quite a bit of force to turn each layer, it is still a very clever concept.

With a $59 price tag, it’s probably not the resistance that will keep me from buying one.  But a really cool novelty cube nevertheless. (Perhaps I’ll hazard the DIY project one day….)

cubism, the shirt

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I love Woot, and especially Shirt Woot. Clever designs screened on Amercian Apparel shirts, slung via genius copy writing, and all for $10/shirt (to your door!). Back in September, before I even knew how to solve a cube, I grabbed this shirt for our now-four-year-old:

Woot - Cubism

As the copy explained in prose:

His command of math was really near-cherubic
That game designer they called Erno Rubik
He could turn a little math
Into a bunch of moving squares
And so
Erno Rubik not even once had to boot lick

can you copyright/trademark a color combination?

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For once my hobby intersects with my day job. (Yes, I’m a laywer. Not an IP lawyer per se, but I certainly deal with IP issues and work with a handful of really great IP lawyers.) Seven Towns is the exclusive licensee of IP associated with the Rubik’s Cube. That gives them the ability to enforce their IP rights as though they’re the actual owner of the IP. Although I can’t find the primary source, it seems that Seven Towns recently complained to Dayan (a leading manufacturer of competing speed cubes) that Dayan’s cubes infringe copyrights held in the original Rubik’s Cube. (See here and here and here.) The legal premise appears to be that a copyright exists in the original Rubik’s Cube’s color combination of (a) the white face opposite the yellow face, (b) blue opposite green, and (c) red opposite orange.

<EDIT>It actually appears that the claims are more likely based in trademark/trade dress, based on registered trademarks such as these, which describe the mark as:

THE MARK CONSISTS OF A BLACK CUBE HAVING NINE COLOR PATCHES ON EACH OF ITS SIX FACES WITH THE COLOR PATCHES ON EACH FACE BEING THE SAME AND CONSISTS OF THE COLORS RED, WHITE, BLUE, GREEN, YELLOW, AND ORANGE. THE DRAWING IS LINED FOR THE COLORS.

The “drawing is lined” language appears to refer to the sketches with shading for each color. In other words, it appears that the marks are self-limited not just to a black cube and the six colors, but those six colors arranged in the particular configuration with which we are familiar.</EDIT> Continue reading →

another 1:09 solve

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Sure is flat up here. I think they call these here parts plateaus. Another 1:09 solve following these two the other day. I have a couple 1:03s off-video, but 1:09 remains my on-video personal best.