The Simpsons Is One Of Americas Most Popular Television Shows. It Rank

The Simpsons is one of Americas most popular television shows. It ranks as the number one television program for viewers under eighteen years of age. However, the ideals that The Simpsons conveys are not always wholesome, sometimes not even in good taste. It is inevitable that The Simpsons is affecting children. Matt Groening took up drawing to escape from his troubles in 1977. At the time, Groening was working for the L.A. Reader, a free weekly newspaper. He began working on Life in Hell, a humorous comic strip consisting of people with rabbit ears. The L.A. Reader picked up a copy of his comic strip and liked what they saw. Life in Hell gradually became a common comic strip in many free weeklies and college newspapers across the country. It even developed a cult status. (Varhola, 1) Life in Hell drew the attention of James L. Brooks, producer of works such as Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Terms of Endearment. Brooks originally wanted Groening to make an animated pilot of Life in Hell. Groening chose not to do so in fear of loosing royalties from papers that printed the strip. Groening presented Brooks with an overweight, balding father, a mother with a blue beehive hairdo, and three obnoxious spiky haired children. Groening intended for them to represent the typical American family "who love each other and drive each other crazy". Groening named the characters after his own family. His parents were named Homer and Margaret and he had two younger sisters named Lisa and Maggie. Bart was an anagram for "brat". Groening chose the last name "Simpson" to sound like the typical American family name. (Varhola, 2) Brooks decided to put the 30 or 60 second animations on between skits on The Tracy Ullman Show on the unsuccessful Fox network. Cast members Dan Castellaneta and Julie Kavner did the voices of Homer and Marge. Yeardley Smith (later to star in Herman's Head) did the voice of Lisa. Nancy Cartwright did the voice of Bart. Cartwright previously supplied the voices for many cartoons, including Galaxy High, Fantastic Max, Richie Rich, Snorks, Pound Puppies, My Little Pony, and Glo-Friends. Tracy Ullman later added Cartwright to her cast. (Dale and Trich, 11) Brooks, Groening, and Sam Simon, Tracy Ullman's producer, wanted to turn the Simpson family into their own show. The Fox network was looking for material to appeal to younger viewers. The only show they had that drew a young audience was Married With Children. To Fox's pleasure, The Simpsons saved the network from near failure. (Varhola, 3) On December 17, 1989, The Simpsons got their break. The Christmas special, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" aired. (Dale and Trich, 19) In the episode, Bart got a tattoo, much to Marge's dislike. She quickly spent all of the family's Christmas money to remove Bart's tattoo with a laser. At the same time, Homer, still on his morning coffee break at 4:00 in the afternoon, learns that he will not receive a Christmas bonus. When he learns that Marge is relying on the money for Christmas, he decides that he will do the Christmas shopping for the year. He quickly buys Marge panty hose, Bart paper, Lisa crayons, and Maggie a dog toy. When he realizes that he is not doing very well, he gets a second job as a mall Santa for the extra money. On the way home from work, he steals a Christmas tree. The next day at the mall, Bart sits on his Dad's lap and pulls down his beard. Homer responds by choking Bart and making him help make Christmas better. On Christmas Eve, Homer receives his check, $13.70 for over 40 hours work. Homer takes Bart to the dog track as a final chance for Christmas money. They discovered a gem in the third r ace, Santa's Little Helper. How could this dog loose on Christmas Eve? The odds were 99 to 1, they were going to be rich. Homer put all of his money on Santa's Little Helper, and to his horror, he never even finished. As Homer and Bart were scouring the parking lot for winning tickets into the night, they saw the track manager throw out a

Solar Energy Essays - Energy Conversion, Renewable Energy

Solar Energy Essays - Energy Conversion, Renewable Energy Solar Energy Tran 1 Solar Energy About 47 percent of the energy that the sun releases to the earth actually reaches the ground. About a third is reflected directly back into space by the atmosphere. The time in which solar energy is available, is also the time we least need it least - daytime. Because the sun's energy cannot be stored for use another time, we need to convert the suns energy into an energy that can be stored. One possible method of storing solar energy is by heating water that can be insulated. The water is heated by passing it through hollow panels. Black-coated steal plates are used because dark colors absorb heat more efficiently. However, this method only supplies enough energy for activities such as washing and bathing. The solar panels generate low grade heat, that is, they generate low temperatures for the amount of heat needed in a day. In order to generate high grade heat, intense enough to convert water into high-pressure steam which can then be used to turn electric generators there must be another method. The concentrated beams of sunlight are collected in a device called a solar furnace, which acts on the same principles as a large magnifying glass. The solar furnace takes the sunlight from a large area and by the use of lenses and mirrors can focus the light into a very small area. Very elaborate solar furnaces have machines that angle the mirrors and lenses to the sun all day. This system can provide sizable amounts of electricity and create extremely high temperatures of over 6000 degrees Fahrenheit. Solar energy generators are very clean, little waste is emitted from the generators into the environment. The use of coal, oil and gasoline is a constant drain, economically and environmentally. Will solar energy be the wave of the future? Could the worlds Tran 2 requirement of energy be fulfilled by the powerhouse of our galaxy - the sun? Automobiles in the future will probably run on solar energy, and houses will have solar heaters. Solar cells today are mostly made of silicon, one of the most common elements on Earth. The crystalline silicon solar cell was one of the first types to be developed and it is still the most common type in use today. They do not pollute the atmosphere and they leave behind no harmful waste products. Photovoltaic cells work effectively even in cloudy weather and unlike solar heaters, are more efficient at low temperatures. They do their job silently and there are no moving parts to wear out. It is no wonder that one marvels on how such a device would function. To understand how a solar cell works, it is necessary to go back to some basic atomic concepts. In the simplest model of the atom, electrons orbit a central nucleus, composed of protons and neutrons. Each electron carries one negative charge and each proton one positive charge. Neutrons carry no charge. Every atom has the same number of electrons as there are protons, so, on the whole, it is electrically neutral. The electrons have discrete kinetic energy levels, which increase with the orbital radius. When atoms bond together to form a solid, the electron energy levels merge into bands. In electrical conductors, these bands are continuous but in insulators and semiconductors there is an energy gap, in which no electron orbits can exist, between the inner valence band and outer conduction band [Book 1]. Valence electrons help to bind together the atoms in a solid by orbiting 2 adjacent nuclei, while conduction electrons, being less closely bound to the nuclei, are free to move in response to an applied voltage or electric field. The fewer conduction electrons there are, the higher the electrical resistively of the material. Tran 3 In semiconductors, the materials from which solar sells are made, the energy gap E.g. is fairly small. Because of this, electrons in the valence band can easily be made to jump to the conduction band by the injection of energy, either in the form of heat or light [Book 4]. This explains why the high resistively of semiconductors decreases as the temperature is raised or the material illuminated. The excitation of valence electrons to the conduction band is best accomplished when the semiconductor is in the crystalline state, i.e. when the atoms are arranged in a precise geometrical formation or lattice. At room temperature and low illumination, pure or so-called intrinsic semiconductors have a high resistively. But the