Older cubers discussions

[pglewis]

I'm sidetracked fiddling with code for my letter pair list. I have simple interface to search for my images by letter pair which already beats scrolling through the old spreadsheet but sometimes I'd really like a mouse interface to enter the pair with a couple clicks because I'm actively practicing and the keyboard is too far to reach. I have an interface for it now, just need to wire it up:

 

[Old Tom]

Practice will do the trick. I "recently" (several months ago by now) changed my setups for K/V/G/J thinking the transition would be a snap. It has actually taken me a little while to get confident with them though, I had the old setups in muscle memory to a degree. I understood and could visualize the new ones perfectly but in the end: they were new.

Setups for OP was a big "aha!" moment for me in general and it has done wonders from my spatial IQ. You'll get there though, just the boring old advice for now unless there's something specific giving you trouble: practice it.

I will try the practice route, if only because it is the lazier approach, and because I am in no real hurry. Plus, more satisfying to do it mostly on my own, same as doing F2L just by intuition.

 

[openseas]

@David Zemdegs / Your son is a great person, we're so lucky to have such a role model!

First time met him in person, of course, watched his interview many times and heard many stories before, so knew he is not just a great cuber but actually meeting him, and seeing him how considerate he is. I think you achieved the greatest goal of your life!

 

[David Zemdegs]

I was watching the live stream this morning. I guess we all thought Max was going to win. Feliks really is amazing, not just his skills, but as you say he is incredibly humble and always has time for everyone.

 

[openseas]

I was watching the live stream this morning. I guess we all thought Max was going to win. Feliks really is amazing, not just his skills, but as you say he is incredibly humble and always has time for everyone.

Yes, I was rooting for him and very happy for his win!

btw, I've got two success in BLD yesterday (1:50 DNF, 2:20, 2:15), very close to getting a mean. Failed at MBLD both attempts (5 or 6 flipped edges, 1~2 twisted corners) - but seeing corner comm improvement.
As all of you know, didn't practice 333 at all but I've got Feliks' sign on my back of the sweat shirts right before my attempt - got decent look ahead. Just forgot anti-sune, A perm, etc. Speaking of A perm, I was trying to do Gianfranco's new A perm but forgot whether it was Aa or Ab.... hesitated like 10s and did normal Ab perm on Aa situation. And my son defended his 3BLD title as US National champion of 3BLD

 

[adimare]

Just got my first 4BLD success on camera!

It's a bit of a cheat, because that was my 3rd attempt at the same scramble (memo was wrong on first try, messed up the centers on the second one), but hey, I still solved a 4x4 without seeing it

I have lots of trouble coming up with comms for the centers. Looked through a few of Brest's reconstructions to get ideas but there's only 12 4x4 BLD reconstructions in his website and not all of them use the buffer I do so I end up doing pretty weird stuff when I run into a case I never practiced during sighted solves (for UBL->DBL->RDF I did [d' x: [2D2, 2R U' 2R']], and that can't be right). Does anyone know of any good comm lists for 4x4 centers?

 

[openseas]

(for UBL->DBL->RDF I did [d' x: [2D2, 2R U' 2R']], and that can't be right).

[U L’: [L’ U2 L, d’]]

 

[SpartanSailor]

Here is an interesting question about what the regs allow in BLD. I do know that you are not allowed to write anything down during memo. But I also do know that some of you use audio memo methods. Are you allowed to speak out loud during a solve? Regardless of the answer to that, my question is: can I use sign language as part of the memo and recall? In particular, I suspect that I could do a "brute force" memo of the eight corner stickers by signing the letters on my hand (note to you UK guys: American signed letters are on one hand). I don't have to actually see them during the solve. The hand shape in my mind would be quite vivid, fed in part by my hand making the letters.

Allowed? @SpartanSailor, what do you think? Want to try it yourself?

I actually do and have used some signs to help trigger my memo memory. If something particularly difficult to recall... I’ll add a sign to help my recall. My first success in a comp I used a few hands shapes specifically to help me engage more memory and help strengthen my memo.

 

[Old Tom]

I actually do and have used some signs to help trigger my memo memory. If something particularly difficult to recall... I’ll add a sign to help my recall. My first success in a comp I used a few hands shapes specifically to help me engage more memory and help strengthen my memo.

Good to know. I will likely definitely use signs, especially the alphabet, as a tool for memo. Muscle-memory of the hand shape should be very helpful for short-term memory. Corners?

Making very slow progress, but still, it is progress. A couple of successful sighted OP solves. But needed to correct some mistakes along the way, will not be able to do that blindfolded. Need to get mistake-free. But learning all the letter positions, etc. as I go.

@pglewis, you are right. Setups really develop spatial-IQ. Reversing my setups is still a really weak spot.

 

[Mike Hughey]

Wow, @Old Tom , that is good progress! You'll be there before you know it!

 

[adimare]

[U L’: [L’ U2 L, d’]]

Thanks!

@Old Tom I use my feet to remember which corners I need to twist. Right foot is clockwise, left foot is counter clockwise, I imagine a square on the ground and place the pertinent foot on the corner that corresponds to the corner I need to twist, if the corner's on the top face I raise my heel, if it's in the bottom face I don't. It's pretty useful.

 

[SpartanSailor]

Yes, I was rooting for him and very happy for his win!

btw, I've got two success in BLD yesterday (1:50 DNF, 2:20, 2:15), very close to getting a mean. Failed at MBLD both attempts (5 or 6 flipped edges, 1~2 twisted corners) - but seeing corner comm improvement.
As all of you know, didn't practice 333 at all but I've got Feliks' sign on my back of the sweat shirts right before my attempt - got decent look ahead. Just forgot anti-sune, A perm, etc. Speaking of A perm, I was trying to do Gianfranco's new A perm but forgot whether it was Aa or Ab.... hesitated like 10s and did normal Ab perm on Aa situation. And my son defended his 3BLD title as US National champion of 3BLD

I saw the streaming with Jeff doing his 3BLD for finals. Pretty cool to see that happen “live”.

 

[SpartanSailor]

Good to know. I will likely definitely use signs, especially the alphabet, as a tool for memo. Muscle-memory of the hand shape should be very helpful for short-term memory. Corners?

Making very slow progress, but still, it is progress. A couple of successful sighted OP solves. But needed to correct some mistakes along the way, will not be able to do that blindfolded. Need to get mistake-free. But learning all the letter positions, etc. as I go.

@pglewis, you are right. Setups really develop spatial-IQ. Reversing my setups is still a really weak spot.

I still do LOTS of sighted solves... it helps me just practice the set-ups and UN-setups. Improves muscle memory and is just generally a little fun.

 

[SpartanSailor]

Thanks!

@Old Tom I use my feet to remember which corners I need to twist. Right foot is clockwise, left foot is counter clockwise, I imagine a square on the ground and place the pertinent foot on the corner that corresponds to the corner I need to twist, if the corner's on the top face I raise my heel, if it's in the bottom face I don't. It's pretty useful.

I can usually remember corner twists... it’s the flipped edges I forget... I like this “foot” method. I may add something like that to my memo tricks.

 

[openseas]

Oh, one interesting thing during my MBLD attempt.

On my 2nd attempt, I memo'd corner of the first cube which was odd number then swapped UL/UD (for edges) but it also ended up with odd numbers. No way, I spent next 5~6 min to re-trace both corner and edge but always the same result. So, I called the judge and asked him whether it was a miscramble - I thought it might have been a corner twist thing. Then, moved on to the next cube. But the judge came back and said it was the correct scramble. So, I put it as the 2nd to the last cube (last cube will be my normal 3BLD thing) and moved on. I think I wasted total 7 minutes on the first cube / trying to figure out what was wrong. When my memo was almost done, reached that cube with the problem, no way, nothing wrong. Even letter pair I memorized for the corner was matching at all - like a completely new scramble. What happened? I guess I picked the wrong color orientation. Anyway, even with that waste of the time, overall 11 cube memo and execution time was ok, I didn't have to rush, was able to finish 59 min except 5~6 cubes had edge twists.

Have you guys had similar experience before?

 

[pglewis]

I'm sidetracked fiddling with code for my letter pair list. I have simple interface to search for my images by letter pair which already beats scrolling through the old spreadsheet but sometimes I'd really like a mouse interface to enter the pair with a couple clicks because I'm actively practicing and the keyboard is too far to reach. I have an interface for it now, just need to wire it up

Life is good, I can now search via keyboard input or just a couple clicks with mouse only. The later will prove really useful when I'm doing untimed 3bld while looking up troublesome images as I go, with cube in hand (accuracy practice).

 

[h2f]

Does anyone know of any good comm lists for 4x4 centers?

http://bestsiteever.ru/
UBl is pretty common.

Have you guys had similar experience before?

Yeah. I did few 5bld attempts with wrong orientation. I've noticed it when I couldn fix parity.

 

[Old Tom]

Hey, this is fun! (Though my lady friend does not agree.)

Just solved all eight corners blind. (Actually watching TV while not paying attention to it, but not looking at cube.) All thanks to the HeN running a KiloMeter, then FLOaTing on Water to cool off. Those upper case letters signed on my hand. The KM came before the HN, but that did not seem to bother me, I remembered that. This took, I'm guessing, about 15-20 minutes, no rush or pressure. And zero problem with memory - it was the setups took effort.

Now, question: Corners are solved, but that's nine memo letters (a new cycle was needed). Do I need to run the parity alg now? But won't that give me an unwanted swap of two solved corners? But I am saving edges for later, gotta learn the three algs, and get them to stick.

 

[openseas]

Hey, this is fun! (Though my lady friend does not agree.)

Just solved all eight corners blind. (Actually watching TV while not paying attention to it, but not looking at cube.) All thanks to the HeN running a KiloMeter, then FLOaTing on Water to cool off. Those upper case letters signed on my hand. The KM came before the HN, but that did not seem to bother me, I remembered that. This took, I'm guessing, about 15-20 minutes, no rush or pressure. And zero problem with memory - it was the setups took effort.

Now, question: Corners are solved, but that's nine memo letters (a new cycle was needed). Do I need to run the parity alg now? But won't that give me an unwanted swap of two solved corners? But I am saving edges for later, gotta learn the three algs, and get them to stick.

Yes, whenever you have odd number of targets, you have to do parity.
FYI,
1) if you have odd number of corners, you should have odd number of edge targets. (Exception - some people do swap of two edges to make them even but don't worry about it for now)
2) Number of targets:
- Corner : 7 - solved or twisted pieces + number of cycle break
- Edge: 11 - solved or flipped pieces + number of cycle break

Since you had 9 corner targets, that means you had 2 cycle breaks. But you said only one cycle break - I guess you used OP for corner twist.
So, my guess, you had one corner twist, one cycle break = 7 - 1 (twist) + 1 (cycle break) = 7 targets. (taking out two from the twisted targets).

 

[pglewis]

Hey, this is fun! (Though my lady friend does not agree.)

Just solved all eight corners blind. (Actually watching TV while not paying attention to it, but not looking at cube.) All thanks to the HeN running a KiloMeter, then FLOaTing on Water to cool off. Those upper case letters signed on my hand. The KM came before the HN, but that did not seem to bother me, I remembered that. This took, I'm guessing, about 15-20 minutes, no rush or pressure. And zero problem with memory - it was the setups took effort.

Now, question: Corners are solved, but that's nine memo letters (a new cycle was needed). Do I need to run the parity alg now? But won't that give me an unwanted swap of two solved corners? But I am saving edges for later, gotta learn the three algs, and get them to stick.

You're more than halfway there, letter scheme and tracing are the same concepts for edges. Just a couple more images to retain than corners on average.