I was thinking about an overly rudimentary video encoding strategy and was contemplating if it could work at all and how one would actually do it. I discovered a very simple math puzzle (like sudoku or cross sums) that you can play as a result. It's very simple. Given a grid of numbers, your goal is to neutralize them as close to zero as possible. You can select a single cell, or group them in any N by M box, but you have to make the same adjustment to every cell in your grouping. The end is scored by the sum of each of the numbers remaining squared. The easiest are 3x3s, for which you are allowed 3 transforms. Easy 3x3: 1 0 -10 3 3 -7 -10 6 4 My score is 8 Harder 3x3: -7 3 -6 10 6 9 7 10 8 My score is 22 On 4x4s you are allowed either 4 or 5 transforms depending on how hard you want it to be. Even harder 4x4: 5 5 4 -8 -3 -10 -10 -9 6 8 6 3 8 -3 -8 8