Paul Graham has an interesting article on the dynamics of the American school system. In it, he asks, ‘Why don’t smart kids make themselves popular? If they’re so smart, why don’t they figure out how popularity works and beat the system, just as they do for standardized tests?’

Reading this and watching ‘high school teen movies’ like the excellent Mean Girls kind of make me wish I could go back and play the system. Of course in my life now no such system exists since it requires rather gullible people to believe things like popularity matter. Anyway, being a hacker, I’m interested in the way systems work, especially one that has such a profound effect on so many peoples’ lives. Hmm….