Disability and Progress-October 2, 2025-Blind Cubers!

[00:00:18] Speaker A: KPI. Org Sam. [00:01:20] Speaker B: You are tuned to KFAI 90.3 FM, Minneapolis, and KFAI.org you're listening to Disability in Progress. Greetings. This is Sam Jasmine. I'm Charlene Dahl, and we are here with you today. Disability and Progress brings you insights into ideas of different topics on different disabilities. If you have an idea of what you would like to hear coming up on Disability in Progress, you can email me at disabilityandprogressamjasmin.com that's disability in [email protected] we listen to all disability ideas tonight, Thursday, October 2, 2025. The government may be shut down, but we are not. We are here and we are with Paul Martz. Paul is an author, editor, and all sorts of other things that we don't even know about, I'm sure. And he has just released a book, Cubing Competitively, that is with the Rubik's Cube, and it's called Solve It. Hi, Paul. [00:02:39] Speaker A: Hi, Sam. Hi, Charlene. What a thrill to be your guest. You guys have just given a voice to the disabled community for so many years. And it's really an honor. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here and tell your listeners about my new book. Appreciate it. [00:02:56] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, well, we enjoy doing the show, you know, and hopefully other people enjoy it. So can you start out, Paul, you've been on before, but there are probably new listeners every day. So can you start out by telling us a little bit of history about you and how you started writing? [00:03:20] Speaker A: Sure. I worked as a computer programmer for about 30 years, but I was slowly losing my eyesight to retinitis pigmentosa. So 10 years ago, I decided it might be time for me to take a little bit of an early ish retirement and find out what I really wanted to do with the rest of my life. And that turned out to be writing, which was something I always wanted to do from a very early age. Never really had time to pursue it because I was so busy building my career and, and things like that. But now I've retired and I've decided to just jump right in. Primarily science fiction is my interest. To tell you the truth. For several years now, I've been writing science fiction short stories. I've had some stories published at various different science fiction publications, marketplaces, anthologies. I have won a couple of contests, which I'm very proud of. And I'm an active member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. I live in Colorado, which is an organization that helps writers of many different fiction Genres, Science fiction, fantasy, mystery, thriller, romance, general fiction, women's fiction, you name it. RMFW does it. So you had me previously as your guest last year. Thank you so much. Because I have volunteered with RMFW to help co edit their biennial anthology, which is a collection of short stories by RMFW members and, and took that on primarily for the experience. I wanted to learn how to self publish, how to edit, how to work with other authors. And in my opinion, it was just kind of all. All part of tackling writing like a second career. I want to learn as much as I can about it. And that was, that was a big part of that now. [00:05:29] Speaker B: And that was an interesting anthology. I think it was just a collaboration of many stories, if I remember right, which were very spooky type interesting in some ways. I wanted to ask you as a visually impaired person, right. So what. How are you editing now and what is that like editing? Are you using a lot of accessibility? Are you using total speech or do you have any visual help that you can do? Some visual stuff. [00:06:06] Speaker A: Right. Well, you know, of course I'm aware you guys have covered a lot of accessibility tools on your show over the years. And yeah, I'm working pretty much with a monitor turned off all the time. So I'm primarily a Mac user using voiceover and I do all my writing, editing and reading with voiceover. I am also familiar with braille, though I learned late in life, so it's pretty slow. But when it comes to very detailed editing tasks like checking punctuation and capitalization and that kind of minutiae, braille would come in very handy. So if I ever got wrapped up in another major editing project like the one last year, I think I would depend more heavily on braille to help me be a more effective editor. But even without braille, I think the screen reader did just a great job of helping me contribute and feel like I participated as an equal with my sighted co editor. [00:07:14] Speaker B: And you're talking to a braille teacher now, so. [00:07:17] Speaker A: Oh, congrats. She's very. [00:07:19] Speaker B: She's very happy to hear that you like, would use braille. [00:07:24] Speaker A: Is that you, Charlene? [00:07:25] Speaker B: No, no, it's me. [00:07:27] Speaker A: Oh, it's you, Sam. Okay, that's who I thought. Yeah, you were talking to yourself in the third person. [00:07:32] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, sometimes it slips. I'm not sure who I am sometimes. [00:07:39] Speaker A: I'm so glad to hear that you're spreading the news about braille because of course one of the most important developments in braille lately is that nls Bard is now loaning out Braille readers to their patrons, which means a lot more blind people have access to Braille ever before. [00:07:55] Speaker B: That's right. Which is super cool. So. Well, that is exciting to hear about how you do things. I'm just curious because I'm a PC user and I'm always kind of bantering with people. PC, Mac, PC, Mac. What made you choose the Mac over PC? [00:08:18] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know. [00:08:19] Speaker B: You had to know I'd go there, didn't you? Well, if you didn't, you do now. [00:08:24] Speaker A: No, that's okay. I should be better prepared for this question, and I am, actually. I do have a good prepared answer. So. I worked as a computer programmer for many years. I worked on a variety of different platforms over the course of my career, from mainframes to Unix to Windows to you name it, right. So I know that no matter what I'm working on, there's got to be two or three different ways to do whatever it is I'm trying to do. And it's just a matter of finding the right documentation and answers and, and I can be productive on just about any platform, I believe. The thing that actually pushed me to Mac 10 years ago was when Windows 7 had reached EOL and I was reluctant. I thought, well, if Microsoft's going to make me move to a new operating system, maybe I should look at all different options. And I looked at Mac and I looked at Linux, running a desktop too, and I thought maybe I should give Mac a try. Now there's a footnote on this story because very recently I bought a Windows 11 desktop computer. So the main problem I was running into on the Mac was that Ms. Word is not particularly accessible through voiceover for the high end types of editing work that I need to do, working with comments and track changes and that type of stuff, I was running into lots of accessibility barriers. So I've now purchased a Windows machine. I've loaded NVDA on it, not Jaws, nvda, to see if I can be productive with nvda. And if I can't, I'll crack open the piggyback bank and I'll get Jaws, you know. But, but, but for now my plan is NVDA and Ms. Word on my Windows 11 machine. And so far it's working out pretty well. [00:10:31] Speaker B: Cool. Well, congratulations on the crossover to the dark side. [00:10:37] Speaker A: Thank you. Yeah, I've got my feet in both ponds, I guess. [00:10:40] Speaker B: Exactly. Now, just depends on which one the alligator's in. I will tell you that the parental units that I was living with in my high school days were pretty good. And they had this brilliant idea of giving me a Rubik's Cube, and they brailed it. So the interesting thing was, I mean, I didn't have anything to go by. I was just trying myself. I got the bottom and the first two rows, and then I thought the same thing. Doesn't work to do the top row. What do I do? And there was also all the colors. They had the, like, B, G, Y. They were capitalized. And so I could never get all my capitals to line up. And I never thought to think maybe that was a mistake they did to capitalize them. I'm not sure because I was always trying to, you know, line up those dot sixes. So, anyway, I digress a little bit, but I. I never did complete my Rubik's Cube. Years later, I had lost it. I used to just do the moves to just be able to achieve that much. I never had time to, like, sit and play and play and play in college and thereafter, but it was always fun to show how much I could do. And then when I lost it, I didn't have one for years. And not too long ago, somebody surprised me and gave me one with shapes. And I'd never seen that before. I'm like, wow, okay, this is different. But I have not yet, you know, I hadn't tried anything yet. And then your book comes out. Solve it. [00:12:31] Speaker A: It's a sign. [00:12:32] Speaker B: It's a sign. Although it scares the you know what out of me, because tried. I read it and I thought, whoa, whoa. I had no. No thought on how many moves. Like, you know, you think of calculating how many moves it takes to do whatever it is. I never thought of counting moves. I just did it. It was just this muscle memory I had, and I'm like, wow, that sounds so overwhelming, trying to do that many moves. And how long would it take me? So I have not yet tried it, but I've read it. And so now, anyway, let's talk about solve it. [00:13:10] Speaker A: Well, first, if I can jump in and just congratulate you for what you accomplished back when you were younger, on your own, being able to solve those first two layers, that's amazing that you were able to do that on your own. And I'll also add that, you know, whenever I tell people that I've written a book about how to solve a Rubik's cube as a blind person, the first question is, how does a blind person solve a Rubik's cube? And I tell them, well, the first thing is you need tactile markings so that you can feel it instead of look at the colors. And then their very next question is always, well, where do you get a cube with tactile markings? [00:13:52] Speaker B: Right? [00:13:53] Speaker A: And then I have to tell them that, you know, you can buy one from an online store like you did with your second cube cube there. You can, you can just search for tactile cube. You can buy a standard cube made for sighted people. You can put bump dots on it and turn it into a tactile cube. I, I have special tactile markings made with a 3D printer. I don't own a 3D printer, but I know people in the cubing community that run 3D printers all the time and they churn this stuff out like it's nothing. And then there's, there's a new, there's an online store now that's specialized. They're called texture texturecube.com they, they specialize in high end speed cubes designed for blind people. So there's a lot of different options. [00:14:40] Speaker B: So for those who don't know the Rubik's Cube, a lot of people do, I feel like. But for those who are like, what's that? Can you describe it so people understand what we're talking about? [00:14:50] Speaker A: Oh yeah. This is kind of like yesterday's puzzle in it. And, and old timers like me don't often slow down to think about that. But yes, in, in 1980, this puzzle toy came out and it took popular culture by storm. The, the number one selling book in 1980 was a Rubik's Cube solution guide, which sold over a million copies. So it's the, it's to describe the puzzle. It's a cube that fits in the palm of your hand, six sides, about 2 1/2 inches on a side, right? 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 by 21 /2. And then it's divided up. Each, each one of those sides is divided up into nine faces. And, and this basically means your cube is kind of three slices horizontally, vertically, and, and along the depth. And each of those slices rotates independently from each other. So for a sighted person, each side has a different color. For a blind person, each, each of those six sides have different tactile markings. And as you rotate those sides, those layers, slices right. The, the sides become scrambled so that the tactile markings no longer match and the colors, and then your job as the solver is to reduce, return it to its solved state where everything matches on a side. [00:16:20] Speaker B: Yes. Thank you. So, and People may think, oh, that's not such a big deal, but it is, believe me. If you ever have access to go get a Rubik's Cube, like they're nine by nine. You know, that's that I call like squares. That's what I call them. But you call them faces. But there, there's nine of them on each face. I guess our terminology is a little different, but that's. You get the idea. [00:16:47] Speaker A: Right. [00:16:49] Speaker B: And if you people, people have never done it. It's amazing how, how few turns you can do and it is so messed up. And you think, wait a minute, I thought I just did the opposite of what I did, but now it's worse. But it is fascinating. [00:17:09] Speaker A: It. Sorry, yeah. It is incredibly easy to scramble. Yes. And impossible to solve without dedicated effort and instruction. Yeah. [00:17:21] Speaker B: So you talk about how you do the book is. Well, first of all, how long did it take you to write this book and how did you decide how to, you know, go from A to Z in the book? [00:17:40] Speaker A: So it was a couple of years ago that I had become a little rusty on the Rubik's Cube and, and found out really quickly that there's a. Plenty of free information on the Internet about solving the cube and all of it is 100% not accessible. [00:18:01] Speaker B: Right. [00:18:01] Speaker A: It's images, diagrams, videos and things like that. So it was a struggle for me to kind of refresh my memory on how to solve it. And once I did, I decided I was never going to let this happen to me again. And I started to write just simple notes to myself that I could refer to in the event that I ever needed a refresher in just a plain old text file. That was how it started out, quite humbly about two years ago. And just about then I was going to the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Writers Conference and I started talking with people there that I wondered if there might be a potential market for a Rubik's Cube solution guide that was designed just for blind readers, that contained no images or diagrams. It would be 100% text and you would read it with a screen reader or a braille display. And I got a lot of encouragement. So that was two years ago and the book came out this past May. So it has been an almost two year long project and a lot of that was writing, a lot of it was researching and a lot of it frankly was going to competitions, plugging myself into the speed solving community, making connections with other local cubers. So it's really been quite an experience and it was a lot of fun too. I had a blast every minute of the way. [00:19:29] Speaker B: I'm just, just curious, short of me and you now, I was doing this before you even had your book out. But like, how, what's the number of blind people? You would, I wouldn't think there'd be a lot of them. Were there many blind people that had been doing the cube or were trying to solve it before you even wrote this book? [00:19:53] Speaker A: Oh, I definitely used to joke that the market for a book like this was like five people, and one of them was my aunt. Right. So. But the book has came out. Sales have been above my humble expectations. I have a companion website with a newsletter that people can subscribe to. I have a growing list of subscribers, and I'm very pleased with the turnout. Even before the book was published, I had connected with three different blind cubers around the world. One in Australia and two in Europe. And actually with email communication with them, they helped me plan and organize the book and how I should approach it and how it would provide the most value to the blind community. So I thank them and I thank everyone who's been with me along the way on this wild and crazy project. [00:20:53] Speaker B: I'm just curious. You talk about there's acronyms, there's things that you use, but there's things that you, there's different moves. One move is called the sexy move, and the other, I can think, is the reverse. Sexy, I believe is called. Did you just make those up or are they real terms that are in the cubic commodity? [00:21:17] Speaker A: I, I did not make those up. I can't take credit for that. I, I, I had made up totally bogus names for those moves. And when I took it to a technical reviewer, she told me, you can't call it that. You have to call it the sexy move. And I' okay, but yeah, there's the sexy move and there's the, which is, I think, R U, R prime, U prime, which the, the letters R and U, that's the right side of the cube and the, and the top or the up side of your cube. [00:21:48] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:48] Speaker A: And, and so an R is clockwise and an R prime is counterclockwise. And then there's another one that I don't even think I mentioned, but it's called sledgehammer. And that's R prime, F R, F prime. And these, these are basically little, I almost think of them as ingredients in a recipe, little components that move a specific number of compute cubes in a very predictable way. And these professional speedcubers, these experts out there, know how to chain them. Together into longer sequences to do really complicated and very targeted twists and turns and displacements. So a lot of that is now fully documented. But I wasn't the guy who invented that stuff. It was. I'm standing on the shoulders of the giants who did all this research, you know, 40, 45 years ago. And I borrowed a lot from publicly available information for this book. Definitely. [00:22:54] Speaker B: You mentioned that about how blind people maybe have a special advantage with cubing. [00:23:01] Speaker A: Oh, I think so. [00:23:01] Speaker B: And you say that there are two skills that you really need. Do you want to talk about that? [00:23:09] Speaker A: Right. I mean, what do you need to do to solve a Rubik's Cube? You have to be able to memorize things. And I think we all used to memorize those of us who were older in the days before the cell phone. How many phone numbers of our friends? Exactly. And I think a lot of people have lost that skill. But blind people don't have the luxury of. I'm going to go out the door in 10 minutes. So I'm going to set this on the counter and see it on the way out. They have to remember every single thing they're going to take with them. So I think blind people have that memory skill and it's right there in their pocket ready to deploy. Right. The other thing they need is tactile sensitivity. They have to be able to differentiate these textures by touch. I don't think sighted people are quite as good at that as those of us who use that skill every day. And then there's really a third thing that you need, of course, which is instructions in an accessible format. And that's what my book is. [00:24:14] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. And what benefits do you think? They're probably the same as for everyone. But what benefits. Benefits do you think specifically blind people get from cubing? [00:24:31] Speaker A: We. I think, Sam, you invented an accessible dartboard. Yeah, yeah. And why? Because blind people don't want to be left out of the fun and games. Right, Right. So a lot of games are historically harder for us to access. I. To be an avid card player back when I had eyesight and when I had to switch to a braille deck and depend on my sighted players to tell me what card they just plunked down on the table. [00:25:07] Speaker B: Yes, I know that one. [00:25:09] Speaker A: I. I quickly lost interest. So the Rubik's cube gives us back some of that entertainment that I think we're missing. You can. If you're a competitive person, you can compete against yourself. Can I solve it faster than I just did that last time? Right. You're racing against the clock. It I think as blind people that we might have a little bit more downtime than sighted people. I know that I had to learn to become a lot more patient once my central vision finally tanked. And that's because I'm waiting for public transportation rotation or I'm waiting for that Uber or I'm in that public transportation and it's going like at 18 different stops instead of the direct route to where I want to go. So the Rubik's Cube fits in your pocket. You can carry it around? Yes, definitely. Catch up on your email, on your smartphone and read your audiobook. But if you want something else that's going to engage your brain in a different way, now you've got a tactile Rubik's Cube too. I think that there's a lot of ways this, this could bring enjoyment to a. And since my book has came out, I've already received a lot of emails from people thanking me for writing it and telling me that they have used it to finally solve that scrambled Rubik's Cube they've had in the drawer for so long. And they didn't think it was possible. They did not think it was possible. And it is. [00:26:45] Speaker B: So talk about how you published this book to reach a wide audience of blind readers. [00:26:54] Speaker A: Oh boy. I, I kind of took a winding road to get to publication. I'll. I'll start by saying I had originally had in mind to do this as a 100% braille book. I was going to have it transcribed and available as a BRF file and then donated to the NLS Bard system so that people could print on demand if they wanted, want to hard copy or download the BRF to their braille display. And then I started talking with a publisher for a while and we went back and forth on negotiations and they had ideas to make it reach a larger audience. They wanted to add illustrations and reach the low vision community and they wanted to take it in directions that I didn't really think it needed to go in. I, I originally had the vision of targeting 100 totally blind people, 100% blindness. And I stand behind that. So I dropped communications with them. And it was about that time was when the RMFW anthology was coming out. So I had that self publishing experience and that gave me the confidence to think that I could publish this myself. I know what I need to do. I need to hire a cover artist, I need to hire a formatter. I'm going to publish it as an ePub. People can read it with a Braille display or a screen reader. It's the perfect solution. And that was what I went with. I went down that path starting in February. It took me February, March, April, right into May was when the formatting and cover art was complete. And it was published just around May 20, I believe is an ePub. Wow. Now that's really nice, Paul, but in hindsight, were there any mistakes you made? Well, yes. Yes, there was. By publishing EPUB only. Well, let me back up for a second. We're all blind here, and we all have many blind friends, and when you talk to them about a book, the first question out of their mouth is, is it an NLS bar? And their second question might be, is it inaudible, Right? And both of those, they want audiobooks. When. When they ask, is it on Bard? They're really asking, is it an audiobook on Bard? Or they might say, you know, is it in bookshare? But really, Kindle or ePub or. Or Nook, that's kind of their. Their last choice. So. And as it turns out, by not publishing it as a print book, I made it more difficult to get into NLS Bard. And this is really weird and ironic, but the. The way to get a book into the number one preferred source of reading material for the blind community, NLS Bard, is to publish in print. Because you must publish in print in order to donate it to the Library of Congress. And it has to be in Library of Con order to get into NLS Bard. Yes, yes, yes. So I've now retroactively published it as a large print print book that's now available in print from Amazon. Yay. And now I'm trying to find kind of a back door to getting it into Library of Congress. And I'll Bard because I missed that window around my May publication date. [00:30:30] Speaker B: So here's. Here's a thought for you. [00:30:34] Speaker A: That was probably way too much information, but I'm learning more and more and more about publishing for blind readers every day. [00:30:41] Speaker B: So here's a thought. So since everyone's all, you know, Google or goo goo about AI, what about having something like a ChatGPT voice read the book and then you submit it to somewhere interesting? [00:31:02] Speaker A: So make my entire manuscript available to OpenAI, who runs ChatGPT. Right. [00:31:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. And then if you could get something like that to read your book, could you submit that recording? [00:31:21] Speaker A: Maybe. I'm thinking if it's integrated into the AI, then blind people could just ask the AI, what do I do now? [00:31:29] Speaker B: That's true. That's. [00:31:30] Speaker A: I don't I don't know whether that would work or not, but. [00:31:32] Speaker B: Yeah, but I'm not trying to get you to make no money on it, that, that there might be a slippery slope there. I haven't thought all this out. I just popped into my head now, so you have to work out all the logistics. [00:31:43] Speaker A: But meanwhile, Sam, let me tell you just right up front, I didn't publish this book to get rich. [00:31:50] Speaker B: Well, I, I'm sure you didn't, but, you know, you should get something. [00:31:54] Speaker A: And it is available from. It is available in the Bookshare catalog right now. So I encourage listeners, if you're a share patron, go and search for Solve it, the only speed solving guide for blind cubers. And you can access the epub free. [00:32:09] Speaker B: Paul, I, I want to talk a little bit about cubing contests because when I was doing this, and actually it wasn't, I didn't have as much time in high school. It was really, truly. Well, it was junior high, early high school, my early high school days, I had some time. We would sit in the room and we'd kind of race each other to do as much as we could do before, whatever. But I never thought about cubing contests. So how does that work? [00:32:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. It's this whole enormous subculture that kind of flies below the radar of our awareness and our news media and everything. But especially in Colorado, the speed cubing community. Community is quite healthy. They have a competition here maybe six different times a year in various cities around the state. And at any given competition, anywhere between 60 and 150 kids might show up to compete. And these are mostly teenagers, mostly male. I'll just be straight with you. That's just the nature of the demographic, Right. But there is a small handful of us. We call ourselves the senior Cubers and we sit at a practice table together and we encourage each other. And there might be four or five, six of us there who are all, you know, 50 plus. Right. I'm. I'm 62. And so let me describe the competition for you a little bit. You've got a timer in front of you that you start and stop with two touch pads. So you have to have your fingers on the timer, right? And they take your cube away and they give it an official scramble and they bring it back. You have 15 seconds to inspect the cube, and then you have to start the Timer before those 15 seconds are up. And then you pick up that cube and solve it as fast as possible. And then you drop it and stop the timer. [00:34:20] Speaker B: Okay? So hold on, I got some in between questions here. So how. What designates a properly scrambled cube? [00:34:31] Speaker A: They have. These competitions are ran by volunteers who are all, you know, sanctioned by the World Cube association, which is a global organization dedicated to hosting these competitions. Right. And they're behind partitions, so even the sighted people can't see what they're doing. And they make sure that everybody gets the same scramble so that it's fair. [00:34:58] Speaker B: So are there having a Rubik's Cube, accessible or otherwise, are there any qualifications that your cube has to meet? [00:35:07] Speaker A: I don't think so, no. No. I, I brought. The first competition I went to, I brought in the cheapest cube that I had laying around. It was one of the first ones I had. The tactile markings were almost falling off and, you know, it's kind of dirty and grimy a little bit. And I said, is this going to be acceptable competition? They're like, yeah, that'll work. They, they do want actually uniform markings, so every. And the markings cannot obscure the colors, so they cannot completely cover the, the side of the cube. Right. Those are kind of the things to keep in mind. [00:35:46] Speaker B: Okay. And as far as accessibility, has there been any difficulty, what was it like the first competition that you went to? [00:35:58] Speaker A: I was completely paranoid that the competition was not going to be made accessible to me. I brought a professional sighted guide with me, an SSP through the State of Colorado office that provides that service. So that helps me with navigation around and reading the clock and those kind of things that I would otherwise have had to ask a stranger for help for. Right. And then I had contacted the judges in advance and I said, I'm blind and I've, I've reviewed the rules and I think that, you know, when you give me that 15 seconds to inspect, I don't think you should start the clock until my fingers touch it, for example. And, and they said, that's a fair accommodation. Right. So it's very easy to work with them. And I found the Colorado Speed Solving community to be very welcoming and encouraging. Just the judges and the volunteers who are in the organization, but also my fellow competitors because they, they all take turns judging each other. So I've, I've gotten to know several of them personally. We have a discord server where we talk about cubing and upcoming competitions and, and share our strategies and our successes and failures. And it's, it's. I didn't expect to find a bunch of new friends here. I was just trying to write a book, but it, it, it's all cool. Experience. Yeah. [00:37:32] Speaker B: So are there other. I mean, this doesn't just happen in Colorado, right? How, where, how do they decide where it's happening? And how often could you go to a competition if you wanted? How does that work? [00:37:48] Speaker A: I think what it takes is a few people in the area to say, hey, let's put together a competition in Minneapolis or let's put together one in Madison, Wisconsin and they, they find a reserv and they, they work with WCA to get funding. They set a fair price. And WCA World Cube association is, is there to take money and make sure that the organizers are reimbursed for their expenses. There's a lot of infrastructure to make it happen. I see a lot of discussion on discord every once in a while. Hey, we haven't had a competition in Pueblo for a while. And when was. And there are a whole bunch of different puzzles besides the Rubik's Cube, just to let you know. So when was the last time we got to compute and compete in a 6x6? And when was the last time we got to do, I don't know, square one or one of these other weird puzzles that don't often come up? And so people will get together and they'll try to meet that demand if they see enough people calling out for it. [00:38:55] Speaker B: So how many do you go to a year? [00:38:58] Speaker A: Year? I have been to 3 total since my first one a year ago May. [00:39:07] Speaker B: So when you went to those, how many totally blind people were in there? [00:39:12] Speaker A: Me, one. [00:39:14] Speaker B: That's a lonely number. [00:39:18] Speaker A: And, and so, you know, there, there would be like 80 people in an event, for example, and they post the results [email protected] and if you want to see my results to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the list. [00:39:33] Speaker B: But I have a question for you. You weren't last, were you? [00:39:37] Speaker A: I'm not quite last. It always surprises me because I expect to be last. You're at an enormous disadvantage if you can't see why. And because sighted people can look ahead while they're finishing their last set of turns to perform step acts, they're already looking ahead at what they're going to need to do. For step one Y, I have to completely finish step X and then feel around the cube before I even know that step Y is coming up. [00:40:09] Speaker B: Right. [00:40:10] Speaker A: And the other disadvantage I have is, is my age, quite frankly. It's just like any other sport. Once you get over 40, you. You lose that edge that you had when you were younger. And I'm way over 40. [00:40:24] Speaker B: Don't say that. Well, that's interesting because I was just curious. I mean, I think that this is a great time to have more visually impaired or blind people in this. I don't know if you want to call it a sport or competitive, you know, wreck thing or what you want to call it, but. [00:40:48] Speaker A: I agree. [00:40:49] Speaker B: When I did my first triathlon, I did my first triathlon. I'm not going to tell you how old I was, but it was not the normal, you know, I was older than 25. And my goal, because I thought there's no way these people have been doing stuff for years, I would never be able to keep up. So my goal was I was one of the few blind people to be in that triathlon and I thought my goal would be be not to be last. That's my goal. And indeed, I was not last. So I was quite happy with that. I was like, I guess as long as you're happy with where you land. Right? [00:41:30] Speaker A: That's excellent. Yeah, that's wonderful. [00:41:32] Speaker B: So when. Go ahead. [00:41:34] Speaker A: I'll just mention that when it comes to cubing, I think there's plenty of opportunity for someone who's blind and relatively young, teenage or in their 20s, to reach really pick the skill up, put a lot of effort into it and blow the doors off the sighted competition. I know a blind speedcuber who's college age, who lives in Europe, and she is able to solve the Rubik's cube in under 30 seconds. [00:42:05] Speaker B: Whoa. Really? [00:42:08] Speaker A: Yes. Wow. [00:42:11] Speaker B: So that's pretty amazing. And so, so what's the general. How quick is somebody in one of your competitions? Let's just say what's the average? [00:42:20] Speaker A: So most of the sighted cubers are going to be somewhere between at the very fastest, might be around seven seconds, and the people in the bottom rankings will be around a minute, a minute 10, a minute 15. And that's right about where I am. I'm averaging about a minute 15. [00:42:41] Speaker B: I'd be like, yeah, I'd be like 30 minutes. [00:42:47] Speaker A: Not with practice. And, and that's the other thing is you really, really do have to practice. So that's kind of the third thing going against me is there's my blindness, my age, and there's the fact that I would much rather be writing science fiction. I've kind of. I've kind of written my book and I did the cubing thing and that was fun, but I just can't sit there and practice it two dozen times in a row every day like I used to, to. [00:43:10] Speaker B: Well, and you Said, as you said, there's other puzzles. Like, do you remember pyramids or Pyramid. [00:43:16] Speaker A: Pyramids. Yes, pyramids. [00:43:18] Speaker B: It was that tall, triangular shaped one. I had one of those too. And then there was the one that you could, the ball that you could make. The snake, I think they called it. [00:43:30] Speaker A: Okay. [00:43:30] Speaker B: That's what they called it. And you could make that into different shapes and I thought that was interesting. So there are a lot of different puzzles. I wonder. I, I, Jesus. It just brings me back. I gotta go now. Look up and find all these things. [00:43:46] Speaker A: And there are many of them. The, the Rubik's Cube, in the speed cubing community, they call it the three by three. For shorthand for three by three by three. There's, there's also one that's just the eight corners. So they call that the two by two. It's a simpler puzzle that I can solve much faster. I've done that one in 13 seconds. But the people that are on, the sighted people on the top end of the game are. They're solving it in under two seconds. [00:44:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. [00:44:15] Speaker A: It's a blink. It's a blink of an eye. It is incredible, Sam. Just. I can't see them do it, but I'm in the room when it's happening and it is electric, let me tell you. [00:44:24] Speaker B: I believe you, but, you know, you want to impress me, close your eyes and do it. [00:44:29] Speaker A: Right. [00:44:30] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. All right. So how can one then kind of get started preparing to do this if they want to be a competitive cuber. [00:44:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Get yourself a cube and, and buy my book and start with, start with part one. I'm going to warn you, it's going to be a slog to get through. I can't, I can't throw a picture on the page and show you how to do it, unfortunately, which means I have to spell it out in words and it's going to be complicated. Now. I try to use analogies like think of it, like think of the side of your cube as the, as the clock face. And you want to move that 12 o' clock piece to the 3 o' clock position. Right. That kind of thing. But I don't always have those kind of analogies to work with either. So I often end up saying we need to move the upper front right corner to the back left down position and to do that, you know, and then there's all the steps for the rotations. Get. Don't, don't be too Hard on yourself, take it slow, read it with a screen reader or braille display and repeat those sentences that are giving you trouble. And if you really get stuck somewhere and you just lost, send me an email. I'll help you out. [00:45:53] Speaker B: Okay, so how can people reach you? [00:45:56] Speaker A: The books companion website is tactilecuber.com and if you go to the contact form and fill that out that goes straight to my inbox and I will happily welcome you to the speed solving community and help you out to the best of my ability. That's the best way to get hold of me. I also have my writing webpage which is paulmartz.com and again that contact form goes straight to my inbox. PaulMarts.com is a great way to find out what kind of writing I'm up to, writing activities, where my short stories have been published and what I've got coming up down the pipeline. And both of those websites have newsletters that I I don't fill your inbox with spam. I send you a newsletter once every two or three months maybe just to let you know what's going on in the cubing world and my writing world. [00:46:48] Speaker B: Now you need to do a book on how to solve the pyramix. [00:46:53] Speaker A: I have already put together instructions for the two by two on the website. I have an idea for instructions for the pyraminx so that might be coming in the future and I'll take quest into consideration. Sam, thank you very much. [00:47:09] Speaker B: What do you. What's coming out in the future? What's. What are you doing? [00:47:13] Speaker A: I have been writing short stories for quite a while with a considerable amount of success. I actually have three short stories now that are publication pending so to be released sometime over the next, who knows, four to six months whenever the editors get to it. And I'm starting to get serious about writing longer stories so I playing around with an idea that might turn into a science fiction novel. You never know what will happen next. [00:47:41] Speaker B: And you'll come back on of course, right? [00:47:44] Speaker A: Oh, I'd love to. You guys are great. Thank you so much for having the show and giving the disabled community a voice. [00:47:52] Speaker B: How much of your stories do you feel parallel with any of the current stuff or events that are going on on or do you try to avoid it? [00:48:06] Speaker A: I. I did just write a dystopian near future short story which has been entered in a contest and sent out to a couple of different publication markets and I tried to make it as plausibly near future as possible. So it's. It's quite dark with a lot of current events playing. I would say a large influence in the story. Yeah. [00:48:36] Speaker B: Do you have a name for this story yet? [00:48:39] Speaker A: That story was called the Secretary of Civic Morality. Oh, wow. And so if that gets published or does well in the contest, I'll shoot you an email, let you know. [00:48:56] Speaker B: Excellent. Excellent. Well, I want to congratulate you again on this. I'm sure this was no easy feat to do. And I was like, I admired it. I was amazed. It was like, okay, I never thought about somebody actually writing down all those steps, but it really is quite good. And so I would encourage people who maybe have that dusty cube somewhere and who've always wanted to solve it to get your book. Solve it. Solve it. Yes. What a great name. And work on doing that because it really can take you step by step. And I'm sure I'll be emailing you a couple times and say, what does this mean? What should I do when you say this? So anyway, thank you so much. [00:49:45] Speaker A: You're welcome. Coming from the inventor of the accessible dartboard, that's quite an honor, Sam. I appreciate that so much. Much. [00:49:53] Speaker B: You're very welcome. And I, I wish you luck in your writings. And I look forward to hearing more about your writing because you, you do write some interesting things. So I will look forward to reading them. Thank you. [00:50:07] Speaker A: Have a great day. Sam and Charlene, thank Paul. [00:50:10] Speaker B: Thank you. Good night. Well, I just want to thank you guys for listening. And if you have any suggestions, you can email me at disabilityandprogressamjasmint.com Charlene needs something to do, so I got to put her. So please email me some ideas. Also, I want to take this time to. If you did, the last couple weeks were pledged drive weeks, and if you did pledge, thank you so much. We really do appreciate that. And the show is valuable to us. And if you're listening to me right now, it's valuable to you, too. So thanks so much for doing that. If you do, you didn't. It's not too late. You can always pledge. But those were our kind of push pledge times. We always welcome your pledge. Tonight we were speaking with Paul Martz. Paul has done his cube, his book called Solve It. Hopefully you will take a look and it's a very interesting try to solve the Rubik's Cube. So. All right, until next time. See you next week. You've been listening to Disability and Progress. The views expressed on this show are not necessarily those of KFAI or its board of directors. My name is Sam. Charlene Dahl is my research PR person. We've been speaking with Paul Martz. Paul's an author, editor and cube competitor. Tonight we were talking with Paul Martz about his book Solve it. This is KFAI 90.3 FM, Minneapolis, and KFAI.org join me on my email list if you want to find out what's coming [email protected] thanks for listening. Take care. [00:52:16] Speaker A: KPI. Org.