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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Darren Greer<br><b>Sent:</b> Monday, February 28, 2011 8:21 AM<br><b>To:</b> ExI chat list<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] Wizard Calculating Device<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>2011/2/28 spike <<a href="mailto:spike66@att.net">spike66@att.net</a>>:<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='color:#1F497D'>>An original Rubik’s cube if in it’s unopened original package is a valuable collector’s item. spike<</span></span><o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Yeah, it's not original. It's a "cube puzzle" knock off, and though the box is in great shape it has been opened though the instructions are still folded up inside it. </span><span style='color:#1F497D'>…</span><span style='color:#1F497D'>D</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Ja I have a couple of those. The original Rubik’s cube was about 7 bucks, but almost immediately the Chinese were making cheapy knock offs, which my college roommate brought back from Singapore as an early lesson to all of us engineering students in intellectual property and how difficult it is to defend. The Chinese version was about 2 bucks. We compared the original with the Chinese version, and found the manufacturing tolerances in the original were better, but that the Chinese version was in some ways easier to disassemble to modify for racing purposes. A racing cube had ground and polished catch tracks and corners.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>That was in 1981. I wrote a routine for a TI59 programmable calculator. It would make the same series of moves repeatedly on a simulated cube and note the number of moves required to cycle back to a solved cube. Then I repeated the task on a counterfeit Apple II, which ran at a blazing 0.0028 GHz, which finished the task about 100 times faster than the calculator.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></body></html>