How I Got Into Speedcubing

My intense interest of Rubik's Cubes started my senior year of high school in 2002. I was a Math Aid for the Math Department, so I was usually found sitting in the math teacher's lounge. It was there that I saw Mr. Klezer playing with a standard 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube. I was amazed that he could solve it consistently, and I was surprised to learn that there was a method to the madness.

That evening I went to Walmart to check if the toy section had one. I found a few, and picked one up for $10. I went home that night, pulled the cube out of it's packaging, and started to read the little book that came with it. I became quickly confused by what it was trying to tell me to do, but I plugged away at it all night. By the end of the night, I had solved it once! I tried again quickly before calling it quits for the day, but got stuck again.

The next day I came home from school and hopped on the Internet. I did some searching and found speedcubing.com, which had some information from Chris Hardwick that I started to read over. I also found cubeland.free.fr, which is what I ultimately used as my method at the beginning. I spent the next 6 days just reading, twisting, and thinking about the various steps involved in the solution. Finally, on May 22, 2002, I was able to solve the Rubik's Cube without needing to look at any notes or algorithms. I made a text file (times.txt) with my first 3 solve times that night, which I actually still have a copy of. The contents of the file are:

5/22/02 - 10:15pm - 3:27
5/22/02 - 10:28pm - 5:09
5/22/02 - 10:33pm - 2:31

The next week at school, I told Mr. Klezer that I was able to solve the cube. He thought it was awesome, and invited me to participate in an informal competition he held every year for the students in his Advanced Calculus class. I agreed to go, but I was nervous because I wasn't sure how fast the other students were. When the competition day came, I found out that I was using a more efficient method than the other students. This allowed me to breeze through the competition, though Mr. Klezer tried to trip me up by giving me my cube last so I had less inspection time. After the competition, the other students wanted me to go head-to-head with Mr. Klezer. I was nervous about that, but I ended up victorious in that as well.

Why use Twitter?

As popular is it is to use Twitter, it seems like it's just as popular to hate it and mock it's users, or at the very least ignore it. One of the more common complaints seems to be that people "don't want to hear every mundane detail about someone else's life". There's a couple reasons why this line of thinking is not always true, and quite a few reasons why Twitter can be used for more than just "mundane details".

For anyone who thinks Twitter is stupid, pointless, and boring, ask yourself the following questions: Have you ever...
...put up away messages in AIM saying what you were doing?
...put links, quotes, or random thoughts in your AIM profile?
...read the away messages of your buddies on AIM to see what they were up to?
...clicked on links from buddy profiles on AIM to see what it was?
...changed your status message on Google Talk?
...used RSS feeds to get up-to-date information?
...browsed the headlines of a newspaper or news website?
...changed your Facebook status message?
...browsed through your friend feed on Facebook to see what your friends were doing on Facebook?
...written a blog?
...read a blog?
...emailed a list of people with a link you wanted them to see?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above questions (or especially multiple questions), then you can utilize Twitter to do the exact same thing. Even if Twitter was just about telling people minor details about your life, it would be a handy tool.

I believe that people want to hear minor details from friends throughout the day, which is why AIM away messages and Facebook status updates were used so often. Obviously, seeing tweets every 2 minutes with things like "dinner", "sleep", "getting a soda", and "bathroom" (although this can be funny) can get annoying. The best part is, you can stop following people if they get annoying.

Other than people who tweet to death, most small details from friends are fun to read. Plus, it's a great way to share links, news, and opinions with others. Also, I use twitter to get updates from famous people and organizations that are interesting to me, such as Major Nelson, Kevin Rose, ESPN, the Minnesota Vikings, Woot, Rainn Wilson, and XKCD, among others.

One thing I have noticed in regards to social networks and other multi-user applications is that they make more sense and are more useful if people you know are using it. For instance, I never used ICQ, MSN Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger during middle school, high school, and college, but used AOL Instant Messenger instead. This was because all of my friends and social circles were using AIM instead of the other services, so it made sense for me to be on there. While I was thinking "why would anyone use MSN or Yahoo?", I'm sure there were other people thinking "why would I use AIM?". In the same way, I was a Facebook user, while others were heavy users of MySpace.

This doesn't make any one service better than others, but rather shows how social influences can provide value to one service over another. Some people will feel like Twitter is a complete waste of time, while Facebook status messages are a great tool. I'm sure there are quite a few folks who think Facebook doesn't have much use and that Twitter is a great application. So if you're hating on Twitter, my suggestion would be to sign up and try it out, then get your friends to join so it can provide more value to you.

2 Weeks with Wii Fit

I purchased a Wii Fit on April 4 using money I got from my birthday. I had done some research on it and read peoples reactions, and had decided that I wanted to get it and use it. I have now had it for over 2 weeks, and only missed a few days. I now actually have motivation to work out, and have fun doing it.

I've set as a goal to do 30 minutes of actual workout time per day, and I try to get a balance of all 4 types of workout (yoga, strength, aerobic, and balance) in each day's workout. Ever since I unlocked the Free Step option, I start my workout with 10 minutes of that, then do a few strength and yoga exercises, then finish up with some balance games. I can get through 30 minutes of workout in about 45 minutes of real time, which has come down from more than an hour when I first started.

I'm a sucker for automatic tracking of statistics of things I do (such as Xfire, last.fm, and Raptr), so I really like the automatic graphing of things like weight, Wii Fit age, and time spent exercising. I also like that it's got enough variety to keep me interested from day to day, and enough visual and audio stimulation to not make it mundane. Doing Wii Fit exercises in our apartment lets me do things that make me feel ridiculous (such as crazy yoga poses) without having others watch me.

Wii Fit is obviously not for everybody. If you already have a gym membership and go on a regular basis, then this might not help you. If you routinely go running or swimming, then you shouldn't stop doing those things to switch to Wii Fit. However, doing these things in addition to Wii Fit could provide a way to have a varied workout. If you are like me and don't get off the couch much during your free time, then this is a great way to combine game playing with fitness. I have a blast doing my daily exercises, and I am inspired to play every day to help achieve my fitness goals.

Lamb of God - Wrath

I've been listening to the new Lamb of God album Wrath in my car quite a bit over the last few weeks. It kicked my butt from the get-go, and it hasn't let up. In fact, I would be willing to consider it my new favorite Lamb of God album (which previously was Ashes of the Wake).

I don't really care for the opening instrumental track, so I usually skip right over it. However, the next 3 tracks are my favorites on the album, with the fourth track, "Contractor", being my favorite. The fast tempo makes the machine-gun drums and riffing guitars sound awesome, and I can't help but crank it up and headbang while I'm driving. It's also got an interesting section near the end because the lyrics (starting with "Lay the hammer hammer down...") are sung once at 1:55, then repeated at 2:56. However, the second time through those lyrics, they're started a half line early, which makes the beat sound different in comparison to the vocals. It's a great effect that is pulled off.

The rest of the album is solid, and I don't feel compelled to skip over any of the songs. The last track, "Reclamation", has a minute long opening along with a minute of nothing at the end, but has a great middle section. Most of the song is in 6/8 time, which seems rare for a metal song, but it totally works. Near the 3:30 mark it switches to more of a 4/4 time with a half-time drum beat (which makes it 2/2?), which you can't help but do a slow headbang to.

All in all, I give the album a 10/10. I think it's my new favorite album for having cranked while I have my windows down (which was Evergreen Terrace's Wolfbiker for a while before this).