Surprised by Joy, by C. S. Lewis, is a partial autobiography.#

The section of his life that is focused upon is his education and the formation of his philosophy and religion at this time. It tells how he went from unenthusiastic Christianity, to Atheism, to Theism, and finally, to Christianity.#

The story is interesting. The things that caught my eye the most were about the intricacies of the British public school system and about his time with his tutor, the Great Knock.#

Some interesting quotes are below.#

On 'fagging' in English public schools:#

You have only to transfer the thing to adult life and you will, apparently, see the full logic of the position. If some neighboring V.I.P. had irresistible authority to call on you for any service he pleased at any hour when you were not in the office--if, when you came home on a summer evening, tried from work and with more work to prepare against the morrow, he could drag you to the links and make you his caddy till the light failed--if at last he dismissed you unthanked with a suitcase full of his clothes to brush and clean and return to him before breakfast, and a hamper full of his foul linen for your wife to wash and mend--and if, under this regime, you were not always perfectly happy and contented; where could the cause lie except in your own vanity? What else, after, could it be? [p. 101-102]

An astute thought about self-consciousness:#

It seemed to me self-evident that one essential property of love, hate, fear, or desire was attention to their object. To cease thinking about or attending to the woman is, so far, to cease loving; to cease thinking about or attending to the dreaded thing is, so far, to cease being afraid. But to attend to your own love or fear is to cease attending to the loved or dreaded object. In other words the enjoyment and the contemplation of our inner activities are incomptabile. You cannot hope and also think about hoping at the same moment; for in hope we look to hope's object and we interrupt this by (so to speak) turning round to look at the hope itself. [p. 211]

Interesting things about Bollywood#

Andrew Moroz quotes a story on the use of force in fighting terrorism and a justification for accidents.#

Tim Hartford reports on the diversity of choices available in the prostitution business.#

The Club for Growth honors Minnie Driver.#

Wally writes about War of the Worlds and Dakota Fanning:#

Dakota Fanning terrifies me. She was funny and interesting, but I have this feeling she's going to grow up completely bonkers, useless to the world. I don't get that sense from Haley Joel Osment, for what it's worth.

Alien Loves Predator#

Bryan Caplan: Build a better llama and the Incas will beat a path to your door.#

Maybe he's right, but I'm worried that Diamond's suffering from hindsight bias: If the Eurasians domesticated the horse, it must have been inevitable, right? But if the Incas had shown up in Europe in 1492 with deadly llama cavalry, and mowed down backward European infantry, I suspect modern Incan historians would have declared the horse a hopeless candidate for domestication too.

Sepia Mutiny has an interesting discussion of Katrina Kaif. I saw Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya, and could not tell it wasn't her who was speaking, although her voice did seem a bit soft for her.#

Keith and the Girl: The Fuck Paris Hilton Show#

Hello Kitty Bridesmaid Dress#

Paul Graham: What Business Can Learn from Open Source:#

Most articles in the print media are boring. For example, the president notices that a majority of voters now think invading Iraq was a mistake, so he makes an address to the nation to drum up support. Where is the man bites dog in that? I didn't hear the speech, but I could probably tell you exactly what he said. A speech like that is, in the most literal sense, not news: there is nothing new in it. [3]

Nor is there anything new, except the names and places, in most "news" about things going wrong. A child is abducted; there's a tornado; a ferry sinks; someone gets bitten by a shark; a small plane crashes. And what do you learn about the world from these stories? Absolutely nothing. They're outlying data points; what makes them gripping also makes them irrelevant.

Tyler Cowen wonders where to leave his discarded books:#

One radical option is to leave the book, well...in a bookstore. Most likely, the book will be sold. If you bring it to the counter they will be puzzled but I suspect will be willing to ring it up and punch in a code.

Of course now the book has a price, which can restrict the chance it is ever read. But the chance of it getting into the right hands -- the high-valuing user -- has gone way up. This is a testament to the role of middlemen in a capitalist economy. The book is probably worth more to the world at full price, in a bookstore, than lying on a bench for free.