Why Santa is a Time Lord

The first question we have to ask is, why does Santa do what he does?

Seriously, who goes to that level of trouble to give gifts to people with nothing in return? Well, if we look at The Doctor's track record, he's dedicated his entire life to helping people. He's particularly fond of humans and basically exists to make people feel safe and happy.

We also know the Doctor is more or less incapable of standing still. In 'The Slow Invasion' we saw The Doctor go almost literally insane when he had to sit and wait for a couple of hours.

Finally, there's the challenge involved. The Doctor's MO is to jump at the chance of an impossible challenge and always manages to pull it off.

So, think of Santa's job. He has to do the impossible in a single night, something that will make him impossibly busy and the result is he makes people feel safe and happy.

Basically, doing Santa's job is something that fits with everything we know about The Doctor.

Then we come to the logistics.

There are approximately 2.18 billion Christians on the planet. If we divide that by the average members of a family (two parents and two kids), that's roughly 545 million homes he has to visit in a single night.

If Santa starts at most westerly tip of Alaska at GMT+12 and works his way east, finishing in Russia at GMT+12, he can guarantee himself 24 hours of darkness on Christmas Eve.  That means, in order to deliver presents to every person who celebrates Christmas, Santa has to visit roughly 22708333 homes every hour...or six thousand three hundred and seven homes every second.

Now, even if Santa could move that fast, we know that Santa doesn't just arrive, drop presents and leave. He eats the mince pie/cookies and milk you've left for him, and he can't do each house in the most efficient order because he has to avoid the houses of the kids who are waiting up to try and catch a glimpse of him.


Basically, the only way he can do it is if he has more time than is available. Long story short, he needs a TARDIS, or at least a Vortex Manipulator to allow himself to travel in time. That way, he can visit a house, drop off the gifts, eat his cookie, then travel to the next house and arrive there at the same time he's at the first one. 

Of course, this leads to problems. If he's in every house simultaneously, he's likely to meet himself, which means crossing his own timeline, leading to timey-wimey problems, and that much time travel in a single location will tear so many holes in the time-space continuum, that he'd likely leave all of Earth time-locked...just like the Last Great Time War became time-locked due to over-use of time travel.


So, it's likely he'd do maybe on street or a few streets at a time. This explains why you can hear Santa on the roof of your house sometimes. He has to walk, rather than just land the TARDIS in your living room.

This, however answers a long time question. Now that very few houses have chimneys, how does Santa get into the house? Well, the answer is obviously that Santa has a Sonic Screwdriver to let himself into houses.

But, of course, this raises another question: If Santa is delivering presents in a TARDIS, why is Santa always depicted in a sleigh rather than a Police Box?

The answer to that is obviously simple. The TARDIS isn't a Police Box, It's a TARDIS and, as such, has a chameleon circuit....a camouflage system designed to automatically blend in with it's environment.

Well, Santa, in his modern form, has been around since 1773...and what vehicle would fit most seamlessly into pre-Victorian England? A sleigh, of course...and while The Doctor doesn't experience time in a linear fashion, we know the TARDIS only got 'stuck' as a Police Box due to the faulty Chameleon Circuit in the 1960's....meaning it's entirely probable that in the 1700's, the TARDIS could indeed have been disguised as a Sleigh.

Also, as a Time Traveller, we know The Doctor wouldn't necessarily wait a year between deliveries. In fact, it would make far more sense to 'do' multiple Christmases at a time. You might as well deliver a present, hop forward in time and do next year's while you are there. So, perhaps, up to this point, The Doctor has only delivered presents when the Chameleon Circuit is working.

Of course, there's the final option. The Doctor is a genius, who literally saved the universe by jump-starting a second Big Bang. It's unlikely that he couldn't fix the Chameleon Circuit if he really wanted to. All evidence points to the fact that the TARDIS is a Police Box simply because The Doctor likes it that way.

Finally, we come to the most conclusive piece of evidence: Santa's Sack. In a single bag, he can carry enough presents for 2 billion people, and this bag can fit on a regular sized sleigh. The only way this can work is if his sack is bigger on the inside, and the Time-Lords of Gallifrey are the only known people in the known universes to have mastered this technology.

Ladies and Gentlemen. I think this is conclusive proof that Santa is a Time Lord...and most likely to be The Doctor

 

Some Bitter, Cynical Advice

I've actually tried to write this post about 7 times now, and each time I've given up, basically because it's made sound like a jaded, cynical asshole.

It all started during a slow day at work. Someone asked a hypothetical question:

If you could go back in time, meet yourself when you were 12 and pass on some advice, what would that advice be?

A small caveat: No direct knowledge of the future. No telling yourself to invest heavily in Apple, what the lottery numbers are or what team to bet on. Just general life advice.

Finally, after much thought, my response came down to this:

"The world does not give a shit about you or your feelings. It only cares what it can get from you. Enjoy this while you can, because as hard as you think things are now, they're going to get so much harder."

See? Cynical asshole.

Well, let me start by defining 'The Real World' because when I was a teenager, I hated that expression. What do you mean, the 'real world'? I live in the real world! Just because I'm a teenager and don't have mortgage payments yet doesn't mean I live in some weird parallel reality.

...except you absolutely, totally do.

Let me explain: High school is the weirdest, most artificial environment on the planet. It is the only time in your life when you're going to be constantly surrounded by people in your own age group, who are all at the same stage in their lives, doing the same things as you while being exposed to the same ideas. It's why your taste in music, movies and what clothes you wear is such a big deal, because it's the only thing that sets you apart from everyone else and defines who you are and what group you fit into.

...and here's the big thing. School is the only environment on the planet where everyone around you has a vested interest in your success and will do everything they can to make you succeed.

It may not seem like that. Your teacher may be a real hardass who's on your case all the time, but let me explain something:

At school, your teachers are stuck with you. No matter how much you fuck up, no matter how many tests you fail or how little you pay attention...they have to teach you. You don't get fired from English class because you can't spell....but here's the thing, you fail enough and your teacher absolutely can get fired. His job and standing as a successful teacher depends on whether you and your classmates pass. Also, your school gets funding based on the school's pass rate. If it's a private school, they can charge more if more people pass and the school gets prestigious. If it's a public school, more passes equal more tax dollars and government grants.

You're a long term investment. If your school was a factory, you are the product...and if a factory produces shitty products, it doesn't stay a factory for very long.

So, let's talk about the 'real world', shall we?

You graduate and you walk into your first job.Let me explain what that's like.

You're surrounded for the first time by a totally diverse group of people. Your desk is between a 50 year old, divorced father of three and a 23 year old girl who's only there until her acting career takes off.

First and foremost, you're not a classmate or a colleague to these people. Unlike school, it's not everybody's first day. There are people who have probably worked at that company for decades...and you are a massive pain in the ass to them.

Don't get me wrong, they're probably nice people, but they've seen hundreds of people just like you come and go and now you're the new kid who they have to train...and you're probably going to fuck up for a while and increase their workload.

Basically, they have to do their own workload, while training you, checking your work and cleaning up your mistakes. They get absolutely no benefit out of this.

Then comes the two biggest shocks. I see this over and over with the new kids at my job, and it makes me laugh every time.

Let's say you go into work and do a good job. You finish your assignment and it's a masterpiece. So you go to your boss, hand him a stack of paper, tell them you've done your job exactly to his specifications and stand back and wait to bask in the shower of praise that's about to come your way.

Instead, your Boss barely looks up from his monitor, looks slightly annoyed at the interruption and tells you to leave it on his desk...then there's a moment of awkward silence and he asks why you're still in his office.

The second big shock is when something fucks up. You're called into the office and your boss chews your ass out for the failure. You point out that you've spent months on this project, you haven't taken a break in weeks, you're in the office at sun up and there long after the sun has set. Every waking moment was devoted to this project and you physically couldn't have worked any harder. The suppliers let you down, the vendor never got back to you, a meteor took out a critical resource...

...and your Boss could not give less of a shit.

This brings me back to my very first point...that the world does not give a shit about you, your feelings and only what it can get from you.

This is the hardest adjustment that teenagers have to make when they step into the real world.

You see, if you do a good job, you're not going to get praised for it, because your praise is your paycheck. Your boss isn't there to give you a career and make sure you succeed. As far as he's concerned, there's a job that needs to be done and he's paying you to do it. That's the start and end of the story.

More importantly, it's the result that matters, not how much effort you put in or how hard you tried. You've gone from being the center of the universe to a very small, very replaceable cog in a very big machine. If you fuck up, they just pop you out and replace you with a cog that works. If you do your job well, then you're just doing what you're supposed to do.

Sadly, that's my advice.

Real Money for Fake Items

So, I read an article recently about how a battle in Eve Online cost hundreds of thousands of real dollars.

The (rather snide) article pointed out that you can buy in-game currency for real money, meaning every ship in the game has a real cash value, with some ships costing upwards of $3000.

This immediately brings to mind the pale, friendless virgin pulling out his credit card and dropping the price of a decent used car on a 'fake spaceship'. What a loser, right?

Well, first of all, that's a bit misleading. Yes, technically, all the ships have a real cash value, but you can still get these ships by playing the game... and that $3000 spaceship was probably bought by hundreds of players, many of whom never actually spent any 'real' money on it.

But this isn't the point of this article.

My problem is that this sort of thing is always characterized by someone, who has no clue what they're talking about, as 'spending real money on things that aren't real'.

Here's my point:

Person A opens iTunes and spends $2 on a song they like.

Person B opens their favorite MMO and spends $2 on a magic sword.

Now, if I say that someone has spent some real world money on a digital entertainment product that doesn't actually exist in the real world...which person have I just described?

The answer, of course, is both.

That's the part everyone always seems to miss. That MMO is a game, an entertainment product, and people who spend money on them aren't buying a 'fake item that doesn't exist', they're buying entertainment. If someone wants to spend $15 on some 'virtual items' that are going to bring them a few hours of fun in a game they enjoy...how is that any different from buying a $15 movie online?

Both the movie and the 'virtual item' don't exist in the real world. They're both digital products that you can only see and interact with from the other side of a screen. However, they both provide enjoyment to the person who purchased them.

Basically, 99% of our entertainment products today only exist virtually. I have literally thousands of dollars worth of movies, games and music that only exist as 1's and 0's on my hard drive.

Controllermodz.co.uk Custom Xbox One Controller Review

So I finally broke and decided to buy myself a custom Xbox One controller.

Just to be clear, I didn't want a full modded controller. All the 'mods' I went for were cosmetic only. Basically, I see 'features' like turbo buttons and rapid fire to be a little bit 'cheaty' for my taste. I wouldn't mind eventually buying a controller with an extra X + Y button on the underside so I can reload without taking my thumb off the right stick...but to me, that's on a par with remapping your controls on a PC keyboard...not something that's giving you a massive unfair advantage.

Now, I'll be completely honest, I went with controllermodz because they were cheap. A lot of websites I looked at either specialised in 'cheaty' mods, or were ridiculously expensive (as in £200+ expensive). My controller from controllermodz was £90 including postage and packing. Given that a standard wireless controller costs around £60, an extra £30 to make it unique didn't feel too expensive.

So what did I order?

I got the blue digital camo faceplate, silver chrome D-Pad, blue thumbsticks, blue LED for the guide button and my gamertag on the left.

Unfortunately, as I said, I went cheap...and you get what you pay for, and I had problems right out of the box.

My first dissapointment is that, while website has a cool little gadget where you pick your options and you can see what your controller should look like, each option isn't shown by actual photographs. Instead you get a graphic. On the website, the thumbsticks looked like a deep blue, darker than the faceplate. As you can see, they're a lot lighter and closer to turquoise on the controller. Being 33 years old, it shouldn't matter but, to me, they look a little bit 'girly'.

The next dissapointment was far more severe. The A + B buttons had a habit of sticking. I jumped into a game of BF4 online, tried to stand up from the prone position and ended up jumping on the spot until I managed to unstick the button.

The thumbsticks also felt a little loose. I have to be fair here, It's not something a casual player would notice, but I noticed there was a bit more 'play' in the sticks before they engaged. I have bought new standard controllers for my Xbox 360's that felt the same way, so I can't really blame them for this.

Finally, whereas most places will add a design or gamertag by physically printing it onto the controller, controllermodz use vinyl letters, and even more dissapointingly, they did nothing to 'seal' them in place. After a few hours, I looked down and saw the letters had physically bent and shifted.

On the upside, I sent an email to controllermodz and complained about the problems I was having and I got a reply within the hour that was extremely apologetic and they offered me my money back or a replacement with no argument whatsoever. I can't fault their service, and I could easily have got a refund if I wanted. The only downside was I had to ship the controller back to them at my own expense.

Apart from them not paying for shipping, this is something I really appreciate. I tend not to judge a company if they send me something faulty, but judge them by how they resolve it. Many companies have bought my loyalty through quickly and fairly fixing mistakes and controllermodz fall under that category.

In the end, I fixed the problems myself. Other than the thumbsticks (which I simply got used to) I saw the problem with the buttons was caused by the design 'wrap' that  placed over the top plate was a little ragged. It had been folded over into the button holes and was causing friction. The fix was simply to run a toothpick between the button and housing a few times to flatten it out. As for my gamertag decal, I simply straightened out the letters and added a thin layer of clear nail varnish over the top.

Now the big question: Would I buy another controller from Controllermodz?

Unfortunately, my answer is no. While they are relatively very cheap compared to other sites offering mods, you really get what you pay for and this simply does not have that high-end, premium feel you would expect from a custom item.

Even if we look at the sticking A + B buttons as a one off fluke, for me, the nail in the coffin is the gamertag decals...the one thing on the controller that makes it completely unique. It's placed in an area where you hand is constantly, and if they come loose after a few hours playtime, that's not a one-off fault, that's just poor design. There's no way to put a vinyl decal in that position and it not eventually come loose.

Basically, if you're a serious gamer and want something high end that stands out, unfortunately, you're going to have to stump up the extra cash to get it. On the other hand, if you have young kids and want to get them soemthing fun so they can tell their controllers apart, I would highly recommend controllermodz...just have some clear nail polish at the ready for when they arrive.

Selfies

You know what? I fucking hate selfies.

Don't get me wrong, the occasional arms-length snap with your phone when you're out with your mates is fine, but that's more about the occasion than just taking a picture of yourself. I'm talking about the people who seem to be addicted to taking pictures of their own face.

If you go onto flickr or instagram, you'll find people who post nothing but literally thousands of pictures of their own face. Why? Why does anyone need that many pictures of themselves? Here's my face when I've just woken up. Here's my face while I get ready for work. Here's my face while I'm sitting at my desk. Here's me in the bathroom mirror.

Oh, and don't forget: "Here's half my face so I can fill 3/4's of the frame with my tits. I've tagged it #allnatural #nofilters so you know that my skin really is poreless plastic and my eyes really are purple and look like they're glowing. SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME I'M PRETTY! I'VE EVEN COMMENTED HOW UGLY I AM SO EVERYONE WILL TELL ME I'M GORGEOUS!"

(Hint, Instagram sluts...no one who thinks they're ugly takes a hundred pictures of themselves every hour. But if you have such low self esteem you base your whole self worth on fishing for compliments by posting pictures of your tits, have at it.)

It nearly blew my mind when I found that the dedicated selfie-camera is actually a thing.

The Casio EX-TR35 actually makes me angry. It's basically a camera with the lens on the wrong side. Yep, the screen and all the controls are on the same side as the lens. It's literally built for taking arms-length selfies...complete with built in filters and 'makeup mode'. I wouldn't even mind so much if this was a cheap toy, the kind of thing you buy as a gag gift or buy for your 13 year old daughter... but this is a £900 camera (roughly $1300 USD)

Are you fucking kidding me? You can buy a Canon 7D for that...and the worst part is, this is actually fucking selling. It's popular. People are dropping pro-DSLR money on a camera that only takes pictures of your own face...sure you can use it as a regular camera, but as it's a fixed focus, wide angle lens, it's designed solely around selfies...so you're not just spending £900 on a selfie camera, you're spending $900 on a shit selfie camera.

So, by this point, you're probably asking yourself why I hate selfies so much. Why it makes my blood boil. Well, I can sum it up like this:

You have a camera in your hands. For the first time in history we can easily and cheaply capture high quality images and share them instantly with the world, and we can store them indefinitely without them ever fading or degrading over time. Jesus Christ. What an opportunity. What a responsibility.

Imagine if this technology existed 500 years ago. Imagine having access to a vast library of pictures from the 1500's to the present. Imagine everything we could learn, from what the Napoleonic wars looked like, to what average, everyday life was like in that period. You could truly get to know what the people were like back then.

Think of what the most interesting pictures are. Most of the time, it's not the well known, historical pictures that capture the imagination. It's not really even the professional, posed family portraits. It's seeing a snap of what your home town looked like a hundred years ago. The candid shots.  Your dad as a teenager rocking those bell bottoms.

We literally have an entire world of possibilites to capture. What are we taking pictures of?

hERe's My faCe, LOL!

If you think I'm being overly dramatic, you're right, I probably am...but I just think it says a lot about us as a culture that when the average person is faced with an entire world to photograph, the one thing they choose to photograph is themselves.

Really. Just how self centered are we?