Rubiks Cube in 20 moves or less

Blindfold Rubiks Cube – amazing! I wonder if he figures out all the moves before going blindfolded or if he just has an image of a rubiks cube with all the squares in his mind and which turn alters that image the same way.

I was chatting with SueOn in regards to the maximum number of moves needed to solve a Rubiks cube and I threw out a #: 20. Turns out I was a lot closer than what I had expected:

The minimum number of moves needed to solve a Rubik’s cube: In our project we determined that the minimum number of moves needed to solve a Rubik’s cube is 20 (or less depending upon the starting state).

For more mathematic proof, there’s the Wikipedia page: Optimal solutions for Rubik’s Cube: There are currently no positions known for which more than 20 face turns or 26 quarter turns are needed. There is however no proof that such positions do not exist. In fact they may occur so rarely that a random sampling of cube positions will not find them.


Random Crap:

Quasi the Robot @ Wired NextFest 2006 (from /.) – at first I thought this robot was amazing. Then I saw this (Quasi the Robot on Discovery Channel) and saw how much of a fake it was. I guess I was just disappointed from what I was expecting what the robot can do from the 1st video.

Koyote – Walking slowly (from Glendia) – An MV from Koyote’s 7th album Rainbow. A pretty catchy Korean tune and funny animation. The ending was a bit sad though…

Kingdom Hearts II – Opening – pretty neat CG animation by Square-Enix. Reminds me very much of the style used in Final Fantasy VII – Advent Children. I’ve never played Kingdom Hearts, so I have no idea what idea what the video is about besides that there’s some girl the boy is trying to rescue, but random characters appear trying to stop him, while others appear to help him.

No Saves, No Continues – I was just thinking I wished there save points in life where I can go back to a previous save point and redo what I screwed up. Then I read this comic on Ctrl+Alt+Del.

Squares 2 (from MS newsgroup) – a rather fun and amusing game when you’re bored. My high score was 8xxxx.

Street Fighter: The Later YearsCollegeHumor looks into the lives of the Street Fighter combatants, 10 years later. This actually looks like a series I’d enjoy watching.

Chinese fugitive leaves cave after 8 yearsThe 35-year-old man from the southeastern city of Fuzhou had tunneled the cave out of a hill behind the bedroom of his house and had put a wardrobe in front of the entrance as a disguise, Xinhua said in a report seen on Thursday. The man, named as Liu Yong, left the cave during the day to read, wash and watch television in the house, but went back into it at night, it said.

Man recites pi to 100,000 placesA Japanese mental health counselor recited pi to 100,000 decimal places from memory on Wednesday, setting what he claims to be a new world record.

Online dancing star struts into boardroomsHis six-minute video, ‘Evolution of Dance‘, catalogues the squirm-worthy moves made so enthusiastically by so many over five decades of partying and it has become the most viewed of all time on www.youtube.com, seen more than 33.5 million times. You can also visit his homepage: The Evolution of Dance with Judson Laipply

12Mbps

Sorry about not posting for so long. Between work, WarCraft III, anime, TV series, and trying to catch some sleep, you can see where my blog priority lies.

Got a postcard from Comcast awhile back and they’ve bumped me to 12Mbps. Speed tests show a download rate of 8,000-10,000Kbps and a upload rate of 750-850Kbps. Pretty sweet!


Random Crap:

What FuzzyWuzzy has to go through in between seasons of the L word:

<zuFeht> damn i’m so addicted to l word again ><
<Krunk> haha
<pantsumimi> i love lesbians too
<Krunk> were you ever not addicted?
<Krunk> after you started watching of course
<pantsumimi> fuzzo was not addicted between seasons
<pantsumimi> when there was nothing to be addicted to
<pantsumimi> except re-runs
<pantsumimi> I never really got that show
<pantsumimi> I only remember one episode where some woman’s mother came over when they were fucking
<pantsumimi> and the vibrator wouldn’t turn off
<pantsumimi> so she put it in a small pot and told her mother it was a cactus
<Krunk> haha
<Krunk> so after every season
<Krunk> fuzzy goes cold turkey
<pantsumimi> lol, no choice really =P
<Krunk> thinks he’s off
<Krunk> but then immediately gets hooked on once the next season starts
<pantsumimi> i don’t think it’s cold turkey
<pantsumimi> i think it’s more like a period of forced withdrawal
<Krunk> ah
<Krunk> no more supply
<pantsumimi> yeah i can see it now
<Krunk> just pure demand
<pantsumimi> fuzzo is hugging his knees in the corner
<pantsumimi> shivering
<pantsumimi> mumbling about lesbians
<Krunk> sucking his thumb
<zuFeht> haha
<pantsumimi> yeah all that shizzaz
<zuFeht> totally
<zuFeht> i’m watching reruns ><
<zuFeht> new season should start in jan or feb

My Résumé (from MS newsgroup):

  1. My first job was working in an Orange Juice factory, but I got canned. I couldn’t concentrate.
  2. Then I worked in the woods as a Lumberjack, but I just couldn’t hack it, so they gave me the axe.
  3. After that, I tried to be a Tailor, but I just wasn’t suited for it — mainly because it was a sew-sew job.
  4. Next, I tried working in a Muffler Factory, but that was too exhausting.
  5. Then, I tried to be a Chef – figured it would add a little spice to my life, but I just didn’t have the thyme.
  6. I attempted to be a Deli Worker, but any way I sliced it I couldn’t cut the mustard.
  7. My best job was a Musician, but eventually I found I wasn’t noteworthy.
  8. I studied a long time to become a Doctor, but I didn’t have any patience.
  9. Next, was a job in a Shoe Factory. I tried but I just didn’t fit in.
  10. I became a Professional Fisherman, but discovered that I couldn’t live on my net income.
  11. I managed to get a good job working for a Pool Maintenance Company, but the work was just too draining.
  12. So then I got a job in a Workout Center, but they said I wasn’t fit for the job.
  13. After many years of trying to find steady work! I finally got a job as a Historian – until I realized there was no future in it.
  14. My last job was working in Starbucks, but I had to quit because it was always the same old grind.
  15. SO, I TRIED RETIREMENT AND FOUND THAT I’M PERFECT FOR THE JOB. Man do I enjoy it !!!!

Some guy on the MS newsgroup was asking for advice on how to repel rabbits. Besides the regular advice, a funny conversation started:

Tobasco sauce. Just a little bit on the leaves. Works like a charm.

I had put pepper spray on my roses when rabbits used to eat them and it works great. They don’t come back ever.

How about just put out a bowl of rabbit food nearby? They will eat that and leave your plants alone.

Then you end up with friends for life.

OK Go – Here It Goes Again (from MS newsgroup) – a pretty neat music video which involves 8 treadmills. It doesn’t seem like the official music video, but the choreography was pretty neat. I like how they made it look like they were skiing.

MIT Sketching – RayAlome first showed me this video of this neat physics sketching software a week ago or so. It’s actually pretty neat. For more information, you might want to read about it on MIT’s website: Magic Paper. There was a email at work spreading around stating this was Microsoft Physics Illustrator (download / source code). It seems like this was a joint project between MSR and MIT.

big cups
For the last departmental picnic, management had decided that, due to liability issues, we could have alcohol, but only one (1) drink per person. I was fired for ordering the cups. (from MS Newsgroup)

Unnessary Censorship (from MS newsgroup) – One Year of Unnessary Censorship by the Jimmy Kemmel show.

Huge BUG found in Google Maps (from MS newsgroup)

peter callesen (from MS newsgroup) – I think I had actually saw this elsewhere, but I don’t remember. The papercut art is just amazing. Sometimes the cutout portions are like shadows, other times, they actually resemble things. They’re actually really pretty.

Goodbye Grandpa

I just got news that grandpa passed away. I just recently found out he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I think I might actually be the last person in my family (parents + siblings) to actually have seen my grandpa when I was a freshman or sophmore in college. Though I am saddened by this news, I didn’t really know my grandpa that well. To me, he was just a jolly old man as I can recall.

There has always been a misunderstanding between my dad, and my dad couldn’t find it in himself to forgive grandpa for the longest time. When he heard about grandpa and his diagnosis, he was heart broken and even decided to go see him for the last time after probably almost 10 years now.

I can’t say I can understand what my father is going through right now, but I know how much it must be hurting him. After all these years, he’s finally decided to forgive grandpa, and grandpa leaves a step too early. I recall when I was young, and my dad would play dead. I actually fell for the trick multiple times. He actually got me believing that if these little warts on him popped, he would die. I remember crying for the longest time because my dad wouldn’t move, and when he woke up, I was the happiest little boy on Earth.

Unfortunately, it appears this story won’t have a happy ending.

Goodby Grandpa.

Heroes Discussion

So I had a talk with RayAlome today in regards to Heroes, what’s happened so far and what’s to come. I thought it was quite interesting and wanted to share it with you guys. It might contain major spoilers, or it may not. Reader beware.

Discussion 1: (Show)

If you missed this in Episode 2:

key like curve painting when hiro visits painter's room
The painting of a key like curve when Hiro was searching for the painter in his studio, right before he picks up the gun and gets caught

key like curve that scrolls across the screen when the son is looking at the genetic code on his father's usb thumbdrivekey like curve that scrolls across the screen when the son is looking at the genetic code on his father's usb thumbdrive
Key like curve that scrolls across the screen when the son is looking at the genetric data on his father’s USB thumbdrive. It’s a lot easier to see when the screen is scrolling, but you can see the … that form the shape.

Discussion 2: (Show)

Eight Crazy Nights

This movie was pretty bad. Had some funny moments and times, but the story didn’t flow well, jumped back and forth about a kid who just couldn’t let go. If I had to put it, it’s the new Grinch with a reason. It’s about a guy that can’t stand others being happy during the holiday seasons, and goes out of his way to ruin it for everyone.

Official Site
IMDb: 4.7/10 (3,277 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: C- / Yahoo! Users: B-
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 14% / Average Rating: 3.2/10
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
MY RATING: 4/10

eight crazy nights postereight crazy nights poster

Spoilers: (Show)

Heroes

So RayAlome sent me to watch this trailer a week or 2 back: Hereos – Promotion Trailer. It’s a new TV series on NBC. It was semi interesting so I decided to give it a try this weekend. You can actually watch latest episode on their website: NBC Rewind. Of course they’ll stick in random ads.

Anyway the story is simple, pretty much like X-Men, but not as crazy. Humans are evolving, not because of random mutations, but because it’s destiny. The Human Genome project is already completed, and people with special genes already exist and are just waiting to be awaken, and as a prophecy/oracle thing, it appears that there’s going to be chaos soon.

For some reason, I think the show wants to bring out logical reasonings of how some of these things are actually happening.

From the first 2 episodes, I already have some questions: (Show)

The Wire – Season 2

I finished watching The Wire – Season 2 (thanks to CDMCC for lending the DVDS to me). I would have to say the 2nd season was indeed better than the 1st. Season 3 is already out on DVD and it appears Season 4 is currently airing (but almost done).

the wire - season 2 dvd box

Spoilers: (Show)

Then there was all the sex scenes in Season 2, which I didn’t recall much about in Season 1.

Auto Self Clean Oven

So I started using my oven recently. Got my cookie trays from Costco. Bought a box of Otis Spunkmeyer cookies from Costco and when using my oven, I noticed a latch. I thought it was to lock the oven from accidentally opening, but apparently, the moment I latch the door, the “auto self clean” light turned on. Of course I undid the latch, but it got me wondering how an oven can clean itself, or what exactly does the auto self clean do. Is a water source connected to it and would come out and swirl around like a dish washer? Turns out it was not quite what I had expected.

From Yahoo! Answers:

How does the auto clean feature on an oven work?

Self cleaning ovens work very well. The oven is heated up to 950 degrees F. and that burns off the dirt and turns it to a gray ash that you wipe off with a damp cloth.

You should remove the racks before cleaning or they will turn an ugly blueish color and eventually an ugly grayish color unless they are porcelain coated as some of the newer ones are. You should not let the dirty broiler pan in the oven or it could start on fire. You should also wipe(not scrub) the interior with a wet soapy cloth to remove the excess spillage, grease and spatter.

The self clean cycle is usually a four hour process that slowly heats the oven taking almost an hour for it to get up to cleaning temperatures and the door latch locks so you cannot open the door once it reaches 550 degrees F. and it will remain locked until it cools to below that temperature at the end of the cycle or you abort the clean cycle for any reason. It can take a while for the latch to unlock so if you attempt to unlatch the door and the lever will not move do not force it just wait longer. Many newer ranges do not have door latch handles and latch and unlatch on their own.

You can self clean an oven up to three times for the price of a can of oven cleaner so it is more economical as well.

Source(s):
40 years major appliance repair.

So at 950°F, I guess everything just burns to ashes. Interesting way to “clean” an oven. Good thing I didn’t leave that “auto self clean” thing on or my cookies may have actually caught on fire.

Alien Egg

So I was making dinner yesterday and while I was waiting for the pasta to cook, I thought I’d fry an egg since I had nothing better to do. Usually my eggs come out to a weird ovally shape, but this time I got a weird alien form:

alien eggalien egg

First the right hand was form, followed by the left claw. I did nothing to instigate this form. I think the culprit was the oil. Reminded me of a crab like alien which then reminded me of mutant spider crabs from Teknoman. Unfortunately this alien spider egg was no match for my ever hungry mouth.

What else I did this weekend included replenishing my food supply, getting squeegees for my bath tub and my car, finishing the human campaign of WarCraft III, and watching a couple episodes of The Wire – Season 2.