Have a great ...

... belated Constitution Day.

Overheard in the men's room of an I-95 rest area

The southbound rest area off I-95 was full of college athletes of some sort tonight. I heard the following conversation in the men's room:

Athlete with camera: Hey, look at this great pic I took last night in Boston. I'm putting it on my Facebook page.

Athlete at urinal: We played in New York last night.

Athlete with camera: No, we're on our way to New York right now.

Athlete at urinal: Man, bars all look the same nowadays.

Hartford vs. Bucharest

Lowering the Bar gives its take on the latest news from Romania:

Romanian lawmaker Alin Popoviciu is blaming fear for the failure of a bill he sponsored that would have imposed new regulations and taxes on witches and fortune tellers. He claimed that the legislation had failed because lawmakers were afraid they would be cursed if they passed it.

I'm sorry that Mr. Popoviciu wasn't able to pass his bill. Maybe he could send some of his country's witch lobbyists over here to curse a few members of the Connecticut General Assembly? I could send him a list if hexing works long-distance.

Yes, Ms. Althouse, this is too creepy

Gee, a girl sure plucked a lemon in

Being born so weak and feminine.

Google's animation today

Google's annoying unusual bouncing-balls animation caused some buzz this morning. In the Washington Post, it was suggested that it celebrates the 12th anniversary of Google's founding or the 15th anniversary of Javascript.

I wonder if it celebrates the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm/ Markov chain method? It looks like the location of each ball is being randomized and then bounces around its natural position. Towards the end, the x and y error (perturbation away from the natural position) of each ball would look like a fuzzy caterpillar if plotted against time.