After reading this, click the thumbnail picture to embiggen to 640×480 goodness.

After endlessly practicing and finding ways to solve the Rubik’s 3×3, 4×4, and 5×5 cubes in less time and/or more efficiently, it’s good to look up, experiment with and practice some neat patterns. The regular 3×3 on the right is sporting a checkerboard pattern on all sides. That’s the easiest pattern. The 4×4 Revenge on the left is done up in a center-dot pattern, again on all sides. Slightly less easy. The 5×5 Professor cube in the center is lookin’ mindbogglin’ with a curious cube-in-cube-in-cube pattern. That one, of course took me the most time. I’m familiar with the algorithm to make that pattern on a regular Rubik’s Cube, but it took some experimentation and trial/error to modify the alg for what I did with the 5×5.

The pic may seem like showboating, but I was just extremely happy with the results of this kind of noodling around and I wanted to share with all. Cheers!

Update 12/14/07: I managed to create this little gem today… a cube-in-a-cube-in-a-cube-in-a-cube! (Say that really fast several times; it kinda has a groove to it!)

Well, I hope the reviews were enjoyable for one and all. Someone this week did tell me that I should get a job writing reviews and be paid for it. I would just love to be paid for things like this, but I’m just not that good with deadlines. Never have been. I suppose, though, if I had enough incentive, then just maybe…

I will do a couple more sometime this month. I won’t restrict myself to any timeframe, but I will possibly pick some classics out of my music vault. Or maybe some album that I don’t really care about, just to make it interesting. I really enjoyed doing these reviews this past week. I think the one I enjoyed doing the most was Paradise Lost by Symphony X. It was really an enjoyable listen, and their music can be hard to write about, due to its complexity.

Other than that, nothing really new happened in my world. I got new tile stickers from Cubesmith.com for my 5×5x5 Rubik’s Professor cube. It was a PITA to peel all the old stickers off and put the new tiles on, but it was quite worth it. Work is still the same old thing, really. It’s getting more hectic of course, due to the holidays. However, in my line of work, I’ll be really busy just after the holidays, what with Christmas returns and all. And the home is still doing ok, but soon we’ll need to do some work around here.

Well, before I go, here’s a cool shot I took with my phone yesterday. We were giving the birds a bath, running the water in the tub in our bathroom. Thommen is on my shoulder, halfway sopping wet, but still eagerly anticipating more water sprayings. He was enjoying himself… so you should too!

This is a video posted by someone else… and no, I’m NOT up to this level yet!

I posted a link to this video on my first post related to cubing. I figured I’d bring it to your attention because I still like to just watch this guy solve this monstrosity!

Enjoy… but please don’t sprain your brain figuring out what this guy is doing!

If this li’l beastie was actually in production instead of prototype phase, it’d be on my Christmas wish list! I actually did solve one on a computer simulation (took a few hours!), but nothing would compare to having the physical form to manipulate.

What an insane, and beautiful, puzzle!

It’s true that some people can solve this in under two minutes. Well, I’l working my way up to that point. For now, though, I’m just happy to make it under ten minutes! I mainly made this video to see where my shortcomings are and to gain some advice on how to improve.

The cube I’m using is the one that I got last week to replace the 4×4x4 Revenge that I accidentally broke. It turns much better; the old one was always rather stiff. That’s a good thing, as the stickers will last longer and the layers will have much more give. Well, enough gabbing from me… enjoy the video.

PS: It took me a while to write just those two paragraphs because Christine and I have been watching Torchwood for the first time. Very interesting show!