Does Santa Use Technology?
How does Santa manage to visit the home of every child in the world in only one night? He uses technology, of course! Tech Talker reveals Santa’s big secrets.
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Does Santa Use Technology?
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Many people underestimate ole’ St. Nick, claiming his sleigh and reindeer can’t possibly make it to every child’s house on magic alone. By no means am I discrediting the Christmas magic of Santa Clause, but in this day and age, Santa has stepped up his game enlisting modern technology to make his big night a success.
Here are some quick Santa stats courtesy of ABC News.
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Santa visits approximately 132 million homes in one night across 24 time zones.
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Santa actually has 31 hours to carry out his single night’s duties due to the time change between time zones.
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Even with that much time, he still has to visit about 1,200 homes per second to make all of his stops!
You have to admit, this sounds like a pretty daunting task.
What’s even cooler though is that you can watch Santa do this live across the globe! Just visit google santatracker or noradsanta. These websites will show Santa as he visits houses throughout every time zone.
See also: Christmas Math 101
Which Technology Does Santa Use?
Okay so we know that we can follow Santa, but how the heck does Santa know where to go? That’s the question I was asking myself when it hit me. He’s using the global positioning system or GPS. Now back in the day before GPS Santa would have used a combination of stars and maps to help guide his way to every house.
But in today’s fast paced society Santa needs to keep up to date on changing locations, weather patterns, and of course the best fields for his reindeer to take a break. GPS allows him to do this by providing a constant connection to his home base in the North Pole.
This way Santa can arrange resupplies of presents, candy canes, and hot chocolate.
A relatively recent development Santa has had to contend with is planes flying through the air. To make sure he doesn’t collide with a 747, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) helps to keep planes and other flying objects out of Santa’s way. He also has his own form of radar built into the sleigh just in case some pilot didn’t get the memo that it was Christmas Eve.
Of course any GPS can track and provide directions, but you’re probably wondering how Santa can travel so quickly between houses and carry so many gifts. Well to accomplish this Santa has modified his sleigh to be quiet and quick by utilizing a form of warp drive installed in the shoes of his reindeer. I can’t go into this too much because I’m sure Santa wouldn’t want me disclosing one of his most closely guarded secrets, but suffice it to say that those reindeer didn’t get so quick on their own..
Santa’s Tech Secrets
There is one Santa secret that has come to light and it is one of his most clever tricks. His shrink ray. There are so many houses that don’t have a fireplace for him to fit through that Santa had to devise a clever way to sneak into every house.
For this he tasked his elves with creating a shrink ray that can miniaturize himf and all of the presents to such a small size that when he can’t fit down a chimney, he can just squeeze through any crack or vent. Then once inside, he reverses the shrink on both him and the presents and takes a bite of both a cookie and a glass of milk. Then he shrinks himself back and goes out the way he came in!
This shrink ray also helps Santa to manage the huge volume of toys on his sleigh (in case you were at all curious how he carried enough for every child in the world).
The last Santa tech secret we’ll talk about today is the biggest secret of all. How does Santa keep track of the millions of children around the world, their holiday wish lists, and whether they’ve been naughty or nice? For this Santa uses enterprise-grade database software which he can check from his tablet on the go. But how does he track individual children? How does Santa know if you’ve been naughty or nice? Does he have cameras and microphones hidden at school and home?
Nope. He just emails, calls, and writes to each parent to find out!
Well, that’s it for today. Be sure to check out all my earlier episodes at quickanddirtytips tech-talker. And if you have further questions about this podcast or want to make a suggestion for a future episode, post them on Facebook QDTtechtalker.
Until next time, I’m the Tech Talker, keeping technology simple!
Santa Claus image courtesy of Shutterstock.
