Non-Cubers say the darndest things!

People always call my rubiks magic the paper one.

This is a conversation I had a few months ago.
I was just playing with my 2x2
Person: How fast can you solve the one with four?
Me: About a minute.
Person: That's not very good compared to your 3x3 time.
Me: Really? I think that's good. By the way, I can solve this one (the 2x2) in 5 seconds.
Person: Yeah that's what I said, the 4x4.
Me: It's a 2x2.
Person: How?
Me: It's 2 layers by 2 layers by 2 layers.
Person: Oh.
:fp
 
Today I found a news website discussing speed cubers at Nationals. It said that, "Last year's winner for the 7x7x7 Rubik's cube was Andy Smith, with an average of 9.73 seconds."

Either they had a really bad typo or don't understand what a 7x7 is.
 
GrandSlam said:
Today I found a news website discussing speed cubers at Nationals. It said that, "Last year's winner for the 7x7x7 Rubik's cube was Andy Smith, with an average of 9.73 seconds."

Either they had a really bad typo or don't understand what a 7x7 is.
Click to expand...

Andy Smith had a 9.73 Average last year, good for 6th in 3x3... Someone screwed up big time.
 
This happens so often. Someone comes and ask me to solve a cube. Well, while I'm solving it, that person starts to talk with somebody else. Five or ten minutes later that person asks me: "Did you even solve that?" I always say back: "Yeah, about fifteen times." They're faces are always priceless. :D
 
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Mia said:
This happens so often. Someone comes and ask me to solve a cube. Well, while I'm solving it, that person starts to talk with somebody else. Five or ten minutes later that person asks me: "Did you even solved that?" I always say back: "Yeah, about fifteen times." They're faces are always priceless. :D

And I remember this time too... I was learning some PLL algs and of course I've printed them to the paper. One of my classmates asks me: "Can you solve a Rubik's cube?" Oh god... I've been cubing every day at school about half a year and he saw earlier when I solved that. *facepalm*
Click to expand...

Yeah, I get this. Problem is that we scramble the cube again as soon as we've solved it and we turn the sides so fast that they can't catch the instant that it's solved to realize. I know one time there was a lady very intently watching me solve the cube. I probably scrambled and solved the cube over and over again at least several times while she was watching before she suddenly asked if I had EVER solved it.
 
"Wow! You solve so fast!!!!" (40 second solve) "1st honor n yan!" (Filipinos can understand this) "i peeled the stickers off" ( i gave them a stickerless cube, they tried to take the stickers off it for 2 minutes before realizing that there were no stickers)
 
Destro said:
"Wow! You solve so fast!!!!" (40 second solve) "1st honor n yan!" (Filipinos can understand this) "i peeled the stickers off" ( i gave them a stickerless cube, they tried to take the stickers off it for 2 minutes before realizing that there were no stickers)
Click to expand...

LOL STICKERLESS FTW!
I always get the one where they say "I can only solve one side" and none of the centers or edges are correctly oriented.
 
I just finished solving a 4x4 when my cousin asked: 'Can I scramble that?' I said: 'sure'. While she scrambled it, she told me that she could solve 1 side. After 2 minutes of scrambling she wants to start solving one side. She looks at the cube and says: 'wait... wasn't there like, a smaller version?'

(I gave her a 3x3, and she could indeed solve 1 side (not 1 layer though), at least she understood the difference between a side and a layer.)
 
Chrizz said:
I just finished solving a 4x4 when my cousin asked: 'Can I scramble that?' I said: 'sure'. While she scrambled it, she told me that she could solve 1 side. After 2 minutes of scrambling she wants to start solving one side. She looks at the cube and says: 'wait... wasn't there like, a smaller version?'

(I gave her a 3x3, and she could indeed solve 1 side (not 1 layer though), at least she understood the difference between a side and a layer.)
Click to expand...
When I let others borrow my 4x4 they say that its a Rubik's cube on steroids
 
1. "I just peel the stickers off..."

2. "Oh my god are you a genius??!!"

3. "Isn't the world record by some Asian?"

4. "Wow...... So sad"

5. "You're so slow, I can do it in like 3 seconds" * Snatches cube from user's hands, randomly spazzes fingers in a retarded manner, making noises resembling a mutilated form of Chinese.
* Either damages cube or acts like they've just won a marathon because there happens to be an incorrectly permuted red bar on the blue face.

6. Whilst user is taking the liberty of solving casually in a public place, smashes fist down onto puzzle causing it to smash into the pavement and to explode, entailing much damage to the pieces, stickers and core mechanism.

(6: I nailed the guy straight after though, and he was a ****, so in the end, it was an ok deal).
 
Alright I got a little bit here

"Oh you just messed up the white side (whilst doing f2l) oh you saved the white side!"
"You can't look at the cube before solving it!" (This person was timing me later and stopped the timer at 30 seconds, and this is in the same month I started so I can averaging 40s)
My friend who can solve. When I'm practicing bld - "How do you know when you get a skip?"
"Don't look you'll just undo the turns!" (Let's be honest, this is something only Maskow can do)
"They have changed so much" - I'm using a stickerless cube
*Someone puts my blindfold on* "YOU CAN SEE THROUGH IT!!!" I also close my eyes under my blindfold to focus
"I'm mixing it up really well"
"How do you memorize all of this?" - This is when I was solving a 5x5
"I could never solve one of those"
*Draining the air from an air mattress after having some troubles* "I knew you could figure it out, since you can figure out the Rubiks Cube"
"You're really fast" *Day after I learn how to solve it (excluding f2l) and I'm doing 0.5 tps, no finger tricks*
"One handed, with left hand!" (This was on a 2x2 and I'm left handed anyway)
*Doing 2x2BLD* "Now you're just showing off"

Oh and one more thing, there's this young kid who idolizes me. And he was timing himself mixing it up. He ended up getting 10s and he's like "THAT'S MY BEST TIME!!"
 
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I love this thread. I'll post some more recent occurrences.

There was an adult somewhere in public where I was, and my dad asked him if he was ever able to solve it, after telling him how I could (I had my cube with me). He said something like, "Yeah, it's just a lot of concentration." FACEPALM

Then, I had my 3x3 and Skewb in public, and I was solving my Skewb. Someone said, "I used to be able to figure out the regular one, but I don't think I could get that one."

I'll post more once they happen. :)
 
Spaxxy said:
I brought my 7x7 to summer camp, and this non cuber comes up to me and asks me if I have a 10x10. I said that they don't exist yet, but he kept on insisting that his friend had one. I tried hard not to laugh. Another kid asked if my 7x7 was a 20x20. I asked him if he needed glasses.
Click to expand...

Well we can buy a 10x10 now!
 
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
 
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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. :P

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. :P

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
 
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