Computers and robots are doing things considered human a while ago.

And chimpanzees are doing things considered um, very, very human.

To paraphrase Ms. Goodall’s mentor, Louis Leakey, “Now we must redefine wittiness/dance/sex toys, redefine Man, or accept computers, robots and chimpanzees as human”.

“Look at those dead bastards,” one pilot says. “Nice,” the other responds.

and

A short time later a van arrives to pick up the wounded and the pilots open fire on it, wounding two children inside. “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle,” one pilot says.

—Conversation between American helicopter pilots during a Baghdad attack that killed 12, among them the Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and the driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40, as reported by The New York Times.

Still thinking that The Hurt Locker is not a one-sided political piece of shitty propaganda, are you.

The iPad is approaching: A Digital Magazine Motion Cover and Feature for the iPad and here it is how it'll look.

Is this the future?

Via TLL.

Print is rediscovering its mojo and telling the Internet to scoot over, it’s not going away.

—Delphine Hirasuna, Magazine Giants Argue Case for Print at @Issue: Journal of Business and Design.

Might be wishful thinking as well.

What you're seeing in the industry's reaction to the iPad is nothing less than future shock.

—Fraser Speirs in his post Future Shock, a wise comment on "the volume and vehemence of apparently technologically sophisticated people inveighing against the iPad."

The times they are a-changin'.

Via DF.

The so called "death of print" is hard to accept. As a designer I do live in denial—paper is so much better than screen—although I'm a laptop-and-phone on-screen news consumer myself.

This graph, however, blows any illusions.

Via DF.

On limitations of human rationality, bubbles, the retreat from Keynesianism and the return to neoclassicism, regulators that don’t believe in regulation, idiots and mistaking beauty, wrapped in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth: How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?

The end of premise that people are rational and markets work.

Ooh, the pretty ladeez! And, whoa, the mighty robotz. Ladeez and robotz.

But that was way before Yoshimi kicked their tin can ass.

What? It's Monday, ok?

"Let's be clear: Walking around with a Bluetooth device in your ear is pure douchebaggery. There is no excuse for it. That said, it's not entirely unfathomable; the urge to accessorize is deeply rooted in human nature. UCLA cultural anthropologist Mari Womack equates the modern appetite for tech bling with the status symbols worn by Aztec royalty."

Read Ditch the Headset on Wired.

Buzz Aldrin makes moon-landing-doubter shut up with a punch.

Via DF.

Also: See astronauts bootprints and tracks from a device called the Modularized Equipment Transporter which Alan Shepherd and Edgar Mitchell used to help them carry equipment and samples to and from the lander at the Apollo 14 landing site.

Remembering Apollo 11 in 40 images from that journey four decades ago: Remembering Apollo 11 at The Big Picture.

"It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette."

A 13-year-old discovers the 30-years-old Sony Walkman: Giving up my iPod for a Walkman at BBC.

Via Engadget.

Buy Nokia and help Iran regime track, censure and repress activists: Iran's Web Spying Aided By Western Technology.

"They should have said «Sorry Mr. Hanks, but this isn’t like the movies. This is a serious scientific endeavor, and we can’t have any non-essential personnel in the control room. I’m sure you understand.»"

Tom Hanks to turn on Large Hadron Collider. Haha, "glitterati"—love the word.

Wall Street bankers grabbed for themselves nearly $20 billion in bonuses as the government was spending billions to bail them out.

So frisky and cute they could rebrand themselves from Wall Street to LOLStreet.

"It’s never entirely clear on any given day what causes what in the stock market, but it was pretty obvious that on October 31, Meredith Whitney caused the market in financial stocks to crash. By the end of the trading day, a woman whom basically no one had ever heard of had shaved $369 billion off the value of financial firms in the market. Four days later, Citigroup’s C.E.O., Chuck Prince, resigned."

The End. Good illustration, BTW.

Is this a new world? No? Why does it feel this way then?

The NYTimes show of 2008 ideas, from A to Z.

2008 brought us some truly outstanding bad ideas but NYTimes got only the good ones covered—that's a shame.

"Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep." Translated from Japanese.

Just wait and you'll see some weird, really weird stuff on those youtubes!

Mr. George Lucas and his toys. Quite a playground — quite a history!

Via Kottke.

The planet is announced that the proper guy got hired for the job.

Thanks, Iancu.

"We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion to this campaign. All of this happened because of you. Thanks, Barack".

SMS received by my friend Richard who volunteered for Obama's campaign. Probably thousands were sent to the whole volunteers database, but still — it's a very nice touch.

Beautiful.

Indeed.

Without question.

Quit school, stay creative (this is what I've done, three times). Ok, don't quit.

Make sure you watch this — it's one of those speeches able to shift your perspective. No slides.

Thank you, Mihai.

The expression "maybe days away from a complete [financial] meltdown" scares me shitless.

"Al Gore funds development of the open internet: 1991–1993." Cool.

I remember. When the instant messaging bunch?

Thanks, Iancu.

When Star Wars stuff starts happening for real, it means that you're kinda old.

Classicism at its peak, for the cognoscenti. Truly Homeric. Via Kottke.

Absolutely hilarious yet totally freaky translation from PR-speak to English of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s company-wide memo regarding the Microsoft takeover bid. Gruber-style.

One incredibly smart traffic-management philosophy: reclaim the common sense and courtesy. Tear down the street curbs and get rid of the signs. Make people drive slower. Via DO.

Cultural guerrilla of illegal restorers establish secret workshop in Pantheon and clandestinely repair the antique clock that had been left to rust in the building since the 1960s. Wow.

How does Massimiliano Vasile name sound to you? Well, here is what he does: asteroids stuff.

Erwin Wurm's work: fat Porsche, fat houses, fat David. Via OffCenter.

Today's bubble. Via Orlando.

Worst IT fuckups of all time. Via Coudal.

The discreet charm of the old catalogues. Someday we'll be just as outmoded. Via DO.

Analog sounds fat and warm while digital zings cold and crappy, right?

Buy now, pay never. Via Radu.

Giant balls made men feel good about themselves—a dazzling history.

I realize that magazines — especially technical magazines — inconspicuously refrained from picturing the future. The childhood ended. The future is no longer what it used to be.

Good magazine: “There are only three countries that do not use the metric system: Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States.”

"A wide-reaching ban on smoking in enclosed places just went into effect on July 1st in the UK, and in the two weeks following, carrier Orange reported that 7.5 million more messages were sent on its network than in the two-week period the month prior." It has a name — smexting.

The man who — during the beginning of the nineties, right after the Revolution — thought us about the great rock music via his radio show, passed away: Florian Pittiș. Rest in peace.

Hystorical median temperature in January for Bucharest is 1°C during the day. This January we currently have temperatures over 10°C, occasionally reaching 16°C. However, in the USA people complained about Al Gore’s global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth, claiming it does not present an opposing view of global warming, such as creationism and the Bible.

Staring at the talented young men of the seventies and their beautiful matching costumes I wonder if in thirty years from now something from our culture could be seen as wildly ridiculous as this lads.

The New York Times Magazine looks back on the passing year from a distinctive vantage point: that of ideas. 74 of them, from good to bad, from serious to silly in The 6th Annual Year in Ideas. [via Kottke]