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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!"

28 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. Aaargh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's Santa Claus ffs! There is no "e" on the end of it!

    1. Re:Aaargh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    2. 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.

    3. Re:Aaargh by Yahweh+Doesn't+Exist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      While we're on the subject of being pedantic, I'd like to point out that there is no 'pedanticism', whether you're GWB or not.

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

    To all of you!

    --

    I have 1 Gbps Internet access@home

  3. 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.
  4. NORAD tracks santa too.. by User+956 · · Score: 5, Informative

    the Norad Santa site is http://www.noradsanta.org/

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  5. wish I could.. by Eternal_Flame · · Score: 4, Interesting

    However, due to the lack of an OS X and/or linux version, of Google Earth, I can't.
    Yes, I have heard of the OS X beta, but if I cant access it, it doesnt do me any good. Google's always been in favor of alternate OSs, yet here they only support MS. I hope this changes soon;
    I don't wanna miss santa's route next year too..

    --
    ~You laugh because I'm different, I laugh because I'm insane~
    1. Re:wish I could.. by Jim+Buzbee · · Score: 4, Informative

      Google for "googleearth.app.sit"

  6. 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.
  7. The Church put the Santa in Santa Claus by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    Santa himself is an atheist invention

    Santa is only called Santa because the Christian Church has recognized Nicholas of Myra, the first Santa Claus, as a saint. (The current Santa is allegedly Tim Allen.)

    1. Re:The Church put the Santa in Santa Claus by jacksonj04 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Interestingly enough, St. Nicholas is the patron saint against imprisonment, robberies and robbers.

      Also the patron saint of (deep breath) apothecaries; Apulia, Italy; bakers; Bari, Italy; barrel makers; boatmen; boot blacks; boys; brewers; brides; captives; children; coopers; dock workers; druggists; Duronia, Italy; fishermen; Fossalto, Italy; Greece; Greek Catholic Church in America; Greek Catholic Unionl grooms; judges; lawsuits lost unjustly; Limerick, Ireland; longshoremen; Lorraine; maidens; mariners; merchants; murderers; Naples, Italy; newlyweds; old maids; parish clerks; paupers; pawnbrokers; perfumeries; perfumers; pharmacists; pilgrims; poor people; Portsmouth, England; prisoners; Russia; sailors; Sassari, Italy; scholars; schoolchildren; shoe shiners; Sicily; spinsters; students; thieves; travellers; University of Paris; unmarried girls; watermen.

      Points of interest are thives, murderers, children and maidens. Surely not a good combination.

      Source: http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintn01.htm

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
  8. What's a Santa Clause? by Venik · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  9. 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
  10. 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)

  11. Yes, but does it run[.....] by Meltir · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is all nice, but unfortunatly the linux users out there are left out of the fun.
    No such thing as google earth for linux :(
    Its just strange to me that a company that bases most of its products on oss (servers and what not) doesnt have a version of an application that works on the second (maybe third if you count the mac's) most used desktop os on the planet.
    I seem to remember that one of google's assets is that its products work on most operating systems (just the task of making ajax applications such as gmail is a lot of work).
    Does anyone here know of a replacement, maybe something that uses some hidden google api - that would allow me to play around with this toy ?

    How will i ever know if santa is close ? ;)

  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. You insensitive Google-clods! by TERdON · · Score: 4, Interesting

    beginning at 2pm GMT December 24th

    In Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia, christmas is celebrated on Christmas Eve, not on Christmas day. Even though normally santa won't come until the afternoon or evening (and visit the children in person so they can get really scared so they, hopefully, behave the next year), there still probably are plenty of families who Santa already left earlier than five hours ago from now...

    --
    I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
  14. 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.

  15. 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.
  16. Re:weird holiday by dangerz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think you seriously just need to get the stick out of your ass and relax a little bit. So what if people are celebrating religious holidays? How is this seriously hurting you? If you're angry that you can't go to work because you were given a day off, then you have bigger issues.

    People like you are why a lot of stuff is going to shit. People have to now watch what they're saying because they need to be politically correct. You can't say Merry Christmas, you must say Happy Holidays. You have to tiptoe around what you really want to say, because heaven forbid you offend someone.

    Honestly, just shut up and relax. I don't believe in any religion, but I dont mind at all in letting people celebrate what they believe. Christmas, as much as it doesn't seem so, is still a time for families to come together. Ya people are taking the whole gift thing way out of line, but in the end families are still coming together and having a good time. That right there is more than enough reason to make this a national holiday, which I support.

    Now stop your bitching, get off your computer and go visit your goddamn family.

    --
    The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
    - Albert Einstein
  17. 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.

  18. Re:I'm Spartacus too by pe1rxq · · Score: 3, Insightful

    and don't forget the reason for the season

    Some germanic tribes celebrating the days getting longer again?

    --
    Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
  19. Re:I'm Spartacus too by miyako · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just to point out, for those who don't seem to know, using Xmas as opposed to Christmas was never an attempt to desecularize the holiday- and has (likely) been in use for a very long time. It originates with the greek letter Chi (Which looks like an english X) and is the first letter of the word christ in greek. Later Constantine added Rho to create the Labarum (chi-rho) symbol which looks like an X and P superimposed.
    In other words, X has always been a traditional symbol for Christ, and a such is NOT a means to desecularlize the holiday or "Remove Christ From Christmas".
    \not christian
    \\wishes christians would stfu about the xmas vs christmas debate
    \\\Won't point out that christmas was originally a pagan holiday, because everyone knows that by now.
    \\\\hope that clears things up.

    --
    Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
  20. 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."