Santa in 2022!
Santa In 2022
At this time of year there’s a pretty famous man about town who’s got a very large show to keep on the road. We wanted to get the low down on how the North Pole keeps itself up to date with the latest tech and gadgets, so asked some little Elves what Santa’s workshop might look like in 2022 …
Hydrogen Powered Sleigh
In 2006 the US Department of Transportation officially designated Santa’s sleigh as a hybrid hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. This marked a turning point for the North Pole who’d previously relied on using magic dust alone; now when Rudolph and his friends got a bit tired, Santa could activate hydrogen mode giving the reindeer a well-deserved break. However, 16 years later we’ve heard the tech is even more advanced. The University of Leicester have recently determined that taking into account the weight of all the children in the world’s presents, Santa’s sleigh needs to travel at around 500 times the speed of sound … that’s pretty fast. Fast enough to need the equivalent of 150 Boeing 747 jet engines, or the thruster power of the Saturn V Rocket from the Apollo Space Missions. Their big discovery though, is that in order to keep things stable travelling at those kinds of speeds, Santa will need to have attached a pair of wings to the sleigh. Looks like Elon Musk might have some competition if Santa ever decides to turn his sights to the stars!
Cloned Elves
Controversial, but could Santa really be cloning his elves!? Well, with around 526 million children to deliver presents to, there are a lot of toys need to be made every year and that doesn’t leave much time for (ahem…) making new elves the traditional way. Gregory Mone writing in his book, The Truth About Santa, believes the Big Man’s tackled this using somatic cell nuclear transfer, the same process used to clone the likes of Dolly the Sheep. Given most of the jobs in the workshop are pretty repetitive and arduous Mone thinks Santa will have selected the most docile and industrious personalities, who don’t mind the isolated lifestyle the North Pole has to offer, as candidates for his cloning tanks.
Drones
Some experts think Santa Claus favours a more tech savvy approach to present delivery in 2022 … drones. In this article by Darrell West he suggests that a fleet of 29,463 drones have been modified Fast and Furious style in the North Pole to travel at speeds of 500mph, using solar power to stay adequately charged. There are an extra 1 million drones he can utilise too; those that have been asked for as gifts in children’s letters to him. If he uses these to deliver all the presents to households of children who are hoping to find a drone under the tree anyway (including any siblings who live there), then that massively reduces the number of homes left to visit. West believes that the super charged North Pole Drone Squadron can then successfully complete gift drop offs at all the remaining homes on Santa’s list!
Automation
With The North Pole Government Department of Christmas Affairs having just released their official Naughty and Nice List for 2022 (have you checked your name yet?) there’s a lot of conversation around how Santa compiles The List. When you consider the number of letters he receives too, he needs to be sure there are no errors – for example, he can’t have a naughty child receiving the gifts of somebody right at the top of the good list. By deploying the right kind of software (YOPLA neither confirms or denies that we’ve built Santa an app…) he can be sure that he’s not having to rely on manual data entry and that stock checkers and project management can all be tailored around who’s asked for what in their Christmas letters. Not only that, but automation allows for Santa to be absolutely confident in the security of his lists … automated scheduled backups, multifactor authentication and the right protections in place keep all the children’s data safe and secure. It would certainly be a bit problematic if Santa was the victim of a cyber-attack.
No More Coal for Naughty Children?
Let’s be honest, giving a lump of coal to anybody these days would be somewhat frowned upon. Climate change, health concerns and questions as to where Santa was getting his fossil fuels from, all make compelling arguments for a replacement. But in the 21st Century what would be a suitable equivalent? Take a look at this article from Bored Panda for some hilarious suggestions for what a modern day lump of coal might be!
Wishing everybody a wonderful Christmas and New Year!
