How Santa does it.....or

There are approximately two billion children [persons under 18] in the Buddhist Religions, and this reduces the workload for Christmas Night to 15% of the total Child Population, that is 378,000,000 according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average rate of 3.5 children per household we have 108 million homes, assuming that there is at least one good child in each.

Santa has about 31 hours to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth [assuming that he travels East to West, which seems logical]. This works out at 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian Household with a Good Child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to find somewhere to park the sleigh, hop out with correct presents and jump down the chimney, fill stockings, distribute remaining presents under the tree, eat mince pies or other similar goodies, drink glass of sherry if left, get back up the chimney and jump into sleigh and get on to next house.

Assuming that each of the 108million 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 trip of 75.5million miles, not counting bathroom stops or other breaks. This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. In comparison the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run [at best] about 15 miles an hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set [or similar] which weighs 2lbs, the sleigh will be carrying over 500 thousand tons not counting Santa himself or his delivery schedule. On land a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300lbs. Even assuming that a flying reindeer can pull ten times the normal amount, the job can’t be done with four, five eight or even twenty reindeer, Santa would need about 360,000 of them. This would increase the total payload of the sleigh by a further 54,000 tons to roughly 7 times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth [the ship, not the monarch].

600,000 tons travelling at a speed of 650miles per second creates an enormous air resistance…this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair [assuming that the reindeer are organised in pairs, which may not be the optimum for manoeuvrability but is the conventional formation] would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. Therefore they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. Unfortunately the entire reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second or right about the time that Santa reaches the fifth house on the trip. Although it would be reassuring if Santa had several other reindeer teams sitting on the substitutes bench, ready for this disaster, he would never get to use them. Since Santa would need to accelerate from a dead stop to 650miles per second in .001 seconds he would be subject to quite high centrifugal forces of some 17,500 g’s. A 250lb Santa [which seems ludicrously slim given his usual appearance] would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a blob of quivering pink goo.

Therefore if Santa doesn’t bring your present please try to be understanding if you phone to complain.

Xmas Greetings!!

From us ("the wishor") to you ("hereinafter called the wishee") Please
accept without obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an
environmentally-conscious, socially-responsible, politically-correct,
low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral, celebration of the winter
solstice holiday, practised within the most enjoyable traditions of the
religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice,
with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of
others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at
all...and a financially-successful, personally-fulfilling, and
medically-uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally-accepted
calendar year 2004, but with due respect for the calendars of choice of
other cultures or sects, and having regard to the race, creed, colour, age,
physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or dietary
preference of the wishee. By accepting this greeting you are bound by these
terms that-
* This greeting is subject to further clarification or withdrawal;
* This greeting is freely transferable provided that no alteration shall be
made to the original greeting and that the proprietary rights of the wishor
are acknowledged;
* This greeting implies no promise by the wishor to actually implement any
of the wishes;
* This greeting may not be enforceable in certain jurisdictions and/or the
restrictions herein may not be binding upon certain wishees in certain
jurisdictions and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wishor;
* This greeting is warranted to perform as reasonably may be expected within
the usual application of good tidings, for a period of one year or until the
issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first;
* The wishor warrants this greeting only for the limited replacement of this
wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wishor; and,
* Any references in this greeting to "the Lord", "Father Christmas", "Our
Saviour", or any other festive figures, whether actual or fictitious, dead
or alive, shall not imply any endorsement by or from them in respect of this
greeting, and all proprietary rights in any referenced third party names and
images are hereby acknowledged.

Gibson Research & security tools

Many of you will be familiar with Steve Gibson's enviable reputaton for taking M$ to task over their security record.....and doing something about it.
He has written numerous progs to protect your files and keep your machine problem free.

Here is the current list of his Freeware:

http://grc.com/freepopular.htm

You can use these, as instructed, with impunity, BUT....RTFM!!!

HARRIW!!!

Jeffers grudgingly admits that it's that time agai

Just wanted to say....

http://ww12.e-tractions.com/snowglobe/globe.htm

AND PLEASE LET THE LITTLE GIRL BUILD HER SNOWMAN!!!