[Unofficial] Maxim Chechnev won the semi-final of the show Ukraine's Got Talent

[Noahaha]

Simon Westlund WON Sweden's Got Talent

Just watched the video... it was incredible.

yay

 

[Stefan]

let’s say “no more than 5% (or 0%) of pieces should be on their positions”.

With perfect randomness, about 12.7% are expected to be solved! What were you thinking?!

Even though we have opposite opinions, we are right both.

You can't be right if you contradict yourself. Which you did when you (1) agreed that it falls under the dictionary definition of cheating and (2) declared it not cheating.

 

[PeelingStickers]

My view on this is that I'm definitely against the fact that he memo'd a reverse scramble. That just completely belittles the BLD community as Noah and other have said. Personally, he'd have been better off just solving the 7x7 (or a smaller cube if he is too slow to execute it in a fast time) without the blindfold. Of course, if he is then asked in a post interview if he can do 7BLD he could have explained how 7BLD is far more time consuming and difficult than 3BLD etc.

But the fact remains that he didn't. That is cheating.

 

[cxinlee]

Here, in terms of the show, it was also a "trick" for entertainment of people, what actually is the main goal of any show, people were entertained, and the goal was definitely achieved

They were entertained, but what will be their reaction when they realized that it was fake?

 

[SpicyOranges]

Uhhh...it got taken down...

 

[RB]

With perfect randomness, about 12.7% are expected to be solved! What were you thinking?!

If this level is acceptable, then 212*12.7%=27 pieces on correct positions after scramble should be considered as OK.
I wonder why there were comments "why yellow line of 3 was on the cube?"

You can't be right if you contradict yourself. Which you did when you (1) agreed that it falls under the dictionary definition of cheating and (2) declared it not cheating.

No, I don't. The same thing you consider as cheating, I don't.
For example, "David Copperfield's Show": is it cheating or not?
In your opinion it would be "Yes", in my "No", we both are talking about the same show, we have different opinions, but we both right, because it's subjective.
It could be objective if there were benchmarks and/or rules based on which we could say "this is absolutely fair and that is not". As there are no rules, there are no 100% truth in this matter; therefore, there is no "right" or "wrong" in this case, and any opinion can be right.

Just watched the video... it was incredible.
yay

Thanks a lot for that. That was absolutely amazing

Uhhh...it got taken down...

here is another version (starting 2:00)

Translation of 7x7 part:
1:41 And now is the final trick. It’s the last and the final part of my performance.
1:53 Here is a puzzle that I feared the most to solve in the air.
2:07 In front of you there are 20 Rubik's Cubes 7x7.
2:14 Solving of this cube is many times more complicated than of the classic Rubik's cube 3x3.
2:21 Each of these 20 cubes is scrambled differently and each of them I memorized beforehand.
2:35 And now one of these cubes I'll try to solve with closed eyes.
2:43 For this, I need your help.
2:49 I have a soft toy which I now throw to you. And the person, who catches it, will be asked to call any number from 1 to 20.
03:00 I'll turn away to make everything honest.
03:04 Are you ready? "Yes." Catch!
03:14 So, I would ask you to call a number from one to ... “Seven” Number Seven! “Seven, yes!”
03:19 Thank you very much!
03:22 I close my eyes, and I ask my assistant to give me the cube at number seven.
And then no translation required

============
I have just noticed, that one very small but extremely important part of the performance didn't exist in the originally posted video. (may be because of the glitch of video editor and/or something else)
It is the period from 1:41 to 1:53, where Maxim clearly states that there will be a trick. (In Russian this word is very similar ("triuk"), and you can recognize it at 1:42)

It means, the fact of coming something irregular was provided before the solve, so nobody was deceived; and if this version had been originally demonstrated, we wouldn't have had a discussion on 9 pages, or have had it with more positive tones

I hope this helps to finish the conflict

 

[PeelingStickers]

That may be true, however not many people will notice that. Many will associate "trick" with the performance itself. Furthermore, there will probably be a lot of people watching this video who are non-cubers who won't understand what he says. They will still believe that 7BLD can be done in mere minutes.

 

[Kirjava]

It means, the fact of coming something irregular was provided before the solve

No, the word trick can be used without implying something 'irregular was provided'.

In that context, the word 'trick' is synonymous with 'segment of act'.

 

[AvGalen]

2:21 Each of these 20 cubes is scrambled differently and each of them I memorized beforehand.
This means that he memorize the cubes, not the scrambles. This is clearly a lie


03:00 I'll turn away to make everything honest.
He clearly said everything would be honest, another clear lie


Thanks for the translation, you just made everything very clear: He cheated

Also, this is a talent show where people expect to see talent, not a magic show where people expect to see magic. This performance is mildly impressive, although I don't think the 20 cubes are really randomly scrambled at all. Even then, remembering 20 scrambles in "infinite" time at home and undoing them in a competition doesn't warrant a place in the finals in my opinion. He got his place in the final because he pretended to do something that he didn't.

 

[Wassili]

I'm sure this guy is on the Russian cubing forums. I wonder what they think of this...

 

[DrKorbin]

I'm sure this guy is on the Russian cubing forums. I wonder what they think of this...

He is not on our forums.
Most of our community says he is great and attaboy and splendid, well, he memorized scramble reverses, so what? It is just a show.
Patriotism, you know.

 

[Kirjava]

He is not on our forums.
Most of our community says he is great and attaboy and splendid, well, he memorized scramble reverses, so what? It is just a show.

He lied and misrepresented us. It's disgusting that people think that this kind of behaviour is ok, especially with all the misinformation the public already has about cubing. All this does is contribute to that.

Patriotism, you know.

No, I do not know why you should automatically defend him regardless of his actions just because you were born at a closer location to him than I was.

 

[qqwref]

Kir, he's relaying how many people think in the Russian community, not how he himself thinks.

 

[Kirjava]

Kir, he's relaying how many people think in the Russian community, not how he himself thinks.

I did wonder. However, I can be interpreted as addressing that community.

 

[RB]

I've been trying to get some relief to those blindfolders who is under stress after watching of that performance, and will try to provide a simple example watching on this case from a different angle.

How would you react on the next situation:

==============
An illusionist shows on a stage a magic: He takes an egg, put it in the black box, and then open that box, and there is a chicken there.
(Pretty simple, isn’t it, we’ve seen similar things many times in our life)

But then, somebody starts screaming and yelling:
“We are researchers, who develop methods of fast growing of chickens, having been helping to farmers for years, and this helps to society in getting cheaper meat.
And now what we see???!!! Somebody shows that it is possible to grow a chicken from an egg within only few seconds? Now people will think that it is true! How will we be able to prove to government and to farmers that our research is useful? We can lose government grants, respect, and … blah-blah-blah-blah-blah”.
===============

How would you react on this?

It’s funny, isn’t it? The scientist sees a threat in the place where others don’t, that’s why his reaction is so emotional. But is this threat real? Many people would say no, because they distinguish a show from the real life. And even though somebody at kids' ages may start thinking that period of time from an egg to 2-3lb. chicken is only few seconds, very soon the kid will find out that it takes weeks/months. And I hardly believe that the kid or anybody else will blame the illusionist for misrepresentation.

Is an illusionist a cheater? That researcher will definitely say “YEEESSS, absolutely!!!”, some people say “that’s OK, it’s a show, that’s what it is for”, some people will be somewhere in between of those two opinions.

Coming back to our discussion, is it a real threat that somebody will start thinking that solving 7x7BLD takes 2 minutes? OK, the worst case scenario, they will. So, next step, they starting thinking that way, and may interested in that, and when they look at the real life, watch solves on youtube, and they’ll change their mind. And that’s it! The worst case is not as bad, and why to be scared of it?

By the way, there is another thing to mitigate risk of issues from this performance.

On the weekend prior to the final of this contest “Ukraine Got Talented” there will be the WCA-competition “Ukraine Open 2013”, in the same city of Kiev, event 5x5 BLD is included there, TV is invited, and if somebody starting interesting in speedcubing, they can come to the contest, see the battle for possible sub-10min in this event, and then realize how much may take 7x7.

Things are much more better, than they looked originally, so please cool down

 

[Kirjava]

You don't seem to be aware of the fact that the audience watching a magician's show does not believe that the magician is literally performing magic.

 

[NSKuber]

Yeah, that's a problem. Good solution will be if Maxim will tell more about real 7x7 BLD and what he did in the second round after final round.
But I'm afraid that in final round he can perform something like this, but more misleading to the public.
It's a pleasure to read good discussions like this

 

[schuma]

A magician can solve a cube within one second, without looking. He is more close to a magician than real cubing, except giving audience the wrong idea. I don't like this at all.

 

[cmhardw]

You don't seem to be aware of the fact that the audience watching a magician's show does not believe that the magician is literally performing magic.

You seem to be assuming that young children, who don't know that magicians are performing illusions, never attend magic shows.

The child who grows up to learn that the magician is only performing illusions, and not magic, will have a shattered view of magic and magicians when this time comes. This is very similar to how the non-cuber will have a shattered view of Maxim if the day ever comes that the non-cuber becomes a cuber and is interested in blindsolving.

Also, shouldn't the non-cuber already realize that the (real) 3x3x3 blindsolve took nearly as much time as the (staged) 7x7x7 blindsolve? If anyone really started to think about it, this already looks fishy and could lead the non-cuber to wonder if the 7x7 solves were staged for entertainment purposes.

Media puts this kind of pressure on people. When I went on Canada AM in 2003 they asked me to do a speedsolve on TV. They asked me how much time a solve would take and I told them "About 20 seconds". They asked me if I could solve it in closer to 10, and I said probably 15 at best if I get a good solve. I remember the lady asking me if I could rig my solve somehow to speed it up, and I said no I wouldn't do that.

Something similar happened with Dror Vomberg, who appeared on the same show, when they asked him to solve blindfolded. When he said it would take a couple minutes, and that he wouldn't rig his solve, they had him begin memo before a commercial break, and they returned to his solve after the break.

Maxim probably had time pressure from the producers ("You only have 2 mintues"), and he also wanted to put on a good show.

He did put on a good show, he got a huge standing ovation at the end. Cubing, not only that but blindfolded cubing, got a standing ovation on TV. This is HUGE! This is a great promo for cubing, even if he did mislead the audience about the specific aspects of how difficult blindfolded cubing is.

In short:
Will this show contribute to more non-cubers thinking there is "some guy" who solves the cube blindfolded in "like 4 seconds" ?
Yes.

Will this show make more people think positively about cubing in general?
Based on the standing ovation Maxim received - definitely yes.

I think the positives of having a large number of people now think positively about cubing, and blindfolded cubing, far outweigh the shattered view the non-cubers who becomes cubers will have when they realize how obscenely difficult 7x7BLD is when compared to how easy Maxim made it look.

Maxim was misleading and misrepresented blindfolded cubing. That is a true statement. However, in doing so he put cubing in a very positively light for a large non-cubing audience. This is a net positive for cubing, in my opinion.

If people informed the producers that Maxim cheated his solves, I'll bet that they are not only already aware, I'll bet they asked him to "rig" it somehow.

 

[Kirjava]

You seem to be assuming that young children, who don't know that magicians are performing illusions, never attend magic shows.

Good point, my statement was rather broad. However, I don't believe the 'scientist' in the hypothetical is a child.

words

I don't contest that this have positive implications for cubing.

On the other hand, it has introduced negative ones that people like you, Dror or Simon have refused to do in the past.

This could've been avoided while still remining impressive.

It's not a big deal. I don't disagree this produces good - I'm just saying that it contributes negatively too. Which it does, and people do not seem to believe so.