[cubeguy314]

Hey all,
From what I've been hearing, the server's become rather dormant, with many of its major players only popping in and out occasionally to preserve their realms. Though, I feel like most people still check back on the forums every so often.

So how have you all been? What have you been up to? How's life? What's new?


For me, I've been very busy with freshman year at Johns Hopkins University, so I haven't had time to hop online for a good session. Since the start of the school year, I've been designing twisty puzzles (variants of the Rubik's cube), and the president of our school's Cubing Association (Rubik's cube club) has asked me to take over for the club when he graduates.

Spoiler:

[eah]

Those are pretty. Is there any efficient general way to solve them? ... or even any general way to denote them? I imagine the designs could get very complicated.

The first 2 I think I could find a nice algorithm for and possibly the next 2. For the rest, the best I could do is randomly manipulate it until it's solved. Bogosolve. Anything better than that requires more thought.

Also, are they functional or do they just sit there and look pretty?

[Meowrocket]

Not that you probably care, but I've been holding up okay. I recently got a full driver'e license, and learned how to use a manual transmission with minimal instruction. I don't get to go many places because I'm normally tied down at home with assignments, specifically from English (I'm notoriously bad at essays and scholarly writing)
But my school's almost out, so I've been making plans for the summer. Playing tennis with my best friend, possibly actually visiting a gym, and generally not sitting inside all day doing nothing. Just like every summer I'm planning to hit up GenCon at the Indianapolis convention centre, which might be fun. That's made even more exciting by the fact that my girlfriend has expressed some interest in coming along.
(I don't know if you guys care about Cons.)

Other than that I've been generally overwhelmed by the number of things I need to work on planning out- college, field of interest, etc.
(And for those who care, I currently want to go to Wright State University for Mechanical Engineering. It's nearby and I'm almost 100% guaranteed a full ride given my PSAT and SAT scores.)

All in all, life is pretty fantastic at the moment. My future is brighter than ever before, and I'm in the process of entirely reforming myself for the better, not to mention that I'm dating the girl of my dreams. It's a pretty good life no matter how you look at it. I don't think I've ever been happier.

Sorry for the information dump. I know you probably don't care that much. It's just been so long since anyone asked.

[Intelli]

All in all, life is pretty fantastic at the moment. My future is brighter than ever before, and I'm in the process of entirely reforming myself for the better, not to mention that I'm dating a girl in my dreams. It's a pretty good life no matter how you look at it. I don't think I've ever been happier.

Fix'd ur typo

[TornadicManiac]

All in all, life is pretty fantastic at the moment. My future is brighter than ever before, and I'm in the process of entirely reforming myself for the better, not to mention that I'm dating a girl in my dreams. It's a pretty good life no matter how you look at it. I don't think I've ever been happier.

Fix'd ur typo

Are you the girl?

[Intelli]

All in all, life is pretty fantastic at the moment. My future is brighter than ever before, and I'm in the process of entirely reforming myself for the better, not to mention that I'm dating a girl in my dreams. It's a pretty good life no matter how you look at it. I don't think I've ever been happier.

Fix'd ur typo

Are you the girl?

In your dreams

[cubeguy314]

Those are pretty. Is there any efficient general way to solve them? ... or even any general way to denote them? I imagine the designs could get very complicated.

The first 2 I think I could find a nice algorithm for and possibly the next 2. For the rest, the best I could do is randomly manipulate it until it's solved. Bogosolve. Anything better than that requires more thought.

Also, are they functional or do they just sit there and look pretty?

The designs aren't too bad. Just a lot of cuts creating a lot of parts. The two on the right have 207 parts. Algorithms can be used to solve these, but I usually do everything intuitively. Using a multi-step, grouping method.
And yes, they're all fully functional.
I have videos for each one on my youtube channel
Here are the links for the three on the right which I haven't publicly shown yet.

And Meow, there's a reason why I asked how everyone was.

[TechnoProdigy]

Got a job interview for Junior Systems Administrator at a local Ivy League college this week so I'm super nervous.

Finally terraformed the area next to my house on the server that got messed up after the most recent public plot wipe.

Aside from that, nothing new.

[Bonejunky]

All in all, life is pretty fantastic at the moment. My future is brighter than ever before, and I'm in the process of entirely reforming myself for the better, not to mention that I'm dating a girl in my dreams. It's a pretty good life no matter how you look at it. I don't think I've ever been happier.

Fix'd ur typo

Spelling "fixed" like that expends more energy than spelling it normally. You hurt me.

EDIT: @Techno, kill the interviewer, steal all of their banking information and assume their job/life.

Hide the body well.

[XsyntaXerrorX]

Super cool! Thankyou for sharing!