First Unboxing Video (Aolong/Yulong)

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

Fung OLLs (##39-40)

The two “Fung” OLLs — the large “square” lighting bolts — each have an occurrence probability of 1/54, and together 1/27 (3.7%). They seem to appear more often for me; I would have guessed more like 1/15. Whatever the frequency, it was time to learn these.

OLL #39
(Fung)

f’ L F L’ U’ L’ U L S

setup: L U F’ U’ L’ U L F L’

OLL #40
(Anti-Fung)

f R’ F’ R U R U’ R’ S’

setup: (R’ U’) F U (R U’ R’) F’ R

The standard algs for these didn’t flow very well for me. Digging a bit deeper, I found the alternate ones with the S moves to be easy and regrip-less. Here’s a video tutorial:

(puzzle: Maru CX3 w/ stock stickers)

Continue reading

Still More Tough F2L (##15-18)

This is the third installment in the tough/hard/weird/non-intuitive F2L series, with the first and second posts among the most popular on this site and my Youtube channel. These cases (#15-18) require splitting top-layer pairs before re-combining them — what the F2L wiki refers to as “splitting pairs by going over.” As with the cases in the other tutorials, having now spent some time with alternate algorithms, these seem less “tough” than just non-intuitive.

Following the format of the previous installments, here’s a video tutorial, followed by table contrasting my old (intuitive) approaches against the improved ones:

(music: Bassnectar, “Timestretch (West Coast Lo Fi Remix)”; cube: Maru CX3 w/ stock stickers)

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1500 Subscribers + Christmas = Backlit Cube Give-Away!

1500b_300pxWith repeated thanks to CrazyBadCuber, I’ve hit 1,500 Youtube subscribers. (At the same time, my blog subscriptions have increased, but certainly not as dramatically.)

1500 is a big milestone that coincides nicely with the holidays. Time for a give-away!

THE GIVE-AWAY CONTEST

One of the most popular posts on this blog and videos on my Youtube channel surrounds a LED-backlit Ghosthand Crystal Cube that I “hacked” for constant-on, blink-free illumination. As showcased in the how-to video below, I’ve hacked another one, and I’m giving it away through this contest.

The contest opens immediately, and there are three ways to enter: Continue reading

More Tough F2L

My post on “Weird” F2L is the most viewed on this site, and features the most popular video on my Youtube channel — with continuing thanks to CBC! So, I decided to copy the same format to showcase three more tough (at least for me) F2L cases. It turns out that these actually are easy cases. It’s just that the “intuitive” approaches are clunky, and the easy approaches non-intuitive.

Here’s the video tutorial, followed by table contrasting my old (intuitive) approaches against these improved ones:

(music: New Mastersounds, “You Mess Me Up”; cube: Maru CX3 w/ stock stickers)

Continue reading