"Help Me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're My Only Hope" by Bob Horowitz.

As we warned this morning, the current chill to the air is leading to particularly particulate-heavy breathing conditions around the Bay Area. And apparently conditions didn't get any breezier today, thus: the Air Quality Management District has declared tomorrow, Wednesday December 7th to be a Winter Spare the Air Day. Meaning Bay Areans are expressly forbidden from heating their homes by burning actual dead trees, duraflame logs or any other solid fuel.

Also note that Winter Spare the Air days don't include the same admonishment to skip out on internal combustion engines as the Summer season. Assuming your vehicle doesn't run on coal, you're free to drive as much as you like and no one will give you crap for it. (Ha! Just kidding, cars are terrible. Burn your car.)

[Sparetheair.org]
Hat tip: BCN/Appeal

By Raphael Rosen

A few weeks ago, we visited an artist in Emeryville who might very well be the next Leonardo da Vinci.

His name is Reuben Margolin, and, aside from designing rickshaws and mechanical caterpillars that clomp along a plank of wood as you turn a wheel, he designs and builds large-scale sculptures, often made of wood, that demonstrate wave motion. Or, as he calls them, "geometric constructions flavored by art."

Reuben told us that he has been making stuff for as long as he could remember. He received a wrench when he was eight years old, and remembers taking apart a seat while riding on a ferry. He has always been fascinated by tools, as well as mathematics and geometry, and, in fact, sees geometry as a "practical, hands-on approach to math."

But Reuben is also a trained fine artist. After graduating from Harvard College, Margolin attended classical painting schools in Italy and Russia, where he learned how to study nature and create large-scale paintings. One day, however, while observing a caterpillar undulating its way across desert sands, Margolin wondered how he could create a device that would mimic that movement.