Message #1148

From: Brandon Enright <bmenrigh@ucsd.edu>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] intro from a new member
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2010 20:23:31 +0000

—–BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE—–
Hash: SHA1

On Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:42:04 -0000
"Nan Ma" <mananself@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello everyone. My name is Nan Ma and I use the username "schuma" in
> some places. Yesterday I solved the 3x3x3x3 and was invited to this
> group by Melinda. Thank you, Melinda!
>
> I am 30 yrs old. I am originally from China. Currently I am in Boston
> MA, but will move to Berkeley CA at the end of Sept. I will be a
> post-doc there, doing research in the area of information theory.
>
> Although I’m new for 4D cubing, I have some experience in 3D cubing.
> I’ve solved all 299 puzzles on Gelatinbrain’s applet page
> <http://users.skynet.be/gelatinbrain/Applets/Magic%20Polyhedra/index.htm

> > . I recommend that place to all of you. Hope you guys won’t say that
> 3D puzzles are trivial. I’ve recognized another Gelatinbrain solver
> Brandon Enright in this group. Nice to see you here, Brandon.
>
> My basic strategy is to categorize pieces into several groups, like,
> edge pieces, corner pieces, etc. Then I construct 3-cycle algorithms
> using commutators and save them as macros. Then I solve a group of
> pieces first, and then solve another group. This method is kind of
> systematic, but it leads to a large number of moves.
>
> Nan
>

Hey schuma, welcome to the group! I was hoping to see you here. I
wish there was more overlap between the different twisty puzzle
groups. Your conquest of Gelatinbrain’s puzzles was a real
tour-de-force so I look forward to seeing what you can do with the more
exotic polytopes available in MC4D 4.0.

You solve very quickly with macros, maybe you should think about
practicing the 3^4 a couple more times and then joining the
Hyperspeedcube Challenge on the 18th:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AjSunS8HRVh4dDA1cEEwZ0owYmR0dnVTRWFweGNFcFE&hl=en&authkey=CNing-8J&pli=1#gid=0

Good luck with your move, Melinda’s in the Bay Area too. As a native
Californian I’m pleased to have one of the best living here. Perhaps I
will have stop telling people that you’re actually just a puzzle solving
AI running in a secret government installation in the basement of a
Boston University lab ;-)

Finally, I think your "Rubik’s Square" program is of some interest to
this group:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/rubikssquare/

Best,

Brandon

—–BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE—–
Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAkyJQkoACgkQqaGPzAsl94LisgCdHg+XEcjMWkv1LyBu06fJmCAa
rgoAnjrKgbMcSAHl4empZi/s+tLRHOYh
=weXD
—–END PGP SIGNATURE—–