I was reading the November 2008 issue of Discover Magazine. I really enjoy this magazine and find it quite interesting, even though many of the concepts they discuss are far beyond my level of education.

Discover has a section titled “Mind Games” where thy list various puzzles etc. This month they focused on the relatively new number puzzle “Hidato”. The idea is to connect all the given numbers with consecutive numbers. Numbers must be adjacent to each other connecting either vertically, diagonally, or horizontally.

One of their puzzles provided this example, and asked how many possible locations are there for the missing #16.

Hidato Puzzle - Click to Enlarge

The very first location I discovered, did not appear in their solutions. They state there are four different possible squares where the #16 can be placed. Ahh, they were wrong. There are at least 5! Here is their answer:

Hidato Puzzle Answers - Click to Enlarge

Here is my 5th solution they didn’t think of!

Hidato Extra Solution

Doesn’t this make me feel smart! (I am not posting this to say “in your face discover” – I actually love the magazine and have a subscription. I just thought, hey, this is something I can write about )

I always wanted to try my hand at the stock market, but simply did not have anywhere near enough cash to actually try it – not disposable cash anyways. The other day I saw a commercial advertising a free stock contest at stockstar.ca, so I figured, why not!

Their top prize is $25,000 and goes to the person who makes the most “fantasy dollars” between Sept 1 2008 and Jan 30 2009. I didn’t think I had a chance to win, but had to give it a try – after only a week I am giving up – cant seem to make a dime, and don’t have the time to invest to try and make it work. To date my stocks have turned my starting $100,000 into $95,987. That gives me a ranking of 3060 out of 10120 – may not be the worst but I guess I better not change careers!

First place is a guy by the name of “risingstar” and has a portfolio value of $648,267 – to do that in only a month I am left to wonder if he is a stock broker by profession.