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

It twas in the bleak midwinter

Well, early winter to be exact.

I live in an old house and over the last few years where we have suffered lower temperatures in the past (Global warming anyone?), I have always wondered why downstairs has a poor heat balance, even though I changed the positions of the radiators. The sitting room would be warm but the kitchen would be a tad chilly.

Over the last few years I’ve draught proofed just about everything in the house that could be draught proofed.

It wasn’t till I went to my daughters newly purchased house that I realised the elephant in the room. They had boarded up their fireplace.¹

On getting home I held a sheet of the Guardian newspaper* against the fireplace opening and nearly had it ripped out of my grasp by the updraft. It’s a good thing I hadn’t given the job to an infant chimneysweep.

The upshot is that I bought a device like a balloon that you partially inflate, stuff it up the chimney and then fully inflate. It was noticeably different almost immediately. Everywhere is now warm quickly, with no draughts.

There was a couple of problems with the device, you need at least three hands to fit it and one more to hold the inflation tube.

You need to work how much partial inflation is required to begin with, otherwise it won’t go up the flue or it will fall out while you’re trying to blow it up to full pressure.

And you do need to check that it is not deflating, and pump up as required

However if we do get arctic conditions next week it will be removed, as there’s nothing better than sitting in front of a log fire.

* It was actually the Telegraph. The Guardian is only fit for emergency toilet paper.

¹ And I call myself an engineer. 0/10 FAIL.

Christmas cheer

Christmas decorations.

I haven’t even thought about mine yet.

HTML for juniors.

As you can see my Grandson is engrossed in it.

Job opportunity.

Must have a skill that enables them to find and target TFE’s spammers.

Typical example:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Minimum pricing.":

Wow, incrеdiblе blog layout! How long have you beеn bloggіng for?
you made blogging look eаsy. Τhe overall looκ οf your web site is magnifіcent, as wеll as the сontеnt!
Visit my website -  (Insert spammer of your choice)

Your mission if you wish to accept it. (Pays minimum wage).

Flight safety and Hobbits

Air New Zealand has a novel approach to safety on their aircraft. Sit back an enjoy a safe flight.




H/T Theo

Bugger the Bankers

H/T to the Wasp's nest where I shamelessly purloined it.

That question and the most excellent final word.

 

Doh!

Will Greenies never learn? First they were told that DiHydrogen Monoxide was a deadly killer (Water to you and me), now they’re being led to believe that wearing a breathing mask filter will save the planet from their CO2 emissions.

“Every human being exhales about 2.5 pounds of CO2 per day and 7 billion people equals 14 billion(ish) pounds of CO2 daily that is exhaled. So this mask would filter CO2 from your breath. Which is kind of cool, because it would reduce your personal carbon footprint on the earth.”
Would you be willing to wear that for a few hours a day? While you sleep? How about your children? Pets?
Alas, science.

Makes you wonder about the gullibility of some people

Those gracious days.

Those were the days when smoking was the norm.

Up to 70% of men smoked and a sizeable coterie of women did so also. Every home was littered with ashtrays, even those whose occupants didn’t partake of the pleasure. You only had to say “Do you mind if I smoke” and a plentiful supply of  ash trays would appear as if by magic. Even the bedroom was not out of bounds.

In those days smoking was permitted everywhere. Cinemas, buses (Top deck only), offices, pubs (Natch), trains, aircraft, & just about everywhere.

Then about twenty years ago the Nu puritans started to gain the ascendant. Slowly but surely they pushed the line that “Smoking kills”. Regardless of the fact that smokers knew the risks and accepted  as a fact of life, smokers might one day be struck down with lung cancer.

As the Nu puritans, showered with government money, became bolder, more and more diseases were added to the list of smoking related diseases. Cardiovascular, cancer of the Asoephegous (supply your own spelling if you’re a nosy nu puritan reading this post), gum disease, etc. Nothing was off limits to the nu puritans.

Slowly but surely the creep of prohibition set in. Bans on public transport, planes, etc. Then private offices were to have smoking rooms, etc. The evil of second-hand smoke

Of course the governments of the time, seeing their tax revenue falling, jumped on the band wagon of nu health, and vowed to save the nation by increasing tax on tobacco. This of course gave legitimacy  to the nu puritans, who have since redoubled their efforts to de-normalisation of the smoker.

So then they came for the pubs and clubs. The hysterical cry arose “We must save the bar people from dying of second hand smoke”, Of course they didn’t care that they would put thousands of staff out of work, many who smoked, and the rest, glad that they had employment. The government seemed to fail to understand that pubs are actually private premises. But then again when have you known an intelligent politician.

Of course the nu puritans have won the battles so far, but the hardcore  of us proud smokers will never give in. Unless the government bans tobacco completely (Do you think they will want to lose the £11.5 billion in tobacco revenue? If you do then find another planet to live on), then the nu puritans will have lost the war.

It’s a war of time and resolve. We can get through the display bans and plain packaging and though I may not see it in my life time we shall prevail.

PS.

You’re next fatties, drinkers, salt likers, etc ,etc,etc. The template is in place and now being used.

PPS,

Can you guess which one is the nu puritan?

Is it the ASHen faced one on the left or the comely wench on the right?

(The clue is in the text)