# "Speedsolving the Cube" by Dan Harris-lolz good read



## Crzyazn (Jun 28, 2008)

so who actually has bought this thing?

The information is a wee bit outdated (Ron Von Bruchem holds the WR for 3x3) but Fridrich method and LBL are pretty nicely described.

but frankly, some of his algs suck and it would've been more helpful if he gave at least one alternative alg for each OLL or PLL

but it does A GREAT JOB of breaking down VHF2L and providing the 32 cases


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## Uberdad (Jun 28, 2008)

My book is in the post still ( due any day ). World records published in books are always going to end up outdated eventually, so thats not a big issue for me. Another source of reference material is never a bad thing, and something to read while away from the computer. Can't wait for it really.


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## Mohammad96 (Jun 28, 2008)

i was gonna buy the book and now i decided not 2 buy it


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## immortalcube (Jun 28, 2008)

My mom got that for me. He teaches Fridrich so I have no comments about the 3x3 section, but the section for the 4x4 cube is good. It came in handy when I went on vacation for a week 2 weeks ago and had no computer around and wanted to learn the parity algs.


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## cpt.Justice (Jun 28, 2008)

If I'm gonna buy a cube-related book, its gonna be the one about group-theory


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## pcharles93 (Jun 29, 2008)

If I were to buy a cubing book. Nevermind, all of the necessary information can be found in a handful of websites. Why buy a slightly outdated book when you can go to a PLL page and print it out. Same with any algorithms or techniques you want to implement into solves.


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## tim (Jun 29, 2008)

pcharles93 said:


> If I were to buy a cubing book. Nevermind, all of the necessary information can be found in a handful of websites. Why buy a slightly outdated book when you can go to a PLL page and print it out. Same with any algorithms or techniques you want to implement into solves.



The answer is simple: Because it's a book. You have all information in one place. No need to go browse through many pages.
The same thing applies to many other technical books. You can find almost everything on wikipedia/other sites. But it's no fun at all to search through half the internet to get the information you want. You better buy a book and be happy .


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## jazzthief81 (Jun 30, 2008)

I think it's a good thing that there finally is a book now about modern speedcubing. All other books about cubing were written at least 20 years ago and those certainly _are_ very outdated and you can only buy them second hand.

Sure, you can find everthing you need on the internet. But what about people that can't get regular access to the internet? Cubing should not be restricted to just the elite of people who have a fixed internet connection at home.

Double thumbs up to Dan Harris for making our sport much more accessible!


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## AvGalen (Jun 30, 2008)

Everyone should buy his book and give it to his/her parents/friends. That way they will appreciate our hobby a bit more, they might decide to learn how to solve it themselves and best of all: Dan will get some money so he can go to another competition like Dutch Masters 

I am pretty sure that all the information in his book is also available on the internet. It's the gathering/sorting/editing of all that information that makes a book worthwhile.


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## hawkmp4 (Jun 30, 2008)

Yeah, on that subject.
I can't find ANY pages with VH on it. Dan's old and new websites give me a 404 and anywhere else I find, its just discussions of the concepts.


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## brunson (Jun 30, 2008)

This is the only page I'm aware of that works on his site.

http://www.cubestation.co.uk/cs2/index.php?page=3x3x3/vh/coll/coll


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## Lucas Garron (Jun 30, 2008)

hawkmp4 said:


> Yeah, on that subject.
> I can't find ANY pages with VH on it. Dan's old and new websites give me a 404 and anywhere else I find, its just discussions of the concepts.



What's does the V in VH stand for? http://www.cubezone.be/conU1a.html

And if you can remem ber that VH is a subset of ZB, you can find it anywhere:
http://speedcubing.com/chris/zbf2l1.html


EDIT: Oh, forgot Macky's page: http://cubefreak.net/speedcubing_misc.html#edge_control


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## hawkmp4 (Jul 1, 2008)

>.>
Thank you.
*humble*


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## Alex DiTuro (Jul 1, 2008)

tim said:


> pcharles93 said:
> 
> 
> > If I were to buy a cubing book. Nevermind, all of the necessary information can be found in a handful of websites. Why buy a slightly outdated book when you can go to a PLL page and print it out. Same with any algorithms or techniques you want to implement into solves.
> ...





That's The reason I bought it. I can't always get on the internet, so having all the same info in one place is great. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who cubes or want's to cube. It doesn't go into too much detail about 4x4x4 chain solving but I guess that wasn't the main purpose of the book. There's a great beginner method as well as a very in depth look on the fridrich method. It's explained in a way that anyone can understand. I actually learned how to solve a 5x5x5 from this book!
Anyway, this book is a *great* read and should be picked up by any avid cuber, since it is an excellent reference. Kudos to Dan Harris!


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## Alex DiTuro (Jul 1, 2008)

Lucas Garron said:


> What's does the V in VH stand for? http://www.cubezone.be/conU1a.html



Vandenbergh


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## Johannes91 (Jul 1, 2008)

Alex DiTuro said:


> I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who cubes ... There's a great beginner method as well as a very in depth look on the fridrich method.


There are people who cube but are not interested in beginner methods or Fridrich.


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## AvGalen (Jul 1, 2008)

Johannes91 said:


> Alex DiTuro said:
> 
> 
> > I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who cubes ... There's a great beginner method as well as a very in depth look on the fridrich method.
> ...


I saw Johannes91 on the left, read that one sentence and my mind combined it to: "There are people who cube but are not interested in beginner methods like Fridrich"


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## Dene (Jul 1, 2008)

Lol, nice one  . So here's a question, what exactly is "lolz" meant to be? We pluralise acronyms with "z" now?


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## AvGalen (Jul 1, 2008)

lol means laughing out loud. I don't think that can be pluralised. I just consider it bad writing and/or wanna-be l33t


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## Johannes91 (Jul 1, 2008)

I actually had to read AvGalen's post a couple of times to see the diff.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lolz

A corruption of _lol_, probably a leet variation, treated as if it were a noun rather than an interjection and pluralized in a deliberately unconventional manner.


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## Dene (Jul 1, 2008)

AvGalen said:


> lol means laughing out loud. I don't think that can be pluralised. I just consider it bad writing and/or wanna-be l33t



You didn't detect my sarcasm? 

The internet has really done poo to the english language (not that I'm a particular fan of it in the first place).


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## 4ZN_5H4D0W (Jul 2, 2008)

Dene said:


> AvGalen said:
> 
> 
> > lol means laughing out loud. I don't think that can be pluralised. I just consider it bad writing and/or wanna-be l33t
> ...



IT'S A TERRORIST! SOMEONE CALL HOMELAND SECURITY NOW!!! LOLZ


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## AvGalen (Jul 2, 2008)

What's the number?

Never mind, calling homeland security (US-only) is not very usefull when you suspect Dene and/or me


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## Dene (Jul 2, 2008)

>.< . Nice one Mr. van Galen  .

(btw, not sure if you noticed, but I think he was referring to the internet as the terrorist).


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## AvGalen (Jul 2, 2008)

Dene said:


> >.< . Nice one Mr. van Galen  .
> 
> (btw, not sure if you noticed, but I think he was referring to the internet as the terrorist).


I completely misread. I thought he thought you weren't "a particular fan of it in the first place" where it meant "the internet" (not the English language)


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## Dene (Jul 2, 2008)

lolz Mr. van Galen


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## dChan (Jul 7, 2008)

I saw this book a few weeks before Speedcubing.com picked it up but I really didn't want to pick it up myself. I think it is just because I have a wealth of pages that I printed containing algorithms for virtually every single aspect of cubing aside from anything outside of the realm of being non-cubical(like Megaminx). I looked it over and thought it was pretty interesting but it was $15 USD at my store and I would prefer something like $5 or $6 USD simply because I already have all of that information(and more actually) sitting in a folder and I could buy something I havn't read about before with more a lot more pages for the same price. The price is really my only complaint about the book because I looked through it and thought that it gave pretty good, albeit, standard instructions for the methods. Of course, as mentioned before, alternative algorithms would have been nice. Even if they were algorithms for lefties that would have been good too (I am sure the lefties would appreciate it).


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## Lord Voldemort (Nov 28, 2008)

I'm left handed, but I'm used to Algs with right and up turns...
My cousin bought the book, he's nine, so he's not really a master at the Internet.
He taught himself 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, and 5x5 with it, so it was pretty impressive. 
I don't think he can really do it very fast, but it's a really good book for someone who has an old cube sitting around, that's been scrambled since the dawn of time.


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## qqwref (Nov 28, 2008)

Yeah, I'd say in general books like this are definitely meant for beginners, not people who have already learned or printed out complex methods for all the WCA puzzles. I think it's still going to be a long while before there's enough advanced information out there to be able to make a book that would appeal to experienced cubers  I was planning to make a book like this a while ago and it was the same idea, explain how to solve everything and get people up to speed, as opposed to something that advanced people would learn from.

Maybe in a few years it would be possible to publish some kind of 'Cuber's Dictionary', with a description of each term and method, and how it applies to the different puzzles. Or perhaps I'm dreaming


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## jcuber (Nov 28, 2008)

Crzyazn said:


> so who actually has bought this thing?
> 
> The information is a wee bit outdated (Ron Von Bruchem holds the WR for 3x3) but Fridrich method and LBL are pretty nicely described.
> 
> ...



What is VHF2l?


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## Lucas Garron (Nov 29, 2008)

jcuber said:


> Crzyazn said:
> 
> 
> > so who actually has bought this thing?
> ...


Please look at post #12 and use [insert your favorite search engine here].


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## Hadley4000 (Nov 30, 2008)

I ended up getting it. Since I am still learning full OLL, it can be a nice read while out somewhere.


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## panyan (Jan 4, 2009)

AvGalen said:


> lol means laughing out loud.



what country are you in becuase i was sure that lol started out as: "lots of love"


UPDATE: ooops, sorry, i didnt realise how old this thread was, i found it via google not the forum, sorr


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## qqwref (Jan 5, 2009)

panyan said:


> what country are you in becuase i was sure that lol started out as: "lots of love"



The internet isn't a country. And lol almost always means "laughing out loud" on the internet. Wikipedia says that lol was used to mean "lots of love" or "lots of luck" in letter writing (snail mail), but this is actually not a related abbreviation, it just has the same letters.


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## Odin (Jan 5, 2009)

qqwref said:


> panyan said:
> 
> 
> > what country are you in becuase i was sure that lol started out as: "lots of love"
> ...



i use to think lol was a guy with his hands up! (the (o) was his head and the 2 l's was his arms!)


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## qqwref (Jan 5, 2009)

Nah, Odin, that's \o/. Actually LOL should be capitalized, but most people are too lazy to do that, including me


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## Odin (Jan 5, 2009)

\d'o'b/ how about that?


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## MTGjumper (Jan 5, 2009)

panyan said:


> what country are you in becuase i was sure that lol started out as: "lots of love"




Heh, that reminds me of when my Nan sent a text to my brother after he had broken his arm saying "Heard about your arm lol" thinking that lol meant "lots of love".


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## Lord Voldemort (May 3, 2009)

Sorry about bumping an old thread.
I was talking to my cousin about a book (a few weeks ago), and he said that there's a beginners method and an intermediate and an advanced method (for 3x3x3). He never went into much depth as to what they are, and I've been wondering. 

Could anyone that owns the book enlighten me?


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## 04mucklowd (May 3, 2009)

I got this book


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## Stefan (May 3, 2009)

04mucklowd said:


> I got this book


Good for you! Thanks for telling us!


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## byu (May 3, 2009)

Lord Voldemort said:


> Sorry about bumping an old thread.
> I was talking to my cousin about a book (a few weeks ago), and he said that there's a beginners method and an intermediate and an advanced method (for 3x3x3). He never went into much depth as to what they are, and I've been wondering.
> 
> Could anyone that owns the book enlighten me?



Well, in "Speedsolving the Cube", which I do own, Dan teaches a beginner's method, and then teaches an advanced method (Fridrich). He teaches Fridrich with F2L algorithms, but later goes into detail about how to use intuitive while taking advantage of empty slots, and I think he might have covered a little bit of multi-slotting, or at least the concept of it. So it's not Beginner->Intermediate->Advanced, it's actually Beginner->Advanced->More Advanced.


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