Dan Jones

Here it is.

French artist Christophe Guinet specializes in recreating familiar objects with flowers and other organic materials. His most recent project is a Batman cowl made with a foam mold covered in tree bark, vegetal moss, lichen and fungus. As you can see it’s actually wearable.

What are you?

I am Grootman.

Check out more pictures after the break…

(Designboom via Technabob)

The WNYC Data News Team is looking for the longest possible NYC subway ride. The MTA says the longest direct trip is 38 miles, but WNYC found one that's 148 miles, requiring 45 transfers. They're running a little competition to see who can find a longer ride...check the rules for more details (short version: you can repeat stations but not track segments). This is basically a variant of the travelling salesman problem, yes? Anyone care to take a crack at it? (via @ryandawidjan)

It occurred to me to wonder where the name Pamela came from, so I went to my Dictionary of First Names (by Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges), where I found this entry:

Pamela (f.) English: invented by the Elizabethan pastoral poet Sir Philip Sidney (1554–86), in whose verse it is stressed on the second syllable. There is no clue to the sources that influenced Sidney in this coinage. It was later taken up by Samuel Richardson for the name of the heroine of his novel Pamela (1740). In Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742), which started out as a parody of Pamela, Fielding comments that the name is ‘very strange’.

So now, in addition to pronouncing Byron’s hero “Don JOO-ən,” I have to remember to say “Pa-MEE-lə” for Richardson’s. I note that the Wikipedia article on the name says “It is widely thought that Sidney intended the name to mean ‘all sweetness’ having in mind the Greek words pan (‘all’) and meli (‘honey’),” but had that been the case he would surely not have stressed it on the second syllable, because meli has a short e, and they cared about these things in the sixteenth century. The Wikipedia article also says “The name’s popularity may have been hindered by the tendency to pronounce it /pəˈmiːlə/ pə-MEE-lə which was not fully superseded by the now-standard /ˈpæmələ/ PAM-ə-lə until the start of the 20th century,” but their source for the dating is A World of Baby Names, and I’d like to see a more scholarly source.

Since you probably can’t afford a Batmobile, this might be the next best thing.

Logitech doesn’t want people associating their brand with technology anymore. Now, when you think of their products, they want you to think of mucus.

Judicial overreach much? You can’t throw kids in juvey because they don’t want to see their dad.

If we want to truly honor our Southern forefathers, we should do it by moving on from the symbols and prejudices of their time and building on the diversity, the art and the literary traditions we’ve inherited from them. It’s time to study and learn about who we are and where we came from while finding a way forward without the baggage of our ancestors’ fears and superstitions. It’s time to quit rallying around a flag that divides. And it is time for the South to — dare I say it? — rise up and show our nation what a beautiful place our region is, and what more it could become.

A Utah company, LDS Bookstore, has now produced CTR rings in over 40 different languages! They offer everything from Chinese and American Sign Language to Elvish and Klingon. Don’t see your language? Just let them know!

The letters CTR refer to the phrase “Choose the right,” a motto among Latter-day Saints that comes from the hymn “Choose the Right.”

The letters CTR were incorporated into a shield logo designed by some members of the Primary General Board in the 1960s. In 1970, a CTR ring was incorporated into official Church materials and has been in use ever since. CTR rings are often worn by children, teens, and adult members of the Church as a reminder of the “Choose the Right” motto, and as a symbol of their religious affiliation.

Learn more about CTR rings in the article “Three Letters that Mean So Much to Mormons.”

Also, this coffee tastes funny. You got any Folgers instant back there?

Donald Trump really is an idiot

Wait for it.

Just wow.

The Amazon Fire phone has been steeply discounted for some time now, but today it has dropped to $159, which is the best price we’ve seen by $20. While I warned off anyone from buying it at the original $449 price point, it is a completely different story at $159.

I still wouldn’t recommend that anyone use this as their daily driver, but factoring in the year of Prime that comes with the Fire phone, you are getting the device for $60, and that’s frankly a great deal for this hardware. The software has been ironed out since the slightly rocky state of things at launch, and if you are feeling adventurous, you can head over to XDA and try loading CM-11 on the Fire phone.

I’m close to having to renew my Prime subscription anyway, and I’m strongly considering finally pulling the trigger on a Fire phone just to use as a remote for my Fire TV and as an Amazon content consumption device when my phone has hit the charger for the night, or a device that I don’t have to worry about handing over to my kids.

I don’t think you get it

105 inches. 4K picture quality. 990 5-star reviews. And a mere 119,999 dollars. And 99 cents. I think Amazon buyer Andrew Kauffman put it best when he said, "When I set out to purchase a TV I swore to myself that wouldn't spend more than $120K. Thank you for providing a decent TV at an affordable price."

I thank you too, Samsung. For without your real-man-sized Curved 4K Ultra HD TV we wouldn't be able to watch any movie, show, video game, or streaming content at 4 times the resolution of full HD. We wouldn't have an effective refresh rate of 1440 CMR that minimizes motion blur during sports and action scenes. We wouldn't have Smart TV features with voice and gesture commands (built-in pop-up camera included!) We wouldn't have a Smart Hub with 5 panels' worth of content organization or personalized TV and movie recommendations based on our preferences. And most of all, we wouldn't have some of the best Amazon reviews and Q&As ever.

• "Very realistic image! I took an HD video of my garage door opening, then placed my new Samsung UN105S9 in front of my garage and pressed play as my wife was coming home. She drove straight through the TV! Ha Ha! I got her!"
• "The black levels and color depth on this TV are pretty good for the price. However, the small screen size is a deal breaker. I recommend buying an IMAX theater instead."
• "Just got the check from the Nigerian prince who has been e-mailing me! Ordered this great deal right away! My life is golden! Can't wait to deposit the check."
• "I measured the TV and it was actually 104.6 inches not 105 so I returned it."
• "I just went 5 years into the future and this TV is 259 dollars. Still, who can wait 5 years!"
• "I couldn't purchase this TV because it wouldn't fit in the Amazon Cart."
• "Our family bought this to connect to our Atari Model 2600, and let me just say, the quality of the pixels are just stunning! Pong looks the best so far. My wife said, 'What is that big square going across the screen?' 'It's the ball, honey,' I said, 'It's the ball!'"
• Q: Is it wall-mountable?
  A: It is Great Wall mountable per the manufacturer. I cannot comment on a typical home wall as I sold mine to buy the TV.
• Q: Is this Samsung TV water-resistant?
  A: For a small incremental cost, you can get any of a wide variety of "accessories" to add water-resistance -- see zillow.com for a complete listing.

Muchas danke to Manny for the Dude Product Tip.

If you divide 1 by 999,999,999,999,999,999,999,998,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 (that's 999 quattuordecillion btw), the Fibonacci sequence neatly pops out. MATH FTW!

At the end of Carl Sagan's Contact (spoilers!), the aliens give Ellie a hint about something hidden deep in the digits of π. After a long search, a circle made from a sequence of 1s and 0s is found, providing evidence that intelligence was built into the fabric of the Universe. I don't know if this Fibonacci division thing is on quite the same level, but it might bake your noodle if you think about it too hard. (via @stevenstrogatz)

Update: From svat at Hacker News, an explanation of the magic behind the math.

It's actually easier to understand if you work backwards and arrive at the expression yourself, by asking yourself: "If I wanted the number that starts like 0.0...000 0...001 0...001 0...002 0...003 0...005 0...008 ... (with each block being 24 digits long), how would I express that number?"

(thx, taylor)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will no longer require missionaries  serving in hot climates to purchase and

Why are people so stupid?

So she founded a non-profit organization named Project Semicolon. The goal of the project is to restore hope and confidence in people who are troubled by addiction, depression, self-harm, and suicide.

The non-profit encourages these people to draw or tattoo a semicolon on their wrist.

The semicolon symbolizes that the difficulties they face are not the end but a new beginning.

The symbolism of the semicolon is explained on Project Semicolon’s website,

A semicolon is used when an author could’ve chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to. The author is you and the sentence is your life.

S’mores are my favorite thing ever. I could eat them every day, in all different forms, and never get tired of that gooey, chocolate-y, graham combination. Of course, my favorite way to eat s’mores is the traditional campfire-roasted way. And you’d think that summer was the perfect time to do that, right? But I’ve been having […]

The post Peanut Butter S’mores Dip appeared first on Something Swanky.

Randall Rosenthal makes amazingly realistic wooden sculptures of everyday objects like newspapers, legal pads, baseball cards, and kitchen scenes. He carves each of his sculptures out of a single block of wood. So, this is carved entirely out of wood:

And so is this:

And this too:

And here's a look at that last sculpture in progress:

(via @pieratt)