From cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu Mon Aug 9 15:23:00 1999 Return-Path: Received: from sun28.aic.nrl.navy.mil (sun28.aic.nrl.navy.mil [132.250.84.38]) by mc.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1a/8.9.1-mod) with SMTP id PAA08335 for ; Mon, 9 Aug 1999 15:22:59 -0400 (EDT) Precedence: bulk Errors-To: cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 00:37:50 -0700 (PDT) From: Tim Browne To: cube-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Puzzle Shop, was Rubik's Cube Perpetual Calendar In-Reply-To: <379F9979.E9CD2EBD@telegram.infi.net> Message-Id: On Wed, 28 Jul 1999, Howard wrote: > Thanks to Chris's post, and his web page, I found a new shop > in Germany for twist-to-solve puzzles. It is > > Hendrik Haak's Puzzle Shop http://www.puzzle-shop.de/ Actually, that's been around for well over a year now... He has, however, just recently undergone a major change on his site, including adding a museum section with lots of really twisted puzzles. Anyone on this list who checks it out should get a plastic keyboard cover to avoid its shorting out due to the inevitable salivation. A few notables to check out are the Skewb Diamond, the Extended Cube, the Mushroom, and the Rubik's Revenge Special. If anyone can tell me how this is constructed, I'd really like to know about it. > Has anyone in the group ordered from this shop and what > have been your results? I especially like the looks of the > dogic, octagon, mozaika, and octaedercube puzzles. Is the octaeder the Magic Octohedron, or the Cuboctohedron? I placed several puzzles on order with him over a month ago, but he only shipped them out some time last week as there were several he didn't have in stock. Apparently, once they're shipped they take about 6 weeks to reach North America, unless you expedite the service. I asked him about it, but he just kept telling me "$19 for surface mail". :-/ > Has anyone > tried these, and does anyone have pictures of them in mid-twist, > on their web pages? I've placed the Dogic on order... it looks especially nightmarish, but everyone I've heard from who's tried it claimed it was really easy to solve. Given that it's a superset of the Impossiball, I'd think it would be particularly painful. I guess I'll find out once it arrives. The Mozaika I haven't seen yet, but it doesn't look all that difficult... Then again, I also thought that including a hint book with the Square-1 was an insult to the intelligence and that anyone with as much experience as I had with Rubik's Cube and similar puzzles should have no problem with it before I found out just how wrong I was (it took over a year for me to solve it once), so who's to say? For the other two... if you mean the "Octagon barrel", it's basically a Rubik's Cube subset, The Magic Octahedron can be solved as 2 Pyraminxen slammed back to back, and the Cuboctohedron, being no more than a Rubik's Cube with huge chunks sliced out of it, would be solved the same way. As for pictures showing puzzles in mid twist, the only site I'm aware of with pictures like that would be Chris and Kori's page. L8r.