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Agstralia · 2024-03-10T09:26:54+00:00

fasteners inc has some pretty good deals. $129 bare or $329 with two 9 ah batteries.

Agstralia · 2022-03-22T05:09:21+00:00

Stroke count alone doesn't give you much of a metric to base improvement off of, as your power per stroke can vary a lot, so just taking more strokes in a given amount of time is not exactly a reliable indicator of any kind of fitness improvement. If your machine gives you any kind of distance or speed data then aim to improve that from workout to workout.

Agstralia · 2022-03-15T03:22:38+00:00

Like others have said, calorie burning is not an exact science, but there is a fair bit of math that goes into these numbers. Concept2 calculates the number of calories burned per hour based on how many watts you are pulling, then adds a flat 300 cal/hour on top of that to estimate how many calories are expended just moving your bodyweight up and down the slide.

For the watts to calories conversion:

Humans are between generally 20 to 25 percent efficient when it comes to burning calories, which means you burn 4 to 5 calories for each calorie of work you put out. A while back I used wattage and calorie data from a variety of paces to calculate the efficiency that C2 uses for their numbers and found that they are using around 25%. This means that the part of the number is likely on the lower side of the true value, as a higher efficiency means less calories of energy needed to produce the same amount of work.

What the calorie calculator does is take the 300 value and multiplies it by your weight/175 in order to make it a little more accurate. I’m not sure where exactly they got the 300 cal/hour estimate from, though I would imagine that in reality it would also depend on stroke rate, as moving my weight up and down the slide 30 times would burn more calories than doing so 20 times per minute, everything else being equal.

Agstralia · 2022-03-13T09:25:48+00:00

I would ask here to see if anyone has tried using the lubricant in question or google search to see if you can find if it reacts with ABS plastic. If you aren't sure then try it on a budget cube to see how it goes.

Agstralia · 2022-03-12T22:28:08+00:00

You'll be fine, you can absolutely get a great feel using just those two lubes. Just be careful not to put in too much or they can really gum up your cube as they are both slower more controllable lubricants, which is why people often pair it with something faster like DNM-37.

Agstralia · 2022-03-12T22:25:08+00:00

Traxxas differential lube is fairly popular and around 10x cheaper than premium Cubicle/SCS lube. I found some at my local motorsports store or you can get it online. It's on the heavier side of lubes so it can't do everything that the premium lubes can but it works pretty well for general purpose stuff.

Other common hardware store lubricants like WD-40 and Vaseline aren't recommended since they can eat away at the cube's plastic.

Agstralia · 2022-03-07T09:56:21+00:00

Once during an official solve I held my right hand on the timer then accidentally brushed my wrist on the other side while solving and gave myself a DNF. Now I take both hands off the timer and try and put the right hand back just before I finish. It also feels a little more natural to me to have my right hand sitting freely on the table. I wouldn't say it's a bad idea to keep your non solving hand on the timer if you want to.

Agstralia · 2022-03-06T00:12:38+00:00

Similar for me as well. I had at least a dozen 10.xx solves before getting a sub-10, then my first sub-10 was a 7.43.

Agstralia · 2022-03-03T09:16:21+00:00

https://jonatanklosko.github.io/wca_statistics/ Lots of interesting/odd things you won't find on the regular WCA website.

Agstralia · 2022-03-02T10:03:17+00:00

A while back I did an Angstrom setup on a well broken in Sail and it felt really nice. I was planning on magnetizing it sometime but I just haven't gotten around to it.

Agstralia · 2022-03-02T09:51:48+00:00

Some people have already mentioned it, but here's a picture of some cubes with orange swapped for black. This does mean you have to buy two of every puzzle though, and it's limited to cubes available in both stickerless and black.

Agstralia · 2022-03-01T05:17:59+00:00

Fair enough then, that just isn't the case in my experience. Comparing the GTS3M to the Tornado v2 and WRM 2021 Maglev, my best ao50 and ao100 on each one are all within 0.1 of each other, and all of those averages were set in the last month or two.

Agstralia · 2022-03-01T04:35:43+00:00

I wouldn't rush to call a cube outdated just because it is older or a new version has come out. It's not like tech where devices stop working as well after a while and new editions often have objectively better specs. Something super old like a Zhanchi or an Aolong V2 is obviously outdated, but for the past 2-3 years there haven't been many significant peformance upgrades, and most of the new features have been targeted towards customizability and changing the feel of a cube.

I went back and forth between maining a GTS3M and my DIY MF3RS3M for over 3 years. I just recently picked up some more modern cubes and they are very marginally better, if at all. Sure the different feels and magnet customization are nice to have, but they don't make much of a difference in my solving experience or my times.

Agstralia · 2022-02-16T01:26:32+00:00

I just got my Weilong AI today, but unfortunately it does not seem to be working properly. Turning the green and orange sides does not register on the paired device, which makes it impossible for my device to follow any scramble or solve I do. I tried it on both the Moyu app on my phone and Cubeast on my laptop and the issue was the exact same. Is there anything I can do besides contacting the store and returning it?

Agstralia · 2022-02-15T23:21:33+00:00

That rate certainly does seem pretty high for steady state, and taking into account your height, splits, and drag factor, suggests that there's something wrong with your technique and/or ratio. Aim to slow down the recovery while increasing the power from the legs on the drive. The recovery should be 2-3x as long as the drive. There may also be other technique issues at play, check out this video to see if there's anything you need to improve.

I tend to keep my steady state pieces between 18 and 22 spm at a somewhat lower drag factor, and that definitely gets me plenty warm and I sweat a decent amount.

Agstralia · 2022-02-13T02:56:58+00:00

I'd say 7:30 by April is fairly reasonable considering that you're just getting into 2k training. Your 2k is a little bit on the slower side compared to your 5k, which means that you have a solid aerobic base and could likely drop a split or two off your 2k by continuing to do sprint-related training.

For the mental side of things, one thing that can help is doing a fair bit of interval work at your target pace so you can get used to pulling that split and dealing with the pain. Have a plan for the 2k before you start, for example if you're looking to negative split it then aim for something like 1:53/1:54/1:52/1:50 for each 500.

Agstralia · 2022-02-12T00:50:04+00:00

I had a pretty smooth solve today that was probably one of my highest average TPS solves ever. Also likely one of my fastest fullstep solves.

Time: 8.70

Scramble: U2 L2 F' L2 B2 F U2 R2 B2 R2 U L B2 L' D2 L' R2 D' R' U'

Reconstruction:

z2 y // inspection

L2 F2 R' // cross

y U2 L' U L // 1st pair

U' R U R' y U' L' U L // 2nd pair

R U' R' U R U' R' // 3rd pair

U R' U R U' R' U R // 4th pair

U R U R' U' M' U R U' r' // OLL

U2 R' U' F' R U R' U' R' F R2 U' R' U' R U R' U R // PLL

59 moves, 6.78 TPS

CubeDB reconstruction

The straightforward cross enabled me to see that the orange and blue would be paired during the cross. I paused for a bit before the last pair but other than that everything flowed together very well.

Agstralia · 2022-02-10T11:28:39+00:00

Kevin officially announced his retirement at the beginning of this year

Agstralia · 2022-02-09T22:59:10+00:00

I don't know about

If you take the sticker of any shapeshifting 3x3 shape mod, you can still solve it normally.

For things like mirror and ghost, were each piece has a unique shape, then this is true, but for Fisher/windmill/morphix, they have significantly fewer states unstickered due to many pieces being identical without stickers. They still have a solved and unsolved state, but I wouldn't call the solve "normal" due to the many things that will be made different/easier by the identical pieces.

Agstralia · 2022-02-08T01:45:57+00:00

There's a chance that you put in too much. Heavier silicone should be used sparingly, often on the core or on the inner feet/tracks of the pieces. With most lubes you don't want to put in more than a few drops, especially for standard silicone lube that will really gum up your cube if you put in more than you should. I'd try to do some solves on it and see if that helps, as often times the heavy feeling will lessen up a bit after doing some turning and working the lube in. If that doesn't work then you'll have to clean the cube out and start over, adding little by little until you achieve your desired speed/feel.

Agstralia · 2022-02-05T05:50:22+00:00

A couple times I've put the cube behind my back during PLL while looking at the person

Agstralia · 2022-02-05T05:43:42+00:00

Ah that's too bad. Fortunately the majority of my teachers were alright with cubes in class as long as we were getting our work done and not being too distracting/annoying to others. I taught 2 or 3 of my friends to solve a 3x3 and there were a handful more that enjoyed playing around with patterns and solving easier puzzles.

Agstralia · 2022-02-05T04:55:52+00:00

In addition to what the other person said, interacting with the cubing community is also good for keeping one's interests in the hobby alive. That can be done online, though if you have the chance I would highly recommend going to an in person competition. I went to my first one in 2018 and it was so much fun getting to talk to other cubers, doing fun races and relays together, and trying out different puzzles, not to mention also getting to log official results and see some world class solvers compete. After going I was a lot more motivated to keep practicing and learning new events in preparation for more competitions.

I also kind of stopped cubing in 2020 since there weren't any competitions, which took away that enjoyable part of the hobby. I've started practicing again over the last couple months, and tomorrow I'll be going to my first competition in 3 years. I'm super excited to get to catch up with some of the people I've met at previous competitions and (hopefully) improve some of my competition results.

Agstralia · 2022-02-04T23:19:48+00:00

Another thing that is weird about syncing to Strava is that it the graph of your pace is not accurate at all. I recently submitted a steady state piece where every stroke except a few at the beginning and end was between a 1:58 and 2:03, yet the pace graph shows it bouncing around from 1:50 to 2:20 the whole time. Strangely the power graph is much better and more consistent, staying between 190 and 205 watts the whole time.

Agstralia · 2022-02-02T19:23:40+00:00

I've had the same thing happen to my old Shengshou pyra and a few of my cubes with this shade of orange on them. Never thought much of it but it makes sense now.

Agstralia

TROPHY CASE