| Thursday, September 22, 2011: Sleep-deprived, but somehow, still cubing well. I just got my first sub-12-second 3x3 average - 11.94 = 11.33, (14.62), 12.37, 11.22, 12.02, 12.24, 12.81, 13.78, 11.68, (10.06), 10.28, 11.69, breaking my previous PR of 12.13 set on 8/30/11. Unreal. Done on the tighter of my two Zhan Chis. |
| Thursday, September 22, 2011: First sub-9 3x3 single solve! 8.54 - non-lucky! Scramble: D U2 B F' D' B2 F L B2 F D U' R D' U' B' F' U2 B2 F' L D' B U' F2. (Previous PR was 9.21 set on 11/27/10.) Done on my Zhan Chi 1 (I've now labeled them under the yellow center caps). |
| Wednesday, September 21, 2011: New one-handed average PR of 26.00 (rolling) = 22.28, 28.94, (19.73), 28.94, 22.25, 25.86, (31.63), 24.46, 29.49, 25.70, 30.00, 22.07, breaking my previous record of 27.58 set on 11/12/10. Done on one of my Zhan Chis that I bought at US Nationals this past summer. |
| Thursday, September 8, 2011: Got my first sub-50-second 4x4 solve with a new single PR of 48.98, which was part of my first sub-60-second 4x4 average PR of 58.54 = 56.21, 59.49, 59.27, 1:00.32, 56.70, 59.39, 53.61, (48.98), 59.44, 1:02.17, (1:03.54), 58.77. I shotgunned my first beer to celebrate. 24 seconds. |
| Saturday, September 3, 2011: Did some 4x4 practice with my DaYan+mf8. Broke my 4x4 single PR of 52.22 (6/26/11) with a new PR of 52.09. Later in the session, I broke the record again with a new PR single of 51.15. I also broke my previous best average of 1:02.86 (7/2/11) with a new PR average of 1:00.50 = 1:01.49, (DNF), 57.79, 52.53, 56.56, 1:00.24, 1:04.11, 1:09.11, 53.84, 58.90, 1:10.40, (51.15). |
| Tuesday, August 30, 2011: Dennis Mou came over to my room tonight and we did 142 head-to-head 3x3 speedsolve races. After he left, with the adrenaline pumping, I did another 30 solves and got a new 3x3 average PR of 12.13 = 10.65, 11.96, (9.79), (14.10), 11.16, 13.32, 12.27, 12.17, 12.89, 13.48, 12.64, 10.73. Competition is good, I guess. |
| Tuesday, August 30, 2011: Andy made a new Random Thoughts banner for me! Check it out. |
| Saturday, August 27, 2011: Not much to do with a hurricane raging outside. Did some cubing with my Zhan Chi (my new favorite speedcube). Got a new best average of 12.50 = 11.08, 13.79, (18.43), 12.87, 11.65, 14.46, (10.91), 12.00, 12.85, 11.41, 12.34, 12.50. I love this cube. |
| Tuesday, August 23, 2011: Summer internship complete, done with GREs, back on campus. I unpacked, grabbed dinner with some Student Techs, and then did 250 3x3 solves on one of the new Zhan Chi cubes I bought at US Nationals. I finally broke my 3x3 average PR of 12.70 from 5/5/11 with a new record of 12.61 = 12.78, 13.94, 11.46, 11.76, 13.49, 12.45, 15.18, 12.10, 11.35, 11.61, (16.22), (11.33). The semester's off to a good start :). |
| Monday, August 15, 2011: All the feet cubing practice paid off! I got third at US Nationals 2011 with a mean of 1:38.03. Full results here. I also filmed my feet solves and a blindfolded solve: feet solve 1, feet solve 2, feet solve 3, blindfolded solve. |
| Wednesday, August 10, 2011: New feet solve average PR of 1:43.18 = 1:47.46, 1:58.51, (2:36.77), 1:50.48, 1:45.76, 1:26.92, 1:49.09, 1:54.80, 1:33.23, (1:23.91), 1:36.69, 1:28.88. This is my last average before I leave for Columbus. See you in Ohio. |
| Wednesday, August 10, 2011: New feet solve average PR of 1:45.04 = 1:43.81, 1:50.60, (2:29.83), 1:34.47, 1:55.39, 1:41.91, 1:45.37, 1:51.96, (1:24.05), 1:35.72, 1:39.73, 1:51.40. Since Monday, I have also been practicing only on hard floor surfaces (the tiled kitchen floor and the hardwood living room floor). No more carpets, no more blankets. The hard surface is more challenging (there's less give and less friction), and I think it's closer to the StackMat mat surface. |
| Sunday, August 7, 2011: New feet solve single PR of 1:09.11 (it had a PLL skip) and average PR of 1:55.20 = 2:11.06, (1:34.63), 2:11.39, 1:39.30, 2:01.14, 1:35.09, 2:18.47, (2:49.64), 2:09.46, 2:06.14, 2:04.48, 1:40.84. Currently, I've been simulating a StackMat mat surface by putting a thin blanket over the hard kitchen floor. However, when I cube directly on the kitchen floor, I'm about a minute slower because there's no give in the hard floor, so it's harder to turn the cube. |
| Saturday, August 6, 2011: New feet single PR of 1:16.14 and average PR of 1:59.74 = 2:11.06, (1:34.63), 2:11.39, 1:39.30, 2:01.14, 1:35.09, 2:18.47, (2:49.64), 2:09.46, 2:06.14, 2:04.48, 1:40.84. I'm trying to get down to about 1:30 average by the competition next weekend. |
| Saturday, August 6, 2011: New feet single PR of 2:02.02 and average PR of 2:24.74 = 2:05.34, 2:38.44, 3:18.68, 2:15.27, 2:25.76, 2:03.40, (2:02.02), 2:09.99, 2:30.34, 2:20.43, (4:41.80), 2:19.78. I bought a StackMat mat tonight online so that next week I can practice on the competition surface. I'm a lot slower feet cubing on a hard floor than on a carpet. A StackMat mat should be somewhere inbetween. |
| Friday, August 5, 2011: New feet average PR of 2:45.10 = 3:28.58, 2:16.84, 2:53.53, 3:08.50, 2:23.78, (2:05.24), 2:35.95, 2:19.01, 2:31.36, 2:38.60, 2:40.84, (3:58.96). I think feet solving is the event I have the best chance of placing top 3 in at nationals, so I'm going to focus on practicing this for nationals. |
| Thursday, August 4, 2011: New feet solve single PR of 2:03.95. I think I'm averaging under 3 minutes consistently now. |
| Wednesday, August 3, 2011: New feet solve single PR of 2:12.79. Previous record was 2:13.37 set on Christmas Day 2006. I think I'm starting to get the hang of feet solving, which I'm competing in for the first time at U.S. Nationals next weekend. The worst thing is trying to repair your cube with your feet when you get a pop. |
| Monday, July 25, 2011: Dream about Yale and WP. |
| Thursday, July 14, 2011: Can you say, "Ice Cream Cho-co-late!"? |
| Thursday, July 14, 2011: Prison dream. |
| Wednesday, July 13, 2011: Squatter camps in Soweto. |
| Tuesday, July 12, 2011: First full day in South Africa. |
| Tuesday, July 12, 2011: Technical difficulties in South Africa. |
| Sunday, July 10, 2011: Er...it took a bit longer than expected for me to start my South Africa write-up. I decided it would probably be easier for me to do in daily installments. Here's the first installment. |
| Sunday, July 3, 2011: I hope everyone's having a good July 4th weekend so far. I know I haven't posted in a while, but I plan to do a write-up about my South Africa trip later today. Recently, I've gotten some new 4x4 and 5x5 PRs. I ordered a new 4x4 - a DaYan+mf8 - because my Maru now locks up essentially every solve. Since receiving my DaYan+mf8 about a week ago, I've gotten a new 4x4 single PR of 52.22 (previous was 54.19 set at Harvard Fall 2010 with William Chen's (not the WP William Chen) cube) and a new average PR of 1:05.27, then 1:02.86 a few days later (previous was 1:07.72 set on 10/6/10). I've also set a new 5x5 single PR of 1:41.27 (previous was 1:42.25 set on 1/8/10) and I think I can break my average PR soon, too. |
| Thursday, June 9, 2011: Posted my feet cubing video and my Cornell visit day 4 entry. |
| Saturday, May 28, 2011: Woot, post from South Africa! About day 3 of my Cornell visit. |
| Saturday, May 14, 2011: Added a Bananagrams highlights section to the Day 2 post, including a discussion about official Scrabble word lists. |
| Friday, May 13, 2011: Cornell visit day 2 - competition day! |
| Tuesday, May 10, 2011: I'm done with finals, woot! (I had my last one this past Sunday, actually.) I've been chilling since, so I had some time do a write-up on Day 1 of my Cornell visit. |
| Thursday, May 5, 2011: Just finished my third and last cube session of today, 8 minutes before midnight, and broke my 3x3 average PR for the third time today. Did 100 solves, session average of 14.31, new best rolling average of 12 of 12.70. Done on my first Guhong (the one I assembled first). |
| Thursday, May 5, 2011: This afternoon, I picked up the book Moonwalking with Einstein and also assembled and stickered another Guhong cube (my fourth time doing this in four days). I went back to Swing Space, read a couple chapters in the book and then did a cube session on the Guhong I assembled this afternoon. I got a 150-solve average of 13.82 and a best rolling average of 12 of 12.78 - a new PR. I think it's safe to say that my two Guhongs are the best cubes I've ever owned. |
| Thursday, May 5, 2011: New 3x3 average PR! - 12.91 = (10.13), 14.45, (16.59), 13.30, 10.97, 12.38, 14.34, 11.51, 13.93, 14.37, 13.12, 10.77. Done on my Guhong. Sub-15 averages are easy now. This cube is sick. |
| Monday, May 2, 2011: Day 0 of my Cornell visit, a.k.a. the day I left for Cornell. |
| Monday, May 2, 2011: The 3x3 Dayan Guhong black DIY kit I ordered arrived. I assembled it, adjusted the spring tension, lubricated it, and did some solves. Then I opened up CCT (Caltech Cube Timer) and did a cube session. 43 solves later, I have a new 3x3 average PR of 12.98, my first sub-13 average. (My previous average PR was 13.38, set on November 27, 2010.) I also got my 4th ever sub-10 solve and my 2nd fastest ever non-lucky solve of 9.75. Scramble: L' F2 D' U F2 R' B2 L2 B' L' F D U' L R' U2 B F2 U' R2 B' F D U2 F2. This Guhong cube is amazing. |
| Friday, April 15, 2011: I decided to remove all the money I got from taking surveys and some miscellaneous other events (e.g.: someone gave me their leftover change) from my Money Found page. I have kept all the disqualified entries, but just set their values to $0.00, though I added a comment in the 'Comments' column indicating the original value. I was at $99.99; after disqualifying entries, I'm at $58.61. |
| Tuesday, March 22, 2011: Vivid dream last night. |
| Wednesday, March 16, 2011: One thing that bothered me about Chrome is tooltips would disappear after five seconds. This was a big issue when reading xkcd, where every comic has mouseover text. Finally, I have found a Chrome plugin that solves this problem - Comic Text! |
| Monday, March 14, 2011: Happy pi day! I spent the first week of my two-week spring break visiting Andy at Hopkins. |
| Monday, February 21, 2011: Electronic or print? |
| Wednesday, February 16, 2011: Stay hungry and foolish. |
| Sunday, February 6, 2011: Ugh, more browser problems. "Your profile can not be used because it is from a newer version of Google Chrome." I solved the problem by deleting the "Web Data" file in my Chrome Default folder, and though all my bookmarks are still there, my keyword (more like keyletter) searches are all gone. |
| Wednesday, February 2, 2011: That was a fast month! |
| Wednesday, February 2, 2011: I used Chrome for the past month and I have to say I really like it (see this post for reasons). It's my new browser of choice, superseding Firefox. However, I have decided to give Opera a shot and am exclusively using Opera this month. After about five seconds of use, I already dislike it. I kept getting this error about not being able to write to this opera6.adr file, and then I got an error message about initializing Opera Mail, whatever that is. I reinstalled Opera 11 (the latest version) and still got the same problem. Then I installed Opera 9, uninstalled it, and reinstalled Opera 11 and finally there are no error messages. The first thing I did of course was import my Chrome bookmarks. Then I tested adding a bookmark, and the stupid thing is, when you add a bookmark to your bookmarks toolbar, by default, it's hidden! You have to click Details-->Show on Bookmarks bar in order for it to appear. This seems very user unfriendly. Anyhows, I still want to give Opera its full month and I will let you know how I like it afterward (or perhaps during the month) and how it compares (performance- and features-wise) to other browsers. |
| Sunday, January 23, 2011: My spending and sleep logs are now up-to-date. I have also decided to stop my sleep log. The last entry is for 1/13/11; the next day, I got sick with a fever and a stomach bug and did not have the energy to record my on-and-off sleep schedule for the following three days. I decided this was a good time to stop the log. With over a year and a half of sleep data, it seems I average about 7 to 7.5 hours of sleep during the school year and 8.5 to 9 hours of sleep during breaks and summer vacations, for a cumulative average of about 8 hours. I am guessing the optimal amount of sleep for me is between 8 and 8.5 hours. |
| Saturday, January 22, 2011: I woke up this morning and did ten consecutive cheating pull-ups. I cheated because I did not go all the way down to a full hang, and I used momentum to help me, like the guy does in this video. However, my progress seems promising, and hopefully by March I will be able to do ten consecutive good form pull-ups. |
| Friday, January 21, 2011: Done with distributional requirements! |
| Tuesday, January 11, 2011: Woot 2011. Woot exercise. |
| Tuesday, January 4, 2011: Browser wars. |
| Friday, December 31, 2010: Welcome 2011. |
| Wednesday, December 22, 2010: Strange dream. |
| Saturday, December 4, 2010: Legilimens. |
| Friday, December 3, 2010: Three days FTW. |
| Saturday, November 27, 2010: During my 15.52 average of 65 solves this evening, I randomly got a best rolling average of 12 of 13.38! This is my second sub-14 average, and completely shattered my previous best average of 13.96, done the night before Princeton Fall 2010. Details: 14.52, 12.68, 12.36, 12.10, (15.86), (10.92), 13.68, 15.51, 15.79, 12.06, 11.00, 14.09. I have a feeling this 13.38 average PR will last a while, since globally, I still average in the mid to high 15s. |
| Saturday, November 27, 2010: New 3x3 single PR of 9.21! Non-lucky, too. Scramble (white top, green front): D U2 L2 D' U' L R' U B' R U B U' L' R D' U' B' F L F L R D' U2. My solution: z' y' R' U' R L U x' U' (extended red cross done) x' y' R U R' (second pair done) y l U L F' L' U' l' (third pair done) y R U R' (fourth pair done) R' U' R U' R' U2 R (OLL (Sune) done) U R' U R' U' R' U' R' U R U R2' (PLL (U perm) done). |
| Tuesday, November 23, 2010: Got my first Fridrich sub-10 solve! - 9.68, my second fastest solve ever (9.61 set on 6/14/08 is still my record). The scramble was U R' F' R2 B' U2 L B' F D2 R' D2 B U F' L2 R' D2 U2 B' D L2 R F2 U'. I started off with a double extended cross, then had an OLL skip followed by a G perm. |
| Thursday, November 11, 2010: Another voice message in the style of George Costanza's answering machine, suggested by Szajko. |
| Monday, November 8, 2010: Andy Tien is looking for a new voice mail message, so he asked me to record some for him. I recorded three, and he wants your opinion on which one he should use. Give a listen and post in the chatterbox which one you like. Yo. It's Andy... Wassup, dawg?... You've reached Andy... If you don't like any of them, let me know what you think the message should be. |
| Saturday, November 6, 2010: It's 12:55 AM. I just got my first unofficial sub-14 second average: 13.96 = 12.45, 14.72, 15.57, (11.57), 15.08, 15.25, (15.73), 13.19, 12.36, 13.43, 13.86, 13.68. Princeton Fall 2010 starts in about 8 hours. I'm pumped! |
| Sunday, October 31, 2010: Halloween post. |
| Wednesday, October 20, 2010: Short dream. |
| Monday, October 11, 2010: On classes. |
| Wednesday, September 15, 2010: Geocaching adventures! |
| Wednesday, August 18, 2010: Geohashing adventures! |
| Monday, August 9, 2010: Revisit to an intersection. |
| Sunday, August 1, 2010: Awesome Saturday. |
| Wednesday, July 28, 2010: Short post about something I was pondering. |
| Monday, July 19, 2010: Added the Blogspot feeds I follow. |
| Sunday, July 18, 2010: Added some RSS feeds I follow in the panel directly below this. (Annoyingly, Blogspot uses a different feed format (Atom) than other sites (LiveJournal, Tumblr, WordPress). I'm still working on parsing Atom feeds.). |
| Friday, July 16, 2010: Some random things. |
| Monday, July 12, 2010: Writeup on the Berkeley Summer 2010 cubing competition. |
| Thursday, July 8, 2010: Early morning post. |
| Monday, July 5, 2010: Blurb about my 4x4ing this summer. |
| Sunday, July 4, 2010: New Fridrich 3x3 average PR: 14.73 = 13.36, 15.63, 13.10, 16.47, (12.20), 14.72, (16.95), 14.61, 16.54, 13.26, 15.35, 14.24. So close to my Petrus 3x3 average PR of 14.67. I think it will be broken soon, before the Berkeley competition next weekend. |
| Sunday, July 4, 2010: Happy 4th of July! I give you an unrelated post on shoes. |
| Friday, July 2, 2010: Sub-15 with Fridrich!!! 14.85 = 13.02, 14.69, 16.99, 15.77, (12.73), 14.30, 14.89, 17.52, (18.04), 13.08, 15.46, 12.77. Happy 4th of July weekend! |
| Sunday, June 27, 2010: This weekend, I relubricated all my cubes using some CRC Silicone Spray Jeff had at his house. With my freshly lubed cubes, I broke both my 3x3 and 4x4 speedsolve averages, with new bests of 15.11 and 1:11.84, respectively. During the 4x4 average PR, I also got a new 4x4 single PR and my second ever sub-minute solve with a time of 54.67. (My first was in practice at Big Cubes Summer competition 2009.) It's been a good cubing weekend. |
| Sunday, June 27, 2010: First car accident and some bike trails. |
| Saturday, June 26, 2010: In the past few weeks, I've been training on my second best speedcube. Today, I switched back to my top speedcube (which is nearing retirement), and broke my Fridrich 3x3 average PR with a new best of 15.18. Previous record was 15.35, set on my second best speedcube. Unfortunately, my global average still seems to be around 17 seconds... |
| Friday, June 25, 2010: My 3x3 speedsolve times sucked...but I did set a new 4x4 speedsolve average PR: 1:13.30 = 1:11.06, 1:09.36, 1:17.32, 1:10.22, 1:18.11, 1:12.83, 1:12.97, (1:06.82), (1:30.72), 1:11.06, 1:10.76, 1:19.30. Previous record: 1:15.14. |
| Sunday, June 20, 2010: Back into cubing. |
| Saturday, June 19, 2010: On food and dining while living in Redwood Shores. |
| Wednesday, June 16, 2010: Highlights of Dead Week. Apologies for the long hiatus. Distracted, I guess. |
| Tuesday, May 25, 2010: Tour of Bingham Hall, where I lived for the past two weeks. |
| Wednesday, May 19, 2010: On breakfast and brushing. |
| Monday, May 17, 2010: JHU visit, Day 5 (last day ;_;). |
| Friday, May 14, 2010: JHU visit, Day 4 (first day of classes). |
| Sunday, May 9, 2010: JHU visit, Day 3. |
| Thursday, May 6, 2010: JHU visit, Day 2 (first full day in Baltimore). |
| Wednesday, May 5, 2010: Johns Hopkins visit, Day 1. |
| Sunday, May 2, 2010: End of semester reflections. |
| Sunday, May 2, 2010: Correction on my last post: Ken Kawamoto just sent me a personalized invite: "Yo dawwwwwggggg I'd like to add you to my super duper professional network on LinkedIn." |
| Friday, April 30, 2010: I find it amusing that EVERY single LinkedIn connect invite I've received has been the same generic "I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn." No one has ever sent me a customized LinkedIn invite. |
| Friday, April 30, 2010: Last Friday, I had my last class of the semester - a discussion section for Philosophy of Religion where I turned in my final paper for the class. I came to class with a packed backpack and duffel bag, and immediately after section ended, I took Yale Transit to Union Station, where I took a train to NYC, then took a Bolt Bus from there to Baltimore to visit Andy Tien at Johns Hopkins. I spent five days there (Friday - Tuesday). Details of the trip will come shortly, once I finish my databases final project, but I just wanted to say that for my last meal there (lunch on Tuesday), I ate at a fast food place that had just opened on Monday called Sandella's, ordered a California Quesadilla, and paid in cash, receiving change in return, including an Arkansas quarter! I finally have all 50 state quarters. Now I just need the U.S. territorial quarters and my collection will be complete. |
| Sunday, April 18, 2010: New journal entry. |
| Tuesday, April 6, 2010: First online sale. |
| Sunday, April 4, 2010: I finally gained an intuitive understanding of a basic math concept. |
| Monday, March 22, 2010: Dream from two nights ago. |
| Saturday, March 13, 2010: Updated my Sleep and Spending Logs. A couple nights ago, I think I slept for the longest consecutive time in my life: 14 hours, 42 minutes. Not sure why I was so tired, but some guesses include: Not that much sleep (only 6 hours, 53 minutes) two days prior (Tuesday). The day prior (Wednesday), though I have marked that I slept for 7 hours, 40 minutes, I actually woke up many times to alarms, but kept snoozing: something like 7:45, 8:30, 9, 9:30, so I didn't actually get that great a sleep. I also got lectured by my dad the day of (Thursday), so I was feeling kinda stressed out, and that probably made me more tired, too. Anyways, I felt pretty awake on Friday, I have to say. |
| Monday, March 8, 2009: Got my provisional license upgraded to a full license. Interesting fact I learned: Full licenses issued to people under 21 are printed vertically (portrait), while full licenses granted to people over 21 are printed horizontally (landscape). Personally, I like portrait better than landscape. |
| Sunday, February 28, 2010: I was talking with Lairmate Erik Santoro, and told him about the 'Just the Guys, Part 1' Pure Pwnage episode, where Dave gets angry at Jeremy for beating him so often in Super Smash, so he ejects the Smash CD from the Wii and snaps the CD in half. Erik comments, "Wow, if someone ever did that with MY game, I think I'd just go apeshit." That's the first time, at least in recent memory, that I've heard someone use the word 'apeshit', but when he said it, I just thought, "Wow, what an appropriate word to describe the emotional state one might be in in such a situation." Apeshit just captivated my imagination. |
| Saturday, February 27, 2010: A couple things. |
| Tuesday, February 23, 2010: Adding game! |
| Sunday, February 21, 2010: Floss and my digital camera. |
| Thursday, February 11, 2010: Another item checked off my Yale to-do list: sledding down Science Hill on dining trays. |
| Wednesday, February 10, 2010: One year anniversary of Crazy Trip (bullet 3). Cheers! |
| Wednesday, January 27, 2010: Finally, I got my first sub-4-minute 6x6 average: 3:59.28 (rolling) = 3:43.57, 4:14.99, 3:49.53, 4:05.02, (8:01.33), 3:58.21, 3:52.74, 4:08.58, 4:08.57, (3:37.88), 3:54.46, 3:57.11 I'm not sure how legitimate this average is, because during it, I had to discard two times because during those solves, a piece popped out, hit the keyboard, and stopped the timer. I'm not sure whether those solves would've been good or bad times. However, I do think this average is representative of my current 6x6 times, since just three days ago, I set a 4:00.20 rolling average. Just to clarify, when I say "rolling average," I mean it was my best average of 12 consecutive solves out of a session where I solved more than 12 cubes. A non-rolling average would be one where I cleared all previous session data and did 12 fresh solves and stopped. I definitely think I'm becoming more precise with my turning on the 6x6 and this is resulting in fewer disastrous pops. |
| Wednesday, January 27, 2010: Quick story: So last Friday, I had an interview with Bloomberg for an internship position, so I decided it was probably a good idea to shave, even though I didn't have much facial hair. This was probably only the second or third time I had shaved this entire school year, and while shaving, I cut myself. Not once, but twice. So I was clean shaven going into the interview but also had two fresh cuts on my chin. |
| Tuesday, January 12, 2010: Heh, so I improved my 6x6 average by about one standard deviation relative to my average last night. 4:14.71 (non-rolling) = 4:26.61, 4:07.48, 4:25.15, 4:07.40, 4:16.15, 4:06.36, 4:03.17, 4:41.77, 4:03.31, 4:09.71, (4:42.05), (3:46.51). The last solve was also a new PR single solve. I still get some spectacular pops, but I'm getting better at reducing the number. I think if I apply more inward pressure when I turn, it helps reduce pops and jams. I'm also getting better at center-building and edge pairing, which is also helping my times. |
| Monday, January 11, 2010: While shopping classes today, I saw someone wearing the same backpack as me. Shoulda stopped and said hello. Next time. |
| Monday, January 11, 2010: So I finally got my first sub-5 minute 6x6 average. 4:56.35 (rolling average) = 4:21.39, 5:00.78+, 4:21.69, (8:29.70), 4:14.02, (4:05.07), 5:00.22, 4:40.58, 5:22.98, 6:55.62, 4:40.69, 4:45.51 I know this could be a lot better though if my 6x6 didn't pop as much. If you look at the individual times of the average, you'll see the times range from 4:05.07 to 8:29.70 and my standard deviation was 44.49 seconds. I honestly think on average, pops and mechanism jams add at least a minute to my solve times. |
| Sunday, January 10, 2010: After making quite a bit of 5x5 improvement over the past month, I decided to give the 6x6 a shot to see if my 5x5 improvement would have any noticeable effect on my 6x6 times. After a few solves, I finally got my first sub-4-minute 6x6 solve of 3:57.25 (beating my previous fastest time of 4:06.98 set on 10/11/09). My V-Cube 6x6 is the complete opposite of the V-Cube 5x5 when it comes to popping. The 5x5 has NEVER popped, whereas the 6x6 pops basically EVERY solve, and usually MULTIPLE TIMES. And part of the mechanism inside is held in place by friction, so sometimes when that fails, the cube gets jammed and can only turn along one axis. So a lot of my solves end up being bad times due to multi-piece pops and lots of mechanism failures. So practicing 6x6 is a lot more frustrating than practicing 5x5. |
| Saturday, January 9, 2010: First sub-2-minute 5x5 average! 1:58.87 (rolling average) = 2:01.77, 1:56.72, 2:01.05, 2:12.39, 1:57.98, 1:47.50, 1:57.29, (2:14.12), 1:57.48, 2:11.26, (1:43.99), 1:45.25 Dunno how I got this less than a month after my first sub-2-minute 5x5 single solve (achieved on 12/13/09). I think it's mainly I'm getting used to the endurance needed for the 5x5. It's like before I could only sprint a 100m (3x3), but now I can sprint a 400m (5x5). Also, I think my V-Cube 5x5 has broken in more just from my playing with it more recently. I still haven't lubricated it and it still hasn't popped once. My new fastest single solve has also improved to 1:42.25. |
| Saturday, January 9, 2010: Woot! First post of 2010. |
| Wednesday, December 22, 2009: Anecdotes from a semester of procrastination. |
| Sunday, December 13, 2009: Achieved my first ever sub-2-minute 5x5x5 solve - 1:57.62 - tonight, four years six months and fourteen days after my first 5x5x5 solve on May 29, 2005 - 46:09.72. |
| Sunday, December 13, 2009: Procrastinating on my Japanthropology paper. Decided to redesign the layout for this page instead. |
| Friday, December 4, 2009: Andy brought it to my attention that there were annoying popups on this homepage. I hadn't noticed them because Firefox blocks them automatically. But I've now removed the alternative chatterbox (which I believe was the source of the problem), so there shouldn't be any more annoying popups. Let me know if there are any other problems. |
| Friday, December 4, 2009: Except on Fridays, when lots of people sleep in because they don't have classes. P.S.: I was cutting my toenails after I showered and wondering, why does gunk only tend to build up under the big toe's nail by the inside corner and not under other toenails? |
| Wednesday, December 2, 2009: I have decided that 10AM is the worst time to take a shower. There is practically no hot water even though I have the knob turned to max. Showering in the middle of the night is much nicer. |
| Monday, November 30, 2009: My watch battery died today in Probability and Statistics class. One less thing to put on and one less distraction. |
| Sunday, November 22, 2009: Yesterday, I took off my belt and then the rest of my clothes and went to shower. Afterward, I couldn't find my belt. I still haven't found my belt. I think it's gone forever. |
| Saturday, September 26, 2009: New journal entry. |
| Friday, September 11, 2009: Ran in the New Haven Road Race for the first time! |
| Sunday, September 6, 2009: Went to a blood drive for the first time. |
| Sunday, August 30, 2009: First full day back at Yale. Found 12 cents to bring my Money Found total to over $50 on the 806th day of keeping count. As of today, the average money I find per day is $50.02/806 = 0.06206 = 6.21 cents per day. |
| Sunday, August 23, 2009: More stuff in my cereal. |
| Saturday, August 22, 2009: Stuff in my cereal. |
| Sunday, August 16, 2009: New StarCraft-esque dream. |
| Tuesday, August 11, 2009: My first photoessay...sort of. |
| Saturday, August 8, 2009: Added flossing to my oral routine. |
| Monday, August 3, 2009: Post-cubing-competition updates. |
| Wednesday, July 29, 2009: I shaved for the first time in my life tonight. I had no idea how much shaving cream I was supposed to use. |
| Wednesday, July 29, 2009: Combating eye and body fatigue. |
| Monday, July 27, 2009: First day at my internship. |
| Saturday, July 18, 2009: Version 3.2 of the GNU Radio Song released! Lyrics still available here. |
| Thursday, July 16, 2009: A tribute to the Stevens REU program. |
| Friday, July 10, 2009: First successful 4x4 blindfolded solve! |
| Friday, June 26, 2009: Random dream from last weekend. |
| Friday, June 26, 2009: Updated spending log. Added an RSS feed. |
| Thursday, June 25, 2009: My dreams are weird. Are yours? Seems I'm pretty afraid of dying. |
| Monday, June 22, 2009: Back to school...in my dreams. |
| Wednesday, June 17, 2009: Fun in the kitchen. |
| Monday, June 15, 2009: Pretty tired yesterday, slept early. New dream. P.S.: Check out Ken's new blog! |
| Saturday, June 13, 2009: An entertaining game of StarCraft. |
| Wednesday, June 10, 2009: I wondered how much my life costs, so I started a spending log. |
| Monday, June 8, 2009: Strange dreams last night. This morning, I got some quarters from the bank for laundry and found Hawaii and Oregon in the roll. Just AR and OK left. Arrr and say okay. Also traded a George Washington dollar coin in exchange for Thomas Bell's James Madison dollar coin. |
| Sunday, June 7, 2009: Added a Puerto Rico quarter and a Martin Van Buren one-dollar coin to my coin collection. Reflections on my visit to see Erik and Ismail, part of the Lair and extended Lair family. |
| Sunday, May 31, 2009: Definitely been sleeping more now that it's summertime. |
| Saturday, May 30, 2009: New dream. |
| Friday, May 29, 2009: Opened up a $10 roll of quarters and found a MI quarter! Four more states to go: AR, HI, OK, and OR. |
| Wednesday, May 27, 2009: Been sleeping more recently. New dream. |
| Monday, May 25, 2009: Went home for the long weekend. Came back and did some scavenging. |
| Tuesday, May 19, 2009: At Stevens. Updated life log. |
| Saturday, May 16, 2009: Summary of spring semester, the year as a whole, and a look ahead. |
| Wednesday, May 6, 2009: Traded in some change for some bills today. Found two more state quarters: AK and WY. Five left: AR, HI, MI, OK, OR. |
| Wednesday, April 29, 2009: I've been pretty busy since spring break, but classes are finally over and I have some more spare time. I have pretty bad time management skills, and I was curious how I was spending my time, so I recorded what I was doing, 24 hours a day. The result is this life log, a detailed schedule of my life in the past month. |
| Saturday, March 28, 2009: I was in a friend's room, noticed a small change holder, and founded Montana and Florida quarters. Traded him two quarters (WA and NV (duplicates)) of my own. Seven states left: AK, AR, HI, MI, OK, OR, and WY. |
| Saturday, March 14, 2009: Added the Lone Star State to my U.S. coins collection. 9 more to go: AK, AR, FL, HI, MI, MT, OK, OR, WY. |
| Thursday, March 12, 2009: Cubing and programming: scramble generator! |
| Wednesday, March 11, 2009: First significant drinking experience? |
| Monday, February 23, 2009: Trip to JHU. |
| Saturday, February 7, 2009: First assignment turned in late of my college career. |
| Sunday, January 18, 2009: Random post about comics. |
| Sunday, January 11, 2009: Just added RI to my U.S. coins collection. Ten more states to go: AK, AR, FL, HI, MI, MT, OK, OR, TX, and WY. Are all the state coins out yet? |
| Thursday, January 8, 2009: First post of 2009! |
| Saturday, December 6, 2008: Tired. Going to bed early tonight. |
| Wednesday, November 19, 2008: New dream. |
| Wednesday, November 5, 2008: Halloween costume complete. |
| Tuesday, October 14, 2008: Cutting holes in the box. |
| Thursday, October 9, 2008: Getting started on a Halloween costume. |
| Saturday, September 20, 2008: Stressed out. |
| Monday, September 15, 2008: Settled in. |
| Friday, August 29, 2008: Today's Yale move-in day. Final journal entry from home. |
| Sunday, August 24, 2008: Finally fixed and updated my cubing records page. |
| Sunday, August 17, 2008: An obsession has been put to rest. |
| Saturday, August 16, 2008: College anxieties. |
| Tuesday, August 5, 2008: Memories of a Pennsylvania road trip. |
| Saturday, July 26, 2008: Had a dream about my upcoming pre-college party. |
| Wednesday, July 23, 2008: New 3x3x3 average PR: 14.67 seconds! Previous record: 14.93. Also finished learning the Guimond Method for 2x2x2. |
| Thursday, July 17, 2008: Meet the Yaus: a visit to Syosset, NY. |
| Wednesday, July 16, 2008: AP scores, in my dream and in reality. |
| Wednesday, July 9, 2008: Drove on the highway for the first time. |
| Wednesday, July 2, 2008: Memories of Atlanta, Georgia. |
| Wednesday, June 25, 2008: My first few driving experiences. |
| Tuesday, June 17, 2008: Today is the one-year anniversary of when I first started recording the money I find. $22.09 have been found to date. |
| Wednesday, June 4, 2008: Some summer aspirations. |
| Tuesday, May 20, 2008: Williamsburg Trip - Days 3 and 4. Also, this afternoon I broke an unofficial cubing record for the first time since February. I broke my previous 2x2x2 average of 7.60 with a new best average of 6.49. This is using a new method - the Ortega Method - that I started learning on May 4, 2008. My current future cubing plans are to skip the 3x3 and focus on improving 4x4 and 5x5. |
| Friday, May 16, 2008: Blind or deaf? |
| Saturday, May 10, 2008: My college decision rant - Why Yale. |
| Friday, May 9, 2008: First week of APs. |
| Tuesday, April 29, 2008: Williamsburg Trip - Day 2. |
| Tuesday, April 29, 2008: New dream. More layout changes. |
| Friday, April 25, 2008: Williamsburg Trip - Day 1. |
| Monday, April 7, 2008: New layout - a work in progress. |
| Thursday, April 3, 2008: With a twenty-six-cent discovery today, I've found $20-worth of money (excluding prize money). |
| Tuesday, April 1, 2008: Finally got my driver's permit. |
| Monday, March 31, 2008: College results. |
| Saturday, March 29, 2008: My high school's changed. |
| Friday, March 14, 2008: A curious money find. |
| Friday, February 2, 2008: Mid-year grades are basically settled. Senior year's done :-D. I added a shorthand notation page. |
| Saturday, January 5, 2008: It's official. I'm going to college. I received admission from Rutgers yesterday. |
| Wednesday, January 2, 2008: At 2:08 AM, Anthony Hsu finished submitting all his college application forms. ĦĦĦĦHuepa!!!! He is now free to do whatever he wants. |
| Tuesday, January 1, 2008: It's almost 4 AM and I'm amazing at how much energy I still have despite only sixish hours of sleep yesterday. I guess when you sit at a desk all day long college apping (besides eating and getting water and urinating (and watching the ball drop)), you don't burn too much energy ;-). Five applications due today. Edit: Okay, maybe I don't really have that much energy when I write "amazing" instead of "amazed." But I would like to be both :-). |
| Tuesday, January 1, 2008: I cannot time manage, as the college applications process proved. 2008 resolution: Improve my time management skills. |
| Monday, December 31, 2007: Yale Application submitted. Happy 2008! |
| Wednesday, December 26, 2007: MIT's so awesome. |
| Wednesday, December 26, 2007: College apping is such a pain. |
| Friday, December 14, 2007: Rejected by Stanford. |
| Sunday, December 2, 2007: Happy Birthday, bro! Rutgers application submitted one hour past the priority date deadline. |
| Friday, November 23, 2007: Happy Belated Thanksgiving! New dream. |
| Saturday, November 17, 2007: I won the Seton Hall University 22nd Annual Joseph W. Andrushkiw Mathematics Competition. Max Chang got 4th. Our school, represented by Max, William Chen, and me, also won highest team score. Max got $25 and I got $200 and a contractable lawn chair. |
| Monday, October 15, 2007: I cried for the first time in a long time. It felt good. Overstressed about college apps. Everything'll be okay :-). |
| Wednesday, October 10, 2007: I ran at Pingry today for the Colonial Hills Conference XC meet. I was extremely happy with my 19:50.48, my first sub-20 on a non-WP course, my second sub-20 this season and second best time in my life, and third sub-20 in my life. |
| Monday, September 24, 2007: Largest lump of money found since I started recording (that didn't involve other people giving me change). |
| Sunday, September 23, 2007: Updated Cubing Records page. And PHPified. |
| Tuesday, September 18, 2007: First XC home meet this season. New PR. |
| Friday, August 31, 2007: More money found, or rather, free money. |
| Tuesday, August 21, 2007: Updated memorization page. |
| Saturday, August 11, 2007: How many digits of pi do you know? |
| Saturday, August 11, 2007: First entry for August, done on a dynamically generated PHP page :-). I still need to figure out how to get rid of those extra spaces in the heading and closing. (Problem fixed on Friday, August 17, 2007.) Also, I had a moment of inspiration and was compelled to create a random thoughts page (also generated using PHP!). |
| Monday, July 30, 2007: Among the numerous things I learned at GSET and from GSET people is PHP. David Vetrano was in an adjacent room to mine at GSET, and he gave me an intro to PHP as a content management tool for my website. I've been experimenting with it and have added the first PHP page to my website: Money Found. It doesn't look much different from most of my other pages (It's not supposed to!), but updating it for me is a lot easier (hence the utility of PHP in content management). In time, I hope to convert most of my website to PHP. Like so many other things in life and also life itself, website design and development is a journey. In addition, I've posted a new journal entry explaining my inspiration for the content of my website's first PHP page. |
| Monday, July 9, 2007: Yesterday, my 2x2x2 single solve world record was broken. |
| Monday, July 9, 2007: Yesterday, we had three hours of "life skills," where anyone could teach classes on how to do anything. Classes ranged from breakdancing to power tools to origami to guitar. I decided to teach how to solve a Rubik's Cube. Saturday night, I finally made a digitalized tutorial on how to solve a Rubik's Cube. It's now posted here, and though it is currently a work in progress, feel free to view what's up. |
| Friday, July 6, 2007: Morning dawdle. |
| Monday, June 25, 2007: Boys' State. Attention! |
| Tuesday, June 12, 2007: You got pranked :-)! |
| Sunday, June 3, 2007: Standardized testing is done! |
| Saturday, May 5, 2007: One down, four to go. |
| Tuesday, May 1, 2007: It's May!-day. |
| Saturday, April 21, 2007: A waste of a day. |
| Friday, March 16, 2007: Energy efficiency. |
| Sunday, March 4, 2007: Procrastination strikes again. |
| Thursday, February 22, 2007: I'll be gone for a couple days. |
Thursday, February 15, 2007: Several updates:
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| Saturday, January 27, 2007: Don't worry, be happy! |
| Friday, January 26, 2007: A new milestone. |
| Thursday, January 25, 2007: It's been a brutal first few weeks of the new year, but I'm surviving. |
| Monday, January 1, 2007: Happy New Year! First journal entry of 2007. |
| Monday, December 25, 2006: Merry Christmashanukwanzakah! New journal entry. |
| Sunday, December 3, 2006: Reminiscing on the old days. Random dream. Think I'm a procrastinator? Here's some support. |
| Wednesday, November 29, 2006: What is Alan Jiang's middle name? |
| Thursday, November 23, 2006: Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! |
| Sunday, October 8, 2006: New dream diary entry. |
| Sunday, October 1, 2006: New dream diary entry. |
| Sunday, September 24, 2006: New dream diary entry. |
Thursday, September 14, 2006: Dos updates:
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| Sunday, September 10, 2006: Three new dream diary entries. |
| Saturday, September 2, 2006: I present My Puzzle Collection. |
| Wednesday, August 30, 2006: New journal entry. |
| Monday, August 28, 2006: New journal entry. |
Saturday, August 26, 2006: Several updates:
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| Sunday, August 13, 2006: New dream diary entry. |
| Saturday, August 12, 2006: The history of Erwa. |
Friday, August 11, 2006: A couple of updates:
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| Monday, August 7, 2006: Newark Academy has ended. Less work, but I miss physics. |
| Monday, August 7, 2006: Check out Ryan Heise's Erwascript encoder! While you're at it, check out Ryan's Competitions and his Rubik's Cube Simulator! |
| Saturday, July 15, 2006: The end of another week. The start of a new weekend. |
| Wednesday, July 12, 2006: New journal entry. |
| Tuesday, July 4, 2006: Happy Birthday to the United States of America! |
| Friday, June 30, 2006: Physics is my new favorite science. New journal entry. |
| Wednesday, June 28, 2006: Learning new vocabulary is fun! New journal entry. |
| Wednesday, June 28, 2006: What a glorious day! New journal entry. |
| Sunday, June 25, 2006: New journal entry. A short story. |
| Monday, June 19, 2006: New DDR records page! |
| Saturday, June 17, 2006: Updated pictures and videos from Trumbull Spring 2006 competition. |
| Friday, June 16, 2006: New journal entry. Find out the latest scoop in my life! |
| Saturday, May 20, 2006: Updated cubing records page. Updated A.P. U.S. History I homework time spent page. |
| Saturday, May 20, 2006: New journal entry. The entry continues from the previous entry, but it ends with closure. |
| Saturday, May 20, 2006: New journal entry. The entry ends suddenly. |
| Friday, May 5, 2006: New journal entry. To be continued... |
| Monday, May 1, 2006: New journal entry. Pictures and video from the Rutgers Spring Cubing competition 2006! |
| Monday, April 24, 2006: Picture of Terry Pratchett's Pyramids that Lily lent me. |
| Saturday, April 22, 2006: New journal entry. |
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006: I found my quote of the day (something memorable): 1 dollar medals. |
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006: A childhood experience for your entertainment :-). |
| Friday, April 14, 2006: New journal entry. Finished my cubing records page. |
| Tuesday, April 11, 2006: Updated my cubing records page. |
| Tuesday, April 11, 2006: New journal entry. New cubing records page. |
| Saturday, April 8, 2006: New journal entry. |
| Saturday, April 8, 2006: New journal entry. |
| Thursday, April 6, 2006: New journal entry. |
| Sunday, April 2, 2006: New journal entry. New alternative chatterbox! |
| Friday, March 31, 2006: New journal entry. |
| Thursday, March 30, 2006: Conclusion of AP U.S. I Nat Turner paper story. |
| Tuesday, March 28, 2006: New journal entry. |
| Sunday, March 26, 2006: New journal entry. |
| Sunday, March 26, 2006: Added a picture of myself. LOL, like I needed to mention it. |
| Sunday, March 26, 2006: New journal entry. |
