Yes, your life is flying by. The end of June is the end of the first half of the year, the year you still think of in the back of your mind as new. Time to get another hobby or make a greater change.

• Update: freaky:

  Authorities said Thursday they are trying to determine who altered the entry on the collaborative reference site 14 hours before authorities discovered the bodies of the couple and their son. Benoit's Wikipedia entry was altered early Monday to say the wrestler had missed a match two days earlier because of his wife's death. A Wikipedia official, Cary Bass, said the entry was made by someone using an Internet protocol address registered in Stamford, Conn., where World Wrestling Entertainment is based.

• I received a copy of a 1975 game called Pub Games of England and what a treat. Who know that skittles was created as an illustration of mass conversion of pagan Germans to the faith? Who knew that darts was likely created as a response to legal bans on all games but archery for military (and not moral) purposes - it's just a small archery game with the target being a cask of beer? And who knew lawn billiards (or pell mell) was the game of the future?
• Speaking of early games, please lend your support to Project Protoball.
• Interesting to note the passing of the NPR show Radio Open Source. NCPR observed the passing of another attempt at substantive convergence in this way:

  So it is with very real regret that I report the end, for now at least, of his innovative and lively evening program Open Source. The producers were unable to put together secure funding to continue national distribution, and made the difficult decision to suspend production this week. Chris has been a great exploiter of both the countertrend —and unabashed intellectual in the age of dumbing down--and of the coming trend--building a radio program upon the swiftly shifting sands of a community of bloggers.

  The other posts this week were a bit telling - the lack of a MSM partner and the "old school" actual revenue stream as well as an odd choice for a celebration of the sort of substantive social community (SSC...as opposed to vacuous linking or LSC) that has never been triggered but has been much promised and, like the emperor's clothes, observed. Maybe they'll do a Lessig and declare they are going to reinvent cooking or home repair DYI.
• In not unrelated news, the CBC has been shocked to discover that when you ask people to express what they believe in they will express what they believe in.
• I don't even like the NBA but am happy to see that Demetris Nichols is a Knick.
• This is a good court ruling by the US Supreme Court in the Panetti case: do not execute crazy people. But it does make you wonder about the death penalty in terms of the idea of purpose - other than general deterrence - which is sort of captured in the description "a defendant who is to be executed be able to recognize the relationship between his crime and his sentence." But if I am dead...I can't recognize that relationship. But nuttier is the objection by Clarence Thomas who called the ruling "a half-baked holding that leaves the details of the insanity standard for the district court to work out." Well, seeing as there concern that the door is open to false claims of incompetency, shouldn't the lower trial courts assess each case? Or is there a suggestion in the dissent that mental illness isn't real? Interesting to note that Anthony M. Kennedy has decided to become Mr. Swing Vote instead of Mr. Fourth Conservative Near The Back.