Slashdot Mirror
Santa Meets NORAD, Tux Gets Lit Up For Xmas
runlvl0 writes "Once again, NORAD is tracking Santa Claus on his annual trip around the world via the NORAD Tracks Santa website. Oddly, as of 1900 GMT, Santa is taking a spin over the Persian Gulf. I guess that he's glad not to have to worry about "no-fly zones" this year." NORAD has been keeping an eye on our favorite present deliverer for a few years now. Elsewhere, pixelbeat writes "Michael Still created a lovely Tux in Xmas tree lights. The complete process from gimp to the final 707 lights was documented."
Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g's
Obviously it hasn't occurred to you grinches out there that Santa has maintained a technological advantage in transport technology all these years (where do you think all those cool electronic gadgets come from, anyway?). For example, the Elftech QRD-14 inertial dampener system eliminates all the acceleration problems.
As for the previously mentioned air resistance issues, project R.U.D.O.L.F. (Regenerative Universal Defense - Organic Life Form) solved that problem back in the last century, when a special genetically engineered breed of reindeer whose biology was capable of generating electromagnetic shielding to protect against air friction (bleeding off the absorbed energy in the infrared and low-visible light frequencies) was developed.