It’s been a great punctuation mark on 2011, and I’m really looking forward to things to come in 2012.

The New Yorker just named The Most Human Human one of their favorite books of 2011!  Click here to check out the rest of their list.

The first event is a panel discussion at 2pm – “Thinking, Believing, Living: The Human as Being,” with Patricia V. Davis, Pamela Laird, Allen Klein, Lewis Richmond, and Marcus Wohlsen, Variety Preview Room Theatre, 582 Market Street, First Floor.

Then at 7pm is a dialogue with Thomas Goetz of Wired – “Being Human: Brian Christian in Conversation with Thomas Goetz,” Delancey Street Screening Room, 600 Embarcadero.

Bay Area folks: hope to see you there!

Watch below:

Heliotropes (2010) from Michael Langan on Vimeo.

The film premiered earlier this year at the South By Southwest festival, and has had a number of festival showings, but this is the first time it’s been made available online and it’s been a great first week, with Gizmodo and Laughing Squid offering their praise, and The Atlantic running an interview with Michael.

If you’re hungry for more of Michael’s films, I might recommend starting with “Doxology.”

The first segment of the “Talking to Machines” episode features the story of the Turing test and the Loebner Prize.  I’m joined by a terrific group: Loebner Prize co-founder Robert Epstein tells MHH‘s shocking “Ivana” story from the first-person, MIT’s Sherry Turkle tells the story of ELIZA, and Cleverbot programmer Rollo Carpenter explains a bit about his creation.  My own conversation with Jad and Robert covers everything from programming as introspection, to intimacy as surprise, and in the context of my participation as a confederate – “representing all humans:” – Robert even announces my name over the song “Eye of the Tiger,” which I confess is actually something I’ve always hoped would happen at some point in my life.

This week, in the new “Games” episode, Radiolab explores the scientific, philosophical, and emotional properties of games, including a segment which features myself and computer chess pioneer Frederic Friedel talking about one of The Most Human Human’s critical concepts: the importance of getting “out of book.”  It’s one of the central ideas of MHH, and it’s fascinating to hear the Radiolab spin on it.  Both episodes are not to be missed.

I was excited to contribute pieces to this week’s issues of The Guardian weekend supplement, where I talked about my experience as a Loebner Prize confederate, and Wired’s “Ideas Bank,” where I talk about the role of timing in conversation and the notion that in dialogue the “when” is often at least as complex as the “what.”

On the press front, there have been some great mentions in The Times (“Remarkable . . . a philosophical joyride”), The Economist, Time Out London, London Metro, and New Statesman (“lively and thought-stirring . . . an invaluable sourcebook on computing in modern-day life”).

Thanks to all the great folks at Viking and Penguin UK helping to make MHH feel so welcome in the United Kingdom.

I’ll be in England all week for the launch, speaking at the London School of Economics, the RSA, and the Bristol Festival of Ideas, as well as doing a few radio spots with the BBC and Australian and Irish radio.  Really looking forward to it.

For more: Wall Street Journal Best Seller List

Dense with ideas . . . Brian Christian’s terrific The Most Human Human [is] one of the rare successful literary offspring of Gödel, Escher, Bach, where art and science meet an engaged mind and the friction produces real fire.

Read more here.