I wanted to comment on the direction issue too (and not a spoiler - I don't even know the true directions nor do I recall reading about the exchange in another thread) and vote with the folks who think it's plausible it was a mistake even though he wrote the direction three times.
12 vs 9 tiles is a perfectly reasonable thing to mess up when you're recalling from memory, so we're just left with E vs W. Let's say he thinks about it and recalls them as being W (or just makes the flip/flop mistake in his head), he probably won't really think about directions again, he'll just be recalling what he just said and re-typing in. In real-life, I sometimes think "gotta look out for the upcoming left turn" when the road is really on the right. I may then re-think "left turn coming up" 10 times, but only once did I really think think about things and make the error.
12 vs 9 tiles is a perfectly reasonable thing to mess up when you're recalling from memory, so we're just left with E vs W. Let's say he thinks about it and recalls them as being W (or just makes the flip/flop mistake in his head), he probably won't really think about directions again, he'll just be recalling what he just said and re-typing in. In real-life, I sometimes think "gotta look out for the upcoming left turn" when the road is really on the right. I may then re-think "left turn coming up" 10 times, but only once did I really think think about things and make the error.
