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Use Google Earth To Track Santa

Kickboy12 writes "Google Earth can be used to track Santa Claus, beginning at 2pm GMT December 24th. From the article: 'While we didn't work a deal for Naughty or Nice data layers, we did negotiate the rights to track this user on his big trip. If you've already got Google Earth, you can too.' So, if you have Google Earth, track Santa!"

24 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. Merry X-mas! by tomas.bjornerback · · Score: 4, Funny

    To all of you!

    --

    I have 1 Gbps Internet access@home

  2. I don't believe in google earth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    there's no mention of this in the bible, google earth is just a theory of atheist scientists

    1. Re:I don't believe in google earth by User+956 · · Score: 3, Funny

      there's no mention of this in the bible, google earth is just a theory of atheist scientists

      Santa himself is an atheist invention-- real Christians refer to the phenomenon as "intelligent burglary".

      --
      The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  3. Re:Aaargh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Damn those uber-queer Disney-spawn Tim Allen movies!!

  4. sedaris by BushCheney08 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Any mention of the 6 to 8 black men that accompany him? And does he really go back to Spain when the whole thing is through?

    --
    Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
  5. Re:Aaargh by kae_verens · · Score: 5, Funny

    While we're on the subject of pedanticism, I'd like to point out that there is no Santa, superfluous 'e' or not.

    Oh - and there should have been a comma before 'ffs' in the parent's post.

  6. Re:Aaargh by Rich+Klein · · Score: 2, Funny

    For crying out loud, the original article spells "Claus" correctly. Where'd the extraneous "e" come from? :P

    --
    -Rich
  7. Mwahaha. by CosmeticLobotamy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Fools! You've led us right to him!

    Go get him, boys. The War on Christmas ends tonight.

    -Kefka, Supreme Commander Anti-Christmas Forces, Europe.

    1. Re:Mwahaha. by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Funny

      It was already easy to track him with all those RFID tags on the stuff in his bag.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  8. What's a Santa Clause? by Venik · · Score: 4, Funny

    Been hearing alot 'bout it on TV lately...

  9. Re:Aaargh by kae_verens · · Score: 2, Funny

    Thank you! :-) And for the other replyer; I'll have you know that pedanticism is a perfectly cromulant word: http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/dictionaries/di fficultwords/data/d0009747.html

  10. That's not fair! by noamt · · Score: 4, Funny

    When I tried using a 5-char username (to match my /. username) for a Gmail account, I got this message:

        Sorry, your username must be between 6 and 30 characters long.

    Why do they let this "S. Claus <claus@gmail.com>" dude have it?

    1. Re:That's not fair! by the+real+darkskye · · Score: 4, Funny

      He's obviously gStaff. Didn't you know Santa works for google, thats why they have such a comprehensive list of all the naughty girls and their stockings!

      --
      Music is everybody's possession.
      It's only publishers who think that people own it.
      Fuck Beta
      ~John Lenno
  11. Darn things by Joe+U · · Score: 3, Funny

    to track Santa Clause

    My life insurance policy has a Santa clause, something to do with being trampled by reindeer...

    (ok, that's bad)

  12. Santa Strikes Back! by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Santa's legal team is said to be working on getting an anti-stalking injunction against Google Inc. "They may not be evil, but they sure are naughty! No toys for them!" said chief lawyer Binky.

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  13. Re:Guys... by Winlin · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ah but there HAS to be an Intelligent Toy Dispenser (ITD) due to the irreducible complexity of me having received the things i asked for in my letters year after year. Surely this can not be explained by some secular 'random chance' thing. Buncha /. heathens.

  14. Microsoft announces competitive service by mnemotronic · · Score: 4, Funny

    Microsoft has announced a competitive service : X-Claus.net. This service will be integrated into "Vista", the next generation Windows operating system, which is due for release "real soon now" according to a representative for the Redmond company. There are no plans to release an XP version of the X-Claus.net service. MS also plans an online, multiplayer game "Naughty/Nice Xtreme" for the XBox-360. This game will allow the combatant to play as Santa, one of his elves, or the evil Dr. Evil, intent on kidnapping Santa and turning Christmas into a mostly commercial occasion. Playing as Santa, you will have your choice of weapons, including gingerbread particle weapons, fruitcake bazooka, raindeer dropping carpet bombing, and hyper-velocity elf snot.

    --
    The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
  15. Re:NORAD tracks santa too.. (nope, that one is MS) by lashi · · Score: 2, Funny

    Norad is based on Microsoft virtual earth, so I would think the two would not give you the same postion. To think, there is a google santa and a microsoft santa. :)

  16. Santa tracking disabled by Homeland Security by twigles · · Score: 3, Funny

    We regret to inform you, but the ability to track Santa Claus has been deemed an unacceptable security risk and will not be allowed.*

    No constitutional amendments were harmed (or consulted) in the making of this decision.

  17. You can't trust the Internet for anything! by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 2, Funny
    Now I am starting to wonder about other information I find on the Internet.

    People can just make stuff up!

    ;-)

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
  18. Danger for our privacy by Stan+Vassilev · · Score: 2, Funny

    Today they track Santa, tommorow it'll be Easter Bunny!

    Wake up people, fight for your rights!

  19. credit to who ever did this first by rev_g33k_101 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Santa Claus: An Engineer's Perspective

    I. There are approximately 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Jehovah's Witnesses, or Buddist religions, this reduces the workload on 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 household, 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 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 at least one good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, jump out, go 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 in the sleigh, and move on to the next house. (That's why it's really pointless to stay up and wait for him....)

    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 breaks. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For the purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 75.4 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 has 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 nothing more than 300 pounds. Even granted that "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or nine of them; Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the sleigh itself, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizibeth (the ship, not the monarch).

    IV. 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance; this would heat up the reindeer in the same fasion 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 causing deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.2 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reaches the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 miles per second in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 G's. A 250 pound Santa (which seem ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pound 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.

    --
    "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore."
    1. Re:credit to who ever did this first by mencik · · Score: 2, Funny

      I think that engineer is getting coal in his stocking!

  20. This is.. by rasty · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is the most stupid thing ever. I'll definitely use it all day!!!!!