Non-Cubers say the darndest things!

This one should be new to this thread:

I went to a robotics fair, and there's a team of undergrad students with a professor with a cube-solving robot. I asked the professor if the robot solved it optimally, and he said yes. So I said that it should solve it in 20 moves, but he said "25 moves just to be safe" *facepalm*. At this point I decided that they just wanted to do something that they feel nobody really understands just to get into the robotics fair. After that, I asked to see the program that solves the cube, and turns out it was Cube Explorer, so I've basically confirmed that none of them knows anything about cubes. Next, I started educating him about cube theory and that the "Gods Number" in HTM is 20, and all the students in the back had funny expressions on their faces.

As a side note, the robot was pretty cool, but extremely inefficient. It literally had two arms that held the cube in the air, instead of a platform that most cube solves have.

Ollie: bleh
Ollie: its all muscle memory
Ollie: i will be slow as **** if i change
Chrizz: true, but you'll get faster than you could have been with your old method
Ollie: but i would have to rebuild muscle memory >.>
Sven: You building ANY muscles OR memory is laughable

I was at a camp and some people said:

"What if someone cheats by using like, WD-40 to make their cube go faster?"
"OMG, you're like, so slow. Like, my friend can like do it in under like, 3 seconds. 28 seconds is so sloowww."
"Are you like, obsessed?"
*solves cube* "OMG THERE'S NO WAY YOU DID THAT."
"Like, I've solved five sides... but the sixth was just so hard!" Awww, I totally know how you feel.

A nice thing someone said to me is "well, I don't know how you do it but when I get home I'm learning how because that's so cool."

Also, I did it for a talent show act and everyone went nuts when I finished the solve.

I understand that non-cubers don't understand cubing and that yes, it is pretty impressive when someone solves a puzzle that has been deemed "impossible." Unless you have a friend who can do it in like, five seconds. It's easy to understand how impressed people get and I think it's rather harsh to call them stupid or dumb. We cubers cannot just expect them to understand speedsolving because, hey, we don't know the WR of their interests do we?
Of course, we can amuse ourselves by recounting the numerous funny things that non-cubers and cubers alike have said while keeping in mind that not everyone knows about speedsolving.

Wait, so why is it called "cubing" if some puzzles are not truly cubic? I guess speedsolving is used already and twisty-puzzling just doesn't seem to roll off the tongue in a pleasant way xD

aguuugw said:

Edit: I just realized this is my 100th post!!!!!

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It wasn't; posts in off-topic don't count towards your total postcount. Your 100th post that counted was this.

but yeah I hear the 18 (or 14) seconds - 14 days/months/years quite a lot.

Yesterday, I was solving megaminx at school in front of a bunch of sixth graders, and one kid says, "Oh, you know the secret?"

My family is completely used to me solving my puzzles at home, so I was taken aback when I got a huge reaction. Anyway, half the school sixth graders showed up with rubik's cubes today. In other words, I go to solve a bunch of Terrible Rubik's Brand Cubes at school.

Does anybody know how I can explain that there is no secret?

AlGoreRhythm said:

Yesterday, I was solving megaminx at school in front of a bunch of sixth graders, and one kid says, "Oh, you know the secret?"

My family is completely used to me solving my puzzles at home, so I was taken aback when I got a huge reaction. Anyway, half the school sixth graders showed up with rubik's cubes today. In other words, I go to solve a bunch of Terrible Rubik's Brand Cubes at school.

Does anybody know how I can explain that there is no secret?

Click to expand...

Should've taken the opportunity to teach all those 6th graders the "secret" so they can solve their own cubes.

Yep, they mistake 2x2's for 4x4's all the time, they call megaminx a super rubiks cube,they always say they peel off the stickers,they try to copy our turning speed,they think the longer they scramble the more it is messed up. LOLZ,anyone know when the moyu 5x5 is coming out?

i had a friend that told me that he solved 5 sides

"whoaa how'd you do that?"
"i learned how"
"can you teach me?"
"it takes too long"
"i wanna learn!!"

there goes 2 hours of my life.

aguuugw said:

Me: I can do it in 18 seconds
Him: I can do it in 18 years
I hear this a lot.

From adults older than 40:
Him: (sees me holding cube) I remember when those came out! I could do it in like 5 minutes. There were even some people who could do it in 30 seconds.
Me: I can do it in like 18 seconds.
Him: no you can't. It's harder than it looks.

That one was weird.


Edit: I just realized this is my 100th post!!!!!

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What a jerk!!

It wasn't actually said, but my form room is an art classroom, and someone did a really funky painting of a cube, except one of the edge pieces was blue-blue...

Brought my 5x5 today. Was surprised at multiple "is that like, an ultimate rubik's cube? As well as "is that a 19x19" I also git a lot of, "is that your biggest one?" And "how many sides does it have?"

Also, I found out that 15 cubes is "waaaaaaay too many." I guess I did bring a bunch of 3x3s today (an extra backpack-full for Cubing club beginners)

I was at the book fair at my school today and there was this book called "how to be a genius" and claimed that solving a rubik's cube required a high level of "problem solving and mathematical" skills.

:fp

I was at the book fair at my school today and there was this book called "how to be a genius" and claimed that solving a rubik's cube required a high level of "problem solving and mathematical" skills.

:fp

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Yes! I'm not the only one who still uses :fp

The Rubik's Cube has only 200 permutations :fp

When I get a U-perm:
You already solved it!

Rcuber123 said:

When I get a U-perm:
You already solved it!

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or a J perm

PJKCuber said:

or a J perm

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Even I think it's solved sometimes and stop the timer...

TDM said:

Even I think it's solved sometimes and stop the timer...

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Yeah, that happens to most cubers. All I did was Antisune to a cuber, closed my eyes and did Sune U perm and my friends thought I was doing real BLD.

Person: "Hey dude I saw this youtube video yesterday of a 25x25"
Me: "No you didn't, the world record cube is a 17x17"
Person: "No, no, you're wrong, I know more about cubes than you"
Me: "Okay,"*gives him 7x7*"solve this"
Person: "pshshhshs thats too easy"
Me: "then solve it"
Person: "It's too easy, give me something harder"
Me: *gives him gigaminx*
Person: *spazzes wildly and ends up popping it* "That cube is crap. I can't solve crap cubes"
Me: *grabs cube, fixes it, walks away*
Person: "HAH! Loser! you're scared to admit that I'm better than you"