Wow this article is garbage. At least two of the examples don't support the point. That Samsung charger would allow something next to it if it were moved to the right and is actually pretty compact with it's wall space requirements. The Apple charger, if it were designed to protrude any other direction it wouldn't work well with a "normal" wall outlet and as shown seems to better indicate a bad transformer design and orientation. Beyond the fact that this is a stupid article, why did someone at Slashdot decide to promote it?!? This isn't news, or tech related, it's a stupid rant of someone at CNet.

My mistake... I was describing luminescence (electron jumps) but the examples were incandescent (thermal vibration of atoms). It's still the "cooling" that you see, whether it be excess energy from the atom or the electron.

http://library.thinkquest.org/27356/p_sources.htm

"exciting the electrons in those chemicals into a higher energy state. As they cool down, they move back to a lower state of energy, emitting light."

That's the explanation almost any time you see light, it's not unique to fireworks. It applies to any color of fireworks, regardless of whether the color is produced by the fuel itself or by the fuel heating another element. It also applies to candles, camp fires, butane lighters, acetylene torches, incandescent lights, red hot stove burners, halogen lights, etc.=.

Glad someone posted it.