[life] Study: ‘Truly Being Seen’ Still Ranks Among Worst Possible Experiences In Human Existence … ‘We’ve found conclusive evidence that realizing somebody has managed to look past your protective façade and recognize you for who you are continues to be the most punishing and humiliating experience the human psyche is capable of withstanding…’

[movies] Michael Mann Talks Directing Adam Driver for ‘Ferrari,’ ‘Heat 2’ Plans … ‘Recreating reality is a trademark of Mann’s movies. When he made “The Insider,” the 1999 film about “60 Minutes” buckling under to the tobacco industry, Mann found a janitor to photograph the “60 Minutes” office. “The set we built was an exact duplicate,” he says. Mann is always on a quest for the meticulously authentic experience. He describes how he asks himself some basic questions when he is building a movie universe. “What is this world?” he wonders. “What does it feel like? And what do I have to do to bring an audience to dream it?” He adds, “I know what I want when I go to a movie: I want to be there. I want to be in a wide-awake dream for a couple of hours.”’

[comics] Tom Tomorrow – The Never Ending Story … File the Dr. Manhattan on Mars meme under things I will never tire of.

[titanic] The ‘Titan’ Submersible Disaster Was Years in the Making, New Details Reveal … A great read on the background story to the Titan submersible implosion. ‘As chief pilot and the person responsible for operational safety, Lochridge had created a dive plan that included protocols for how to approach the wreck. Any entanglement hazard demands caution and vigilance: touching down at least 50 meters away and surveying the site before coming any closer. Rush disregarded these safety instructions. He landed too close, got tangled in the current, managed to wedge the sub beneath the Andrea Doria’s crumbling bow, and descended into a full-blown panic. Lochridge tried to take the helm, but Rush had refused to let him, melting down for over an hour until finally one of the clients shrieked, “Give him the fucking controller!” At which point Rush hurled the controller, a video-game joystick, at Lochridge’s head. Lochridge freed the sub in 15 minutes.’

[google] The end of the Googleverse … A look at Google’s impact on the internet and some ideas on why it’s influence is waning. ‘Discoverability of the open web has suffered. Pinterest has been accused of eating Google Image Search results. And the recent protests over third-party API access at Reddit revealed how popular Google has become as a search engine not for Google’s results but for Reddit content. Google’s place in the hierarchy of Big Tech is slipping enough that some are even admitting that Apple Maps is worth giving another chance, something unthinkable even a few years ago.’

[death] Horror stories of cryonics: The gruesome fates of frozen bodies … A look at the results of cryogenic freezing failure on human bodies during the early days of cryogenics. ‘The worst fates of all occurred at a similar underground vault that stored bodies at a cemetery in Butler, New Jersey. The storage Dewar was poorly designed, with uninsulated pipes. This led to a series of incidents, at least one of which was failure of the vacuum jacket insulating the inside. The bodies in the container partially thawed, moved, and then froze again — stuck to the capsule like a child’s tongue to a cold lamp post. Eventually the bodies had to be entirely thawed to unstick, then re-frozen and put back in. A year later, the Dewar failed again, and the bodies decomposed into “a plug of fluids” in the bottom of the capsule. The decision was finally made to thaw the entire contraption, scrape out the remains, and bury them. The men who performed this unfortunate task had to wear a breathing apparatus.’

[tv] ‘The scripts were the funniest things I’d ever read’: the stars of Peep Show look back, 20 years later … Remembering Peep Show.‘Everybody thinks they’re stuck in their weird puddle. That’s central to the appeal of the show. It’s that self-consciousness.’

[comics] A Letter from Joe Matt … I’ve was shocked to hear the news of Joe Matt’s sudden death yesterday. ‘today i learned that cartoonist joe matt, was found dead of a heart attack yesterday at his drawing desk. he’s only 60 years old, and had been complaining of chest pains for months, but didn’t want to (or couldn’t afford to) see a doctor. fucking america.’

[comics] Ed Brubaker remembers Joe Matt … ‘Joe was renting a room in a house and his room was full of big sketchbooks with his newspaper strip collections. That was his big passion right then, collecting Gasoline Alley strips and glueing them into huge books. There’s a scene in BAD WEEKEND where the cartoonist takes his assistant down and shows him the strips he collected his entire life, and that was directly inspired by those big books of Joe’s. He spent countless hours going over those old strips and I’m pretty sure those were hours of childlike joy at the art of comics.’

[herzog] 10 Underrated Movies Recommended by Werner Herzog … ‘The movie is really a meditation on loneliness, with many of the interviewees turning to their pets for the connection they lack with other people. “Never have I looked so directly into hell,” Herzog said of the film, and he meant it as a compliment.’

[food] RamenHaus … I don’t know who needs this today but here’s some rotating ramen.

[truecrime] A Postmodern Murder Mystery … A great true-crime story from Poland with a useful rule-of-thumb: If you commit murder don’t write a book about it. ‘He made note of the fact that the narrator murders a female lover for no reason (“What had come over me? What the hell did I do?”) and conceals the act so well that he is never caught. Wroblewski was struck, in particular, by the killer’s method: “I tightened the noose around her neck.” Wroblewski then noticed something else: the killer’s name is Chris, the English version of the author’s first name. It was also the name that Krystian Bala had posted on the Internet auction site. Wroblewski began to read the book more closely—a hardened cop turned literary detective.’