I want to try and learn new things all the time. I think it is really important aspect for anyone in their career to do. There is no stagnant. Industry and technology moves too fast. You are either moving forward or moving backwards and away.
I love spending time reading books or magazines (love .net magazine from the UK) doing tutorials on YouTube university, or spending time with someone who has a skill set I don’t. I also like to challenge myself with things that aren’t necessarily specific to my career but push my analytical or creative (ideally both) parts of mind. I have this real passion for building a motorcycle for this reason. I think there is a function side (getting an engine working) and a creative side (make it look good). I just need to decide between a cafe racer or a bob… and get the Mrs to sign off.
Challenged for another day. A simpler one I have started to try is a Rubic’s Cube. I have always been fascinated by this puzzle that seems so clear cut, yet so complicated. How do you move pieces without messing up the work you have already done? This has always driven me crazy. I went to social media conference and met some nice people from Facebook and their giveaway was the Rubic’s cube you see here. Pretty cool giveaway. Anyway, it has been sitting on my desk, unsolved, and every once in a while I would mess with it, without much success.
So I have spent the last few nights watching videos, learning algorithms (cube talk), and figuring it out. The first step was to just learn to solve it, which I did. Yay me. This actually isn’t too hard. Mainly you just memorize steps to solve each layer, from top to bottom. Doing this I could solve the cube in about 15 minutes.
My next goal wasn’t to just memorize an algorithm but to understand how to move pieces. So far I think I have done that pretty well for the first 2 layers and the last layer is a mix of me using the memorized algorithms to move the last pieces. It is not the fastest way to do it. Going down this internet rabbit hole I have learned that there are people who can solve these consistently under 10 seconds. INSANE. I have successfully gotten under 4 minutes. Watch for yourself below and keep pushing yourself to learn new things. Have any ideas for what I should try next? Drop me a comment. Keep on cubing nerds.
Music: https://www.bensound.com