Chicago — Who Runs it
by Wildman on Jan.05, 2009, under News, Politics, Social issues
Senators: Barack Obama & Dick Durbin
Representative: Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Illinois Governor: Rod Blogojevich (arrested)
Illinois House leader: Mike Madigan
Illinois Attorney General: Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike)
Chicago Mayor: Richard M. Daley (son of Mayor Richard J. Daley)
The leadership in Illinois>>>>>> All Democrats.
The Chicago Combat Zone
Body count last six months: 292 killed (murdered) in Chicago, 221 killed in Iraq
State pension fund - $44 Billion in debt, worst in the country.
Cook County (Chicago) sales tax - 10.25% highest in country. (Look it up).
Chicago school system - rated one of the worst in the country.
Of course, they’re all blaming each other. They can’t blame Republicans cause there aren’t any.
This is the political culture that Obama comes from in Illinois.
And he’s going to ‘”fix” Washington politics for us?
Guess all we can do is “Wait and See”
BILL’S WISDOM
by Wildman on Jan.05, 2009, under Jokes, Politics, hehehe
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New nasal spray
by Wildman on Jan.05, 2009, under Jokes, hehehe
Q: Did you hear that Viagra now comes in a nasal spray?
A: It’s for Peckerheads
Princeton researchers discover new type of laser
by Wildman on Jan.04, 2009, under science
Dec. 22, 2008
A Princeton-led team of researchers has discovered an entirely new mechanism for making common electronic materials emit laser beams. The finding could lead to lasers that operate more efficiently and at higher temperatures than existing devices, and find applications in environmental monitoring and medical diagnostics.
Quantum cascade lasers are small and efficient sources of mid-infrared laser beams, which are leading to new devices for medical diagnostics and environmental sensing. Credit: Frank Wojciechowski
“This discovery provides a new insight into the physics of lasers,” said Claire Gmachl, who led the study. Gmachl, an electrical engineer, is the director of the Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE) center. The phenomenon was discovered in a type of device called quantum cascade laser, in which an electric current flowing through a specially designed material produces a laser beam. Gmachl’s group discovered that a quantum cascade laser they had built generated a second beam with very unusual properties, including the need for less electrical power than the conventional beam. “If we can turn off the conventional beam, we will end up with a better laser, which makes more efficient use of electrical power,” said Gmachl.
The team that conducted the study includes Gmachl’s graduate student Kale Franz, who built the laser that revealed the new phenomenon, and Stefan Menzel, a graduate student from the Univ. of Sheffield, UK, who unearthed the unique properties of the phenomenon during an internship at Princeton Univ. last summer. The study was published online in Nature Photonics on Dec. 14.
The light emitted by a laser differs fundamentally from light produced by common sources such as the sun, fire, or electric lamps. According to the field of physics called quantum electrodynamics, light is made up of particles called photons. Common sources of light emit photons that are in a random order, like crowds milling about a busy marketplace. In contrast, photons in a laser are “in sync” with each other, like a music band marching in formation. This property, called coherence, allows laser light to shine in an intense, narrow beam of a single, very pure color.
One way to produce a laser beam is to pass an electric current through a semiconductor such as gallium arsenide. The electric current pumps energy into the material, forcing a large number of its electrons to a higher energy level than normal. Under certain conditions, these electrons drop to a lower level of energy, and emit the extra energy in the form of synchronized photons of light. This is the mechanism underlying lasers used in CD writers, laser pointers and other common electronic devices.
The laser used in the Princeton study is a special type called a quantum cascade laser. Built at Princeton University’s nanofabrication facility, the device is about one-tenth as thick as a human hair and 3 mm long. Despite its tiny size, it is made of hundreds of layers of different semiconductor materials. Each layer is only a few atoms thick. In this device, electrons “cascade” down through the layers as they lose energy and give off synchronized photons.
In an earlier study published in Applied Physics Letters in June 2007, Franz, Gmachl and others had reported that a quantum cascade laser they had built unexpectedly emitted a second laser beam of slightly smaller wavelength than the main one. Further studies by Menzel and others revealed that the second beam could not be explained by any existing theory of quantum cascade lasers. Unlike a conventional semiconductor laser, the second beam grew stronger as the temperature increased, up to a point. Further, it seemed to compete with the “normal” laser, growing weaker as the latter strengthened when more electric current was supplied. “It’s a new mechanism of light emission from semiconductor lasers,” said Franz.
To explain this mechanism, the researchers invoked a quantum property of electrons called momentum. In the conventional view of quantum cascade lasers, only electrons of nearly zero momentum participate in “lasing” (producing laser light). Further, a substantial number of electrons has to attain the same level of energy and momentum—be in a so-called “quasi-equilibrium” condition—before they can participate in laser action. In contrast, studies by Gmachl’s group showed that the second laser beam originated from electrons of lower energy, but higher momentum that were not in equilibrium. “It showed, contrary to what was believed, that electrons are useful for laser emission even when they are in highly non-equilibrium states,” said Franz.
The new laser phenomenon has some interesting features. For instance, in a conventional laser relying on low momentum electrons, electrons often reabsorb the emitted photons, and this reduces overall efficiency. In the new type of laser, however, this absorption is reduced by 90%, said Franz. This could potentially allow the device to run at lower currents, and also makes it less vulnerable to temperature changes. “It should let us dramatically improve laser performance,” he said.
The device used in the study does not fully attain this level of performance, because the conventional, low-efficiency laser mechanism dominates. To take full advantage of the new discovery, therefore, the conventional mechanism would need to be turned off. The researchers have started to work on methods to achieve this outcome, said Franz.
Unlike other lasers, quantum cascade lasers operate in the mid- and far-infrared range, and can be used to detect even minute traces of water vapor, ammonia, nitrogen oxides, and other gases that absorb infrared light. As a result, these devices are finding applications in air quality monitoring, medical diagnostics, homeland security, and other areas that require extremely sensitive detection of different chemicals. The new discovery should help make these devices smaller, more efficient, and more sensitive, said Gmachl.
The research was partly sponsored by the MIRTHE center, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and directed by Gmachl. MIRTHE is a multi-institutional research collaboration for developing compact sensors to detect trace amounts of gases in the atmosphere and in human breath. Partial support was also provided by the European Union’s Marie Curie Research Training Network and its Physics of Intersubband Semiconductor Emitters (POISE) program, which sponsored Stefan Menzel’s visit to Princeton University. Kale Franz was supported by the NSF Graduate Fellowship Program.
Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment, http://www.mirthecenter.org/
The abstract to the study is available here, http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nphoton.2008.250.html SOURCE: Princeton Univ.
Check out this horse race
by Wildman on Jan.04, 2009, under damn...just damn, movies
Leave a Comment more...Inspecting the troops
by Wildman on Jan.04, 2009, under Weird Pictures, hehehe
Rudolph bagged
by Wildman on Jan.04, 2009, under Jokes, Weird Pictures, hehehe
127ft snowman
by Wildman on Jan.04, 2009, under Strange news, Weird Pictures, hehehe
Hospital Window
by Wildman on Jan.04, 2009, under feel good stuff
A great note
for all to read it will take just 37 seconds to read this and
maybe change your
thinking
Two men, both
seriously ill, occupied the same hospital
room.
One man was
allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help
drain the fluid from his
lungs.
His
bed was next to the room’s only
window.
The
other man had to spend all his time flat on his
back.
The
men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives
and families, their homes, their jobs, their
involvement in the military service, where they had
been on
vacation.
Every afternoon when the
man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would
pass the time by describing to his roommate all the
things he could see outside the
window.
The
man in the other bed began to live for those one hour
periods where his world would be broadened and
enlivened by all the activity and color of the world
outside.
The
window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and
swans played on the water while children sailed their
model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst
flowers of every color and a fine view of the city
skyline could be seen in the
distance.
As
the man by the window described all this in exquisite
detail, the man on the other side of the room would
close his eyes and imagine the picturesque
scene.
One
warm afternoon the man by the window described a
parade passing
by.
Although the other man
couldn’t hear the band - he could see it. In his
mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it
with descriptive
words.
Days
and weeks
passed.
One
morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for
their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man
by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep.
She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to
take the body
away.
As
soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if
he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was
happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was
comfortable, she left him
alone..
Slowly, painfully, he
propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look
at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn
to look out the window beside the
bed.
It
faced a blank
wall.
The
man asked the nurse what could have compelled his
deceased roommate who had described such wonderful
things outside this
window.
The
nurse responded that the man was blind and could not
even see the
wall.
She
said, ‘Perhaps he just wanted to encourage
you.’
THINGS I HAVE LEARNED FROM MY ALABAMA FRIENDS:
by Wildman on Jan.04, 2009, under Jokes, Redneck Central, hehehe
Possums sleep in the middle of the road with their feet in
the air.
There are 5,000 types of snakes on earth and 4,998 live in
Alabama .
There are 10,000 types of spiders. All 10,000 live in
Alabama plus a couple no one’s seen before.
If it grows, it sticks; if it crawls, it bites.
Onced and Twiced are words.
It is not a shopping cart; it is a buggy.
People actually grow and eat okra.
‘Fixinto’ is one word.
There is no such thing as ‘lunch’. There is only
dinner and then there is supper.
Iced tea is appropriate for all meals and you start drinking
Backards and forwards means ‘I know everything about you.’
You don’t have to wear a watch because it doesn’t matter what time it is.
You don’t PUSH buttons, you MASH them.
You measure distance in minutes.
Sometimes you have to switch from ‘heat’ to ’A/C’ in the same day.
‘Fix’ is a verb. Example: ‘I’m fixing to go to the store.’
All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit,
vegetable, grain, plant, insect or animal.
You install security lights on your house and garage and
leave both unlocked.
You know what a ‘DAWG’ is.
You carry jumper cables in your car . . . for your OWN car.
There are only own four spices: salt, pepper, Tabasco and
ketchup.
The local papers cover national and international news on
one page, but require 6 pages for local gossip and sports.
The first day of deer season is a national holiday.
100 degrees Fahrenheit ‘a little warm.’
We have four seasons: Almost Summer, Summer, still Summer
and Christmas.
Going to Walmart is a favorite past time known as
‘goin’ Wal-martin’ or off to ‘Wally World.’
A cool snap (below 70 degrees) is good pinto-bean weather.
A carbonated soft drink isn’t a soda, cola or pop . . .
it’s a Coke, regardless of brand or flavor. Example: ‘What kinda
coke you want?’
Fried catfish is the other white meat.
We don’t need no stinking driver’ s ed . . . if our
mama says we can drive, we can drive.
If you understand these jokes please forward them to your
friends from Alabama (and those who just wish they were).
EVERYONE can’t be an Alabamian; it takes talent. You
might say it’s an art form or a gift from God!
Just wanted to share!! You might know better than I if
these things are just from Alabama or if they ooze over state lines.
