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Santa Megathread

Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 11:07 pm
by Dr. Dos
Because it's almost Christmas and Santa rules.

Useful Resources:
NORAD Santa Tracker
Northpole.com - Easy online form to send Santa your Christmas list.

Other Media:
Santa in this years Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Miracle on 34th St. Trailer

Latest News:
Elves Get Busy at Santa's Workshop
NORTH POLE, Alaska - If you think the malls are busy with just three days until Christmas, then you can imagine what it's like in Santa's workshop.

The hours are ticking away about as fast as the temperatures at the North Pole, where there's only about four hours of daylight this time of year.

But that's not stopping Santa and his elves in their workshop who are busy working to brighten the spirits of everyone this Christmas season.

With the economy in a major chill and zeroes representing not just the temperature but many people's life savings, there's a lot to cry about.

But don't tell that to Santa Claus. The power of positive thinking is alive and well with the chief executive officer of Christmas.

While there's no corporate jet for St. Nicholas, his sleigh serves as a green travel source powered by the most mysterious of forces.

"(It's) a very special magic ... We believe in doing the best we can and goodwill. People come here just for the goodwill," Santa Claus said.

"It makes you smile, and anything that makes the kids happy, that's really what makes it nice, having kids really makes you forget your troubles," a parent said.

About 250,000 kids sent their wish lists to the North Pole post office in Alaska. Some drew pictures, and others showed up in person to meet Santa Claus.

Some drew a blank when asked by Santa what they wanted this year.

"You better get that wish list in fast because those elves can work, but not that fast," Santa said.

Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 11:08 pm
by Ibun
Santa gets to watch kids when they sleep, and have them sit in his lap. Guy's my hero.

Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 11:20 pm
by Dr. Sticks
The Physics of Santa and His Reindeer

No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

There are two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't appear to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total — 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second.

This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75½ million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest

man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second — a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

If every one of the 91.8 million homes with good children were to put out a single chocolate chip cookie and an 8 ounce glass of 2% milk, the total calories (needless to say other vitamins and minerals) would be approximately 225 calories (100 for the cookie, give or take, and 125 for the milk, give or take). Multiplying the number of calories per house by the number of homes (225 x 91.8 x 1000000), we get the total number of calories Santa consumes that night, which is 20,655,000,000 calories. To break it down further, 1 pound is equal to 3500 calories. Dividing our total number of calories by the number of calories in a pound (20655000000/3500) and we get the number of pounds Santa gains, 5901428.6, which is 2950.7 tons.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see above) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload (not even counting the weight of the sleigh) to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison, this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance — this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each.

In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion: If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 11:22 pm
by MuffinSticks
Well good thing I needed proof to know santa is dead. Case closed.

Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 11:25 pm
by Fritz
Shit segovia was right D:

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 12:21 am
by Gecko
That made my day.

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 12:22 am
by nickspoon
Nuh uh. You're all forgetting that Santa is magic.

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 4:41 am
by MuffinSticks
Nuh uh. You're all forgetting that Santa is magic.
Damn it, Nick! I had closure, and you had to ruin it.

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 4:43 am
by Bocaj Claw
On a related note: my two favorite holiday movies are Nightmare before Christmas and Hogfather.

Re: Santa Megathread

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 5:08 am
by Steve the Pocket
Elves Get Busy at Santa's Workshop
NORTH POLE, Alaska...
FAIL

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 5:10 am
by Dr. Sticks
never heard of Hogfather.

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 12:32 pm
by LewisTheTank
Didn't you ever notice the name "Santa" is an anagram of "Satan"?

:roll:

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 4:11 pm
by Tom Flapwell
You're all forgetting that Santa is magic.
I have two theories of how Santa could get the job done:

1. He has a time machine so that he can visit all the houses pretty much at once.

2. Deliveries are carried out by elves. Santa's just the boss.

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 6:57 pm
by Dr. Dos

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 10:47 pm
by osprey
Didn't you ever notice the name "Santa" is an anagram of "Satan"?

:roll:
I've been using that joke for years lol.