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Who writes the software for these companies?

So I decided to make my own lube holder. Helps me keep them organized and easily accessible. And I can expand it by just adding more modules if I need to.

GAN sometimes gets compared to Apple, with premium pricing surely being one of the reasons why. And just like Apple, GAN has a following amongst people who are loyal to the brand and can easily afford that loyalty. GAN caters to a very particular market demographic and does so with great energy...

Both "swappable" and "adjustable" are innovations in their own right. Both allow you to change magnet strength to better suit your cubing style. GAN made that possible first by making them swappable. Dayan then innovated on that by making them adjustable without the need for swapping. I daresay...

It's called branding. It's the same reason Porsche doesn't make a budget car; that's what their Volkswagon brand is for.

I love the idea of a magnetized mirror cube, but why a 5x5 instead of a 3x3? It's weird to me that an improvement like this would appear on a big cube before it would appear on a 3x3.

The Tornado v2 is probably the first 3x3 puzzle that I'm really glad has all the adjustability options that it does. I've had to adjust the spring tension and magnet strength to get it where I like it. It is a $25 puzzle, and had any of its three adjustability features been removed to make it $5...

Unfortunately, nobody puts out a magnetic Kilominx. :(

Yeah, I am finding that the Tornado v2 gets smoother and quieter after a good break-in period. I applied some Solar and Martian lube and it helped quite a bit, though I think it is the Martian helping the most. The Solar may not have really helped much at all, being so thin. My settings are...

This is the first 3x3 cube I've felt the need to adjust out of the box. For some reason, the default settings on all my other cubes have been perfect for me. I guess it is good that adjusting this cube is pretty easy, but I am still surprised at how much I am having to experiment with settings...

The default out-of-the-box settings were too tight for me. I reduced the spring tension to 2 and may even try 1. It came pre-lubed, but it doesn't seem to be enough. Turning the U layer by itself usually causes a wide-u turn instead as the top layer sticks to the middle layer due to piece...

Companies are just following marketplace trends. Maybe stickered puzzles will make a come-back and sell equally as well as stickerless. But if they don't, stickered puzzles will just become vintage collectables.

Forums make ongoing discussions much easier to follow, and they stick around for a long time giving them enduring value. Reddit and Facebook are much more immediate, like real-time conversations, and if you aren't part of them when they happen, then they might as well have not even happened...

Presumably GAN sells fewer cubes than the other brands. They seem content to occupy the premium puzzle space, almost exclusively.

I dislike the GAN 460M because it is too heavy, too noisy (even lubed), and has glossy plastic. A new 4x4 from them is long overdue, IMO.

I really wish GAN would stop futzing around with 3x3 and 2x2 models. I realize those are probably their big money-makers, but they desperately need 4x4 and 5x5 models in their line-up (and no, the 460M doesn't count IMO since it pretty much sucks). Oh, and a GAN Sq-1 would be great too...

When is the MGC Sq-1 slated to be released?

I think it can be argued that 99% of new 3x3x3 puzzles fall into the "nobody asked for" category, i.e., the "nobody really needs" category. For world-class solvers, there is probably no innovation that is going to significantly lower their solve times. For non-world-class solvers, today's...

While shogi shares essentially the same game design as chess, the lack of long range pieces, plethora of strong short range pieces, and pawns that capture forward (i.e., they can't protect each other as in chess), means that shogi openings will be a completely different discipline than chess...

I love chess, shogi, and go, although I am not very good at any of them. I like the drop mechanic of shogi; it compensates for the lack of long range pieces and really adds another dimension to play. I found that it doesn't take long to learn the kanji, especially if you use 1-kanji pieces. But...