Track Santa
Want to watch Santa’s path as he makes his way across the globe? Check out the official NORAD Tracks Santa website. In case you don’t know what NORAD is:
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is a binational military organization formally established in 1958 by Canada and the United States to monitor and defend North American airspace. Using data from satellites and ground base radar, NORAD monitors, validates and warns of attack against North America by aircraft, missiles or space vehicles. NORAD also provides surveillance and control of the airspace of Canada and the United States.
This year marks their 50th year of tracking the red suited burglar. Check out the How we do it! page for info on the technology they use. They also offer downloads for the kids to play games or color (after printing, not on the screen :)).
What started this?
The tradition began after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. store advertisement for children to call Santa on a special “hotline” included an inadvertently misprinted telephone number. Instead of Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” The Director of Operations, Colonel Harry Shoup, received the first “Santa” call on Christmas Eve 1955. Realizing what had happened, Colonel Shoup had his staff check radar data to see if there was any indication of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Indeed there were signs of Santa and children who called were given an update on Santa’s position. Thus, the tradition was born.
Excerpt taken from the NORAD Tracks Santa history page.
Merry Christmas everybody.
23.Dec.05 
Government, Holidays 
Comment (1)
Can’t build what, where?
The city of Franklin, TN (about 15 miles south of Nashville, near me) is trying to pass a ban on garage doors on the fronts of houses. The garage doors will either have to be on the side or the back of the house. This would only affect new houses, not existing ones.
I like the look of a house with a side or rear entry garage because it makes the house look bigger but I don’t think a town should decide where the door is located. Maybe they should just send out a letter saying “Please keep your garage clean”.
16.Jun.05 Government Comments (2)
There’s a meeting? Text me.
India’s lower house doesn’t have an alarm to signal that a meeting is required. The only way for the legislators to know they are to be there is for people to either tell them when they see them or call them. This method, obviously, didn’t work very well.
How to get around this? SMS of course! With over 50 million of all the phones in India being mobile, text messaging is the fastest and easiest way to get important info to someone.
“This lets us contact them immediately,” Azad’s spokesman told Reuters on Thursday. “We are in the process of collecting the MPs’ mobile numbers. The drive is on.”
And it’s not just for the politicians. Citizens of India can also register complaints with the government-run water board instantly.
From water theft and contamination to broken pipes and tankers that fail to turn up to parched, waterless slums, customers can now register their complaints instantly, avoiding the traditional bureaucratic run-around, the board promises.
I just hope they don’t use Cingular. More bars in more places my ass.
21.Apr.05 Government, Technology Comments (0)
There is no patch….
for human stupidity. This article from SFGate proves it.
More than one-third of Internal Revenue Service employees and managers who were contacted by Treasury Department inspectors posing as computer technicians provided their computer login and changed their password, a government report said Wednesday.
You would think the government would put out some kind of memo telling people to never give out their passwords or let someone talk them into changing their password to one chosen for them. How could they even justify dropping the ball? “Well, he said he worked for the IT department. I know it was over the phone but his voice sounded so techy that I believed him.”
Want to know what the worst part was?
“We were able to convince 35 managers and employees to provide us their username and change their password,” the report said.
That was a 50 percent improvement when compared with a similar test in 2001, when 71 employees cooperated and changed their passwords.
Let’s think about this for a minute. If this kind of test has been done before, and so many failed, they should have some kind of training to stop this from happening. This is a major security issue and it seems that the weakest link, human stupidity, is not being addressed. Maybe, just maybe, this is a wake up call and something will be done about it. Failing once isn’t too bad because you can fix the issue but failing twice is inexcusable.
Where are the network admins/managers? Why are they not following up on this kind of thing in an effort to secure their network? Time for another security audit and lots of “Do this but don’t do that” memos.
17.Mar.05 Government, Moron Comments (0)
Say no to socialism
Yet again, the government is trying to move us from being a capitalist nation to a socialist nation. The latest round of degradation is a proposed amendment to the Constitution.
The resolution would amend the Constitution to read “all persons shall enjoy the right to health care of equal high quality.”
and
“A Constitutional guarantee of health care for all will force Congress to take action to ensure that health coverage is there for all Americans.”
Why do we need this? Everyone has access to health care. Sure, some of us have better access but guess what? We earned that right. Instead of sitting around and not working, or just working menial jobs, we got out of the cave and worked to provide for ourselves and our families. If you don’t like the area you are in, move. No one is forcing you to live in a bad area.
If the government really wants to improve life in America, how about an amendment telling people to get off their lazy ass and earn a living? I know that not everyone can because they have a real medical condition that prevents them from working. I have no problem helping them out. I have a problem with the estimated 70+% of the American people on welfare that are abusing the system. The ones that can work but don’t because they know the government will encourage their laziness, err, I mean, “help them out”.
Get a grip people. It is not the governments place to take care of us. It is their place to protect us by providing a safe place to live (i.e. military, police, fire department, etc.). The liberals need to stop thinking that they can fix every problem in the U.S. by giving the government control of our daily lives. Stop taxing me over 45% of my income (based on all taxes I pay, including sales tax) because you want to force me to give money to causes I don’t believe in, especially welfare and Social (in)Security.
Speaking of Social (in)Security, take your hand out of my pocket. If you want to help me save for the future, print up some of those pretty brochures that show people how to invest in moderate growth mutual funds. The all-time average of the stock market is 11.8%. In any given 10 year period (including the Depression), the average growth is over 10%. That beats the hell out of the meager 2% I will see out of Social (in)Security. Plus, when I die, instead of my surviving family only getting a percentage of my SS, they would get the entire sum of my mutual fund investments that will continue to grow and earn them more money.
Want to see why I support SS reform? Check out the Social Security Reform page at DaveRamsey.com. There’s a whole list of reasons why the reform would be a good thing for the young workers of today. Plus, there is a calculator showing how much you would have at retirement if you were able to start contributing just 4% of your current SS tax into a mutual fund.
I did the calculation and found that if I was able to start contributing part of my SS to mutual funds (C Fund, 10.99% returns for the last 10 years), I would retire at 65 and be able to pull out $5,113.79 per month! Compare that to my SS estimate showing that I would pull a whopping $1,189 per month on SS and you see why I support reform (after you run the calculation, there is a link to the “Estimated Social Security Benefit” site located under “Breakdown of the Current Social Security System”). Also, I would have a nest egg of $768,028.67 to pass to my children because the monthly draw is interest earned. They wouldn’t get anywhere near that from SS.
No friend, government intervention is not the answer. Pulling yourself up and wanting to provide a better future for your children is the answer. Needing a little help along the way is not a bad thing. Expecting help all the time is a bad thing.
04.Mar.05 Government Comments (3)
- wyckedone.net
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