So… This Blog is Ending...

It's a sad thing, to be sure. But I've moved on to bigger and better things. I really just stopped cubing for most of the summer, but now I'm back at it. However, now that I'm in college there are other interesting things going on in my life, and I figured I should be talking about them, too.

So please go over to my new blog: earlymorningstudent.blogspot.com and see what's been going on in my life since about a week and a half ago. But that blog will get updated at least weekly (and more once finals season stops).

You may be pleased to hear that version 3.00 of my ZBLL documents is now online. It's much better, but still not quite where I want it. Oh well. Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2g-oMdOeacZNTAwMjBkMDUtOTU5NC00MjBkLWFhNDEtMmNhODUxOTU2Njc2

Update

Well, it's been more than a month since I last updated. Here's the scoop:

Baseball has started and it's eating away my energy. I'm doing pretty well this year with a 1.81 ERA through 31 innings (the most in the state of Oregon right now) so I don't see this dying off.

Constitution team has really kicked it up a notch. Nationals is in 2 weeks. I want to win this thing and my unit is putting in some serious hours, especially late at night. I'm really nervous but this ends on May 2nd.

Senioritis has hit. And this applies to cubing also, unfortunately. But not to baseball or conteam, strangely enough.

I am almost done with refining (but not learning) 2GLL algorithms. I have to make new images for Anti-Sune because I decided that the recognition system I had was stupid when there was an oriented corner just right there anyway.

And I've been thinking about this: to be effective, ZBLL must be STRICTLY FASTER than perfect execution for OCLL + PLL. So what I'm seeing is that some of the Sune / Anti-Sune cases might be faster with Sune / Anti-Sune + PLL. Though annoying to do this, it would really cut down on not only memorization but also on recall. I've been thinking about this more and more, especially with fast PLLs out there like A, J, and T. It's definitely worth looking into. I want some feedback, but I'll first put them in as other options.

Update

Well, I have been thinking hard about this for a while and I've made a more informed decision. OLL + PLL is faster than COLL + EPLL once you factor in the time spent on VHF2L. I know I said it was about equal before but I've been testing and it seems clear. This has kind of made me lose confidence in ZBLL, but I work that out to be even with OLL + PLL. I'm really not sure what to think of this because it's a rather large blow to my idea of ZB. I'm seriously considering learning ZBF2L to help out the speed even more, though I'm not looking forward to learning the algorithms.

I'm thinking the best way to go about with learning ZBLL (learning in the easiest progression) is:

2-Look COLL (using 2-Look OLL to orient, then COLL)

VHF2L

Some ZBLL and ZBF2L here and there

2GLL

ZBF2L

ZBLL

At least that's the organization I plan to follow. Though right now I'm working with an all-nighter so there's no guarantee any of this is rational.

Update

I'm just going along trying to finish 2GLLs. Not much to report. I've found some nice algs that I didn't notice before and I changed my Anti-Sune recognition system to recognize off the oriented corner. It makes mirroring from Sune sooooooooo much easier, which is basically the purpose of everything.

I lost my CII cubies + FII frame hybrid the other day. I don't even know where I lost it. But it's gone, and none of my cubes have anywhere near the same feeling. I'll be buying some more cubes soon. I also want to get gray stickers for a new color scheme. Before my funky color scheme used color opponent theory to try and optimize recognition on opposite sides (White-Black, Green-Red, Blue-Yellow). Now I have a different idea: use opponent colors next to each other. That way opposite sides are more similar and thus orientation is easier to recognize. I want to put it on a black cube though so I would need gray (preferably darker) instead of black. Basically, similar colors would be opposite (White-Yellow, Green-Blue) while color opponents would be adjacent (Blue-Yellow, White-Black/Gray, Red-Green). Basically, I just have to replace the orange side of the cube with black or gray.

Also, I will be buying a 2x2x2 V-Cube and likely trying to get a replacement 7x7x7 core. My other one is broken...

Update

Well, it's been quite a while, and I haven't been cubing much at all until recently (when the relatives showed up and I needed to get away). The past 3 weeks I haven't even had my cube at school, but the progress I've made has been substantial.

My first average of 100 back I set a personal best at 19.46 (previously had two 19.90s). The next day I had a 19.36. Then I had an 18.85, the biggest drop in an average of 100 since I first started doing them. My standalone average of 12 went from 18.43 to 18.13 and then 17.95. Last year at this time I averaged in the high 26s, meaning my times have dropped 8 full seconds in 12 months, despite my lack of motivation at times. My one-handed solving has also improved quite a bit, dropping my from just under 40 seconds to just over 36 seconds. My blindfolded times have also dropped significantly, going from around 7 minutes to a consistent 3:20-4:40 range, even enough for me to try averages of 12 (they take too much work, though, so I stop at 3 or 4 usually).

It's really fascinating how much I've improved even after forgetting sooooo many ZBLLs. I think I've decided that I will work solely on the 2GLL cases so I can get my confidence up, as working with the really stupid H cases didn't work out that well in the end. I won't be releasing a new version for the new year, but I will continue to learn cases as quickly as I can. If I can learn all the 2GLL cases, I have a very solid shot at getting a ZBLL case I can use. There is a 1/27 chance for a PLL and a 1/6 chance at having all the corners permuted correctly in an LL case, giving me a 16/81 chance (or 19.75% chance) of a planned 1LLL and a 1515/5882 (or 25.76%) chance of a 1LLL (factoring in COLL chances). That means that in an average of 5 I could expect at least 1 1LLL, which would be amazing. I still remember most of the H set I learned before, now I think I'll move to U (because I already know 4 of them) and then T.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Update

It has been quite a while. I finally got my first BLD solve, and it has really made my day. Actually, nothing else has been happening, as school is taking up too much time. All I can hope to do is keep myself sub-20 till I get more time (college, anyone?). Speaking of college, it's that time of year. I already sent off my app to University of Chicago (don't expect to be accepted) and am planning on applying to Swarthmore College, as well. I'm so stressed out about that stuff right now it is downright ridiculous.

But my BLD skills have gotten much better. My first success had no parity and 3 solved edges in place. The second one had about 6 cycles and parity and some nasty flipped corners. My memorization is based on a number-letter system, with the format [piece position][orientation]. So a corner could have position 6 (DRB) and orientation of either O (orientated, or U/D, color in buffer position), D (depth, or F/B color), or S (side, or R/L color). Edges can be O or U (unoriented). What I've found most surprising is that once I can trace the pieces with my number-letter pairs, I don't have to remember them for the solve - I just know what piece is where. It's quite extraordinary.

Update and Early BLD Attempts

Not a big update here. I've been working away with ZBLL and constitution team (which eats up 10-12 hours of my week). More importantly for me, however, is that I've been working with blindfolded solves. I thought I could share a few thoughts on that while it's fresh in my mind.

I use the Old Pochmann method: placing one piece at a time from a buffer position using "pair swap" PLLs (PLLs that swap 2 edges and 2 corners each). Basically, this entails learning 6 algorithms to shoot the buffer piece to its appropriate slot (I might decide to do a video on this). This is not that hard, and there are plenty of good YouTube videos on it, though, again, I still might make on.

There are 6 algs to know:

T permutation

Ja permutation (swap blocks to the left (1), to the back (2), and to the right (3))

Jb permutation

Y permutation

Ra permutation (corner swap to the right)

My memorization time is down to about 10 minutes on a good attempt and at about 6 if I write down piece positions. The problem is, I always remember the last few corners wrong. So how do I memorize? Every edge has a number of 1 to 12 in this order: UF, UR, UB, UL, DF, DR, DB, DL, FR, FL, BR, BL (notice though that you will never send to position 2- it's the buffer). I then mark whether the edge is oriented or not, marked with an 'o' or 'u', respectively. Basically, an edge is oriented if it can be set up with the group (basically, it isn't out of your way to solve it with a T perm). Then I get a string of number-letter pairs. So one edge sequence might be: 12u 9u 4o 10u 11u 8u 5u 7o 6u 3o 6u. This edge sequence is bad for memo for 2 reasons: (1) there is an odd number of edges to place so there will be parity and (2) the two 6 spot edge placements means I broke into a cycle. blah...

I memorize the corners in much the same was: counterclockwise around the top starting with UFR and the same around the bottom starting with DFR, numbered from 1 to 8 (so 3 never gets used). I use the letter 'h' to stand for a top/bottom sticker on the top of the buffer piece. 's' stands for a side-colored sticker (in my case that is always red/orange) and 'd' stands for the front/back-colored sticker (blue/green for me). So a corner position might be: 8s 1d 2d 4h 6d 5h 4d 7h 7s. Again, an odd number of corners to be moved means parity, and the appearance of more than 1 4 and 7 indicates that cycles have been broken.

My solution to the above cube configuration? It's complicated.

d L' [T] L d2 L' [T] L d [T] d' L [T] L' d2 L [T] L' d' D M' [J(b)] M D' M' [J(b)] M' [J(b)] M2 D' M' [J(b)] M D [J(a)1] D' M' [J(b)] M D [R(a)] F [J(a)3] F' R [J(a)2] R2 [Y] R [J(a)3] R' [J(a)2] R' [J(a)2] R2 F R [J(a)2] R' F' D2 R2 [J(a)2] R2 D R' [J(a)2] R D

Update

I finally have time to update. School has taken its toll and I am relegated to 2 hours of homework on a good night. I can't wait for baseball season...

On the plus side, I have been slacking enough to learn all of the H and U orientations of ZBLL. It feels good, I must say, though U needs a ton of work. I'm estimating that I'll be at version 10 by the time I've finished learning ZBLL. Grr...

My times haven't dropped too much but I have been practicing OH and BLD quite a bit. I'm even getting successful BLD solves!!! It just takes me an hour. As memorization time goes down (I have ideas here) I'm sure I'll improve. I'll share some thoughts on BLD some other time, but I do have comments about algorithms (well, just Y actually).

I'm in Pain

Basic reason why I can't post anything reasonable: school and no more wisdom teeth. Make sure they give you some Vicodin or something because I am in serious pain right now.

Color Scheme Research

I'm starting to play around with opponent colors for a color scheme. Using a white type FI. So far it's worked out well, as I'm only 5 seconds behind my regular scheme average.

Update

It's been quite a while but not much has happened. My times have gotten slightly better but I haven't had time for a full average. I am continuing to update my ZBLL document and will soon finish re-doing the H sets. I realized that I have forgotten roughly 1/3 of my OLLs, so I have to relearn those. I recently got some pretty nice FMC solves (26, 27, and 23) that were ruined by having to undo premoves (28, 33, and 28 in the end).

The admissions lady a Grinnell asked if I could post a video of me solving. Apparently they like stuff like that.

Update

Not much happened this week. I'm preparing for a road trip to the midwest and haven't had that much time to cube. Like many weeks I had enough time to do the weekly competition on the speedsolving.com forums. I set a pb in the fewest moves challenge this week with a 28 move solve. It was the first time I got a chance to use premoves and boy did it pay off. I'm getting pretty good at this FMC thing and am really enjoying it.

I had my first sub-2 minute solve on the 4x4x4 yesterday, right after I had a dream about going sub-2 (in my dream it was 1:43.xx, in real life it was 1:57.xx). My PyraMinx solving has gotten more consistent, as well. I'm using a Fridrich-style method that gets me times around 17 second pretty consistently. I put some serious work into revamping my H sets in my ZBLL document. Some of those algs were...bad, to say the least, and I finally got around to fixing them. Now I have to relearn them all, though. Grrr...

Update

I haven't been doing much 3x3x3 recently. I performed some surgery on my C4Y DIY but other than that I've only picked up a cube that size to do the weekly competition on the speedsolving.com forums. I have been doing a lot of PyraMinx solves and have dropped my times down to just over 15 seconds. I made a cool $500 at work the last 2 weeks and have been playing baseball pretty much every day, so I have been very busy. This next week looks pretty free, though, so I'll definitely get going on ZBLL algs again.

Update

It's been about a week or so since my last post. I have done absolutely no work on ZBLL. There has just been too much other stuff to focus on. However, I have been working on my MegaMinx and PyraMinx times, which have dropped to roughly 6 minutes and 30 seconds, respectively. I can't really get fast enough at PyraMinx recognition to do much, though. It's been rather a blah week, really. I'm putting a lot of time into driving and baseball and my lack of bus time has hurt my cubing time quite a bit.

Update

I've changed the blog layout a bit. Hope you like it. I know it's much easier on my eyes.

Not much cubing has been happening for me. I've decided that the speedsolving.com weekly competitions are great and that I should take part in them as often as possible. The FMC stuff is easily the most fun and learning ZBLL would really help there. I have gotten 42 move solutions both weeks I've participated and haven't been that far behind the rest of the competition. The weeklies also let me practice my big cube solves. I haven't solved a 4x4x4 in ages and a 5x5x5 in longer but my times weren't that terrible, coming in at around 2:20 and 4:55, respectively. My 3x3x3 times haven't been great but I'll blame my ever-degrading CII for that (the plastic feels squishy now).

Update

Well, I've gotten back into cubing a little. This lack of schoolwork sure is relaxing. I though I could let you guys know what's going on around my place.

I have found that my CII is desperately deteriorating, much like an FI (another cube I love). I hate having to take everything apart and put it back together again and clean it out so I don't know what to do. My times are pretty consistently low, though. I recently had a 20.52 average of 100 and a standalone 19.66 average of 12. Also, on weekly competition 21 on the speedsolving.com forums I got an incredible 3x3 average: 17.01, (22.03), (16.95), 20.79, 18.13 = 18.66. This was with no warmup just to see what the competition scrambles were like. I know it's only an average of 5 but it is still impressive if you ask me. I went on for some mediocre OH and 4x4 solves.

I'm steadily improving my ZBLL recognition though I haven't been learning any new algs. Before I was panicking when I came across a set I knew. If it wasn't CC, CA, CO, AA, AC, OO, or OC I had no idea what was going on. Now I look at the case more calmly and my recognition time has plummeted. My execution time leaves something to be desired quite often but I find that is mostly due to lockups and my own forgetfulness.

I'm seriously debating starting up with ZZ. It gets my edge orientation done early on and I've had success with OH ZZ. It's an interesting option though I'm not a huge bandwagon guy and ZZ is very popular right now.

Just my thoughts for the moment.

Update

Wow I am a lazy son of a bitch. I'll get my algorithm documents up today, guys. I haven't gotten a chance to cube much, but with the last baseball game of the season finally gone I''ll get back into things soon. Cheers!

Update

It's been a while. I haven't been cubing that much recently, though I did set a pb for an average of 100 at 20.90. My CII has deteriorated and I don't know how much longer it'll last. In 2 weeks, when my mom leaves again and standardized tests are out of the way, I'll be able to work on my ZBLL algs.

Speaking of ZBLL, my in-solve recognition is horrendous. If I'm just practicing algs I have sub-1 recognition, but mid-solve it just doesn't work. I guess it'll come with time.

I also have to update the alg sheets at some point. Maybe in a week. I have to fiddle with the COLL and VHF2L ones quite a bit.

Doctor Who

I have become addicted to this show. The old episodes aren't that great but they are very original. The new ones are incredible. The latest episode has me wanting the week to skip forward just so I can see the second part. It's been on my mind all day so I felt that I had to let people know.

Update

It's been a while and I haven't cubed much recently. Baseball season has become rather stressful and standardized tests are fast approaching. I also had my appendix removed on Saturday. Basically, I'm in pain. I did find that ZBLL practice can slow your F2L time down by a few seconds. I think I'll have to ignore those losses until I've completed my goal.