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How good are Cubesmith stickers? And, are the half-bright sticker sets or the bright sets the way to go? Also, do they make an improvement with f2l recognition from the Zhanchi original stickers that i have?

They are the most popular. I use half-brights + bright blue. They have more contrast and visible color than standard sets.

After adjusting to the different shades of color, it helped me a lot with recognition.
 
He may not be talking about feeling more comfortable physically. I feel less pressure the bigger the cube is since a mistake doesn't cost as much, so I end up being more relaxed and get better times.

^ This. Also, smaller cubes are much too alg-heavy for me. I don't have to use many algorithms to have a shot at getting a decent time for a large cube.
 
This is not related to cubing but does anybody know of any really good online instructions for learning English grammar? I have slept through English my whole life resulting in poor grammar which leads to my shotty posts.
 
This is not related to cubing but does anybody know of any really good online instructions for learning English grammar? I have slept through English my whole life resulting in poor grammar which leads to my shotty posts.

I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for. Most tutorials are for English as a second language. One of the best looking pages I found is grammerly.com with links to all different topics, but not a step by step set of instructions.

But just to get on the soapbox for a second, I was an English major in college, and while I find grammar interesting in a way, I don't know that formal study of grammar is as important as many people make it out to be. Studies have shown that the biggest improvement in grammar comes from reading and practicing informal writing (see The Art of Teaching Writing by Lucy McCormick Calkins for references) and knowing how to define the subjunctive tense or whatever is not particularly helpful when it comes to evaluating writing skill.
 
This is not related to cubing but does anybody know of any really good online instructions for learning English grammar? I have slept through English my whole life resulting in poor grammar which leads to my shotty posts.
http://bizwritingtip.com/ has quite a few common mistakes people make in their writing.
Also if I will provide some things that personally annoy me:

There: refers to a place (I want to go there).
Their: refers to a group of people (It is in their best interest).

Your: shows possession (Your cubes).
You're: contraction for "you are" (You're a cuber).

two: a number
to: most common, use if other versions don't fit, don't really know a better way of explaining.
too: synonym for as well or also (I want to cube too).

it's: contraction for "it is" or "it has, don't use if you cannot replace it's by one of these in the sentence (It's raining/It is raining).
its shows possession, use if replacing by "it is/it has" does not make sense in the sentence (A penguin is known for its inability to fly).
 
So I have really been working on look ahead lately and was just wondering, sometimes when I am tracking a pair it ends up as a really bad case (generally the pair I track during cross, during f2l I tend to choose pairs I know will end up at least decently or try to positively affect the pair I am tracking with an extra couple moves, but the cross to first pair transition I have a lot of trouble with). So anyway, what should I do / what do you do if this is the case? Do you do the pair anyway? Do you look for a better one? Do you try to make the case better with additional moves?
 
So I have really been working on look ahead lately and was just wondering, sometimes when I am tracking a pair it ends up as a really bad case (generally the pair I track during cross, during f2l I tend to choose pairs I know will end up at least decently or try to positively affect the pair I am tracking with an extra couple moves, but the cross to first pair transition I have a lot of trouble with). So anyway, what should I do / what do you do if this is the case? Do you do the pair anyway? Do you look for a better one? Do you try to make the case better with additional moves?

Well you could build the cross using different moves to change the case.
Or if you can actually see the pair and the cross at the same time, why not just build an xcross? That might help a lot
 
This advice comes from a relatively inexperienced cuber - so take it for what its worth.

I've found that identifying the first pair of the F2L solve so essential that I'll solve it, even if it's a "complicated" case. Once the first pair is identified and solved, the cube become much more manageable with easier recognition during lookahead. The one major exception is if the first identified pair is already in its solved slot, but misoriented. This is a bonus and can always be solved at any time, typically as the last F2L slot; so in that case I would look for another pair.
 
Well you could build the cross using different moves to change the case.
Or if you can actually see the pair and the cross at the same time, why not just build an xcross? That might help a lot

Ya xcrosses are something I want to work on in a bit, gunna spend about a week on look ahead first though. I have like no experience with block building though so I may have to practice it for some time...

Also another question. I mentioned I am learning look ahead but I know I am still using many sub-optimal F2L cases (for example I ALWAYS solve cases with my cross colour facing up the same way (split up pair so cross colour stays up and pair using one of the 3 basic cases). I do this because it is easy to recognize and requires little thought, but often requires 1 or more cube rotations and is generally not very "finger-tricky"). So I was wondering should I stop learning look ahead and figure out better ways of solving f2l cases first? does it matter? would trying to learn both at once be too much?
 
I would recommend trying to practice lookahead at the same time, but maybe not as intensely as if you were only practicing look ahead. Just be conscious of both in my opinion.

And for my question, are cubesmith megaminx tiles the same as what comes with the mf8 tiled megaminx?
 
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