Santa Claus: An engineer's perspective:

 

I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

II. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th. of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second < 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the Oflying¹ reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them; Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

IV. 600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air resistance < this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth¹s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion Joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in a milli-second, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 G¹s. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

V. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

(Shamelessly knicked from the comments @  Head Rambles

Slave Labour at Christmas

Another public service message from TFE.

This must be shown to the Cheeeeeldren to stop this cruelty NOW.

(And to save me money).

Oh no. Santa has been involved in a tragic accident.

 

Should have gone to Specsavers kiddies.

Santa. Why he can’t exist, Kiddies.

From an Engineer’s perspective.

I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

II. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th. of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting toilet stops or Starbuck breaks (Just to be topical), means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second,  3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a leisurely 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the flying reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can’t be done with eight or even nine of them  Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

IV. 600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air resistance. This would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion Joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vapourised within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in a milli-second, would be subjected to  forces of 17,500 Gs. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

V. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

Just saying. I tried this on my kids and they just produced formulae stating that due to quantum mechanics and string theory, my thesis was flawed. I’ve yet to be convinced.

My argument is “Why should kids in their thirties expect a stocking from me”?

Their reply:

“ Cos You’re my Dad”

Bastards.

Kind regards

The Filthy Scrooge Engineer

Dear Santa.

Please bring me beer. The kids are drinking my stocks at an alarming rate. Extra mince pies will be left out. And you can help yourself to a large single malt.

Yours truly

A soon to be beerless, Filthy Engineer.

P.S They drink Corona.

PPS. They’ve now started Whining on the wine.

PPPS. If they get near the whiskey, then you may only have to pass over their graves next year. It’ll save you a stop.

Santa Claus: An engineer's perspective:

I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the
world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

II. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the
different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th. of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second,  3,000 times the
speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself.
On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the Oflying¹ reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can¹t be done with eight or even nine of them  Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

IV. 600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air resistance. This would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth¹s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion Joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in a milli-second, would be subjected to  forces of 17,500 G¹s. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned
to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

V. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

Just saying.

Shamelessly nicked from Subrosa

He’s alive.

Red-faced U.S. Air Force officials admitted today that they accidentally shot down Santa Claus' sleigh and severely injured Santa and most of the reindeer as the sleigh hovered over a field near Edwards Air Force Base in California.

"We admit the error but we that does not alleviate Mr. Claus of his own responsibility", stated Col. Jerry Gandy, 95th Air Base Wing commander.

Gandy said that Santa is allowed his yearly trek across North America under the conditions that he clearly identify his sleigh, retains radio contact with Air Force officials and remains at least 300 yards from any airports or U.S. Air Force installations.

"I radioed my coordinates well in advance and I was just outside the 300 yard perimeter", Santa stated from his hospital bed where is listed in stable condition recovering from bullet wounds, spinal damage, bruises and contusions. "I think this was a deliberate act by the U.S. Government to prevent Christmas from happening this year".

Gandy also stated that Santa's sleigh was not clearly identifiable as it had no distinguishing identification tags.

"That's ridiculous", Santa stated. "How many other damned sleighs are there out there being pulled by a pack of reindeer?"
Hospital officials say that Santa is expected to make a full recovery and veterinary officials state the same for the reindeer, except for Rudolph.

"I'm afraid Rudolph's nose was blown off", said one of the veterinarians on condition of anonymity. "We can build him a new nose but it won't have that trademark red glow".

President  Barack Obama said that he will discipline the air force officials over this outrage.
"I won’t get the Wii I asked for this year because of them", Obama stated.

I made a mistake. I’m so sorry.

Stop press: FE news bulletin.

A day or two ago I wrote that santa had been shot down by an Iranian surface to air missile. I was wrong. It transpires that they were not the culprits. The real villains are exposed below in the article.

The US Air Force, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), in a gross case of mistaken identity, disintegrated Santa Clause and his 18 reindeer over Washington airspace this evening. Apparently, the heavy red man was flying over restricted airspace when he was mistaken for an intercontinental ballistic missile and was disintegrated on the spot.
The pilots of the two, F-18 Navy Hornet Fighters sent to the area say they tried to contact the object and unleashed several AIM-9 sidewinder missiles into the side of his sleigh after he failed to respond.

Volunteers who were working with NORAD Santa Tracking Operations Center (STOC) were dismayed when they had to break the bad news. Children, who were busy calling in and sending emails wanting to get a fix on Santa Claus' whereabouts before the incident occurred, were shocked to hear the news.

Those kids who were watching live, 3-D video-stream footage of the jolly saint getting blown to smithereens had it the worst said volunteers.

"What kid is going to understand that their number one hero was blown to smithereens just doing his job?" said children's advocate and author, Jonothan Kozel.

Social workers were being called in from all over Washington and locations outside the DC area to deal with the crises. Crisis centers opened throughout the city so that families could take their children for help dealing with strong emotions.

When asked again if he thought that the two Navy fighters acted in haste, Keating said, "We're a defensive organization. We have no intention of conducting offensive operations unless we're attacked. Those two fighters tried to make contact with him, but there was no response on his part. We're not even sure if that was the real Santa Clause, or a Communist impostor."

Researchers compared tonight's incident with the US Army Infantry fiasco reported earlier this month whereby US Abrams tanks blew up the Buddhas of Bamiya during a morning target practice exercise.
Researchers say that it has been too long a journey for the Fourth Century Bishop, over 1,600 years, to end up disintegrated in the sights of an F-18 aircraft.

This is a sad day for everybody.

In other news today, the US Navy has another one of their submarines in trouble off the coast of Australia. Apparently giant sperm whales are being attracted to the submarines for some reason.
Navy officials are not sure if it is the Navy's sonar that the giant whales are attracted to, or just the design, or if Cuba is feeding the giant fish large doses of Macca to stimulate it's sexual appetite to disable the subs. This issue is currently under investigation.

SOURCE

And Merry Christmas to the source.

That’s Christmas cancelled

According to reliable reports Santa’s pre Christmas trials have been a disaster.

TEHRAN (Dec 13)-The Iranian News Agency is claiming that the Doshan Tapeh Air Base commander has reported one of it's newly acquired Russian SA-15 anti-aircraft missile defence batteries engaged and shot down the Santa Claus reindeer propelled flying sled over Northern Iran today. The target was tracked on radar for 10 minutes before the order to fire was given by the regional air defence commander
Witnesses report seeing the SA-15 streak skyward erupting in a brilliant flash and then a giant fireball plummeting to the earth. The fireball was captured on film.
The smouldering wreckage was discovered in the mountainous region of Mazandaran Province, just south of the Caspian Sea.
The crash site had been looted by local village children leaving only scraps of colourful paper wraps and ribbon amid a large impact crater.
There were no signs of a survivor. Villagers reported a large pack of wolves carried off the reindeer remains.
A NORAD command spokesperson at Peterson Air Force Base answered "no comment" when asked if Santa had yet to appear on US radar. An unnamed senior radar specialist commented, "In all the years I've been doing this I've never seen Santa fail to show up on radar. I fear something dreadful has happened".

You heard it here first.

Update: Disturbing news. There is some doubt of the veracity of the proponent of this foul deed. Further investigations are ongoing at this time,

Sorry Kiddies

Santa has had a slight accident.

Bah Humbug

Seeing that the Tellybox is now in full Christmas mode, I'll just let the video below show why all the kiddywinks are not going to get any presents this year.

Bastard.

It’s looking bad for Christmas

Stock markets have responded positively to news that Toyland’s Prime Minister Santo Nicalosi, better known as Santa Claus, or Sugar Daddy Christmas to his closest female admirers, is to step down after arranging a final delivery of toys for December.

Leading analyst Jeremy Warner said that without the implementation of severe austerity measures, including the adoption of a payment-based business model which would face severe competition from the likes of Amazon, Toyland would default on its debts and this could lead to a world economic catastrophe far more severe than the 2008 banking crisis.

‘In recent years, Toyland has lived way beyond its means as it struggled to deliver ever more exotic presents free of charge to children in Europe and North America,’ said Warner. ‘It no longer produces most of the toys that are delivered and has had increasingly to rely on cheap goods and credit from China and Southeast Asia.’

Toyland’s manufacturing base is no longer a major employer but service sector employees will be hit hard by austerity measures. ‘I’m due to retire at 35 on full salary next year, said a party facilitator elf. Suddenly there will be no jobs and no pensions. I suppose I’ll have to emigrate, but I was shocked to learn that my skills set only attracts the minimum wage in other countries, even with a Mickey Mouse degree. I might as well work tables or behind a bar.’

Lenders are expected to take a significant haircut as Toyland reschedules its debts after the IMF, ECB and Germany’s Bundesbank refused a euro bailout. However, unlike Never Never Land, Toyland is expected to honour its obligations, although repayments will be redenominated in Monopoly money.

More than one banker has said a haircut is the least Santa Claus can expect if he is caught, saying the revenge shaving won’t stop at ‘that manky beard’ or the Movember ‘tache. In addition, after he steps down, Claus will no longer be afforded criminal immunity against charges of creeping into millions of children’s bedrooms at night.

Shamelessly nicked from News biscuit

Oh (Rein)Deer

 

Next time look where you’re going you bearded old fool.

Just think of the Cheeeeeldren.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Google Earth

Every year just before Christmas, Google Earth allows you to watch Santa’s progress across the Globe courtesy of NORAD.

Just for a change could NORAD track the Kentish grit lorry that has yet to spread any grit on my road?

Missing in Action.

Gotcha.

The silly old Christmas Duffer forgot to look. That’ll teach him to eat all my mince pies, drink my sherry, and block my chimney last year.

Is there a skyway code anyone?

Do you believe in Santa?

My kids do. They'll all be in the bosom of the family on Christmas day. Of course they all expect a Christmas stocking.

I think this has to stop. The eldest is 29, second daughter is 27, and the son is 22.

Do you think it is time they stopped believing?

Dear Santa

Could I have the following?

1) A sit on snowplough. I'm really pissed off, digging my drive out each morning.

2) A money printing machine. I'll need it in the new year. If the Government can have one, why can't I?

3) A two year old. My wife has trouble programming the sky box to record. (And NO, I'm not a paedophile).

4) One of your Reindeer to butcher, as I might not be able to collect the Turkey if the snow continues. Surely you don't need all of them?

5) Inspiration in the new year. Blogging is oh so difficult.

6) Al Gore's head on a plate. (To go with the Reindeer steaks).

7) If you pass Leg Iron's place first. Could you nick all his single malts and drop them off here?

8) Oh and can I have that Partridge in that pear tree? Never had partridge.

Thankyou, you fat git

Yours

FE

Oh, and some Carbon credits would be nice.