Category: Twisty Puzzles

7 cube

I got a v-cube 7 for Christmas. I of course immediately scrambled it and got to work.  Most of the 5 cube moves relate, though there was a bit that I had to work out (and solved largely through luck) at the end of solving the 5×5 grid in the middle of the faces.  I probably got lucky with solving the edges, but that was straight forward like on the 5, just slower due to more pieces.  Final time was figured at around 4 hours, but alot of the time I was distracted and not working on it.

I also got a pyraminx that came pre-scrambled.  Apparently the box was torn when it came in so my cousin took it out to make sure it wasn’t damaged and figured it would be easy to solve.  I didn’t think it was particularly difficult to make up the algorithms by trial and error, but he couldn’t solve it.  I might start timing it after I’ve solved it a few more times.

Can’t post pictures from my phone till I have wi-fi, so I’ll get to that after I’m back at my parents house on Monday night.

Cube races

We’ve got a new way to race rubik’s cube solving. The old way was just to have everyone start solving at the same time and keep track of the order people finished in. That’s not near an even race with six or seven people, so the order of finishing was mostly set before it started. Now we’re doing relay solving, where we split into two teams and the teams race each other, solving in sequence.

Friday at the end of the day was my first chance to join in the fun. I suspect the teams would have been more balanced (or at least easier to balance) with Jeremy there instead of me like it’s been the previous times they raced like that, but the first round was pretty close. The most entertaining part was when Ryan showed up in the lab with the cube transport, meaning he had a lunchbox with everyone’s cube in it so nobody would have to walk through the halls just carrying a rubik’s cube. I always take my backpack to work and carry my cube (and lunch) in that.

I don’t feel like my rubik’s cube times have been improving lately because my timed runs (of which there haven’t been all that many) haven’t come close to my best time or even consistently faster than my 3 of 5 average. On the other hand, my average seems to be approaching my 3 of 5 average very slowly, so eventually I’ll probably get lucky and beat it if I do enough solves.

My efficiency is improving on my slow solves at least, and I’ve had several solves where I made less than 60 moves. If I could just learn to spot things faster I might be able to use move optimizations for speed.

Cat Report

Talore persists in waking me up well before I’m ready to get up. Usually she just runs around and meows, but she occasionally gets creative. Last weekend she purred in my face, but during the week one day she licked one of my eyelids open. That sure woke me up, and felt rather odd. Last night I figured I’d just go to bed early and be ready to get up when she got up. Unfortunately, Talore also went to bed early and woke me up before there was enough light to read my watch. If only she was so eager to play at night instead of in the morning.

Note the cat hair on the top edge of the hole in the side. I’ve cleaned it at least once and I almost never see Talore actually go through the side, but there’s still a good bit built up there.

Talore is now relaxed enough about the cat carrier that she will let me put her in it without struggling, but I haven’t figured out a way to get her to walk into it for a treat though. I was planning to mention that she no longer feels the need to follow me from room to room whenever I leave her sight when I’m at home, but then I noticed that she moved to the bedroom doorway when I was in the bedroom hanging up my clean clothes. I guess it’s just that she either doesn’t wake up or isn’t inclined to get up when I’m moving around while she’s asleep.

I finally moved the cat food/water bowls off the dining room table. I eat at my desk so I wasn’t bothered by Talore eating at the table, but I could see that being a problem if I had company. They’re now on the brick in front of the fireplace, which is behind a chair from where I sit at my desk. It took me a while to figure out what the slight sound of water was the first time I heard her drinking with the bowl there, since I didn’t recognize the sound from when the bowl was at the table and Talore was hidden behind the chair when I first heard it.

Talore still knocks things off my desk, but now she has more to choose from. The plastic cup that I had holding all my pens and stuff (that Talore split down both sides a while back) got killed by the lamp that I knocked over, so now everything is in a pile. Only one thing has been found first by the roomba so far, but if I don’t find a replacement cup (or something) I suspect it’ll be eating more.

I’m guessing Talore has allergies. My apartment is as dust free as it’s been since I moved in (thanks to the tireless work of the roomba), but Talore sneezes occasionally. That both started well after I got her and started cleaning the apartment and my allergies have been noticeable lately, so I’m figuring that’s all it is. If Talore gets worse or starts acting differently I’ll take her to the vet, but the internet tells me that cats can have the same allergies as people do.

I finally got my 2x2x2 rubik’s cube and stickers this week (eastsheen brand cube, used pink instead of orange so I had to get stickers). It is indeed a much better cube for speedcubing than the rubik’s brand one. The core of it is basically a 3x3x3 cube, but instead of the centers and edges being visible the corners have caps that snap on them and hide the internals. Nearly the first thing I did was break the tab that holds one of the caps on, but the reason I broke it was that the piece had so much friction holding it on that I couldn’t tell when the tab was pushed back far enough, so it’s not likely to be a problem. It’s rather loose, and the springs allow it to turn even when not completely aligned, so it’s a really fast cube. Since I’m not at all used to it yet, I occasionally have trouble with turning it too far, but I’ve still managed a 16 second solve (5s inspection time), and an average in the mid 20s.

When I put the stickers on the 2x2x2 cube I did it at my table instead of at my desk. The light is a bit better there, and I figured it would be easier to keep cat hair off the stickers since Talore was asleep on my desk. As soon as I sat down at the table Talore came over to see what I was doing, and she insisted on jumping up into my lap (which she never does). She was persistent enough that I was getting bits of cat hair on the new stickers as I peeled them off the backing. She did leave after I started sticking the old stickers to her, and it was quite impressive watching her flick her paw hard enough to unstick a sticker that I’d put square in the middle of her paw.