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Random Blindfold Cubing Discussion

CyanSandwich

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I was practicing TuRBo corners, when this happened.
Picture:
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/e6be7f80f18e7f7cc360594c44fdaa5a

I didn't know how that happened at first, but then I realized it was because I held it red front blue top, instead of the other way around.
I had no idea it caused that kind of pattern. It's probably common sense to a lot of you, but I thought it looked cool.
 

Tao Yu

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So I'm at a 31.93 session mean for TuRBo corners exec (75/100) and 22.91 ao30 for OP exec.

Should I keep doing corners exec only until I'm as fast with TuRBo as I am with OP, or just start practicing 3BLD with it?

If you're thinking of using turbo as a stepping stone to 3 style, then I think you should consider making the switch directly. I think OP is pretty good already for making the transition. It's what I did.

If you want to stay with turbo though, doing solves is probably a good idea, for the reasons Feliks outlined in his recent video.
 

CHJ

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just a short para on audio memo, its mainly about full audio of which I use for all blind
people of whom I've spoken to who use aspects of audio just use audio in the fact they mutter out what the sound of the letters make up, but none of which have mentioned how they would sound out the joining of these letters. bare in mind I do my audio in quads normally.
and example is letters with almost matching sounds like C, K and Q and possibly C and S. for this example I will use J.
JC I would probably mutter something sounding like jace dependant on how bad the next pair is, JS I would mutter jess, JK - jack, JQ - jake.
the way I look upon this way of memoing is like a direct and quicker version of images but with no set sounds or links to it as it needs to be spontaneous for easy memos.
I have attempted to use images but the distinction from the actual image and letter pair are way too far apart and would require extra practice and memo locking to get the images in to actually memo what I would want it to thus I cannot use images for the life of me :/
why people say don't use this memo is that they don't explore how well it can be used for larger memos as the sounds are good and if practiced well enough you wont burnout and loose memo just by memoing faster than intentionally.
other than the fact people are getting from others that it is a silly idea and the fact that some people love images, why is it that im (possibly) the only full audio bigBLD'er who is somewhat fast?
just anything I could add to what I do now (do not say images) or possibly reasonings would be nice, Ollie has started to like the idea of the memo somewhat as I am almost sub10 5BLD official now and as its benefits do outweigh any negatives I have found (none that images does't have)

cheers! - callum
 

CyanSandwich

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If you're thinking of using turbo as a stepping stone to 3 style, then I think you should consider making the switch directly. I think OP is pretty good already for making the transition. It's what I did.

If you want to stay with turbo though, doing solves is probably a good idea, for the reasons Feliks outlined in his recent video.
Switching to 3 style is just too daunting for me right now. I'm doing turbo because at least it uses some 3 style.
I'll go with your advice and start doing solves though.
just a short para on audio memo, its mainly about full audio of which I use for all blind
people of whom I've spoken to who use aspects of audio just use audio in the fact they mutter out what the sound of the letters make up, but none of which have mentioned how they would sound out the joining of these letters. bare in mind I do my audio in quads normally.
and example is letters with almost matching sounds like C, K and Q and possibly C and S. for this example I will use J.
JC I would probably mutter something sounding like jace dependant on how bad the next pair is, JS I would mutter jess, JK - jack, JQ - jake.
the way I look upon this way of memoing is like a direct and quicker version of images but with no set sounds or links to it as it needs to be spontaneous for easy memos.
I have attempted to use images but the distinction from the actual image and letter pair are way too far apart and would require extra practice and memo locking to get the images in to actually memo what I would want it to thus I cannot use images for the life of me :/
why people say don't use this memo is that they don't explore how well it can be used for larger memos as the sounds are good and if practiced well enough you wont burnout and loose memo just by memoing faster than intentionally.
other than the fact people are getting from others that it is a silly idea and the fact that some people love images, why is it that im (possibly) the only full audio bigBLD'er who is somewhat fast?
just anything I could add to what I do now (do not say images) or possibly reasonings would be nice, Ollie has started to like the idea of the memo somewhat as I am almost sub10 5BLD official now and as its benefits do outweigh any negatives I have found (none that images does't have)

cheers! - callum
I think it's awesome that you can use audio for larger memos. I would love to use audio only, except I can't see how I could remember it for so long.
It works for whatever part of 3BLD you execute first because you just need to remember a few sounds for like 20 seconds. But I can't comprehend doing that for a 15 cube multi.
Do you ever forget a section of memo? With images there are ways to kinda retrieve it. But audio seems to get lost more easily.
 
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just a short para on audio memo, its mainly about full audio of which I use for all blind
people of whom I've spoken to who use aspects of audio just use audio in the fact they mutter out what the sound of the letters make up, but none of which have mentioned how they would sound out the joining of these letters. bare in mind I do my audio in quads normally.
and example is letters with almost matching sounds like C, K and Q and possibly C and S. for this example I will use J.
JC I would probably mutter something sounding like jace dependant on how bad the next pair is, JS I would mutter jess, JK - jack, JQ - jake.
the way I look upon this way of memoing is like a direct and quicker version of images but with no set sounds or links to it as it needs to be spontaneous for easy memos.
I have attempted to use images but the distinction from the actual image and letter pair are way too far apart and would require extra practice and memo locking to get the images in to actually memo what I would want it to thus I cannot use images for the life of me :/
why people say don't use this memo is that they don't explore how well it can be used for larger memos as the sounds are good and if practiced well enough you wont burnout and loose memo just by memoing faster than intentionally.
other than the fact people are getting from others that it is a silly idea and the fact that some people love images, why is it that im (possibly) the only full audio bigBLD'er who is somewhat fast?
just anything I could add to what I do now (do not say images) or possibly reasonings would be nice, Ollie has started to like the idea of the memo somewhat as I am almost sub10 5BLD official now and as its benefits do outweigh any negatives I have found (none that images does't have)

cheers! - callum

oh, this is exactly what i do too. letter pairs/quads to words/whatever the letters sound like
 

Ollie

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just a short para on audio memo, its mainly about full audio of which I use for all blind
people of whom I've spoken to who use aspects of audio just use audio in the fact they mutter out what the sound of the letters make up, but none of which have mentioned how they would sound out the joining of these letters. bare in mind I do my audio in quads normally.
and example is letters with almost matching sounds like C, K and Q and possibly C and S. for this example I will use J.
JC I would probably mutter something sounding like jace dependant on how bad the next pair is, JS I would mutter jess, JK - jack, JQ - jake.
the way I look upon this way of memoing is like a direct and quicker version of images but with no set sounds or links to it as it needs to be spontaneous for easy memos.
I have attempted to use images but the distinction from the actual image and letter pair are way too far apart and would require extra practice and memo locking to get the images in to actually memo what I would want it to thus I cannot use images for the life of me :/
why people say don't use this memo is that they don't explore how well it can be used for larger memos as the sounds are good and if practiced well enough you wont burnout and loose memo just by memoing faster than intentionally.
other than the fact people are getting from others that it is a silly idea and the fact that some people love images, why is it that im (possibly) the only full audio bigBLD'er who is somewhat fast?
just anything I could add to what I do now (do not say images) or possibly reasonings would be nice, Ollie has started to like the idea of the memo somewhat as I am almost sub10 5BLD official now and as its benefits do outweigh any negatives I have found (none that images does't have)

cheers! - callum

Tried an Ao5 of 4BLD with full audio to experiment:

1. 5:21.49 // very difficult at first, being so accustomed to images and making coherent sentences. I think memo was around 2:30, but the slow execution was due to pauses trying to reconstruct what my sounds were.
2. (6:09.44) // similar story, but slower memo and exec
3. 4:23.57 // becoming easier, starting find that I am sticking to one syllable words for pairs and quads when the situation presents itself (i.e. WEGH - Wig, BOWN, brown)
4. (3:59.28) // scramble was easy, but memo was around 2:00. Still pauses.
5. 4:11.00 // First smooth execution at around 1:30 I think.

As CHJ mentioned, the problem of burnout just isn't there, but I think it does take a lot of practice to: 1. be able to distinguish letters from their quads and not confuses similar sounding...sounds; 2. Encode the information quickly.

I wonder if you would benefit from having a one syllable word prepared for each letter pair similar to this?
 

Morgoth890

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Can you really memorize an entire big cube with audio only? centers and edges? this sounds like it would be huge!
How many syllables would that make in total approximatively?
I'm also wondering if you sometimes forget a memo section. I'm using audio for 3x3x3 edges and if i don't repeat it after a while when solving, it just disappears from my memory. Audio is great but for me it's so volatile that i don't see how it's possible to remember it for so long. Unless maybe by mixing it with loci or some story.
 

porkynator

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My 2 cents on audio memo.
I've always used it for 3BLD (grouping letters in 4 usually, but 2 or 3 or more than 4 sometimes). I find it nice, since 3BLD is actually a small amount of information to memorize. The worst part for me probably is that the italian alphabet only has 21 letters (and we do not pronounce h in any way), so I rarely make real words. Anyway, I think it's a very fast method for 3BLD.
Things change when we talk about BigBLD o MultiBLD. After a couple of years, I decided I had to switch to images for multi (and for bigBLD, when I later decided to start practicing it). It was really hard for me, because letter pairing is very hard in italian, so I created a fixed set of images (= HUGE amount of work), which is working well at the moment, although I am still pretty slow with it. Back to audio, I think it's really hard, especially for multi, to keep a bunch of meaningless sounds stuck in your long term memory. I've tried to use audio+loci, and it improved my multi results a little, but it wasn't great. Also, using audio for memorizing larger amounts of cubes is for me a greater effort (I feel really tired after that) than using images.
At the moment I use audio for 3BLD and for X-centers on 4/5BLD (memorized last and solved first) and I think it is a good balance between the two methods.
 

Fawn

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This sounds stupid, but the way I remember my pairs is based on a painting I made about a year ago. But hey, I've gotten a lot faster, plus I don't need to go back and review it more than the very beginning.

I know visuals for edges are not recommended, but that's not what this is. I still use letter pairs. I've been so damn determined about blindfolded. I'm not sure whether to go for 3BLD speedsolving, or MultiBLD. I definitely have huge respect for both.
 
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Nicck

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I recently got into 3BLD, and I've had success with 3OP/M2 and OP/M2 (I'm not fast, but I'm pretty comfortable).
I understand the theory of commutators and can execute any on the 3x3 while looking, but I've only dipped my feet into their use in 3BLD - using elements of lazy M2 during solves (using comms involving DF (buffer) and either FU, BD, UF, or DB), but that's it.
Earlier today, I gave 4BLD centers my first few attempts, deciding to dive right into comms, and found it much easier than BH corners or edges. I guess it must have something to do with the fact that face turns have no effect on centers not on that face.

Does anyone else find 4x4 center comms much easier than 3x3 edge or corner comms?
 

tseitsei

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I recently got into 3BLD, and I've had success with 3OP/M2 and OP/M2 (I'm not fast, but I'm pretty comfortable).
I understand the theory of commutators and can execute any on the 3x3 while looking, but I've only dipped my feet into their use in 3BLD - using elements of lazy M2 during solves (using comms involving DF (buffer) and either FU, BD, UF, or DB), but that's it.
Earlier today, I gave 4BLD centers my first few attempts, deciding to dive right into comms, and found it much easier than BH corners or edges. I guess it must have something to do with the fact that face turns have no effect on centers not on that face.

Does anyone else find 4x4 center comms much easier than 3x3 edge or corner comms?

Yeah, center comms are easier because
1. Center pieces only have 1 orientation
2. You can move them around more "freely" because of what you said. Outer layer turns only affect the centers on one face.
 

Oni

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Finding empty slot

Hey,

I just recently got into cubing. When I was little I usually messed around with the cube in the car on holidays and I came acros a cube into a discount store I was determined to learn how to solve it. Wasn't that hard so I bought a speedcube and wanted to do blind folding. However, I got stuck recently with a specific part of memorization: cycle breaks.
Cycle breaks:
I have a hard time finding an empty spot to solve into. I'm using a combination of the journey method and PAO. I use alpabetic encoding (top layer a-b-c-d, front: e-f-g-h ,etc) I visualize one or two persons doing something with an object. I use first names or last names also if I can create a combination. This encodes 3 or 4 pieces of information per room. I found this memorization working pretty good for edges.

However, when I encounter the UR piece (C or I ), I have trouble finding which piece is solved and which isn't for example (if sticker A is solved, sticker m is also (same piece)).

How do you guys approach this?
 

teller

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M2 edges/Y-Perm corners.

So about a year ago I was making a story out my edges and doing a visual memo of my corners. The whole thing tended to be somewhat excruciating. But I was talking to Chris Olsen and he said he did audio edges. This blew my mind. There are just too many edges to hold in short term memory with nonsense words. But after a year of practice I find that my memory has expanded, and I was able to do this quite easily. I now make a story out of my corners, which is quicker because it's usually pretty short, and then I store audio edges and execute edges first. What I love about this is that parity is much less work if you do edges first--I never forget to do parity because it's obvious and I don't have to compensate with any Y-perms. And I never was any good at visual.

So thanks Chris, you inspired me!
 

Tao Yu

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M2 edges/Y-Perm corners.

So about a year ago I was making a story out my edges and doing a visual memo of my corners. The whole thing tended to be somewhat excruciating. But I was talking to Chris Olsen and he said he did audio edges. This blew my mind. There are just too many edges to hold in short term memory with nonsense words. But after a year of practice I find that my memory has expanded, and I was able to do this quite easily. I now make a story out of my corners, which is quicker because it's usually pretty short, and then I store audio edges and execute edges first. What I love about this is that parity is much less work if you do edges first--I never forget to do parity because it's obvious and I don't have to compensate with any Y-perms. And I never was any good at visual.

So thanks Chris, you inspired me!

This is pretty much exactly what Noah uses, only he has a clever parity fix method and he uses 3-style.

I use the exact same method (same buffers, same parity fix and same memo).

So thanks Noah, I copied everything off of you!
 
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