Enjoy the sweet, mellow, throaty warble of the 900 SPG.

Longtime readers will undoubtedly recall my fondness for SAAB automobiles (I've owned five different SAABs over the years, a 99GL, 900 Turbo, 900 SPG, 96 and 9-3 Viggen) especially models produced prior to being assimilated and adultrated by the halfwits at GM (were you even thinking when you created the 92x and 97x !?!).

Hopefully innovative concepts, such as the Saab Aero X will lead SAAB back into the unique leadership position they once held with the original 900 series. Until then, you can enjoy this compilation of fun facts put together by Auto Spectator to celebrate SAAB's 60th anniversary [via Core77].

Happy Birthday Robots!

86 years ago today Czechoslovakian Karel Capek, marks the first use of the word "robot" to describe an artificial person for his play R.U.R, (which stands for Rossum's Universal Robots). Capek invented the term, basing it on the Czech word for "forced labor." ("Robot" entered the English language in 1923.)
The robots in Capek's play are not mechanical men made of metal; instead they are molded out of a chemical batter and they look exactly like humans. Each robot costs the equivalent of $150 and "can do the work of two-and-a-half human laborers," so that humans might be free to have "no other task, no other work, no other cares" than perfecting themselves. However, the robots come to realize that even though they have "no passion, no history, no soul," they are stronger and smarter than humans. They kill every human but one.

The play explores themes that would later become staples of robot science fiction, including freedom, love and destruction. Although many of Capek's other works were more famous during his lifetime, today he is best known for RUR. (Source: The Center for the Study of Technology and Society)

This is some scary shit: Doomsday Clock Ticking Toward Midnight.

How is it that a Macworld keynote webcast can move a grown man to tears? The ever talented Momus dissects his emotions in wired's article, Why Apple Makes Me Cry. His musings on why so many of us gravitate toward Mac products certainly resonate with me...

I'm a very modern person. I don't have any affiliations to traditional religion, and I don't really feel any national loyalties. I was born in the U.K., but I've lived in cities like London, New York, Paris, Tokyo and Berlin. It's become clear that if I do have a religion, it's a humanist one--a profound reverence for human creativity, for example. And if I do have something like a consistent homeland, it might as well be the Mac OS. Because wherever I am physically, that's where I spend most of my time.

If this doesn't put a smile on your face, nothing will. Sharivari on "The Scene", circa 1982.



And to complete your trip in the wayback machine, you'll need this Lasonic Ghetto Blaster, announced at the 2007 CES show in Las Vegas.

It's like Netflix, without the couch potato factor: SmartFlix.com How-To DVDs.

The New Center of the Universe

According to Hub Culture's 2007 Zeitgeist Ranking Los Angeles has been ranked the new "center of the universe". Edging out cities like Berlin and London, they assert that Los Angeles reflects "right now" better than anywhere else in the world.

A controversial choice? Sure it's big, but LA is finally hitting on all cylinders: fashion, tech, entertainment, and overall groove. American Apparel is changing fashion with vertically integrated manufacturing. LA's skull and bones indie rock fashion dominates globally. Myspace culture is taken for granted, everywhere. New walking areas and urban regeneration projects, from downtown to Malibu to Hollywood, make the city much more palatable than before, despite the endless crush of traffic. Entourage and other shows, from the OC to Laguna Beach, have moved the collective consciousness west. All in this and more help make LA the city of the moment: the energy is positive, its power is on the rise, and people everywhere have LA on their mind.