aolong

My Custom Color Scheme

Adventures in Cubing2 Comments

I get a lot of questions about my color scheme, especially related to the gray U face. I typically sticker white puzzles with full-brights for the “sides” (F, R, B, L), gray for U, and black for D.

I first got the idea from a video by Teal Cubes showing his custom color scheme — blue opposite green, gray opposite white, and pink opposite yellow. The video makes a compelling demonstration that there are schemes better than the 1980s Rubik’s one that most of us use without much further thought. That said, I don’t like pink stickers, and it would have been far too jarring to make three color changes at once. So, I adopted simpler changes.

When I previously wrote about my color scheme, I didn’t really get into the philosophy behind it and deferred exploring particular shades. Time to do that now:

(outro music: “Deep Elem Blues,” Jerry Garcia and John Kahn (5.5.82), in tribute to these Days Between Jerry’s birthday and passing)

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Puzzle Collection (June 2014)

Adventures in Cubing4 Comments

I’ve received tons of requests to put together a video showcasing my puzzle collection. I’ve resisted for a while, since I frankly don’t find it that interesting to watch someone talk — and for thirty minutes at that!?! — about their puzzles. But, as one subscriber noted, I do have a few unique cubes in the collection. So, why not? Here’s a video of my puzzle collection as of June 2014:

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Winner: Aolong Give-Away

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Congratulations to Cubing Cubes for winning my Aolong give-away contest. His video was one of 19 walk-through entries and 1750+ subscriber entries. Here’s a video explnation of the winner determination and my walkthrough of the scramble I had provided:

The Scramble

D2 U' R2 U F2 D2 U' R2 U' B' L2 R' B' D2 U B2 L' D'

No one realized that the scramble was the one on which Mats Valk set the 3×3 single world record of 5.55 seconds.

I thought my own walk-through (my first on video, perhaps?) was pretty decent, although it shows (around 5:30) that I could have paired red/green more easily; I forgot that the back/right slot was empty. And, yeah, there’s that pesky editing error in the audio at 7:10. Oh well. Continue reading →

First Unboxing Video (Aolong/Yulong)

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Just a quick post about the first and only unbxoing on my Youtube channel, showcasing three Moyu cubes: a black Aolong, black Yulong, and colored translucent Yulong:


It’s been a long while since I ordered new 3x3s. Although a lot of new cubes have been released lately, and the few I’ve tried have no doubt impressed me, none have displaced the Zhanchi as king of all things 3×3 (for me). The two that have come close are Cyoubx’ Maru CX-3 and the Moyu Weilong, the older sibling of the Aolong. Both are interesting, but have their flaws. The Weilong is smooth but locky. The CX-3 performs well, but is hard to tension properly and is really square, with almost no beveling on the outer edges. A picky criticism, perhaps, but it does have an odd “hand-feel” because of it. Continue reading →