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Christmas Lights and Google Maps
Anonymous Coward writes "SantaStars.com uses the Google Maps API to show the locations of some great Christmas light displays. Everyone is encouraged to post a picture of their Christmas lights and you can vote for your favorites. Some of the houses are quite elaborate like this house in British Columbia that has 87,625 computer controlled lights synchronized to an FM radio station."
There's a higher resolution version which is part of a Miller's Lite beer commercial
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
One of the unfortunate side effects of a big Xmas light display in the neighbourhood is the extra traffic. All kinds of people slow down in front of my house to see the lights next door. This is disturbing enough given the number of car engines rolling up and idling then roaring off. They also use my driveway to turn their vehicles around. This is annoying because (a) the sound of a car/truck roaring into drive; (b) headlights blasting through my windows as I am sitting/sleeping there; (c) tires compressing snow into ice on my drive -- these people drive over fresh snow and even any snow berm at the end of the drive left when the grader goes by.
Please use some courtesy when you go to see lights!
And if you are someone who puts lights on, please use some courtesy as well. My house is blasted by the huge number of lights across the street and we get all that extra traffic and annoyance. Please show some common sense and do NOT advertise it widely and do NOT run the lights week after week at all hours.
The contact of the "Anonymous Coward" who submitted the story is workshop@santastars.com.
Hmm...
It's only an insult if it's not true.
to quote: http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/102spring2002_Web_proj ects/M.Sexton/
Although tar sands occur in more than 70 countries, the two largest are Canada and Venezuela, with the bulk being found in four different regions of Alberta, Canada: areas of Athabasca, Wabasha, Cold Lake and Peace River. The sum of these covers an area of nearly 77,000 km2. In fact, the reserve that is deemed to be technologically retrievable today is estimated at 280-300Gb (billion barrels). This is larger than the Saudi Arabia oil reserves, which are estimated at 240Gb. The total reserves for Alberta, including oil not recoverable using current technology, are estimated at 1,700- 2,500Gb.
290Gb / 0.1321Gb = 21,958 days or 60 years
plus we (US) have approximately 1-TRILLION recoverable barrels in the Green River basin... do the math