Santa Claus Science?

Came by this article from a science magazine. Santa Claus true or false? You decide.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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 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 75-1/2 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 manmade 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.
4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 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 point #1) 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.
5. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering 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 centripetal 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.

Fear

Its a fear I cannot understand. A fear I never had before. The fear of being reckless, fear of being daring. Yes, I am bounded, chained by a fear I never used to have. Its been 5 days since I got my bicycle back and trust me, I have been cycling for these 5 days. However, something is very different from the past. Now, theres a fear that wraps around me, causing me to be extremely careful. This extra attention that I give to the traffic. The slow speed that I move at on the pedestrian walkway. I know where this fear comes from. I suppose its what they call post accident trauma. Being knocked down by a car and losing a bike has certainly inserted a safety measure in me. This safety measure made me fear traffic, fear the road, fear speed. For these 5 days that I was on wheels, I hardly hit the road. Most of the time I would just cruise my way around on pedestrian walkways. I am afraid of the road. I am afraid of cars knocking me down. Even on the walkways, I cycle very slowly. Its very hard for me to go into gear 8, or even 7. I am afraid of knocking people down, I am afraid of falling. The guts that used to be with me when I cycle is gone. I feel rather lost, not knowing where to go. I do not know whether this is a good thing or not. Some might say this is good, that I pay so much care and attention to my own safety, but I don't know. I really want my guts back. I want to speed on the roads with no fear again. I want to ride down hills. I want to go off road. I want to be the biker I used to be. I want my guts back. Take away this fear from me. Release me from the bondage of trauma, break the chains of fear that lock me down.

Hotwheels!!!!

YES! Finally after about 8 months of waiting, the bike can hit the roads again! Yep, I have finally completed the bike restoration programme and the bike is now fully functional. For all of you who don't know, my cycle was rendered disfunctional about 8 months ago due a pathetic car accident. For 8 months, the bike laid motionless in my room. The bike restoration plan was started during late October this year. The plan was to, of course, restore the bike to back to functioning condition. It is not a simple task. I started out by going around many different bike shops and going online to look for good deals and compare different prices. All this took about a month to finish. Finally I caught a very fantastic deal online and brought my bike down to the shop to fix. I would not provide the details but the deal was really quite a bargain. The bargaining and negotiations took about 5 days to complete as there many parts of the bike to be discussed. Finally, on 21st November 2005, I brought my bike down to this nice shop to be fixed. The repair process took one day to complete. On 22nd November 2005, which is also my sister's birthday (for more information about this can go to my sister's blog at http://neverperfect-.blogspot.com), the bike was delivered to my house. Fully functional bike. Some new parts are: Giant Yukon Disc frame, disc brakes, new rims, front derailer, gear shifters and brake levers. With my fixed bike, I immediately sped off to my friend's house. Ah, I totally forgot I had to stay home to cut cake with my family! Sorry sis! When my mum called me, it was quite late already. I had half an hour to rush home but my mum wouldn't allow it. She was worried enough since the car accident so of course she wouldn't allow me to speed home. So, I just spent the midnight cycling around Bukit Gombak neighbourhood then stayed at my friend's home to watch Man U play Villareal. After that, we cycled for lunch then went home. And thats that. Reached home and I started blogging... typing this post and posting it...

Shopping, Not My Favourite Past Time

Imagine walking and walking and walking, at your left and right side are temptations that aim to rip a hole off your wallet. You continue walking with no aim at all, just walking and throwing yourself into temptation of spending money like nobody's business... Thats a situation I don't like to be in. And more than often, I find myself in this situation. Yes, you have no choice but to go shopping when you are out with girls. My sister in particular is one person who so loves shopping that she can spend hours walking around a 1km by 1km compound. No kidding. Wait, don't get me wrong. I still likes to go down to orchard road to buy stuff, but not shopping. I don't like the idea of walking around an area with no real intention or aim, looking at items through a glass panel and not really able to afford it. No. I like to go shopping when I have the cash, when I know what I want and when I see it, I will buy it. Just recently I went shopping with my sis and some other friends. It was quite an experience. I would just follow them and they would go into almost every single shop that they see, and I will just stand outside waiting. Occasionally I will hear someone ask me, "Nice?" I will just take a look and give a short comment. This can go on for hours, around the same compound, into and out of same shops. Sure is some good leg exercise. Some tips for guys out there though. Don't ever complain outwardly to your female shopping companion that you are tired or bored, just keep it to yourself and hope that they will end their shopping trip fast. If you really can't take it anymore, suggest to go for a meal or a break. If the girls ask you for comment, give your comment. Don't try to act cool by acting indifferent. Don't give false comments coz you won't want people to waste their money buying ugly things. When shopping with girls, just stand behind and follow them, don't ask why, just follow. Don't try to get a seat at any opportunity you get, it will only create a bad impression of yourself. And lastly, if you agree to go shopping with them, go shopping with them. Don't try to excuse yourself or leave halfway no matter how boring or tiring it may be. Be a gentleman for goodness sake.

Horrible Horrible Horrible Not So Horrible Afterall

I promised I will update... and ar, forget it. I am not here because I promised so, I am here because I really feel so... argh, frustrated. Let me tell you about it. My computer, which is I think 6 years or even older, is not as obedient already. Just last wednesday, it decides to break down. Well, I did my best to revive it but to no avail. So ya, I had to call the repairman down to fix it up. Sure, fixed an appointment. Well, I felt bored so I tried to mess with the com again. That piece of chips + wire + metal then decides to work again! My goodness. I was glad and shocked at the same time. Must be God's miracle. Thank God. So well, I had to call off the appointment. That repairman named Mike sounded disappointed (one business gone). Haha, so I am real glad that crap worked again. So I was playing happily when... dang, the modem started giving me problems. It just won't recgonize the stupid cable. Pathetic. Ok, I am no expert in cable so I had to call the technicians from Starhub down. Fixed an appointment for Saturday. So saturday came and I waited. Felt bored so I went to mess with the com again. You all can guess it. The internet is up again! Glad and shocked and I don't know what to do. That guy must be on his way. And yes he is. Technician guy called me and told me he is on his way. I told him internet is up already so he don't have to come down. Technician guy sounded glad and say ok. Ya, so thats it, pathetic computer back to working order with no external help, no even help from me. Thank God. Well, all I did was format the com... and ARGH! This is my second frustration. I lost so many files in the com that I can just go and bang my head on the wall already. All my project work, my literature, school research... and even my saved game files... especially my saved game files... especially the Need For Speed Underground saved game file! All the 111 races that I completed and all the cars that I modified and designed myself... all formatted... Right, smart move Meng Hui. I didn't even have a backup copy. I searched high and low for a backup copy but no, no backup copy!!!! Argh, I don't want to replay that game anymore, I'll just play other game... nah, I'll just get my bike fixed and go cycling. Haha! Yes! My bike is getting fixed soon! I am so glad! Finally, after months without getting those wheels on the road, I can finally hit the streets again!! Woohoo! Gladness overwhelms me and I can't even go to sleep with the excitement knowing that my biking days are coming back again... HEEHEE........:)

An Update (Obviously), About My Exams Results

Recently, I recieved complains that I did not update my little blog. Well, so here goes, an update or a new post, whatever you want to call it. Hey, did I tell you that I finished my exams already? Of course I did. But I didn't tell you the results right? Well, here goes. I PASSED! Yeah, that is really fantastic. At first when I had the setback in my economics paper, I really though I had no hope. There goes one subject. I only had geography and literature to push me to J2. Literature was definitely not my forte and you need 2 'A' Level passes and 1 'AO' Level pass to get into J2. I was desperate, but well, what can I do. Did the exams and prayed all thing would go well. When I got the results, I was overwhelmed with joy. Literature got me really fantastic results. That was unbelievable, thank God. Geography was pretty cool, and economics was not as bad as I expected. General paper was pretty cool. So the results on my result sheet (which is the combination of CA and Promotional Exams marks) are Economics (A): E, Geography (A): D, Literature (A): D, General Paper (AO): C5, Chinese AO: B3. That means 3 'A' Level passes and 2 'AO' Level passes! That also mean that I passed everything that I studied for! Praise the Lord! Of course it isn't the best of the results I could get but I am already very happy with this. Indeed I will have buck up through my J2 years in order to get a good enough results to go through to university. Well, an update, and I will update more frequently, no problem.