Weekly discussion thread (Aug 7, 2023)

I need to decide if the weekly thread should start on Sunday or Monday haha. I keep forgetting!

Trying to set up some kind of bot to make sure it's posted on time

I don't time myself too often, so I don't have any new PBs to report. I've ordered a couple Meilong 4x4s and a tetraminx, but they haven't arrived yet. I'm currently working on (gradually) improving my 3BLD success rate.

What was/is everyone's favorite resource for intuitive F2L? I'm not looking to memorize hundreds of algorithms at this point. However, it seems inconsistent from source to source.

I acknowledge there is personal taste here, so I'm just looking for good resources to sample first.

One thing I miss from reddit is the daily scramble for doing reconstruction (and sometimes, a timed solve). I only use the 3x3x3, but feel free to add your favorite puzzle.

• 3x3x3: U F' B' R2 D R U L2 B F2 R2 F2 U2 R F2 R F2 R' D2 F2

If it’s something that bother you, I’ll keep that to myself :)

Posts from this community still don't show up on the mobile app I use :s
Fortunately I can still see them from desktop.

So uni started and I've been a lot more busy, but I'm still trying to practice my 3-Style with Anki. I've switched from having 1 card per commutator to 1 card for both a commutator and its inverse. This will speed up my learning but very likely slow down my recognition for when I encounter a letter pair that corresponds to an inverse. I'll try to practice that when I've finished learning all the algs first.

The tool I was creating is a little simpler now. It only fetches a few sheets (an old one by Jack Cai and Elliott Kobelansky's). I use Jack Cai's algs mainly as that's the one I found first, but since it has many typos, I replace (via code) the ones I dislike with Elliott's. Then I generate the Anki cards (with both comm and inverse). Right now I'm learning 378 corner commutators via 189 cards.

What I've really grown to like is a mix of Elliott Kobelansky's notation and standard notation.

• Standard notation: [D' U': [R D' R', U2]]
  • In English:
    1. Set up with D' U'
    2. Do the insertion R D' R'
    3. Do the interchange U2
    4. Undo the insertion with R D R'
    5. Undo the interchange with U2
    6. Undo the setup with U D
• Elliott's notation: D': U' / R D' R'
  • In English:
    1. Set up with D'
    2. Do the pseudo-interchange U'
    3. Do the insertion R D' R'
    4. Do the pseudo-interchange twice U2
    5. Undo the insertion R D R'
    6. Do the pseudo-interchange again U'
    7. Undo the setup with D'
• The mix I like: [D': [U' / R D' R']]
  • Exactly the same as Elliott's notation, but I find it easier to read.

What I do is I have both the standard notation and my modified Elliott notation on each card. That way I can try both and use the one that's easiest to learn (it's not always one or the other).
Parsing Elliott's notation and generating the mix is all automated, of course ;)