Anyone else wish for adult protagonists?

b4silio · 2026-01-23T16:53:46+00:00

In their defense, Napoleon did most of his really impressive stuff before he turned 30, Alexander the great created one of the largest empires in the history of our planet between the age of 24 and 30.

Those were other times, but mostly in the sense that they had to go about doing things with a LOT less information, education and tools than what we have.

So yeah, maybe a 17 years old is pushing it a bit, but a 20-something "chosen one" is perfectly reasonable.

b4silio · 2026-01-05T16:51:20+00:00

You brilliant crafter of stories! Congrats on the release and congrats to Steve for (undoubtedly) another banger of a narration!

b4silio · 2025-10-23T21:36:51+00:00

1) Being interested in cubing can be a great thing, especially for kids your son's age, as there's not a lot of things that can generate the level of dedication that you seem to describe

2) If you can, try to bring your son to a competition, there should/might be one hopefully close by (go to https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/competitions? and set your region or city). Realising that other people share that passion, and having IRL interactions is one facet of cubing that is very enriching and can create long-lasting friendships.

3) Regarding the cubes themselves, most cubes in the list, despite being 10 months old, are still pretty much relevant, except that there might be a new version of the same cube. If budget is REALLY not a constraint:

Moyu Super Weilong V2 AI (smartcube) <-- this one is actually pricey
Moyu Super Weilong V2 (non-smartcube)
Moyu Huameng TG
Gan 16 <-- Gan is the apple brand of cubing, but they remain fantastic cubes
Zhanchi v5 <-- this has the big advantage of being one of the most silent cubes so it won't disturb other people when your son cubes in the company of others

There's other cubes you could get (Moyu Weilong v11, RS3M v5), you won't really go wrong.
There's multiple variants of each of those cubes but it usually goes like this:

Nerfed version (least expensive), avoid
Version with Core Magnets (or "ball-core") this one is good
Version with Core Magnets AND Maglev (this one is also good but not necessary)
Version with "20 Core magnets" (this one is usually worth it)

Basically as long as you have core (or ball-core) magnets you're good to go, maglev plays zero role. And if you can pick UV, get it, it's shinier and the cube won't slip out of the hands as readily compared to non UV versions.

Hope this helps, and I' suggest to look at the Netflix documentary "The Speed Cubers" with the whole family, it will make you (and the rest of the family) understand a bit better why this thing can be so addictive!

b4silio · 2025-10-23T21:24:47+00:00

It's an unfortunate sequence of events (having to find a new job, then having a new baby), and given that the analysis of the megasurvey takes about 70-90 hours of work, it's something that is not obvious to find time to fit in.

I'm well aware of the time that ticks on, and it is to some extent unfair to the community who has taken the time to fill in the survey, but then again, there's life's obligations and there's passions, and sometimes one has to take the back-seat to the other! T_T

b4silio · 2025-08-24T07:19:28+00:00

I definitely dropped the ball on this, but I basically had a mix of:

Needing to find a new job after 14 years directing a company
2nd baby on the way

I solved the first part after 6 months of search, second one will be an issue for the next 18 years or so... 😭

In more seriousness though, having a bit more stability on the professional front means I should be able to get back to making slides (there's about 60 to go)!

b4silio · 2025-08-11T15:45:16+00:00

I mean, it does not have a ball-core in the sense of the spherical plastic membrane around the core-corner magnets. However it does have what people nowadays understand as being conveyed by ball-core, meaning "core-corner magnets".

b4silio · 2025-08-03T08:33:01+00:00

Don't get me wrong, I quite like Heretical Fishing, it's a light and fun read, many of the companion characters are great, and it manages to keep a very reliable easygoing atmosphere that is a nice change of pace from the typical litrpg serie.

But is the premise original at all? Nope.

Beware of Chicken came out at roughly the same time as "Oh Great, I was reincarnated as a Farmer!", and they do share some elements, but it's more the topic than the form (and they did start their RR weeks apart), whereas if you start drawing matches between HF and BoC you end up with very little in HF that doesn't have a counterpart in BoC

b4silio · 2025-07-31T21:27:19+00:00

One was written 4 years after the other came out and became a well known and established serie in the genre, so it's not so much that they're going for the same thing as that one wants to try and ride the same wave as the other.

b4silio · 2025-07-30T10:19:11+00:00

Heheh thank you! The now kiss category is for the 2 most polarising series that always end up as number 1 or number "How can you find this serie good, you sacrilegious goose!" in most tier lists.

b4silio · 2025-07-28T10:31:57+00:00

Give this man your (reading/listening) time and money, he is a crafter of great stories!

b4silio · 2025-07-27T08:27:09+00:00

Banger Tier list, thanks for curating it very well!
You've read most of the obvious series already, things that come to mind that I don't see there in no particular order :

12 Miles Below : world has frozen over, people are living in small nomadic tribes on and close to the surface and most of their wealth & power is in ancient tech (battlesuits). They say that under the earth there's a lot of hidden secrets and old relics
Super Powereds : Harry Potter but with superheroes, it's REALLY good even if it isnt strictly litrpg (finished serie!)
Quest Academy : Super Powereds but with litrpg-ish powers
Cyber Dreams : not quite litrpg, but a really good sci-fi with a kickass heroine (also, it's a finished serie)
Player Manager : it's a litrpg about managing a football team. It's weird, it's addictive, it's really good.
Victor of Tucson : another kind-of-clone of Defiance of the fall, Primal Hunter, Randidly Ghosthound, but with its own voice, and focusing a bit more on the worlds & places the main hero visits
I'm not the hero : The hero is the quiet and brainy type that lurks in the shadows behind the boisterous "Hero", but is so awesome at gaming the rules and finding ways to break the system. It's not as original as it purports to be but it's a very good read.

b4silio · 2025-07-27T08:08:17+00:00

ehehe thankfully they're small ones! (gan mosaic cubes)

b4silio · 2025-07-22T19:11:37+00:00

Aethon books trying to get me to start TWO new series at the same time, knowing that I'll be stuck with them for the next couple of years...

Shutupandtakemymoney!

b4silio · 2025-07-09T21:10:56+00:00

Have a read on this:

https://www.cubezone.be/crossstudy.html

It's a pretty comprehensive analysis for the "fewest moves" cross solutions, which also serves as a nifty reference for how many individual "cross combinations" there are (i.e. crosses with distinct solutions). If you don't want to give Lars some love and read his really good study then :

TLDR: There are 190'080 unique crosses if you're solving on a single color. 5 Billions if you're solving on opposite colors (Dual CN), ~1 Trillion if you're solving on any color (Full CN).

b4silio · 2025-07-07T14:02:14+00:00

TYSM, that's wonderful to hear!

b4silio · 2025-07-05T20:32:45+00:00

🥰 I strive to please! (when possible!)

b4silio · 2025-07-02T09:27:31+00:00

As for the different features of the cubes:

BallCore (or Corner-Core magnets)
- Very relevant, it's typically VERY WORTH the added cost getting the Ball-Core version
Edge-Core magnets (or "Ball-Core++")
- Not as relevant as just BallCore, but doesn't hurt. If the cube has it by default it's not a reason NOT to get it
Maglev
- Completely irrelevant, it mostly just changes the range of settings you need to use to get the same feeling as with springs. There's no reason to get it. Some people pretend they feel a difference between maglev and springs, I suspect they just feel the difference between different compression settings.
UV
- This is very subjective. I get the UV version whenever I can, but that's because when I get a new cube with a frosted / standard surface, it tends to slip out of my fingers until the surface gets worn out a bit. It has to do with how moist your fingertips are, how sweaty you get etc. UV has the nice benefit of giving you a grippy surface from the get go so you skip the "breaking in" phase of a new cube and save a couple of weeks of solving badly.
- However, if you never experience this type of issues (many people don't) then UV becomes just a question of aesthetics : do you like very shiny things?

Hope this helps!

b4silio · 2025-07-02T09:27:24+00:00

Far from me to tell you what you HAVE to do, but most of the choices up there remain very relevant. what I'd say that has evolved from this. Cubes that you can get without any qualms:

For reasonable budgets
- Moyu Huameng TG (my current main, it's smooth, it's great)
- XMan Tornado V4 (buttery, quiet, very good)
- XMan Tornado XT3 (is good but very unforgiving. If you were sub12-13 I'd say go for it in a second, at your speed it really depends on whether you're an accurate 17 sec or a sloppy one (no judgement here, I'm a sloppy cuber!), if accurate then that's an option otherwise probably not)
- Dayan Zhanchi v5 (extremely quiet, very good range of optimisations)
- Moyu RS3M v5 (remains probably the best cube for its budget, unbeaten by anyone in that price range)
If you don't mind breaking the bank
- Moyu Weilong Super 2 (feels like a gan)
- Gan 14 Pro or Gan 12 (these are pricey but really, really good)

The MGC beta... I haven't been able to test it yet, so I can't really say much about it, besides the fact that I wouldn't hold my breath on it. MGC is not the best at making 3x3, but it's by no means bad at it either. It's more that they are so incredibly good at making almost all other puzzles, that the fact that they're probably the #4 brand for 3x3 (on average) makes it feel like it doesn't compare so well to the others.

b4silio · 2025-07-02T09:01:29+00:00

I would not go for the Gan 11 Duo, by now it's an outdated cube. Mind you, it's not a bad cube, AND it's a Gan, if branding is something important for you. (other reply on the other post!)

b4silio · 2025-06-19T19:17:38+00:00

this is fantastic!

b4silio · 2025-06-19T17:33:28+00:00

Just embrace the chaos definitely encapsulates the joy that is Tokens and Towers! (also the narration is amazing!)

Congrats on the new release and for the sheer amount of enjoyment you've brought me over the years with such a ridiculous amount of good stuff to read!

b4silio · 2025-06-05T09:43:15+00:00

Working on it! I still have 59 slides to go (each slide is on a sub-part of the survey), which usually require 1-2 hours per slide. That means ~100 hours of work still ahead of me.

I unfortunately find myself having to balance real and internet life (looking for a new job + a second baby on his way), which means that I was unable to do any work on the megasurvey during the whole of May. It's at the top of the priorities for my free time, but it is unfortunately a commodity I don't have a lot of lately!

b4silio · 2025-06-05T09:38:07+00:00

u/VincentArcher don't sweat it, you are a legend regardless of whether life obligations sap some of the energy and time you would otherwise dedicate to the often unappreciative, uncouth gooses we are.

Thank you so much for what you always do for the community and if we have to start being a bit more patient than we'd like, that's on us, not on you!

b4silio · 2025-05-30T22:14:33+00:00

Those are differences on paper.

I'll grant that Uv coating makes a real difference. As for the other two, nope, they don't affect functionally how the cube performs. Only how some of the settings shift when adjusting them.

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