[disasters] The Crash of EgyptAir 990 … fascinating report on the last flight of a Boeing 767 in 1999 which was probably deliberately brought down by one of it’s pilots in an act of suicide … ‘The pilots were left to the darkness of the sky, whether to work together or to fight. I’ve often wondered what happened between those two men during the 114 seconds that remained of their lives. We’ll never know. Radar reconstruction showed that the 767 recovered from the dive at 16,000 feet and, like a great wounded glider, soared steeply back to 24,000 feet, turned to the southeast while beginning to break apart, and shed its useless left engine and some of its skin before giving up for good and diving to its death at high speed.’

[health] On Being Sane In Insane Places … long disturbing report on a now classic experiment where a number of mentally healthy people pretend to have mental ilness to enter a psychiatric hospital and once they are in return to their normal behaviour and then report on how they are treated …

One tacit characteristic of psychiatric diagnosis is that it locates the sources of aberration within the individual and only rarely within the complex of stimuli that surrounds him. Consequently, behaviors that are stimulated by the environment are commonly misattributed to the patient’s disorder. For example, one kindly nurse found a pseudopatient pacing the long hospital corridors. “Nervous, Mr. X?” she asked. “No, bored,” he said.

[comics] My Favourite Medical Graphic Novels … a list of comics exploring health and medical themes … On Epileptic by David B: ‘In Epileptic there are no happy endings, no miracle cures, but we are left with a deeper understanding of how illness can affect a family. Not recommended for newly diagnosed epileptics. An upsetting masterpiece.’

[magazines] The Best Magazine Articles Ever … great reading list of links from Kevin Kelly.

[life] What Makes Us Happy? … engrossing article on a long-term study of (what appeared to be) successful, happy American men and what factors might have contributed to that …

Indeed, the lives themselves—dramatic, pathetic, inspiring, exhausting—resonate on a frequency that no data set could tune to. The physical material—wispy sheets from carbon copies; ink from fountain pens—has a texture. You can hear the men’s voices, not only in their answers, but in their silences, as they stride through time both personal (masturbation reports give way to reports on children; career plans give way to retirement plans) and historical (did they vote for Dewey or Truman?; “What do you think about today’s student protesters, drug users, hippies, etc.?”). Secrets come out. One man did not acknowledge to himself until he reached his late 70s that he was gay. With this level of intimacy and depth, the lives do become worthy of Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky.

[comics] Lady Gaga Kidnaps Commissioner Gordon … ‘While the kidnapping occurred at stately Wayne Manor, home of playboy jet-setter Bruce Wayne, the eccentric billionaire was not available for comment.’

[world] The Most Alien-Looking Place on Earth … some amazing pictures from Socotra Island. ‘…for this island, which is part of a group of 4 islands, has been geographically isolated from mainland Africa for the last 6 or 7 million years. Like the Galapagos Islands, this island is teeming with 700 extremely rare species of flora and fauna, a full 1/3 of which are endemic, i.e. found nowhere else on Earth.’ [via Sore Eyes]

[lists] A List Of Common Misconceptions … ‘There is no evidence that Vikings wore horns on their helmets.’

[press] Overheard in the Newsroom …

Editor to no one in particular: “Can’t we just have a normal murder?”

[kubrick] Go Watch: A Brief Interview with Kier Dullea on Kubrick’s 2001: Space Odyssey. [via Daring Fireball]

[brain] Why Minds Are Not Like Computers … a long article on the history of artificial intelligence research and why it might not be possible to create a thinking computer … ‘People who believe that the mind can be replicated on a computer tend to explain the mind in terms of a computer.’

[music] Go Look: Photograph of Rick Astley and Morrissey … ‘Taken Backstage at Top Of The Pops in London, February 1989’ [via Boundr]

[comics] For Sale on eBay: Cerebus: High Society #1-25 Reprints by Dave Sim.

[philosophy] The Philosophy Of Immanuel Kant in Three Minutes … ‘Kant. It’s a German name and I’m quite happy to sit here in silence until you’re mature enough to get over it…’

[funny] Go Look: America’s Joyous Future.

[comics] Jonathan Ross Meets Jim Steranko, His Comic-Book Hero … ‘Spend an hour with Jim Steranko and, if he’s in the mood, he’ll regale you with the most extraordinary tales. Are they true, I have asked myself more than once, or is he a fantasist? Has his love of storytelling and the creation of modern myths bled into his own life story until he can no longer tell the two apart? Well, now that I’ve met him, I believe them all to be true, just as I believe it when he tells me he still runs miles every day, pumps iron, and fornicates blissfully like a man a third his age. He is unique. He is Steranko. He is the greatest.’

[comics] The Unwanted … a new comic from Joe Sacco on African migrants in Malta.

[comics] The Moon Hoax … a great comic strip from Darryl Cunningham debunking some of the moon landing conspiracy theories …

[headlines] Meanwhile, in Durham: Police Hunt Norman Wisdom Lookalike.

[comics] When It Comes To Comics, You Just Can’t Beat A Drunken, Violent Aardvark … Sam Leith on comics … ‘The genre end of comics has actually diversified a lot: from hardboiled noir in Sin City or 100 Bullets, to punk psychedelia in The Invisibles, to jaunty post-apocalyptic soap opera in Preacher. It’s at the literary end of comics you sense a narrowing of the range, the main strand being a sort of studied Pekarian drabness. You could call it mundane realism. Direct or oblique autobiography is the mode, neurosis and alienation the dominant tone. Their archetypal hero is a morose and ill-socialised writer or collector of comics, often subject to sexual humiliation, sometimes sharing a name with the author. These are frequently comics, in one way or another, about comics.’

[news] The News … Charlie Brooker on the news coverage about Raoul Moat … ‘The hunt for Raoul Moat got the news so flustered, it shrieked its reports at a pitch several hundred octaves above satire. Beneath a photograph of Britain’s Most Wanted Man as an infant, The Sun ran the caption “Cute baby … but two-month-old Moat clenches his fists”. On the front page, his estranged mother apparently wished him dead.’

[weird] Go Look: No Big Deal – Just Dodging Traffic

[comics] An interview with Harvey Pekar from 1984 conducted by Gary Groth [Part One | Part Two] … ‘Some comic book fans don’t know what to make of American Splendor. They think a normal comic book should be about superbeings who can fly, that a comic dealing with everyday people doing everyday things is weird. Ordinary is weird to them. Wow, that’s really ironic.’

[crime] The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Diamond Heist … great true crime story from Wired … ‘Next, the King of Keys played out a hunch. In Notarbartolo’s videos, the guard usually visited a utility room just before opening the vault. When the thieves searched the room, they found a major security lapse: The original vault key was hanging inside. The King of Keys grabbed the original. There was no point in letting the safe manufacturers know that their precious key could be copied, and the police still don’t know that a duplicate was made.’

[comics] Go Look: He Will Find You – He’s Batman!

Effectively manage your Facebook privacy settings with three simple lists … if you’ve got OCD and time to spare this is probably an effective how-to on dealing with friends, work colleagues, family and acquaintances on Facebook.

[comics] Bob Wachsman – Tummler … Alan Moore draws a one-page story for a Harvey Pekar comic.

[comics] Gary Groth interviews Harvey Pekar in 1993 … ‘It’s a real uphill struggle, and it may go on for a really long time. I don’t know. I’ve been at this for 20 years now, and it’s certainly enriched my life, from a personal standpoint. It’s made it far more interesting and enjoyable, so I have no regrets. But I certainly would like to see comics in general be taken more seriously, because it would benefit me, you know?’

[comics] Harvey Pekar’s testament to life — with no apologies … Dean Haspiel on Harvey Pekar … ‘Yes, Harvey Pekar was a certified curmudgeon who became a cultural icon, but he was a true-blue mensch, too.’

[comics] The Determination to Be an Artist … R. Fiore Sums Up Harvey Pekar … ‘He struggled with indifference until indifference began to give way, as if to say, okay, I’ll pay attention to you if you’ll just leave me alone. By the end they were making movies about him. In the end his integrity became so manifest that his comic became a badge of prestige to publishers seeking credibility.’