Just spent some time over on Paul Graham‘s website, and I’m going to spend some more. It’s some of the best stuff I’ve ever read on the topic of design, like this passage under “Good Design is Strange” in the essay about Taste:
I’m not sure why. It may just be my own stupidity. A can-opener must seem uncanny to a dog. Maybe if I were smart enough it would seem the most natural thing in the world that e^i*pi=-1. It is after all necessarily true.