Hobbies

As stated in my previous post, I am good at analytical thinking - problem solving to achieve a result. I have many skills and hobbies oriented around this style of thought; 

I speedcube, solving 'Rubik's Cube' as fast as possible, and have reached a personal best of 15.65 seconds. I have also attended 4 official competitions, reaching an official best of 19.30. I can also solve many other format of puzzle, such as cubes of size up to 7x7x7. For my full competition results, check out my stats page. Cubing requires the type of a mind that can flex to visualize how each piece orbits around the cube, and can overcome problems that occur. I have taught a lot of my friends to speedcube, but they had it the easy way: They had me to teach them; If they make a mistake they ask me what's wrong, yet if I made a mistake, I had to work out what I was doing wrong and try to overcome the problem myself.

I write code; My fave is C#, I have written some pretty fun code that took a lot of thinking. C# really takes some time to think through how the code works, as it is a backend language. I am much more into writing the algorithmic code of the backend, instead of creating the clean polished look of the frontend. For example, I wrote a program to solve a Rubik's cube recently; it took a lot of thinking about to write, it's about 1-2 thousand lines of code...

I'm good at learning things quickly, I'm learning to play chess, and I'm learning Japanese in my spare time. I just have to look at something to memorize it. I learnt to touchtype over a weekend in November last year, and I now I can type at ~50wpm.

Let me know what you thought of this post, and if you have any suggestions!

Restart, updates and more!

So I haven't posted on here in a long time (My last post was nearly a year ago!), and I decided to restart my blog, but with a different theme. 

Instead of tech and cubing review-style posts, I'm going to post about me, and how I think. Compared to how other people describe how they think, I seem very different. My mind is highly analytical, good at problem solving etc, and I am going to be trying to describe how I think and what is unique about me.

I am good maths and computing, but I fall down when it comes to English and creative aspects. I often struggle in social situations, and I want to try to describe how.

Let me know what you think!

YJ GuanSu Review

Hey Guys,

So Today I'm going to be reviewing the YJ GuanSu, a 4x4 by the child company of MoYu. I unboxed this cube on YouTube, so please feel free to check that out here.

The YJ GuanSu is $8 on TheCubicle.us, although I bought it on ebay here, as the postage is a lot cheaper. It came packaged ok, and out of the box I could tell it was going to be a great cube. Stock tensions were excellent, and didn't need changing at all, as well as it was already lubed so that didn't need changing either. I have now done ~50 solves on it, and I haven't noticed a significant improvement, but there definitely has been a bit of a change.

The turning on the outer layers is amazing, but the inner layers are sometimes slow and sluggish. The corner cutting with stock tensions is not great, only 1/2 of a cubie and a fraction of reverse. I have never had a pop, but the cube does minor catches sometimes. Here is a photo of the mechanism for those of you that are interested:

The stickers are the standard Moyu shades, and they are excellent quality, as is standard from Moyu and its derivatives.

All in all, I would recommend this 4x4 to anyone, as it is great quality and definetly speedcubeable, as well as being extremely cheap.

Keep checking up here for the latest in geek!

Moyu TangLong Review

Hey guys,

So I haven't posted in months, I know, as I've been much more busy with The Geek Circle YouTube channel- if you haven't checked that out, make sure to do so here. 

Onto the review.

Today, I'm going to be reviewing Moyu's latest 3x3, the TangLong. I got this cube for £12 on theCubicle.us, and if you haven't checked them out, you should as they are a very reliable source of cubes, the only problem being they charge A LOT to ship to the UK.

The TangLong was released in September last year, so is fairly new. My first impressions of the cube were that the turning is extremely crisp, like the AoLong, but my AoLong is extremely over - lubed, with cubicle weight 3, a lube way too heavy for me. I thought the TangLong would just be a remake of the AoLong, but it isn't - the mechanism is completely different, as can be seen here:

The corner-cutting off the TangLong is just under 45°, and reverse is half a cubie. Corner twisting is possible, but it requires some force, so would not happen during a solve. Stock tensions were perfect, and didn't need any tweaking, although the white face makes some springing noises when turning.

The stickers are of course of excellent quality, as is to be expected with Moyu cubes. The stickers are larger than the ones on the AoLong, leaving less border, which I quite like the look of. The Moyu shades are very bright and look excellent as usual, as can be seen here:

All in all, this cube is great, and I would greatly recommend it to any speedcuber, whether new or experienced.

Keep checking up here for the latest in geek!

Argus Review

Hey Guys,

Today I've got another app review, but not for a game. Argus is a life-tracking app, that I mainly use for a pedometer, but can also be used to track things such as bike rides and other exercises. It puts all recent exercise into a cool looking hexagonal formation like so:

This formation is good looking, neat and easy to read. The items are a bit hard to determine what dey they are part of, as the dates are just another hexagon, but apart from that the view is excellent. The app automatically creates step battles against random people daily. One of the problems with this is that quite a lot of the people you can see here are inactive, with no steps for that day. This is probably because they have deleted the app and their account is still there.

One way to fix this problem would be to make it so that only people that had at least some steps the previous day get put in a face-off. One of the cool features of Argus is that it will recognise if you are doing a certain activity (eg. running) and start a running activity, gps tracking the run as well.

Thanks to the TWiT network (twit.tv) for recommending this app to me - I emailed a question in about what they would recommend as a pedometer app, and they mentioned this.

All in all, I would greatly recommend this to anyone that wants a pedometer app that will work well, have a social aspect and as well as being able to track a wide range of other activities.



Keep checking up here for the latest in geek!

Slack Review

Hey Guys,

So if you've read my IFTTT review, you will know that lately I have been testing a free online application called Slack. Slack is a messaging service intended to be used by companies and their teams, but can be used for other things. As an example, I am currently in 3 slack groups (or 'teams') - the Geek Circle, a group of my school friends, and a group for my family. The Geek Circle is currently just me and Theo (another blogger from this blog), but anyone can join if they want to (just email me at thegeekcircle@gmail.com ). My school friends use it to talk to each other (or at least I'm trying to get them to!), and my family uses it to plan events and other things.

The interface, as you can see, is very good looking and polished, and it's easy to find your way around. This is a shot of the desktop app, that is also very similar to the web interface, but there's also an iOS and Android app.

One of the reasons people go for Slack is the integrations. You can integrate slack with many different programs and apps, such as Google Calander, IFTTT and many more (full list can be found here). Integrations allow you to make slack do more, and you can even write your own. I have IFTTT set up to automatically publish the weather daily, and Google Calendar gives me a daily roundup. 

All in all, I think that Slack is a better option of a messaging service, weather you want it for communication with your family, or managing your project at work. I would greatly recommend it to anyone.

Keep checking up here for the latest in geek!

New Website!

Hey guys,

So if you've been following me on twitter, you'll know the official Geek Circle Site is now up! It can be found at http://thegeekcircle.com/. It contains all links to all my latest content (youtube and blog posts), as well as other stuff about me (my setup, cubes etc.).

Also, sorry that I've not posted in a while, but I've been on holiday, and after that I've been quite busy making YouTube videos.




Keep checking up here for the latest in geek!