Yesterday, I was holding my daughter’s hand as we crossed a street. A car, presumably turning left, stopped to let us cross. After we reached the sidewalk, the car did a u-turn. Instead of a 90-degree left turn, it ended up making a 270-degree right turn.

This puzzled me. Why not just turn right to begin with? Perhaps his steering wheel was faulty, and it could only make left turns?

I thought of this as I read Charles Miller’s review of Paul Graham’s essay on great hackers. Miller hilariously sums up Graham’s argument about brilliant programmers like this:

1. Hire great hackers.
2.