ENGINEERS TAKE THE FUN OUT OF CHRISTMAS

Hey all, this is my first post. lol i stumbled upon this, and thought you would all enjoy it.

There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for 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, which comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least 1 good child in each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming 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 a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house.
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 stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second or 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of 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) 15 miles per hour.
The payload of 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 over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them, Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). A mass of nearly 600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates 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 of reindeer would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached 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/second in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim considering all the high calorie snacks he must have consumed over the years) 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 quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

Hahaha Merry Christmas

Tyler Wright

just an update

well,
It's been quite some time since i actually mad a real post. So here goes.
Its Wednesday the 16th and i'm sitting in my room reading a book about how the west destroyed Africa. all day, i once again did nothing. I just watched the Picton Montage, which made me want to be home for Christmas that much more...i'll be home on the 23rd and ready to spread some Christmas cheer.
the past two weeks i have been 'studying' for my exams. I've had three thus far, and each has went better than anticipated. Im hopin Peace Studies is the same way.probably not tho.
My days consist of waking up with intentions of studying my stuff all day. but each day i spend way too much time on the web, looking at stuff that gets me no where. a good portion of my day is spent trying to think of, and looking for, good movies that i have not yet seen (last week i was refered to 'In Bruges' = good). by the time 7:30 roles around (like now) i have done little to no studying. And, since the exam is not till friday i will probably not Acually study till 5 o'clock tommorow eve. sigh.
i dont feel i've (well, i actually haven't) accomplished anything worth while in the past weeks. unless you count class. which is all i've done. I feel i need to get out, and do something intense.
I look forward to Christmas

Best,
Grant DeVries

My New Idol

Hello fellow aligators

heres a little vid to help get you guys through the rest of your exams!



ps kyle i got no idea how to put the actual vid here

Somethign Somethign Something DarkSIde

I don't know if anybody was aware of this, but its pretty fricken sweet. Sunday December 22! set your timers folks. I just hope i still get it. Apparently after i left home we switched to basic cable :S.

Now if you excuse me im going to go try to actionscript and cry. Wish me luck!

Some things should be left unsaid, Others should be left unheard

Heard from the back corner of my cuisine and culture class during break:

Girl 1: "I can't wait for this semester to be over"
Girl 2: "I know, and then I get to go to Cuba! Except I'll have my period which really really sucks"
Girl 1: "Why dont you just skip it. Start taking your next set of pills when you finish the ones you are on"
Girl 2: "No, that screws up your body. I'll just suffer"
Girl 1: "Better pack some tampons"

Too much information really doesnt say enough for this situation.

When your feeling down....

Hello Alligators, as we now approach a hectic schedule of exams and cramming we may experience feelings of being overwhelmed, overworked, and crappyness. While surfing the web and admiring the tales of sxephil a video that will be sure to put a smile on your face came to my attention. I hope this helps warm each of your hearts, and does not curdle anyones blood.


if kyle could maybe help put this as a video on the site it would be great...until now please just copy paste this into your browser or click the link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bmhjf0rKe8 really people its not that hard