This is just riduculous

I hate everything.
For the uninitiated, the reason I'm writing to this blog in the first place is because I have to create a small writing sample everyday for the month of November. All has been fine, and I enjoy writing to this blog. But today is Thanksgiving (Happy Thanksgiving, by the way.) And on Thanksgiving, I want to sleep in and enjoy time with my family and friends. But I've been forced to write this paper. This paper doesn't take much time to write, but this is a national holiday for giving thanks. The logical thing to do would be to write a paper about what I'm thankful for, turning this blogpost into an exemplification of this holiday. But I'm going to do the thing any logical American would do. Complain. And then I'm going to do the thing I've done in the past. Explain why this is pointless.
Yes, as I said, I could use this blogpost to exemplify the holiday. But what would that matter? It would have no meaning. I suppose this is my fault, because I wouldn't be willing to write about what I'm truly thankful for to the internet. But if I want to actually talk about what I'm thankful for and have it have meaning, I'm going to talk about it with the people I know and love, not with the internet. And writing this is only taking away time from me in which I could be doing this therefore VIOLATING THE PURPOSE OF THIS HOLIDAY! But with this it could be argued that on Thanksgiving many people do what they enjoy. And as I stated earlier, I do enjoy writing to this blog but, not today. Today I wish to relax and enjoy time with my family as previously stated.
This assignment was created to get me in the habit of writing. It's done a good job, and I hope to continuing this after the month of November. But, I doubt I'll be able to keep this up daily. I simply won't be motivated. In that sense, it's failed. But along with this, it is proven that if you do something consistently for as little as 5 days, you can get into the habit of doing it, making it something you do everyday. And sure, while stopping in the middle isn't a good thing, the amount of days I've spent making this habit should override the one day I don't write. As stated, I likely won't continue this daily after the month of November, meaning that this assignment has already failed, making it pointless to care whether I miss a day. I could easily just say "To heck with it, I'm just gonna not." and then go back to my life. But if I were to do that my grade will drop. Now, if my grade meant that much to me you'd think I wouldn't be complaining. But that's not what I'm upset about. What I'm upset about is the injustice being served here. I'M BEING PUNISHED IF I DON'T WORK ON A NATIONAL HOLIDAY! This is beyond ridiculous!
I'm to lazy to write a proper conclusion. I've made my point. And no, I can't think of any more DvZ quotes for the day.

Happy Thanksgiving, Jimmies!
-GIR

"If" statements

In C++ the most basic for of camands are If statements. Unlike loops, which obviously loop, if statements sipmly complete a command once a condition or multiple conditions are met. It's the most simple way to get soething done, and without it C++ would be very difficult to do anything. If statements (Using the example from yesterday) look like this:
if(int MP==4)
{
bool parity=true;
}
Here it is broken down. The if(int MP==4) is first stating that this is an if statement, and everything inside the parentheses are conditions that must be met for the if statement to take effect. int is creating an integer and MP is giving the integer its name. The ==4 is setting the condition. In this case, that condition is when MP equals 4. YOU CANNOT WRITE MP=4, AS THAT WOULD MEAN SOMETHING COMPLETLEY DIFFERENT! Everything inside the curly brakcets is what will happen once the if statement activates. So, this if statement is saying "If the integer MP equals 4, than the bool parity is true."
So that's if statements, but their exsistance is dangerous. Unexperienced programmers often abuse the if staments. Instead of writing a while or for loop which is simpler and more effiecent they will code many MANY if statements instead. This is commonly refered to as "hard coding" and it's not a good thing to do. It takes up much more time and despite looks, it also gives you less control over your code. That's not to say you shouldn't use them. If statements are important and ther are many things that can only be done with if statements. So if statements aren't bad. You just need to use them properly.

No! I was just a little boy of a Nisovin *cough cough cough* I think...
-GIR

Squan parity

Parities can occur in may types of cubes, yet parity doesn't actually have a definition in cubing. In this post, we will define parity as a situation in which the cube is unsolvable using the method you had been using for the solve. For example, without the parity alg for squan, the cube would be unsolvable. In this case, the parity alg is a different method which is introduced in order to solve the cube. But while most cubing parities occur due to swapped or rotated pieces, squans have defined orientations and permutations for all of its pieces, so this isn't possible. So why does it occur?
Squans are capable of shapeshifting/jumbling* which allows you to switch corners with edges. The first part of the solving process involves making the squan into a cube. However, when you make it a cube you can accidentally put edges in a position that would be unsolvable. It goes in a pattern. That's confusing, so here's an example: If two opposite edges are swapped on a 3x3, it is unsolvable. But if 4 opposite edges are swapped, well, we call that H-Perm. This translates to squan as when you are making it into a cube again, you have to place the edges. But it isn't possible to tell if your placing them in a solvable position. You might misplace two edges, which would result in a parity. But if you misplace four edges, it would be like you didn't misplace any edges at all. If the amount of misplaced edges is divisible by four, there won't be parity. If not, than there will be parity. There's two easy "If" statements. Maybe I'll cover those tomorrow...
Now, with this discovered, you might ask yourself "So, we can't tell how to prevent parity?" No, of course we can. This is America. With this much time on our hands we can do anything. When doing corner permutation (CP) you have to shapeshift the cube. By the time you reach CP, you can tell if you have parity. You can than recognize if you have it, and then modify your CP alg to accomadate this very easily, quickly eliminating parity. It is also technically possible to tell if you have parity as soon as you get cubeshape, but because whether or not you have parity can change as you solve (Like all parities), it's simply not worth it.
So in the end, Squan parity is an avoidable thing if you know how to deal with it. While this isn't as important to get fazt as other things, like cubeshape and EP, it is incredibly helpful as parity algs are long and take lots of time. So if you want to get fazt, better get started. Because weather you learn how to avoid parity or not, you have many algs ahead of you.

Of course I eat baby dwarves. How do you think I get this strong?
-GIR



*Again, neither of those have exact definitions and jumbling is only specified as shapeshifting that causes bandaging which is often voluntary. By voluntary I mean that it is possible to scramble the cube without jumbling. Jumbling also often switches pieces with other pieces that shouldn't go there. Example: An edge switching with a corner. This is exemplified in the curvy copter and helicopter cubes. But I digress. The point is, as squans meet all definitions for jumbling yet people call it shapeshifting, I don't actually know which one it is. In this post, I will simply call it shapeshifting.

The Ranch- The Hollow Tree

So, I'm in the mountians now. It's nice up here. It's gonna snow soon. We've got a nice cabin so we don't freeze and we're up here with some friends. But there's one problem. Something we've noticed for a long time. There's  hollow tree. And its still alive.
We've called it the hollow tree. The trunk along with several branches have been completley hollowed out by something. We don't know what hollowed it out, but that's not the inportant thing. The important and most confusing thing is that the tree is still alive. Every spring it gets new leaves and every Fall it loses them. Despite this, the trunk and branches are hollow, and we often climb in them. This was incredibly confusing to me as a smaller jimmy, but now it somewhat makes sense. The tree likley stays alive through the part of the trunk that remains. Regaurdless, it is still fun to go up to and see, although we can no longer fit inside of it.
Sorry this post isn't longer, but there isn't much more to talk about. I'll have a better post tomorrow.

Don't forget to drink your juice!
-GIR

QiYi Squan

Once, there was a squan. It wasn't a great squan, but it was what we had. But then more squans came into existence. These squans improved upon the earlier squan, but still were far from perfect. Then, there was nothing. That's it.
Sounds about right.
But wait, what's that? It looks like a squan, but not just any squan. It has what looks like MoYu shads. COULD IT BE?! A MOYU SQUAN!?!?! Wait, no. It's a QiYi squan. Whatever. I'm gonna go to CalTeh Fall. Oh look, there's a QiYi squan. It looks nice. Oh, it feels nice too. Wait, is that an anti-popping mech? It corner cuts? It's fast? It doesn't pop? What?
It's beautiful.
Up till now, there wasn't a squan that could function that well without having some major drawback. Mainly, cubes had trouble with corner cutting and pops. All of the squans had these problems. Until now, it was unheard of to have a cube that could resist pops. But the QiYi squan changed all of that. Unlike other cubes, it had an anti-popping mech. It had two sticks crammed in the middle for added support. This rods help keep it from popping VERY well. So much so that in two days of intense use, I haven't got a pop. It could be said that I keep it to tight, but even if I did it wouldn't matter. You might say that's because squans don't corner cut, but you'd be wrong. This one does. And it does it in every way, normal, reverse, in the way that happens due to overshooting that always causes a pop, and so much more. It seems like the perfect squan, and it is.
For the most part.
You see, the mechanism consists of two halves each with three pieces. These pieces are the external pieces, the core itself, and the anti-pop rod. The issue arises here, as the separation of the anti-pop mech and the core causes the edges to be very... fragile in positioning. You see, if you push on the edges they can pop up, causing turning quality to fall down. Luckily, this can be fixed by glueing the anti-pop rod and core together, but it would have been so much simpler if QiYi would have just had them together from the start. There is no reason to have them separate. Regardless, it is an easy fix, but it could have been avoided altogether, and this is the only thing stopping it from being perfect.
At the end of the day, there's one prominent message: The QiYi squan is the best squan. Whether you're casually solving or trying to speedcube it, the QiYi should be your one and only option. Until MoYu makes one.
This is going to be interesting.

Romain, just... don't... put th-... ugh.
-GIR

CalTech Fall 2015

I'm at  the CalTech Fall open Cubing competition today, so the post is going to be short. But im gonna briefly talk about the comp, because why not?
I've been a judge for most of the day, but I did get around to buying a new squan. I got the QiYi squan and I must say, its the most beautiful cube there ever did was. There's no competition. If you want a squan, get the QiYi. So far I haven't  competed, but I hope to get a sub-20 average in 3x3 and a sub-6 average in 2x2. Hopefully that will happen, but only time will tell.
We're in the middle of OH round 2, and after this there'll be a lunch break and then 3x3 round one. I hope to make it to round two, but that's unlikely. But hey, its happens before. Let's just hope my squan practice hasn't screwed up my 3x3 times.

Where'd all my juice go?
-GIR

Coding Languages

Once you learn a coding language you should be able to code in it efficiently. However, just because you can code in one language doesn't mean you know them all. This is a mistake non-technologically minded people can make, and it results in people who know HTML to code a video game by friends. Coding languages can be vastly different, and here I'm going to use the example of C++ vs HTML.

HTML is essentially the coding of the web. In most webpages there is a combination of multiple kinds of coding languages, mainly being HTML and Javascript. HTML is used to give the page its structure, while Java creates functions. But we aren't comparing those two right now. C++ is derived from Objective C, and C++ can be used to solve problems and/or to create basic programs to accomplish certain tasks. I already talked about the for loop in an earlier post, and in that post I was talking about the for loop and how it works in C++. C++ can be used to create programs to solve certain types of math problems. for example, I coded a program to find out if a number is prime. These sorts of programs can be useful for many reasons, including using them to solve problems you don't want to solve on your own.

These two coding languages don't only function very differently, they are also written very differently. For example, to write text in HTML, you write <p>This is text.</p> whereas in C++ you write std::cout<<"This is text."; This alone demonstrates the difference between the two quite well, but the functional differences play an even larger role. For example this:

int i=0;

while(i<10)

{

std::cout<<i;

i++;

}

in C++ would create a function that counted to ten, in HTML it would be gibberish, and the document would likely simply display it as text out of sheer confusion. Whereas, in HTML you can write:

<p>Click <a href=="www.google.com">HERE</a>  to be redirected.</p>

to create a link, and that wouldn't work in C++.

This is only the beginning. There are many more coding languages and all of them are at least slightly different from the rest. SO while knowing one doesn't make you a coding master, it can still be useful. Hone your skills in that one language, and then branch out. Today, HTML. Tomorrow, C++. The day after that, a pizza. Then, about a week later, the WORLD.

Of course I think it's worth it! What better way to honor the dead than turning them into a runeblade.

-GIR