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Hi everyone...I used to do the Nourse method

teller

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Greetings, programs!

I've been cubing since 1980. Back in the 80's the only resource I had available was this:

nourse.jpg


It's pretty ridiculous in retrospect. For a "beginner" method he had some painfully long algorithms, but that was the state of the art at the time. I never got below 60sec with it, but it always got the job done.

Around the year 2000 I came across Lars Petrus' site, but his method was just too alien for me and the little Java animations were difficult to follow. But it did inspire me to try the 4x4 and 5x5, which I successfully completed by reducing them to 3x3. No world records, just tinkering.

Then a couple of months ago I came across badmephisto on YouTube and he inspired me to finally relearn the cube properly from the bottom up (using Fridrich) and it's been a real joy. It's actually kind of sick to think that I used to cube without any lube!

I can't say enough good things about badmephisto--he's not Martin Scorcese or anything, but his stuff is actually edited and he doesn't treat the viewer like an imbecile. The material moves along, and if you have trouble there is always the pause button.

I maybe average about 45sec, but I don't like the pressure of being timed. Currently I am tightening my F2L...all I can figure is that it takes a lot of practice and there's no point in rushing it. The speed seems to descend upon the cuber when he/she finally feels no hesitation and not before.

anyway, just thought I would introduce myself. I am in awe of some of the times posted here, you guys rock.
 

badmephisto

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hello there, i just stumbled by this. Thank you very much for compliments -- I will look more into this Martin Scorcese guy though!

I sleep better at night knowing there are more cubers out there as a result of my effort! Time well spent is what I call that :)
Cheers!
-meph
 

AvGalen

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Good to meet another cuber. You've been cubing since the 80's, and I think that alone is incredible. Good luck learning the rest of Fridrich (assuming you're going to continue using it) and welcome.
Thanks! Only ~40 OLL's to go!
rock.gif

Learning algs is useful and will improve your time in the long run, but knowing how/when to execute them is much more important. Don't learn to many algs to quick and make sure you can execute the ones you know without thinking so you can use your eyes and brain to look-ahead.

I only know half the OLL's you know but for now I am twice as fast as you.

(and the eighties were great! But so were the 90's, the 00's and I am assuming the 10's won't suck ;))
 

kratos94

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Cool since the 80s? nice btw im also from VA. good to see another virginia cuber out there!
 

teller

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Yes, the 80's were great. So much pent up invention from the 70's was finally unleashed when the economy recovered from a decade of stagflation--it was like an avalanche of new stuff everywhere (including the Commodore 64!). And pop music had a fun feel to it.

You would not believe what it was like when Rubik's cube first came out in the states. I think I was in the 5th grade...at school *everyone* had a rubik's cube of some kind or another. A lot of key-chain cubes too. I remember especially some really dinky ones that were about 1.3cm; they were really cute but they tended to fall apart after awhile.

A lot of the cubes at the time were off-brand el-cheapo with weird colored stickers. No one could solve them and no one even thought about lube or speed. People would ask me to fix their cube and I would frequently find that a single edge or corner was flipped, or two edges were permuted, and the other kids couldn't understand why I couldn't solve it without busting it apart. Good times...

After a year or two, it all vanished. Soon, everyone, and I mean *everyone* was wearing parachute pants and break-dancing...but that's another story.

rubik.gif
 

Gnjac3

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my dad has a book like that, it was really weird. you started by solving one layer minus one edge, then the other corners. well you get the point it was super inefficient.
 

teller

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Hmm, can you explain to us your method?


I don't consider it my method anymore...I'm in love with Fridrich. :)

But it went like this: Cross on top, top corners, middle edges--pretty standard for a beginner's method. Then things get strange:

Permute bottom corners: (R' D' R) (F D F') (R' D R) The D in the middle might be a D2 if you needed to swap diagonally.

Orient bottom corners using: R' D' R D' R' D2 R repeatedly (a premature Sune?)

Permute bottom edges using only: (L' R F L R') D2 (L' R F L R')

Orient bottom edges using: (L' R F L R') D' (L' R F' L R') D' (L' R F2 L R') y (L' R F L R') D2 (L' R F L R')

There were two other bottom edge orienting algs depending on the situation, but you get the idea. As sick as it looks, it was not hard to remember because you tracked a single piece as it travelled around. But still...I find it kind of sick.

Also, his notation was different. Instead of L' R he used L- R+ so the algs were even longer to read!
rofl.gif
 

patrickpoako1

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the 80's is a sort of discovery decade.new inventions,ideas,systems being made back then.it was really back then that the whole world learned about the cube.fridrich was still a cuber trying to complete her system.when i was a kid back then i was so amazed seeing people (usaully on noontime shows) solving the cube in 30-40s.then dont have fingertricks or really good cubes but they still manage to do it around those times.so its really unfair and an injustice when some people are trying to make comparisons between these people and people today.sure, 30-40s is somewhat like a noob time, but that is base on the standards today.during those days doing it even in a minute is a great accomplishment.so if not for these pioneers, the cubing world will not be in its current state today.
really nice to hear from someone who had the privilege to be one of those people who were there when it started.
hope to hear more from you here!

btw, welcome back or welcome anew.
 

TMOY

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Orient bottom edges using: (L' R F L R') D' (L' R F' L R') D' (L' R F2 L R') y (L' R F L R') D2 (L' R F L R')
wow... all that does is flip 2 adjascent edges. Now you can just use something like (M'U)*3 (M'U2) (M'U)*3 (M') with setup moves to flip any 2 edges :p
Note that the Nourse alg can be rewritten the following way (with LL on top):
M' U M U' M' U' M U' M' U2 M y' M' U M U2 M' U M
which looks less strange.
But to flip 2 edges, I still prefer L2 F E F' L2 F E' F' L2 E L2 E' :p
 

teller

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Orient bottom edges using: (L' R F L R') D' (L' R F' L R') D' (L' R F2 L R') y (L' R F L R') D2 (L' R F L R')
wow... all that does is flip 2 adjascent edges. Now you can just use something like (M'U)*3 (M'U2) (M'U)*3 (M') with setup moves to flip any 2 edges :p
Note that the Nourse alg can be rewritten the following way (with LL on top):
M' U M U' M' U' M U' M' U2 M y' M' U M U2 M' U M
which looks less strange.


Brilliant! What is that, cube algebra?
lol.gif
 
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