Though I didn’t have much planned today, I would have liked to enjoy my day instead of sleeping in and dealing with craptastic traffic!

A bright side to all this: I finally ordered the puzzle that I’ve been wanting for so long. Too bad I had to go the eBay route, where the supplier is surely making up the low margin with an exorbitant shipping fee. I couldn’t order it from the original supplier’s site because their site doesn’t work with either Safari or Firefox, and their sister site won’t accept any of my info!! Grrrrrr! Sorry guys, but I’m not touching their preferred browser, Internet Explorer, with a sanitized mouse!

I’m not telling you yet, dear readers, what I ordered. However, here’s a hint: it’s related to the puzzle I’m holding in the picture.

Well, I’m off to make dinner. Cheers!

Design

First, I will touch on the overall construct. The Rubik’s 360 is comprised of three spheres, one inside of the other. The inner and middle spheres spin around on two different offset axes relative to one another. The inner sphere houses six colored balls, when the puzzle is reset, and has one hole for the balls to enter the middle sphere. The middle sphere has just enough space for the balls to roll around between inner and middle, with two holes – one for each track of the outer sphere. The outer sphere has six compartments, with colored rings corresponding to the colors of each ball. There are three of these compartments to each hemisphere, which has locking tracks that are controlled by two knobs on both sides of the puzzle.

Operation

The object is to maneuver the colored balls so that they pass through the hole in the inner sphere, then either of the two hole in the middle sphere, and finally into their corresponding compartment in the outer sphere. This would be an easy thing for anyone to do, but Mr. Rubik won’t let this be a minor task. Embedded in the inner and middle spheres are weights located opposite of the holes. This turns the 360 into a gravity manipulation puzzle, and it makes it a challenge to maneuver the spheres to get the balls where they need to go, especially when one has to work with two offset axes.

Difficulty

Even fighting between manipulating gravity and offset axes, the Rubik’s 360 is not terribly hard to solve. I won’t give away the solution here, since one can use either strategy, or pure dumb luck, to solve the puzzle. I will say this, however; fiddling around with the puzzle and observing how the spheres move on each axis is the vital key in successful completion.

Final Thoughts

My verdict on the Rubik’s 360? Despite the name, this puzzle is not to be confused with a combination puzzle like Rubik’s infamous Cube. It is a gravity manipulation puzzle that has more in common with tabletop marble maze games. It is challenging to be sure; however, with enough concentration on physical movement and simple observation of the gravity mechanics and axes of movement, I could see someone solving this in less than a day. It took me a couple of hours the first time I tried it. Even so, the beautiful construction and ergonomic design make it something that is pleasing, almost relaxing to play around with, even if one can solve it in a few minutes. I find myself coming back to it just to admire it, if not resetting it for another go-round.

Highly recommended for almost any age!

Maybe next video will be the V-Cube 6… or the Mirror Blocks… or maybe I’ll just jump to the V-Cube 7. Meh. You’ll find out soon enough!

Where do I start? I guess we’ll start with our jobs. Aside from the added craziness at my work, things have gone well. During the big push for inventory readiness, I received a good annual review and a raise for my efforts. Actually, it was great with all high marks and maximum raise, which I’m used to getting. Still, I can’t shake the feeling sometimes that I’m not always taken seriously. One of my co-workers made a good point, though; we’re all not taken seriously, even when some of us have tons of experience. It’s just management mentality. That’s probably why I’m only comfortable being a supervisor at most. I can be an effective manager for a project, just don’t ask me to be one for a long-term basis! Still, I always have room to grow. Otherwise, like I said, things are going pretty smooth. On my wife’s side of things, she’s gotten some big-time recognition for her efforts at her job. In fact, she recently got a level promotion with a sizable raise. All in all, things are looking up for us on that subject and also financially as well.

Home life is not so exciting. The only thing that’s really kept us going here are our individual interests… and the birds, of course. Lately, things went into a decline with the health, and subsequent death, of our budgerigar Kiwi (see last post). However, a couple of friends came over last evening for a Doctor Who marathon and pizza night, and that did very well in dulling the pain from our loss. My camera is STILL in the shop! I brought it back in to Best Buy a day after pickup because it was exhibiting the same problems. They did call me today to let me know that it’s ready; I’m bringing batteries and a memory card so I can test it out right there in front of them. If it still doesn’t work, I’m demanding a refund and/or replacement. I’m getting short on patience for ineptitude. Other than those things, at least our health overall is doing fine, so we really can’t complain.

On the hobby front, I’ve been waiting on two puzzles that I ordered from different companies. One is the V-Cube 7 from Verdes Innovations. That one actually came for me on July 3rd, and I made an unboxing and demonstration video of it that day. Here’s the video:

I’ve done about ten or so solves with it and I’m very impressed and satisfied. It’s a little more challenging that a Rubik’s Professor cube, but that’s mainly talking about time consumption. The real challenge for me is to bring my time down to 20 minutes, then 15 and then eventually to ten minutes. I’ll be happy with 15 minutes, really, since I’m not much of a “speedcuber”. I really should try, though! Oh, and the other puzzle that I’m waiting on is the Pyraminx Crystal from Mefferts.com. It should be arriving later this month. I can’t wait; it should present a bigger challenge than the V-Cube, due to the design and function. I’m already planning the next puzzles for my collection later this year. I’d like to get the V-Cube 6; even though it’s a lower order than the 7×7 cube, even-number cubes are inherently harder to solve due to mathematical parity issues. Also, I wouldn’t mind an Eastsheen 2×2 cube, to replace the Rubik’s Ice Cube that’s in a state of shaky repair.

Well, I’ve just expended a lot of thought into this entry. Thanks for reading and being patient with my absence. Cheers!

This is just me solving a Megaminx puzzle. Some of you may recall that I posted a vid somewhere of one guy solving this type of puzzle in less than two minutes. I’m not up to that skill yet, but I’m happy to do this in under ten minutes.

No, that’s not your sound cutting out! I edited the sound out because the birds in the room were going nuts with the click-clacking of the layers as I was turning them. Also, the video is fuzzy in some spots. I don’t know what to say about it except that it may be a YouTube issue. I encoded the video using H264 QuickTime compression, so the original is very high quality but, unfortunately, I can’t embed it here.

Enjoy!

The problem with this is time. Last night, between trying to get through this, talking to others in chat and making and eating dinner, I couldn’t solve it before I just got too tired. Today, I’m doing it, but I have to abandon the poor Gigaminx because I have a birthday celebration to go to (Happy birthday to Bill K., my dad-in-law!). I will solve this thing soon; it will just take some time. Unfortunately, you can’t save your progress… if it’s abandoned, you’ll have to start all over again!

If any of you out there want to try this challenge, head on over to this address: http://users.skynet.be/gelatinbrain/Applets/Magic%20Polyhedra/dodeca_f8.htm. Word of warning… please be prepared to set aside a few hours if you really think you can do it. Just hit the “Scramble” button and go crazygonutz with it. Make sure you also set aside some time for brain-rest breaks!

Rotsa ruck!

Due to the nature of the shape and cuts of the pyramid, the tips don’t move (only rotate) and everything else revolves around the center vertexes. This means that , despite the cool design, it’s not at all hard to solve. The minimal difficulty notwithstanding, I’m still happy with it. I’ll have fun trying to unearth its small secrets, making patterns and endeavouring to bring my solve time down. Just to let you know how easy it is to solve, I took it out of the box, showed it to the wife, mixed it up, set it down for a few minutes… and then solved it a few minutes later! In terms of difficulty, it’s really like a glorified 2×2 cube, much as a Megaminx is little more than a glorified Rubik’s Cube.

Well, I’ll be looking around for more possibilities to add to the collection. I think I’m ready for two difficult puzzles. One is the Pyraminx Crystal, which is in the final drafting stages before production at Meffert’s puzzle shop. I can’t wait for this one to be available soon! The other is either going to be a 20 color Dogic VI puzzle or a 12 color Dogic I. Before I go further, I’ll answer Travis’ comment (on my last entry) with this: yes, I’m definitely interested in a Sudokucube! That one, you have to work out where all the numbers are going to go in advance before using a 3×3x3 solution. In fact, I’m thinking of buying replacement number stickersets to put on one of my spare cubes! But I digress… Anyways, I’m in sore need of a new challenge.

Cheers! (And I still hope someone mass-produces the Gigaminx puzzle!)

So, this being the second time, I’m also happy to report that I was ‘blading for nearly an hour. I did put in a couple of rest breaks because my poor ankles are just not used to doing this kind of torture exercise. Two weeks ago was the first time and I only lasted thirty minutes. I want to do this regularly because of several things. One, I sit in front of a computer (or video game console) too much when I’m not at work. Two, I’m no longer a young guy (*sigh* looks in mirror at the odd love handles) being 35 years old and already diagnosed a while back with slight hypertension. Three, I’m proud of the fact that I’ve kept my gymnast’s form for so darn long… and I want to keep it for at least another 30 years!

The last point brings me to mention that I’ll also be exercising with Christine. She has gotten back to it on the recommendation of her doctor, since she was diagnosed with moderately high cholesterol. (She can’t wait for my levels to be tested!) I’ll be working on mild calisthenics, military pushups and crunchers while she uses the balance ball. Truth be told, I wouldn’t mind getting my own balance ball. It’s fun to use! (and crunchers are harder on it!)

I’m still exercising my mind with puzzles, too. I just ordered a new puzzle from Mefferts.com, called a Pyraminx. You can click the name for the Wiki entry on it; it’s a medium-difficulty puzzle (they list it as low difficulty) and it shouldn’t be hard at all for me. I just got it for the collection that I’ve got building on my desk’s filing cabinet! Mefferts is also making a puzzle called the Pyraminx Crystal, which is more of a Megaminx variant. I may order this one when supplies are ready to ship. But the thing that really blew my mind is when I discovered that someone actually created a higher-order Megaminx, aptly called a Gigaminx!! The guys who created their own versions may have plans to patent the design, but there are no production plans. Guess I’ll have to stick to the computer simulation. (You can try it by clicking here!) There’s also a Google video posted of someone solving the simulated Gigaminx!

Well, that’s all for now. I may write tomorrow, but I’m not sure what to write about. I’ve wanted to post another music review; there’s still a few new albums in my collection that I haven’t touched on yet. Or I could write about our good fortune with our tax-returns. We’ll see, won’t we? Cheers!

Another video blog entry… this time, I was trying out a beta feature, for editing, on YouTube. It didn’t work out, so I re-did the whole thing on iMovie. It really bites not having the correct processor speed for running both iMovie and a separate cam effects program. I wonder if anyone can point me to a free picture-in-picture plug-in for iMovie?

Surprisingly, there really isn’t many videos of the Square 1 on YouTube. Hmmm….