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Does Santa Hate Linux?

Posted by timothy on from the elf-beating-question dept.

beernutmark writes "Well, it looks like Santa or at least Norad/Google hates Linux. This year, for the first time since its inception, Norad is not making a simple .kml file available for download to track Santa. You must connect to their website with a Windows/Mac browser and use the browser plugin. No full-screen Google Earth to look at the beautiful areas around Santa's path. (Anyone have any open source source kml files for tracking Santa or any idea how we can go about making one for 2010?)"

13 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Bullshitmas is a stupid celebration. If you are smart enough to get into slashdot, you should be smart enough to realize that there is no god.

  2. Really, who cares? by GNUALMAFUERTE · · Score: -1, Troll

    There's no Santa, and there's no god. Enjoy your Solstice.

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  3. Santa? Hate? WTF? by DaveV1.0 · · Score: -1, Troll

    Maybe NORAD decided not to waste the manpower to support an OS that has less than 5% market share.

    Oh, wait, that headline doesn't sound anywhere near as outrageous.

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  4. Shoot him down by Dachannien · · Score: 0, Troll

    I'm tired of this fat jolly asshole violating our airspace every year. I mean, a domestic passenger jet goes off course for an hour and we get ready to scramble fighters, but Santa gets a free pass even though we apparently know exactly where he is at all times.

    Even Hugo Chavez says he's going to shoot down those imaginary drones he thinks we're flying over Venezuela. I say if shooting down imaginary aircraft is good enough for Hugo, then it's damn well good enough for us, too.

  5. For once, I'm fine with being locked out... by Arker · · Score: 0, Troll

    I mean, really, they are using tax money to put on this insanely stupid bit of play-acting, aimed at propagandising children no less, endorsing christian fairy-tales and giving them the imprimatur of the state (and let's not forget that a lot of taxpayers are NOT xtians) and the only problem you can see is that it doesnt display on linux?!?! Get a little perspective, please.

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    1. Re:For once, I'm fine with being locked out... by Arker · · Score: -1, Troll

      Norad Tracks Santa uses 1,200 volunteers and money from several corporate sponsors. Only 1 person is assigned from Norad to manage it year-round, and it's not his/her full time job.

      Even if that's true (which I doubt) that's still 1 part-time employ too many, PLUS THE NAME. The use of the Norad name gives this unwarranted credibility.

      Santa is also not a Christian symbol at all anymore, but is really the symbol of the secular Christmas.

      Which is even worse. At least misguided religious celebrants intend well. Your "secular xmas" is an invention of pure greed devised consciously to exploit and manipulate people into spending money they dont have to raise the bottom line for wealthy commercial interests.

      I'm sorry you had a bunch of crappy Christmases as a child, but there's no need to take it out on everyone else.

      I am sorry you were raised so immersed in a culture of lies that you dont even understand that lying to children is evil, but no need to take it out on everyone else. ^_^

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    2. Re:For once, I'm fine with being locked out... by telomerewhythere · · Score: 0, Troll

      "magic of Santa Claus" "purer hearts"

      I'm sorry, maybe I've been brainwashed, but I always thought that pure hearts didn't believe in/perpetuate lies.

      OTOH, the world w/o Christmas would surely put a severe crimp in the economy of said world...

      P.S. Why don't you ask experienced LE when is the worst time of the year for crime/Domestic Abuse/etc. Guess what the answer will be?

    3. Re:For once, I'm fine with being locked out... by Arker · · Score: 0, Troll

      Tracking Santa? Credibility? Wow. Just wow.

      To a nine-year old? Who is hearing it from every side, from all her teachers, all the other kids in her class, other parents, basically everyone, including authority figures? Yes, it's absurd. It's absurd that it's more socially acceptable to tell a kid that her family is abusing her by not "giving you a xmas." That's my point.

      No one said you had to participate. Isn't freedom great?

      Actually, again, pretty much every xmas-keeper does indeed STRONGLY imply just that. Reams and reams of propaganda has been produced to that effect, and it all gets trotted back out and rammed down our throats every year. All those idiotic xmas movies. Oh noes! He doesnt like xmas, he's a grinch!

      I wouldnt have a problem with it at all if they would simply leave those of us that arent interested alone. But they dont. They persecute us at every possible opportunity, and the most annoying thing is that smug certainty that they are really trying to do us a favour.

      While I respect your right to not celebrate holidays you consider groundless I think to insist that this is a "culture of lies" is taking it to the extremes a bit.

      Then you need to look closer. Open up a newspaper. Turn on the TV. Lies, more lies, a few minutes of filler which is at best neither true nor false, just meaningless... and back to the lies. Here's a word from our sponsors... lies.

      I personally am not a holiday person but if that's what it takes to help get someone through the day I'd say it's relatively harmless.

      I'll agree with you when I get through a single end-of-year without being treated like I am insane or worse for not wanting to take part.

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    4. Re:For once, I'm fine with being locked out... by Arker · · Score: 0, Troll

      Don't like what it came from OR what it's turned into. And in reality that distinction is null - it's both simultaneously right now. I have religious kooks yelling about jeebus on one side and supposedly secular kooks (people that think drinking beer proves beyond a doubt they are not religious kooks) on the other.

      What it came from, btw, has nothing whatsoever to do with any of the stuff you mentioned. It started just as rotten. It started with Bishops angling for secular power who realised they could convert the peasants a lot easier if they invented a reason for a celebration on the day the peasants already celebrated (for good reason, outside the tropics the winter solstice is a big deal, and the closer to the pole you get the bigger a deal it is) and "progressed" to business interests manipulating poor children to pressure their parents into spending money they didnt have. Rotten at the start and rotten to the end.

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  6. Re:Who cares? by JWSmythe · · Score: 1, Troll

    Which reminds me of two famous quotes.

        "God is dead" - Nietzsche

        "Nietzsche is dead" - God

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  7. Re:Yes. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    I live in my parent's basement, and I'm 25. And you can kiss my hairy Muslim ass. Because Linux is obviously Jewish.

  8. Re:Install User Switcher Agent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    You could just break it to them now that Santa is a hoax.

  9. Re:Yes. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Ah yes! The rebuttal of marking anything that slights Linux or Linus as troll. That pretty much sums up the entire Linux cult.