Futoshiki Fever

I'm much better at reading and writing than math and logic. However, today I completed a futoshiki puzzle.

Futoshiki is a logic puzzle game from Japan. It's similar to Sudoko in that it involves numbers arranged in a square. A five-square puzzle (the most common size) uses the numbers one to five, which must be placed in each row and each column without any repeats. However, it's different because there are less than (<) and greater than (>) signs between some of the squares that have to be obeyed and factored into the number placement.

There was a futoshiki puzzle in the back of a magazine I was leafing through today. I decided to give it a try, so I grabbed a pencil and eraser and got ready to be frustrated; it usually takes me a lot of trial and error to get these types of brainteasers correct. This one must have been very easy, because much to my surprise I finished it in less than ten minutes!