Random Ideas

It’s yet another new year, after another year of newfound knowledge and revelations. I didn’t get into Honours year - but I have taken up two new hobbies - photography and speedcubing.

I made fewer resolutions in 2008, with intent of keeping some of them. Guess how many I did keep? One. Yet again, I did not finish my game engine. I didn’t get a job - well, not a job in the strictest sense of the word. I did find work. I did indeed cook more - not much more than 2007, but enough to keep a lot of food money to myself. Considering how many PSP games came out this year (not many), I thought that it would be a bad idea to go wasting time trying to program for PSP since the platform was apparently slowing down.

This year - the goals are generally straightforward:

1. Get my photography up to scratch - I still suck at taking photos, be it visualizing photos, or even just getting shots with my ultrasharp 50mm prime.

2. Learn how to solve a megaminx - I’m quite sure this won’t be too big a problem, but hey, you’d never know.

3. Get a job - Now that I’ve graduated and have decided to not study any more for a while, it’s time to enter the working world and find a job. The economic downturn won’t make this easy, but I certainly hope I’ll be employed before the latter half of 2009.

4.  Learn how to solve the 5×5x5 cube without a formula sheet - LOL.

5. Get my 3×3x3 solving skill into the sub-40 second range. (I’m now in sub-60.)

6. Put way more stories on Pressyo.

7. Study smarter! Work harder! Sleep more! (LOL)

I realised early on it was extremely difficult to get a photo that would give me an accurate idea as to how a Cubesmith tile sticker’s texture was like.

And so now I present to you - a crop from a high resolution photo which gives pretty good detail on what the texture is like on the tile. (Hint, look at the red tile.)

Click on the photo and get a much better look.

I know the photo isn’t the best, but it’s painfully difficult to capture the texture of the smooth tiles since they look a little bit like noise too.

My old cube began to fall apart, so I got a new improved one - the stickers eventually peeled off in less than 2 weeks, so I’ve replaced them with new Cubesmith tiles!

Cubesmith smooth tiles are awesome. Buy them if you need them.

I’m currently staying at someone else’s place at the moment - which should be obvious since the table looks different.

A few weeks ago, I talked about optimizing coin pressure. Then, I didn’t have any coins to photograph to illustrate how important it is to choose what coins to carry - now I can (and so here are the illustrations I didn’t promise, but delivered anyway):

The optimized stack of coins - 8 coins - $4.95.

And the stack behind it? The remaining 25 coins that won’t make my coin pressure any higher. Here’s a photo if you feel like counting:

The remaining coins after optimization - preferably kept for feeding into machines.

(If I’m not mistaken, that’s about AU$4.40 in change.)

So, optimize your change - your wallet will thank you for it by lasting longer.