Antique and Vintage Music Boxes
Ancient Androids: Even Before Electricity, Robots Freaked People Out
By Lisa Hix — The term "robot" was coined in the 1920s, so it's tempting to think of the robot as a relatively recent phenomenon, less than 100 years old. After all, how could we bring metal men to life before we could harness electricity and program computers? But the truth is, robots are thousands of years old. The first records of automata, or self-operating machines that give the illusion of being alive, go back to ancient Greece and China. While it's true none of these ancient androids could pass...
Stephen M. H. Braitman on the British Invasion, from the Beatles to the Sex Pistols
By Dean Schaffer — I was a Hollywood kid. My father was a TV and radio editor in the San Fernando Valley, and he allowed me to do my first writing to review concerts and shows for the newspaper. But as a younger kid, I really hated rock ’n’ roll music and pop music, and I disliked the Beatles and all that. I have a younger sister who was a total Beatlemaniac. She started getting into the ’60s scene, but I was more influenced at that time by my father’s interest in classical music. I was, however,...