Seasonal Retail Shopping, with Science and Mystery.

 It's funny to me that crazy people, especially people that might otherwise seem sane but have one or two beliefs way outside the norm are still often referred to as the "tinfoil helmet crowd". It's been decades since there's been actual tin foil on retail shelves. Aluminum supplanted it years ago. It imparts less metal flavor to the things you wrap up in it, and aluminum became more available than tin, bringing prices in line for consumers.

Often, this is how technology works. An old thing gets taken over by the new thing, and most of the features that everyone wanted were covered. The other side of that is if you wanted one of the features that were available before and aren't now, too bad. In this particular case of Halloween, it's the "party bulb".

 Most single color bulbs started as incandescent with colored glass bulbs, of varying quality. It's inherently inefficient to start with low quality broad spectrum incandescent light and then filter out big chunks of it. Red, orange, and yellow were easier to do than blue, green, or purple, as standard filaments produce more of those warmer colors.  LED single color bulbs were much better as they were better at very specific wavelengths and thereby didn't need colored glass lenses - they could be done with traditional clear or frosted lenses. But, LEDs are able to be even more complex now, and the bulbs are color changing. You can now get one bulb that can do the whole gamut from red to purple, so you just tell the bulb what color to emit either from your phone or from a little controller.  This makes red, pink, orange, amber, yellow, green, blue, and purple single color party bulbs - even in LED - obsolete. What gets left behind?  Black Light / UV bulbs.

That's not to say that you can't get them, but over half the places that might stock the 'party bulbs' before are just getting color changing bulbs now, and they might sacrifice what few UV sales they were making before just for simplicity in ordering.

Sometimes at Halloween, you may see incandescent 'black light bulbs', and there's always been fluorescent UV bulbs for the serious black light poster aficionados. LED technology has added a couple of other choices to the mix as well. Here's how it shakes out. (Wavelength given in nm - nanometers.)

Black Light Incandescent - doesn't have a lot of actual UV output, but some. Most of the output is in the 400-525nm range, mostly purple visible light. What UV output there is tails off to nothing below about 370nm. (This was new to me, I did not realize the incandescent bulbs were as ineffective as this.)

UV Fluorescent - peaks at 370nm, with a normal distribution between 330 and 410nm. This is the standard we expect. 

UV LED - comes in two flavors, one that peaks at 365nm (more expensive) and one that peaks around  385 - 395nm. Unsurprisingly, the less expensive LED version is more like the incandescent version and emits a lot of purple visible light.

After a little digging around my local retail stores, I found what turned out to be my only real choice, a 2' fluorescent black light. It wasn't super expensive (under $15) but it had an extra feature that I wasn't expecting.

EVERY. SINGLE. PACKAGE. HAD. BEEN. OPENED.

To me, this is always a bad sign.
If all the packages are open but nothing is missing, that makes me think that either one person was looking for something else or trying to figure out what they thought was included but isn't actually included.  

Coconut and Bliss - Red Curry Dumplings

One pan red curry dumplings in 20 mins 🥬🥟
I used pork dumplings but use whatever frozen dumplings you want. 
One of Coconut & Bliss' fave easy meals at the moment. 
And they credit @healthygirlkitchen for the inspiration.

Part 1, Red Curry
2 1/2 tbsp red curry paste 
1 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp minced garlic 
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil 
400mL coconut milk 

Part 2, The Main Event
2 bunches bok choy, chopped (maybe 2 baby bok choy or one regular) 
~15 frozen dumplings 

Part 3, The Toppings
2 tbsp coriander, finely chopped 
1 tbsp chili oil 
1 tbsp sesame seeds

Preheat oven to 400F/200C. 
In a large baking dish, place all red curry ingredients. 
Whisk until combined. Add bok choy in an even layer and then top with the dumplings. 
Bake for 15 mins or until cooked. Top with coriander, chilli oil and sesame seeds.

Fuiyoh! E.R.I.A.B. from T.G.W.A.E!

 Check out the whole thing here -

https://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/keto-egg-roll-in-a-bowl/

But here's the basics.

Ingredients

• (optional) 1 Shallot, chopped
  

• 1 lb ground beef,

• 1 teaspoon minced garlic

• 14 ounces coleslaw mix or shredded cabbage
  

• 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce

• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

• 2 teaspoons sriracha

• 1 whole egg

• 1 tablespoon sesame oil

• 2 tablespoons sliced green onions

Instructions

•  (Optional) Put a little bit of oil in the bottom of the wok and start cooking the shallot for a minute before you add the pork or beef.
  

• In a large skillet Where's your Wok?, brown the pork or beef until no longer pink. Add the garlic and sauté for 30 seconds. Add the cabbage/coleslaw, soy sauce, ginger, and sauté until desired tenderness. You can add a little water if you need more liquid to sauté the coleslaw down.

• Make a well in the center of the skillet and add the egg. Scramble until done over low heat.

• Stir in sriracha. Drizzle with sesame oil and sprinkle with green onions. Add additional soy sauce and sriracha if desired.

   

   

Mac & Cheese, no anecdotes

 

Macaroni:

• ▢ 16 oz macaroni (elbow pasta)

• ▢ 4 tbsp (30g) unsalted butter (or 4 tsp oil, but why?)
  

Topping:

• ▢ 1-1/3 cup Panko breadcrumbs

• ▢ 4 tbsp (30g) unsalted butter , melted

• ▢ 1/2 tsp salt

Sauce:

• ▢ 8 tbsp (120g) unsalted butter

• ▢ 2/3 cup flour , plain / all purpose

• ▢ 6 cups milk , warmed (low or full fat)

• ▢ 4 cups freshly shredded cheese, Gruyere best (followed by Cheddar and Colby)

• ▢ 2 cups freshly shredded mozzarella cheese , or more other cheese of choice

• ▢ 1-1/2 tsp salt

Seasonings (optional):

• ▢ 2 tsp garlic powder

• ▢ 1 tsp onion powder

• ▢ 1 tsp mustard powder

Instructions

Pasta:

• Cook pasta: Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Add macaroni and cook per packet directions MINUS 1 minute.

• Toss in butter: Drain, return pasta to pot, add butter and toss until melted. Set aside to cool while making the Sauce 

Topping:

• Mix together Topping. Set aside.

Sauce:

• Preheat oven to 350°F.

• Make roux: In a large saucepan or in an ovenproof skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute.

• Add milk: Add about 1 cup of the milk and mix to dissolve the paste into the milk. Then add remaining milk and mix until lump free (use whisk if required).

• Add Seasonings: Mix in salt and Seasonings if using.

• Thicken sauce: Cook, stirring/whisking regularly, for 5 – 8 minutes until thickened to a cream consistency. When the sauce coats the back of a wooden spoon, you should be able to draw a path with your finger.

• Add cheese: Remove from stove, add cheese and stir – cheese doesn't need to melt.

• Check salt: Adjust salt to taste (if you use recommended cheeses, you won't need more).

Assembling:

• Assemble: Pour Sauce into pot with Macaroni. Stir quickly, then pour back into a 9x13 baking dish. Sprinkle with breadcrumb topping and diced jalapenos.
  

• Bake for at least 25 minutes or until top is light golden. Don't bake too long otherwise you'll bake away the Sauce!

• Serve: Serve immediately!

I hate the G perm the most, I can prove it.

Note: This a rather cube-oriented post, and will be better if you have a cube with you, and will be a lot better if you're fully familiar with Singmaster notation.

Warning: These algorithms are only useful for academic purposes and will probably just slow you down in the long run. Learn the lesson, not the algorithms.

I still don't do CFOP that well, and if you're just learning it now, you should have fewer bad habits than me because you have the benefit of years of refinement of the method even before you ever saw any algorithms.

I was rather skeptical about the CFOP method when I first encountered it, because I didn't think that most people would be able to memorize algorithms for 80ish last layer cases (57 orientation cases, or OLLs and 21 permutation cases, or PLLs) in addition to some specialized F2L (first two layer) cases. But, I was using a method that needs less than 20 algorithms and had just barely caught up to the speed of its creator only years later. In the meantime, CFOP times kept going down. I later figured out that there were potentially a decent number of mirror image cases that kept the number of cases manageable.

I also realized that when I had used a layer by layer method, I had the decided disadvantage of having learned one (Nourse) that left the solved layer up instead of one that leaves the solved layer down (Taylor). While I saw the move efficiency of putting the middle layer edges in with the first layer corners, I still had been working with the bad habit of not turning the cube over until I finished the first two layers.

When I finally accepted that I should start learning some PLL's, the two major resources I was looking at was speedcubing.com, and Jessica Fridrich's page. I probably started with the U perm, because I figured out that R2US'U2SUR2  is just the same as the U2M'U2M edge 3-cycle with some setup moves. I was OK with left-handed and right-handed versions of that easily enough. I may have learned the T perm next, and was so glad that it was symmetrical and I didn't have to learn a second version of it. Strangely, the version of the T perm that I learned is the inverse of one of the algorithms on the speedcubing.com page (but hey - it's symmetrical so it's also functionally its own inverse), so I'm not sure how I got to that version of the algorithm. But, I digress - and it's going to look like I'm doing it some more but bear with me. If you want to play along, this would be a good time to grab a cube.

For the N perm, I took the easy-to-memorize route, and went with  

LU'RU2L'UR' LU'RU2L'UR' U 

because the first segment and the second segment are the same thing. This was the first of the PLLs that I learned that had a diagonal swap, do I had to use this a lot when I was still doing 4 look last layer.

So if you start with a solved cube, and do the first segment of that move, you get the fr and bl F2L pairs swapped, and you get two U-layer corner-edge pairs swapped, like the J perm. Doing the second segment resolves the two F2L pairs, and swaps the second set of U layer corner-edge pars, creating the N perm.

I also figured out that if you inserted a U' or a U move in the middle of the N perm above, cancelling part of the U layer swap from the first segment to the second, you got a J perm. I later learned a better algorithm for one of the J perms, but I still use the method above for the other.

So, in my weird bag of cube tricks, I knew that there was another way to fix the 2 F2L pairs that were undone by the first part of the N perm. Start with a solved cube again.

LU'RU2L'UR'  y  L'R'U2LR gets you something that looks like... Could it be? The G perm! So now, I just had to reverse engineer it. (Put down your cube momentarily.)

The G perm isn't really all the way symmetrical the way we would like, and it's not its own inverse. Therefore, you need four versions of the move. Left-handed, right-handed, left inverse, and right inverse.

The version of the G perm that the above example solves is with headlights on the front, and a bar on the back with the ub and the ubr pieces. The mirror image is still headlights on the front and the bar between ub and ubl. For a long while, this was as far as I was, as I had not bothered to write down the move and properly figure out the inverse.

Headlights on the back, bar on the right between ur and ufr, which is what you might have if you did the above bold move from a solved cube, (OK pick up the cube again...) is solved with

L'R'U2LR y' LU'RU2L'UR'.

And you should be back to a solved cube.

Now you could try the other two, the mirror images. Like before, one will undo the other.

R'UL'U2RU'L y' RLU2L'R', 

and LRU2L'R' y R'UL'U2RU'L.

So, while I can't recommend these algorithms to anyone other than just for academic interest or just basic insight into the algorithm building process, I hope that someone can use this to actually make some better algorithms.

Just a little more dissection of the 22.95 solve, this time LSE.

 I apparently could not wait to do more typing about the 22.95 Minh Thai solve.  Scroll down to the previous post if you're not caught up here.

LSE refers to Last Six Edges. Four of them are in one of the slice layers, and then you have one edge each on the two other layers. Technically, this term didn't exist until the Roux method was proposed, but that's exactly where you find yourself in Minh Thai's method once you have completed three edges each on two opposite sides.

If you look at the last part of the reconstruction from last time, you have this:

u R' E' R E2 R E R' // LSE 
R2 E E' r2 E M2 E' // centers

If you would like to skip ahead to this part of the solve, perform this on a solved cube: 

z’ D2 U2 F' D2 F' U2 F' L2 F' R2 F' R2 F' L' R' U' L' R F D' from standard solved white top/green front. 

So, looking at the moves that are labeled as "LSE", but from the standpoint of Minh's solution guide, I see that breaks down as follows:

u // Aligns upper and lower layers

R' E' R // Puts upper edge in lower target position From Stage III, part 2 (pg 48) "If both (edges) are somewhere in the horizontal middle layer, it will be easy to flip either one of them into the other one's target position."

E2 // puts lower edge in position to be matched with upper Setup move to do Case #2

R E R' // inserts both edges similar to stage III, part 2 case 2.

At this point, all we have is a Dot Case, and there is no edge orientation to do. So, this is a big skip at this point. Perhaps that's why there's the (E - E' ) in the centers because he's excited, or maybe he's just checking to make sure one of the edges in the back isn't flipped first before he fixes the centers. If he had edge orientation to complete, that would have been between 9 and 14 more moves, at least half of which would have been slice moves. Unlike modern cubes, slices can be quite an effort on 80's cubes. So, without that, you get to skip straight to edge permutation, and while it's the worst one, it's not that bad.

So again, we learned that this solve had relatively simple components, a little luck, and was not a  byproduct of a large available algorithm set.

Because Social Media isn't Verbose, and CLL isn't as common in 1982.

 People have complained to me on more than one occasion that I am verbose. As far as I know, this is a completely undesirable trait most of the time. However, I am always found wanting more information and specificity when I ask about things, so I have attempted to learn how to (mostly) politely interrogate people so that I get the sort of answers that I'm looking for.

When I'm the person giving the answers, it's terrible, but mostly because I have given more answer than the other party wanted, and even sometimes to questions that the other party only wanted a meaningless superficial answer to. I have been told on more than one occasion that I talk too much or overexplain, and even once have been told in response that "people aren't going to read my @#$%^$%$$% novel" when I typed out a thorough answer to something.

Every once in a while, I see something that's a tiny bit underexplained, and it bugs me, but I usually have enough sense to not cause problems. What follows is a byproduct of me now fixing something that was a little bit under-explained (or oversimplified, you pick) and I finally bothered to sort it out myself.

So the first Rubik's cube official record was Minh Thai's 22.95. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJTZhgrbgt8&t=325s

And, thanks to reddit users /u/qqwref and /u/BrestCubing, a lot of important solves have been reconstructed - including this one - and we'll get to that.  Most of the modern solves are done with a method that everyone is more familiar with, what used to be called Fridrich and is now referred to as CFOP. But, Minh's solve is done with his own method, and it's even well documented. ("The Winning Solution", ISBN 0-440-09795-9, 1982.) 

Minh's book was a step ahead of many things that were available at the time because he had individual orientation algorithms for the second set of corners, when nearly every other solution book had some sort of incremental method for orienting the second set of corners. It was one of the first published cube books to explicitly detail and demonstrate the idea that if you had more algorithms at your disposal you could solve faster.  Interestingly enough, there were also a handful of extra algorithms in the examples that started to make me consider the idea that Minh had actually been able to orient and permute second layer corners in a single algorithm.

So, that leads me to the reconstruction. Michael Gottlieb's (qqwref) reconstruction is as follows:

U L2 D' B2 U' R2 B2 F2 D' F2 L2 R2 F R2 D L2 R2 B' L' D' R F' 


x2 y // inspection 
D' R u D R' y' D' R D R' // FL corners + 1 edge 
y D r' E' L // FL center + 2nd edge 
z2 U y l D R' z' R' x z' r' R2 U2 z D R2 D2 // CLL 
R' l' z M D2 M' // FL 3rd edge 
z2 y R z' M z R' // LL 1st edge 
z' r' L' z D R' E R // LL 2nd edge 
U' u' R E' R' // LL 3rd edge 
u R' E' R E2 R E R' // LSE 
R2 E E' r2 E M2 E' // centers

 

This is typical of modern reconstructions. The scramble is shown first, starting from a solved cube with white on top and green on front, moves are shown in standard Singmaster notation, including cube rotations, and double slashes at the end of a line to give a place to put comments.  So, at the end of line four there, it says "CLL". The implication there is that Minh solved both permutation and orientation in a single algorithm. However, that's not the case. Also, it's largely overlooked because it's typically more move-efficient to orient first before permuting. So, here's my marked-up version of the reconstruction. I added notes in one color and comments in another so I could keep track. The Stage/Section references are from Minh's solution guide.

 

U L2 D' B2 U' R2 B2 F2 D' F2 L2 R2 F R2 D L2 R2 B' L' D' R F'

x2 y // inspection  yellow top, red front 

D' R u D R' (y' D') R D R' // FL corners + 1 edge ends with orange corners on top but still yellow top red front 

(y D) r' E' L // FL center + 2nd edge ends with orange on front, red corners need diagonal swap 

 z2 U y l D R' z' R' x z' r' // corners in correct cycle, orange on bottom 

This is equivalent to the permutation algorithm in Stage 2, Section 1, C3, (LFUF’U’L’) with cube rotations and wide moves.  This is permutation only, so I wouldn’t exactly count this as CLL. 

 R2 U2 z D R2 D2 // CLL corners oriented, orange on left  

This is equivalent to the orientation algorithm in Stage 2, Section 2, T7, (R2 F2 R F2 R2) with one cube rotation. 

R' l' z M D2 M' // FL 3rd edge 

z2 y R z' M z R' // LL 1st edge 

z' r' L' z D R' E R // LL 2nd edge 

U' u' R E' R' // LL 3rd edge keyhole piece is at ‘dr’ for the LL edges 

u R' E' R E2 R E R' // LSE 

R2 E E' r2 E M2 E' // centers

Taking another look at this reconstruction solidified two things for me - one, the confirmation that he wasn't doing full CLL, and second, that he rarely performs any sort of F or F' moves despite how often they appear in his solution guide. I had already gotten a sense of that from some other video of him, but it was nice to have the confirmation from a good reconstruction.

So, that's not to say that _nobody_ was doing CLL in the 80's, it just wasn't Minh Thai. Mark Waterman has a well-documented (on the web, at least) corners first solution that has a CLL step.

The next time we take a swing at this, I will have to look at the "LSE" step.

Yes, I still cube. Sometimes I type, too.

So I found out in the last month or so that I'm no longer in the top 100 in Florida on 3x3x3, the standard regular Rubik's cube. Also, I didn't get to sign up for a competition in June that I kind of wanted to go to because I was being distracted by life. But, competitions aren't really my everyday focus at this point. I think that I have more to say when I'm showing someone about cubing, and making it more accessible to them from an intellectual standpoint.

I managed to make it out to one of our local Mexican food places with the wife just the other night. We hadn't been out to dinner in a while, and I thought maybe I could do better than Taco Bell. They make guacamole right at the table. When he asked us if we wanted mild, medium, or spicy, we're joking about whether or not he means authentic medium or chardonnay-drinking-housewives-listening-to-Coldplay medium. We're seated outside, and it's warm enough out that we're enjoying the fact that we have both Mexican Coca-Cola and water to drink because we're sweating just sitting there. Some random guy showed up around the same time as our guacamole technician with a large Labrador and just wants to have it sit with someone while he goes in and gets alcoholic beverages. The people next to us who were just finishing seem to have enough room near them to accommodate the dog, and our guacamole tech commented about how the dog is being good. I turn my attention to the cube I have on the table for a moment, and since I was looking down I saw a person walking a dog on the other side of us, and predictably the Labrador was no longer just sitting there, but charted an intercept course to find the other dog. The Labrador reappeared, and then went to have a word with some people at the other tables about what it was that they were having for dinner. One of the servers had enough sense to bring the dog some water, and it sat back in its original spot, but now the people sitting there were really looking to go at this point - both because of the dog awkwardness and because they had been finished with their food for a bit already. Thankfully the gentleman whose dog it was reappeared, and talked with everyone again. He even asked how old our guacamole tech was, and said how proud he is of him for being a 16-year old with a job.

We went on to enjoy our guacamole and chips, ordered some tacos, and the couple watching the dog can now leave, and the servers went about the business of rearranging two tables so that a somewhat larger group could sit there. The group of six was an older man, and his wife, and a collection of  twenty-something children and perhaps a girlfriend. or My wife and I enjoyed our meal, talked about how customer service is supposed to work, and talked about how we are both readjusting to how our jobs have changed over the last couple of months. It isn't until the check was done and we're about to leave, that the one person sitting in the group of six that can see (the presumed father of the family) that I have a cube at the table mentioned it to the person that's closest to me but has his back to me. So, I brought the cube over, and the father mentions that the person closes to me, a bearded college-age person, could solve it.

At this point, my focus went to the college age person. I asked him how long it takes him to solve it, and what method he uses. Since he does something that's between a beginner's method and what we now refer to as CFOP, and takes around a minute and a half, I showed him the 80's corners first method that I do. I talked through most of it, and I probably wasn't that fast. He was intrigued, but he wasn't exactly impressed that I could tell. I was concerned that I had flubbed my demonstration, but was ready for followup questions. I did not get to do followup questions, because the young woman diagonally opposite him at the table immediately reached for the cube to scramble it again. Perhaps I had impressed her more, or she had seen it less. I try to nonchalantly stand around while she's scrambling it and not watch her scramble it, but I'm still trying to stand close enough to listen to make sure that nobody's hand-twisting corners or popping the cube apart. Thankfully there were no shenanigans. So now, I usually for a second demo try to do CFOP, and show how it's different because of looking for more than one piece at a time during the first two layers. This solve went noticeably faster, even despite me talking through it. The young woman got to watch the solve up close this time, and the bearded young man was more impressed this time. Then, while I'm still standing at the far corner, I do a silly cube trick just as comic relief. All it is you do R2 U2 R2 U2 R2 U2 to a solved cube, and you will see that you have two pairs of edges swapped. If you grip the cube properly, and only are touching the unsolved edges, you can perform that same move again without letting go of the cube and so it goes from unsolved to solved and it seems like your hands are exactly where they started (but they aren't). She even had me do the silly cube trick again so she could video it. (No, I don't know where it ended up yet.) So as I'm walking back around the table, I turn the cube a few times in my and ask the bearded young man if he had heard of Steven Brundage, which he had. I showed him the scrambled cube in my hand, explained a little bit about what it was that Steven Brundage does, and using the cover of the high back chair next to him, I then was able to fix the cube quickly and produce it for the group solved again. So, now, I didn't have to worry if he was impressed or not because I think he definitely was by then. We definitely had to go at that point, because I can't really take questions after doing the Brundage trick.

I also got to do a little bit of a demo for my corner gas station/vape shop/convenience store the next day, and I think I learned from the night before not to end with the tricks, but I also had enough time to show off a Roux solve. So that one went 80's - CFOP - Roux - What is an Inverse?. I told them that there would be a quiz next time, but I think that's an idle threat unless they start selling cubes there.

This is what I like to do, though. I really enjoy doing these small demos for people. Honestly, I hope that the fact that I've been doing it is why I'm not in the top 100 in Florida any more. I hope that enough new people have gotten into cubing as a byproduct of people like me making it more accessible that the pool of people competing has grown in size.

In other cubing news, I finally purchased a Rubik's Tactile Cube which means I can now finally say that I've solved a cube without looking at it. I was very happy with the choice of shapes on the opposite sides. I was also very happy that even though it's the modern Rubik's mechanism that's harder to pop, it was set up just loose enough that it was a delight to turn the first time out of the package.

A new reflection on The Nature of Difficulty.

Having recently played the new Devil May Cry game from Capcom, and watching my older child play the even newer Sekiro:Shadows Die Twice by From Software made me think about the nature of difficulty in games, its purpose, and the types of difficulty that we encounter. Devil May Cry may not be that hard to play - but it may be hard to play well, and Sekiro is difficult to play at all.

When I think about what I enjoy in a game, typically what I like is a game that is easy to get into but allows for many levels of skill and improvement. I think that is the essential formula of most of the widely popular original arcade games. Pac-Man and Centipede are great examples of this. The things that we are required to do are clear and obvious to us, and are simple to perform. If we as players are able to keep up with the game as it slowly increases in difficulty, then we are able to succeed in the game. It does not start so difficult as to discourage play (hey - they're trying to get you to put a quarter it, aren't they) and gets more difficult at a reasonable pace.

This can also be done in a game by having a wide range of available game mechanics or a more open path of progression, although this method is more popular for home console games than arcade games. The game can allow a player to proceed at their own pace, and still be able to proceed through the game using simple techniques, but also allow for higher scores and rewards by being able to adapt to more sophisticated techniques.  Katamari Damacy is a great example of this. One can get through the levels easily enough, but as one becomes more familiar with the level layout and figures out better and better ways to complete a level, the possible score that one can finish a level with increases a lot, and is indicative of one's mastery of the level. The newest Legend of Zelda game, Breath of the Wild is another good example - if you are really skillful, you can take on challenges sooner, but if you want to take your time and gain resources to do levels in an easier fashion, that's good too. The most common way for an adventure game to get more difficult is for the enemies to increase in health in comparison to the character, and to be able to dispense more damage to your character. Most of the time you can also offset part of this by gaining rewards that at increase player health, improve weapons, add armor, etc. The 'stylish action' games like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and Metal Gear Rising Revengance all do these sorts of things, and then also make sure that the enemies have more additional and more complicated attack mechanics as the game progresses. Bayonetta takes this even one step further by removing the tactical advantage of the dodge mechanic on the hardest game difficulty. (Normally, dodging at the last possible second would activate "Witch Time" mode where all of the enemies would be slowed down.)

Some games are simple and straightforward but their difficulty only comes from consistency of performance. This is a thing that carries over from some real sports - golf, bowling, and darts are all exactly like this. The objectives are clear and obvious, and not so difficult as to be impossible, but perhaps they're not going to go easy every time. In the video game realm, racing games are the most likely candidates for this formula. Some "Runner" games, which might as well be side-scrolling racing games, operate similarly.

However, this is often not enough for some gamers, or even some designers. Often, a game wanting to be more challenging takes a number of different routes in being more challenging. An obvious way to be more challenging is to just be rather difficult from the beginning, either internally or externally. In the old days of the arcade, Defender (and its sequel Stargate) were rather challenging on both fronts. Not only did they use one of the most difficult joystick-and-button interfaces ever constructed, but the game was inherently difficult, could go into a mode drastically more difficult if the player failed certain conditions, and using the Hyperspace button too often to attempt to escape a sticky situation could randomly cost the player a life. The early Resident Evil games used tank controls and a fixed camera perspective as an interface-based way to make the game difficult, and this became all too obvious once Resident Evil 4 started using an over the shoulder camera, and then the version on the Wii allowed players to use the Wiimote to target enemies on the screen directly. It went very quickly from being a slowly paced game full of jump scares to a more action-based game because making the controls easier drastically lowered the initial difficulty and made the game more accessible. The From Software games - Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro - have fantastic, responsive controls and are just purely difficult, offered as a challenge to only the best players and as an antidote to the usual array of bored teenagers complaining that they beat a game in a weekend. Other games in that challenge level include the Ninja Gaiden games, Super Star Wars SNES, Battletoads, or some of the shmup games by Cave .

Another way to be internally difficult is to present the player with challenges that they have no way to predict the first time, and then force incremental memorization of sections of the game as a result. This is probably my personal least favorite way of a game being difficult, and good examples of this are the original laserdisc arcade games Dragon's Lair and Space Ace.

Another interesting mechanic that can be used to create difficulty in a game is to create expectations about how tasks should be accomplished, and then use that expectation and intentionally subvert it. This can backfire if used too often, as the player will just resort to being more cautious even when it isn't warranted and slow down the narrative pace of the game. The Evil Within comes to mind as a good example of this, but probably most horror games do this to one degree or another as it is a common horror trope.


Part of the reason that I am writing about this is that I am still trying to finish The Evil Within, and contrasting it to my initial experience with the first Devil May Cry game.

The first Devil May Cry game was built from a failed attempt at making a fourth Resident Evil game. I got stuck on a fairly early level in Devil May Cry, after amazingly making it through earlier parts of the game that I thought were harder. The control scheme was not typical for American games*, (DMC used the Triangle button for jump which is more typical of Japanese games) and I could not pass the first close-quarters battle with the aptly named Death Scissors. I tried starting the game over, spending more time failing secret missions on purpose so I could continue to collect Red Orbs to level up Dante's moves, and still could not pass it. As a result, I would stop playing the game for months at a time, play other things, and hope I could come back to Devil May Cry and make sense of it. As it turned out, I just needed to refine my technique and find which specific attacks were effective and which were not. Once I passed that particular level, the rest of the game proceeded normally enough. *(Re-releases of the game included a control system that more closely matched the subsequent games, and also allowed for changed in the control scheme if desired.) This is markedly different from the current Devil May Cry game - DMCV, where the game isn't so difficult that you will miss out on the story, but the difficulty comes in getting good scores at regular difficulty and then playing the higher difficulty levels.

With The Evil Within, the game is much more generous with mid-level checkpoints that it automatically saves. The Evil Within was the first game that Shinji Mikami worked on with Tango Gameworks, and much more of a 'survival' horror game than the later action-based Resident Evil games. Thanks to the checkpoints, I play a tiny bit of the game at a time. Early in the game, you can see quite a number of stylistic similarities to Resident Evil 4, the last Resdient Evil game that Shinji Mikami worked on. I also think that some of the conventions that the game intentionally subverts are from Resident Evil 4 - as if it's a little bit of a 'gotcha' to people that are playing this because of his work on previous games. Unlike Devil May Cry 1, I haven't abandoned the game entirely for months at a time. I just work on slowly inching through the game.

I just hope that the game's story is worth my effort. It seems funny now to say that, since narrative was not as an important feature of early games.

Everything is Television.

So, it's Super Bowl Sunday. I know who's playing but I don't actually care who wins.

I was a Pats fan when they were bad, but that was 1975 and I was young and I lived in New England and you rooted for them anyway.

I'm in Walmart this morning and I see a young kid with his father, probably as young as I was when I was really aware of television. As they're walking towards me on the same aisle and the dad and I acknowledge each other, the kid points to a television and says "That's a television. We don't have a television!"

His father is pretty quick to remind him that yes, they did have a television. I look down at the kid and tell him "Dude, if you're America, your house is littered with televisions."

The kid is quizzical and I couldn't gauge the dad's reaction as they walked off. It was probably something like "That's a weird thing to say to a kid" or "Oh, wait, he's totally right".

American households have an average of 7 screens. If you figure the suburban scenario of:

• TV in the living room
• TV in the master bedroom
• Computers
• Mobile phones
• Kindle/Nook/iPad

It wouldn't take long to get to 7 screens.

So, most of those screens aren't connected to what old people traditionally think of as "television", but that's no longer relevant. With the rise of YouTube TV, PSVue, NetFlix, Hulu, AmazonTV, lots of traditional TV content has made it to regular TV screens. I even got ads for the first two from my game consoles trying to get me to watch the Super Bowl via a free trial of their service.

The Nintendo Switch now even has a YouTube app.  Facebook has original shows now.

That is only part of the story. We're at a point now where this is only a fraction of the video content that's out there. People on their own generate lots of their own video content. That's what YouTube was built on (an average of 300 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute), and that's what streaming services like Twitch are built for. Facebook and YouTube also allow for streaming. Twitter got in on this action by acquiring Periscope.

So, if you're not up for the Super Bowl but the couch is too comfortable today, just remember there's lots of other things out there to watch. (Including my channel, SuperMonkeyCube, and my dog's channel, Kal and Friends.)

Cubes and Lawyers Part 2: Countersuit!

This is just a followup to one of the items in a previous post about legal action by Rubik's Brand, Ltd.

In response to aggressive action by Rubik's, TheCubicle has put together a countersuit. Here's the explanation from Phil from TheCubicle, from his post on reddit.com/r/cubers :

Hi Everyone,

This is Phil from TheCubicle. I'm posting here to give everyone an update on the legal situation with Rubik's Brand Limited.

On Friday, February 2, Cubicle Enterprises LLC has filed a lawsuit against Rubik’s Brand Limited seeking cancellation of four of its trademarks on the basis of utilitarian functionality, genericness, and fraud, as well as treble damages for various antitrust violations related to trademark misuse and attempted and actual monopolization. The suit also requests a declaratory judgment that TheCubicle has not violated Rubik’s purported federal and state trademark rights.

This controversy first arose in October 2017, when Rubik’s sued TheCubicle for trademark infringement, threatening to shut down its business and strip away its assets, effectively destroying the livelihoods of our employees and their ability to serve the community. A line of dialogue with Rubik’s was quickly opened in hopes of resolving the dispute productively and amicably. However, the painstakingly frustrating negotiations that followed made it clear that Rubik’s legal claims were unsubstantiated and dealing with Rubik’s was impossible.

It has also become clear that Rubik’s wants complete control of speedcubing and is willing to resort to bullying, intimidation, abuse of intellectual property law, and monopolistic tactics, including illegal tying activities, in its attempt to get it. We will not allow this to happen.

Rubik’s fails to see that our community is built on the bonds of friendship, trust, and the spirit of fair play. We grow together as cubers and people, and this is what makes our community special.

Our world of sharing ideas, helping each other as friends, and competing at our best under fair rules with our favorite cube products from sources chosen by cubers is something that should never be tainted by Rubik’s voracious greed to control and dominate.

We will not allow Rubik’s to leverage its invalid intellectual property, monopolistic demands, and other threats against its competitors to oppress us or limit the opportunities for expanding cubing, both for competitors and fans. We will not allow its attempt at perpetuating a monopoly to be successful. And, we will not allow the shadow of Rubik’s to loom over us anymore.

For these reasons, we took action in Federal court to stop Rubik’s from threatening our company and the survival of its business operations, our community, and the market.

We cannot thank our community enough for its support and understanding. The past few months have been extremely challenging, and we are beyond appreciative of the overwhelming support and expressions of solidarity from everyone around us.

We tried to settle this on reasonable terms with Rubik’s, but it became apparent that Rubik’s was not bargaining in good faith and that it was necessary to protect our community through this litigation. We are confident in the strength of our legal claims against Rubik’s, and will continue to do our best in this difficult situation. We look forward to representing the cubing community’s interests.

A copy of our complaint: https://thecubicle.us/Info/ECF1_Complaint.pdf Accompanying exhibits: https://thecubicle.us/Info/ECF1_Complaint_Exhibits.zip YouTube video: https://youtu.be/A11ggIu6n8E

Also just recently, the Rubik's Brand/Red Bull tournament has announced their first event. This tournament would be the first of its kind after Rubik's failed attempt to reach some sort of agreement with the WCA. Several other dates in other locations have been planned. Similarly to TheCubicle, the WCA was not amenable to what they perceived as strongarm tacticts to take over competitive cubing and chose not to work with Rubik's and Red Bull on these events.

I disassemble things so you don't have to.

At a recent gig, I was solving my big 12cm Paladone cube. It's fun at night because it lights up, and it's less obvious on stage than leaving a flashlight up there. But, the cube is made mostly of acrylic, so perhaps I should have been more gentle trying to get through solves. Thankfully it was after the musical portion of the evening and while my drummer was packing up, because that meant only a couple of people saw the giant cube self-destruct. One of the spindle posts sheared off, and the entire layer of the cube that was being held in by that center piece tumbled to the cobblestone. Thankfully no small internal pieces went missing (except perhaps a nylon washer).

Today, I'm working on reassembly, so I thought it might be fun to show off the inside because I don't plan to have it apart often.

Here's the post that I had to cement back on. You can see a little of the the circuit board inside where the LED's that light up the interior of the cube are.

Here's the non-WCA compliant logo on one of the corners.

And here are the sub-parts of the center piece.

When the post finishes drying in a couple of hours, I can slide the lower part of the center on, re-seat the spring, lube and install the swivel ring, screw the retaining screw back in, and snap the center cap back on. There's a chance it's going to shear apart again, but I may also have a different glue formulation available if for some reason this one doesn't work out. I may also have to add a plastic washer

On another personal cubing note, I improved my best time on 6x6x6 by an entire minute, but going from 11:36.24 to 10:33.54 doesn't seem like much when the record time for a 6x6x6 is 1:20.03 (Feliks Zemdegs, AUS) and USA's own Max Park is closing in on him, having beaten Kevin Hays' best single by almost 5 seconds to take the #2 spot.

Here's Max's recent WR average that includes a 1:21.31 single.



POSTSCRIPT: Sometime while this was going up, Max Park broke the 6x6x6 single record.

Choice is not a purely objective experience.

So, I start this post off with a pretentious title, and we're already wondering "What the heck is he talking about?" Well, let me explain

Tonight, my mission was some rudimentary domestic supplies. Some protein, some vegetables, and some new bed coverings of some sort. Not the sexy kind of bed coverings that you get to see and roll around in, but the rather plain looking ones that you can't see because they're underneath the sexy ones that people with allergies want to enclose their mattress in. Knowing that where I was going put me on a path from the middle of the store to the grocery side of the store at some point meant that I was going to take a pretty close pass past electronics. So, why wouldn't I have a look?

The store clearly seemed full of people shopping for Christmas stuff, even more so than on Black Friday. I was overjoyed to see that a tall, fit, youngish man (but clearly old enough to be a parent) was buying a Nintendo Switch. I presumed it was for his kids. When they were fetching it out of the case, I thought I heard him say "The Mario one". Presumably, that's a system with Super Mario Odyssey included. Then, he went over to the case opposite to pick out another game and he asked for Arms - another Nintendo exclusive title. It's an arcade-style fighting game with motion controls where the characters have giant springs for arms. I was starting to think that he was getting the system for himself, and then he changed his mind and got Just Dance 2018.

At that moment, I was super disappointed. I mean, why bother to get a Switch if you're going to buy a title that's on six* other game systems? I did show enough restraint to not comment.

But, after getting some perspective, I realized that maybe having the dance game is the only way that the whole family is going to welcome a new game system in the house. Maybe they're already really into that game. Maybe the reason that dude was in really good shape was that he dances a lot.

Then, I realized that had he picked Arms, there were probably a greater number of potential bystanders right there in that store that would have been disappointed that he didn't pick a more mainstream, proven game title like Just Dance 2018.

It was a pleasant reminder that even the most inconsequential choices that people make could be a vehicle for criticism by others, regardless of which choice is made, and that lots of forces unseen to others go into every choice.

*PS4, PS3, XBox One, XBox 360, WiiU, and Wii. Yes, original Wii. I had to check two places because I had been under the impression that the newer WiiU was already mostly dead, so it wouldn't have occurred to me that anyone was still making Wii games.

A leap forward... twice!

This last Friday, the 27th, was the release date for the new Nintendo game Super Mario:Odyssey. I was already excited about because it looked like that it had taken some of the best parts of several of the previous 3D Mario games, and then added an ability to hijack the other enemies with a smart control scheme to it to push it forward into the Switch.

Cappy is a a resident of the Cap Kingdom, a strange hat-themed place. At the beginning of the game, Mario is knocked off of Bowser's ship into the Cap Kingdom, and loses his hat at the same time. Luckily, Cappy happened to be nearby and found what was left of Mario's hat and returned it to him, with Cappy inhabiting the hat to give it some abilities that Mario wouldn't normally have. Since Cappy's Cap Kingdom was being attacked by Bowser, it seemed that Cappy and Mario would do well to team up to defeat the common enemy.




 Here's the commercial that they've been playing. Surprisingly, this song is part of an amazing set piece in the middle of the game that I will try not to spoil - but here's a hint: The woman singing is a representation of a character from the Mario universe, and no she's not Princess Peach. My older son, knowing what was coming up, had the good sense to make me quit what I was doing so I could see it for myself. If you're prone to fits of nostalgia about Mario, this will trigger most of them.

If you really liked 64, Sunshine, Galaxy, or 3D world, you're going to love this game. Also, dig around and see if you have some amiibo around, you might need them.

(As of this writing, our play tester has over 200 moons out of 999 and we've seen the regular ending.)


The second leap forward this weekend happened at ChicaGhosts 2017 on Saturday.

After Patrick Ponce took the 3x3x3 single record from Feliks Zemdegs back in September, I figured that it would be a while before we saw a new record, since unlike the improvement from Matts Valk 4.74 since to Feliks' 4.73, Patrick's time was a 4.69. However, on Saturday, we got this.





SeungBeom Cho took the new single record with a 4.59 - even more of an improvement than the last new record, and even sooner. This was somewhat unexpected as his previous fastest solve in competition was a 6.54.

 Reconstruction (posted both on this video and on r/cubers by Stewy_ )
 Scramble: U2 L' D2 L D2 R F2 D2 R' D2 U2 B U L U L' R D L2 F2 U2 R'

 x2 // inspection
D' R' L2' U' F U' F' (D' U') U' R' // xxcross
y' R' U' R // 3rd pair
y' R U' R' U' R U R' // 4th pair
U' R' U' F' U F R // OLL(CP)
U' // AUF

So from looking at this solve, the major things that happened here is that for taking an extra couple of moves in planning out the first four pieces, he picked up two additional corner-edge pairs. Also, the OLL algorithm happened to also correctly permute the pieces. Good planning at the beginning, a lucky skip at the end.

Cubes and Lawyers don't mix.

So there have been a few odd developments in the legal side of cubing of late. The original legal history of the Rubik's cube was a bit mixed-up and checkered, but most of that was over by 1980.

Back in 2012, Rubik's tried to block DaYan (one of the first companies making improved 3x3x3 cubes) from exporting cubes and there were a few instances of cubes being destroyed at customs, and DaYan experimented with using an alternate color scheme or unassembled kits as workarounds, but for whatever reason this was short-lived and DaYan was back selling regular cubes by late 2013.

There was also some issues in the EU with Simba Toys of Germany, where Simba felt that the function of the puzzle should only be a patent and not a trademark, where Simba went through a 10-year legal battle with Seven Towns, the company in charge of administrating the Rubik's IP. I have seen differing accounts of the winner of the legal battle, but only because Rubik's likes to talk about the EUIPO  decision, (European Union Intellectual Property Office) and that was later overturned by the ECJ (European Court of Justice).

The two new problems are a little closer to home for Americans.

The first of two recent problems is that Rubik's brand is suing Duncan Toys and Toys 'R' Us. This is about trademark, and not the patent.

I had always assumed that the reason Target and Walmart never sold other brands of cubes is that they had a distribution deal with Hasbro and/or Seven Towns to sell real Rubik's cubes and didn't (and weren't going to) have a deal with the other manufacturers. In the last few years, the only other cube-like puzzles that I've seen in the big box stores have been the toys made by Meffert's, like the  Skewb Extreme, The Molecube, and the Gear Ball and Gear Cube puzzles.

However, I was not entirely surprised at Duncan's recent entrance into retail cubing. (You should know Duncan from their excellent Yo-Yo products.) The Quick Cube wasn't released until just a few years ago, and well after the expiration of Rubik's patent. (Applied for in 1975, granted in 1977, it should have expired in 2002.) Unlike DaYan or Simba Toys, Duncan already has a great grasp on the toy store market in the US.

I really like the Duncan Quick Cube, because at $5 it's an easily obtainable starter cube, and it's a much faster cube right out of the box than a Rubik's brand cube is. With a little bit of silicone lubricant, it's an even better cube, and I actually bought a handful of Duncan cubes for other people in an effort to start them off cubing with something decent. With a Rubik's brand cube, especially now with the tiled redesigned model out, it's not exactly a comfortable cube for beginners. More emphasis was placed on making a Rubik's brand cube not able to be tampered with or disassembled and a lot less emphasis was placed on smooth turning, so I couldn't recommend it. If you really want a Rubik's brand cube that works well, it takes months of breaking in for it to have a chance to be comfortable, and some of them get really loose and catchy by then. On the other hand, if you're the sort of person that thinks you're going to turn the cube so hard that it's going to pop apart and you feel compelled to eat one of the pieces but might accidentally choke on it, then by all means stick to the Rubik's brand cube.

The other lawsuit is that Rubik's brand is suing TheCubicle, an online speedcubing retailer. It's disappointing, while not entirely surprising. Since TheCubicle does some assembly and customization and is inside the borders of the US, it makes them appear to some as an infringing manufacturer and not just an import company.

I would have to imagine that nobody that buys from TheCubicle is trying to get a Rubik's brand cube, and anybody that even knows about TheCubicle is well aware of the difference between a Rubik's brand cube and other brands of cubes. Sadly, all suing TheCubicle seems to be doing is driving a wedge between speedcubing hobbyists and the Rubik's brand.  I find this rather sad because speedcubers are what have helped keep the Rubik's cube one of the most popular toys of all time for this long. We have long been emissaries for cubing, when all Rubik's has done in the same time period was make the same product with very little improvement and no effort to make a premium product for speedcubers. They're still using the same design for their 4x4x4 cubes that they were using in 1982 that still has the same design flaw it's always had while other companies have made vast improvements in the mechanism. Their current 2x2x2 is better than their 80's 2x2x2 only because that was such an exceedingly low bar to clear, and many could argue that the new 3x3x3 is actually worse for speedcubers as it allows no corner cutting whatsoever and is too variable in quality right out of the package.

I can understand Rubik's desire to protect their trademark, but as their patent has expired it should have been logical for them to expect to face some competition in the marketplace. While I don't know how much these lawsuits have cost them, I have to think that they could have fostered more good will and maintained more sales by designing better cubes - both for beginners and for the speedcubing crowd. It would have again given them some measure of patent protection, and cubers wouldn't be in the awkward position of not being able to recommend the product of the original designer.

Since one of you was going to ask eventually...

What's the deal with this guy? (Link to the left is WorldStarHipHop, where I found the best quality version so far, embed below is from YouTube so that Blogger won't yell about looking at http content over https.)

First look might make you think that you're watching an impressive one-handed solve, but further inspection would indicate that it's either a repeating pattern that just goes back to solved, or the video picks him up well into a solve.

In every still frame I can make sense out of, all the corners seem to be done, or at worst two opposite layers of solved corners are 90 degrees apart from each other. In addition, when you get a glimpse of a face with four solved corners, the edges across the center from each other are both the same color. This would indicate a cube where only slice moves had been done, typically, but there are other scenarios where doing (UD) or (LR) or (FB) together repeatedly might cause the same thing.

If a reconstruction gets done, either by one of the pros on /r/Cubing or eventually by me, I will post an update.

This is where the "rambling" part of my blog title comes from.

So, at some point I thought I was going to go to Cubing Knights 2017, but then I waited several weeks before I signed up because 1) I wanted to make sure no schedule conflicts arose and 2) I thought that I needed better cubes.  No schedule conflict ever arose, but the competition was full before I could sign up. Honestly, that's kind of fantastic - It's nice to know that a cube competition is still a viable thing and people still want to do that.  Meanwhile I got better cubes, I finally shoot some video of them and I talk to the camera for over three minutes and have everything framed slightly off-center.  This is the "rambling" part that I always worry about.

I thought about also including a solve or two, but the running time was already too long. Maybe I will have to try those separately.

Some Splatoon 2 reminders from RubbaChikin.

For those of you that might be playing Splatoon 2, I thought I would post a list of reminders from before, and a few new tips about the new parts of the game.

Here were the regular tips, changes are in red, photos are new.

1. Regular mode (Turf War) is just making sure you have inked more territory than the other team. Use your map to find out if there are places that really need ink. Now the map is accessed by the "X" button.

2. In the Ranked mode Splat Zone mode on maps that have two splat zones, have two people cover each one. This is less important now, as the new maps seem to either have one zone or put the two closer together.

3. In the Ranked mode Tower Control, it doesn’t do much good to just run around and paint stuff without a plan.Get the tower, hold the tower, make a path for the tower. Use the dotted line to figure out where the tower is headed. You can’t just run around the tower shooting at it – at some point someone on your team has to get on the tower. Blasters have become extremely effective at clearing the tower of enemies. Using the longer paths to go around the tower won't help. The tower now stops at checkpoints.

4. If you’re using any of the Nozzlenose weapons in Tower Control, you may find it rather difficult unless you’re extremely accurate. If you’re used to that weapon in regular mode, you may find it easier to use one of the Sloshers for Tower Control. The Nozzlenose now has better secondary weapons to make up for its minor problems. 

5. In Rainmaker mode – have the Rainmaker before you push forward through the map, and make sure the person with the Rainmaker is safe. If you have the Rainmaker and no teammates nearby, use the “C’mon” call by pressing up on the D-Pad to call them. The Rainmaker is much less destructive than before, making it that much more important to protect the team member with the Rainmaker.

6. In Rainmaker mode – No lounging around! You can only use the weapon for a limited time.

7. It's a team game, play it like one. Nobody cares how many frags you get if your team loses.

8. Don't let go of the objective during overtime! If you do, it's GAME OVER!

9. In all of the modes, don't place squid beacons near your base. You can already jump to it by opening the map with the X button, holding down on the D-Pad, and then pressing the "A" button.

10. Put down an ink mine or suction bomb on the tower if you're rushing it or defending it. Ink mines are no longer as powerful, but they do allow you to see where the enemy is. 

11. Sloshers are very good for covering the walls and ground. Use this to get your players with longer range weapons to higher ground.

12. Any weapon that you have to charge is SUPER slow when charging midair so don't try to start charging midair if there is an enemy below you. Fire off a shot or two so you can get to the ground safely and then worry about charging or attacking.

13. In all of the modes, if your weapon has seekers curling bombs and there are no enemies around it, swim right behind it. It is good stealth without losing much speed from the ninja squid ability. Seekers were removed in Splatoon 2. The new curling bombs do not home in any way but they do bounce off of walls. The ninja squid ability is slower than it used to be except when climbing walls.

14. Make sure before you super jump that you are not going to get killed right as you land. Hey - ever heard of "Look before you leap"? Also, the new ability allows you to roll once you land.

15. If you're playing one of the objective-based Ranked Mode matches, do not go off and paint stuff! Your super meter will fill plenty if you keep in the battle and watch for hazards. 

Records are made to be broken, Part 2.

The World Rubik's Cube Championship (July 13-16) only had a couple of records broken, but sported a major upset. Complete results are here.

For the records, the new record average for 3x3x3 One Handed was taken by Max Park at 10.31 seconds. His times were (12.71), (9.76), 9.77, 10.15, 11.01. The times in parentheses are the high and low times that get removed, the remaining three times are averaged. This beats his own record by 0.28 seconds, and keeps him faster than Feliks Zemdegs' best average by 0.39 seconds. Feliks still has the WR single at 6.88 seconds.

The other record broken was the average for Pyraminx, with Drew Brads beating his own record by .1 seconds, taking his already amazing 2.14 average down to 2.04 seconds. His times were (1.52), 1.70, 2.26, (3.21), and 2.17.

Drew already knew where he'd have to be to beat his own record, so naturally he was rather excited on that last solve.

As far as the major upset goes, this was the first time that Felixs did not make the podium in 3x3x3. It's not like he did horrible, 4th place is still not too shabby. It's still 5 times as fast as I regularly go. What I suspect is starting to happen is that cube times are starting to get low enough that we're going to see more of who's the best on any given day, as opposed to dominance by whoever is in the best overall shape and is solving the most efficiently with the best hardware. That's not to say that there isn't still room for improvement, but more people are able to get to that level than there used to be.

I was hoping to get out to another cube event soon myself, but I was too slow on signing up for a rather popular event, so it may be a while before I compete again. I'm not concerned, it will give me more time to practice.

GIANT EDIT: It would appear that thanks to either lack of sleep or focus, I skipped the part where Felix Zemdegs got new WR's in early rounds that weren't the final with:

5x5x5 Single 38.52 WR Average 46.24 WR (53.69) 50.99 (38.52) 43.25 44.48 (SECOND ROUND)
6x6x6 Single 1:20.03 WR Average 1:27.79 WR 1:28.00 1.35.33 1.20.03 (FIRST ROUND)
7x7x7 Single 2:06.73 WR Average 2:15.07 WR 2:06.73 2:24.32 2:14.15 (FIRST ROUND)

For puzzles larger than 5x5x5, you get three attempts only and none are thrown out.

Word is, Feliks has been doing a lot better on 5x5x5 and 6x6x6 since getting some magnetic versions of those puzzles from Speedcubeshop.

Records are made to be broken.

While I have some stuff to talk about for cubing for myself, I thought that since there had been so much excitement around the record times in the last two months that I should mention some of it.

Sebastian Weyer had recently posted the first official sub-20 4x4x4 solve (19.41 seconds) at Berlin Summer Cube Days 2017 June 10-11, after Felixs had held the single record of 21.54 for 4x4x4 since 2015.

Sebastian has always been very competitive in this event, and is currently second in the world now - because Felixs had to take back the single record on June 22 in Arequipa, Peru at their Latin America Cubing tour event.

At the moment, Sebastian Weyer still holds the average record of 23.03 for 4x4x4, a full second and a half faster than Feliks' best average of 24.57

I had mentioned that at the end of April, that Max Park had overtaken Feliks Zemdegs' long-standing Ao5 3x3x3 cube record. Feliks traveled to Chía, Colombia for the Chía 2017 on June 28 and 29, another part of the Latin America Cubing tour. This was a very large competition with over 200 competitors in the 3x3x3 division. Most of them were from Colombia, but a handful were from nearby countries (Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador) and another handful were from not so nearby countries (Australia, New Zealand, USA, and Canada).

In the first round, Feliks posted an average of 5.97 seconds, substantially below the previous record of 6.39 seconds.





Feliks had actually done better than this at home practicing but had not as yet managed to get a time as good as that at a competition.

At the Chía event, Feliks also bested his world record single on 5x5x5 to bring it down to 41.24 seconds.

Feliks has completely dominated 5x5x5 since 2010, having had the record nearly the entire time since 2010, with only a small gap between April and September 2012 when Yu Nakajima of Japan and Kristopher De Asis of Canada breifly held the record for the single. In the same time period, Feliks has held the average record the entire time.

So, now that Feliks has taken those back - of the 33 current official WCA records, Feliks holds 9 of them.

Note - I typed this a few days ago, and this could change by the time you read it because today is the second day of the US Nationals taking place in Fort Wayne, Indiana.