Several weeks ago we were alerted to the fact that Santa will be addressing the tracker elf community about Tracking Santa this year and that he wanted your questions. This is a reminder that there is still time to send in those questions.
Elf Crash will be in North Pole Chat before Christmas too and he wants to address some of those questions, especially if Santa doesn’t have time to address them all.
You can submit your questions at this link.
Thanks!
Flight Command does not feel like they have a good handle on landing zones set up for Santa in our sector.
My feedback to them is that I’m not sure how many of our trackers have a landing zone set up. It’s not a requirement.
But, if you DO have a landing zone you want Santa to use at your house or in your neighborhood, please send in a landing zone report as soon as you can with information that will be useful for Santa.
Flight Command did remind me that it is OKAY for trackers to use video or cameras in their landing zones for when Santa arrives. They ask if you do capture Santa landing or taking off that you share those images or videos with Flight Command for their records.
Thanks, elves!
North Pole Flight Command has informed me that sleigh sightings are possible in Sector 1 in the following areas over the next few days:
Tokyo
Wellington
Suva
Guam
Bering Straight
South China Sea
These are common air traffic corridors where staging locations are set for support of Santa’s flight. Some of these areas are waterways where ships of the North Pole Navy are anchored. Sleigh in the skies are possible 24 hours per day, according to flight schedules we have received from Flight Command.
If you happen to see a sleigh in flight please try to capture video or pictures and submit a Sleigh Sighting report.
Thanks.
Trackers of Sector 1 – things are definitely picking up. I need to know who’s working and who is not right now. Please update your Elf Status as soon as you can.
I strong urge you as well to become familiar with all our tracker reports. I think we’re going to be sending in a few public observance reports, air traffic reports, and local Christmas reports in the next few weeks.
Don’t forget the weekly weather report.
Flight Command is requesting – rather insistently and urgently — that trackers in our northern areas please send in updated Weather Reports right away. This directly has to do with flights supporting the Kringle Plan.
What are northern areas? Just about any area that can get snow at this time of year. So, Siberia, Northern Russia, parts of Northern China, etc. Areas such as India, Thailand, etc don’t need to worry.
From the sounds of it, we can expect a lot of these kinds of requests over the next couple of weeks.
Please check in daily.
Hello trackers in Europe and Africa,
North Pole Flight Command is asking for an updated Local Christmas Report from our sector. I’m not sure why, but let’s get it to them.
Like Sector 5, we can report very active new tracker elf signups over the past week. Welcome to all of our new trackers! Please go to Elf University to learn and let me know if you have any questions.
Like the other supervisors, I was in the meeting yesterday on the phone with Elf Crash and Elf Roger Star. I am not confident yet that we will be seeing either the test flights or extra sleighs that are part of the Kringle Plan in Europe and Africa. I am hoping to meet with Elf Z today who might be able to give me specifics for our sector.
Please stand by for more news.
Thanks!
We just posted the news at SantaUpdate.com about Thanksgiving and it immediately triggered a request from North Pole Flight Command.
This is for all trackers in every sector:
PLEASE SUBMIT A DAILY WEATHER REPORT, INCLUDING AT LEAST A THREE-DAY FORECAST, FOR ALL AREAS THROUGH SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30TH.
This is where you can find the weather report.
We can expect to see a lot of sleighs in the skies for the next week. Elves will be moving all over the world in order to get home for Thanksgiving. With the weather being forecast in the extreme at the North Pole, they will be looking to give elves a little more time to get home in between weather events. While North Pole Flight Command is monitoring the weather at the North Pole, they need reports from everywhere else to help these elves return home for Thanksgiving.
Just as we do with Santa on Christmas Eve, our reports now can help keep these elves safe.
Please plan to do a DAILY weather report from your area between now and the Sunday following Thanksgiving.
If you have questions feel free to ask them in the comments below.
About a month ago I posted a request of a Local Christmas Report from tracker elves around the world. The response to that request was very good.
Four weeks since I made that request we know a little more about the state of Christmas around the world. What you reported has raised some concerns at North Pole Flight Command and with Santa Claus.
After a lot of meetings this week, some Zoom calls with Santa, and discussing things with the Elf Supervisors, I am asking, on behalf of Santa, for all tracker elves to step up at this time and do some “above and beyond the call of duty” kind of things right now.
First, we need you to do that Local Christmas Report as soon as you can. We need to see if things are the same or if things have changed.
Second, we would like all tracker elves — North Pole Tracker Elves, Junior Tracker Elves and Freelance Tracker Elves — to please submit a Public Observance Report as soon as you can.
Please understand the difference between these reports. It was reported via the Elf Supervisors that some wayward elves have taken upon themselves to use this report in the wrong way. (They were using it to “snitch” on others and “report them to the naughty list”, which is silly because there is NO naughty list).
When Santa sends trackers out to observe that’s what they are doing. They are watching, not spying. You’re not looking to see anything wrong. You’re just looking and reporting on what you see. Santa wants honesty. But he doesn’t want an elf anywhere thinking they have the right to opine on someone’s behavior.
With the Public Observance Report Santa is not looking for information about one person. He wants to know about large groups of people where you’re reporting from.
I would also tell you that Santa has big concerns about the next month of operations and even bigger concerns about his flight this year. He is asking for all tracker elves to RECRUIT as many new elves as you possibly can. North Pole Flight Command agrees that more eyes out there working to track Santa for Santa are going to be useful when Santa launches.
If you are a new elf, and there are many, we ask that you go to Elf University and learn as much as you can. Then go to the Elf Wall and ask questions of the elves that are there. Please do the standard reports for your area: Roof Report, Chimney Inspection and Landing Zone Report. Be sending in Weather Reports at least weekly.
This is our critical period. We need tracker elves to increase their activity as soon as possible.
After waiting for what felt like forever in hearing back from Elf Crash and Santa, I can now officially announce we have a new Sector Lead in Sector 5.
Elf NotJack, who has several years experience tracking Santa for Santa, will be our sector lead as he gear up for this season. She will be helping new elves, promoting the recruitment of elves and sharing news on social media, and helping me to get the word out on news and events that affect tracker elves in Sector 5.
I’m very excited to have someone so capable. She’s smart, she’s savvy, she’s alert, aware and dedicated to the cause of Santa Claus. Girl power in Sector 5!!!
(Sorry, guys. I’m just teasing).
Both Santa and Elf Crash heartily endorsed Elf NotJack. Santa said this was a very wise choice and he’s excited to have so much experience at the lead in Sector 5. Elf Crash said he could endorse my selection of Elf NotJack “with both hands high in the air”.
It is a great moment in Sector 5. Please join me in welcoming her to her new elf job.
Have you noticed all the use of AI in everything right now?
School teachers and college professors are beside themselves with how many students these days use ChatGPT or some other kind of “artificial Intelligence” to do their homework assignments.
AI is being used in everything from buying tickets for shows or for transportation; to book hotel rooms or other travel arrangements; or to plan for inventories or to purchase advertising.
AI is the use of advanced computer technology to make regular tasks easier to do through computers.
At the North Pole we are guilty of embracing AI, too.
Right now, over at SantaUpdate.com, you can see an AI project put together by Elf Z and his team at North Pole Flight Command.
They call it ElfBot.
ElfBot is an AI tool for interacting with visitors at SantaUpdate.com.
In the few days it has been online we have seen ElfBot answer thousands of questions in conversational style.
AI is pretty cool because it “learns”, so they say. Elf Z was showing me that new questions used with ElfBot in just a few days have already made ElfBot smarter. It will only continue to improve with the answers it gives as more people ask additional questions.
That being said, I would tell you straight up that ElfBot is a moron. An idiot. And a fraud.
You see, AI is good — but it is also bad.
For example, a site visitor at SantaUpdate.com asked ElfBot what kind of milk shake elves like. Well, ElfBot had no idea what a milk shake even is, much less what kind of milk shake is most popular with elves (eggnog, by the way).
That’s because ElfBot was made to answer questions about Santa, Christmas, the North Pole, reindeer, elves and whatever else Elf Z and his band of geniuses programmed ElfBot to do.
Evidently, milk shakes were not on the learning plan for ElfBot.
So, when it came to milk shakes for elves, well, ElfBot is pretty worthless.
And that is what makes AI bad. It has no judgment. No heart. No feeling. And, despite all that claims that it “learns”, AI has no brains.
It’s a bot, but not an elf.
It has “intelligence” but it’s “artificial”, which is code for – it sucks. It’s terrible. It’s not real. It’s not anything more than a machine.
That’s the thing with AI.
It’s a poop packaged in a golden wrapper. Looks great from far away but when you get too close it just stinks.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Who cares what Elf Ed Zachary thinks about ElfBot? He doesn’t like anybody.
That’s true.
But what does Santa think about ElfBot? Well, surprise – surprise. Santa isn’t a fan.
But Santa is allowing ElfBot at SantaUpdate – and soon we will have an ElfBot right here at SantaTrackers.net – because in it’s present form ElfBot is just a bot. We’re not pretending he’s real. We’re telling everyone upfront that ElfBot is just a tool.
Elf Z and his team have this season to prove whether or not ElfBot is a tool worth keeping around.
I personally don’t think it is going to last. And neither does Santa, by the way.
Why?
Because of the rAIndeer Project.
What’s that?
It was an experimental program that Santa gave the boot to about a year ago.
The rAIndeer Project was an attempt made by the combined forces of the Reindeer Department and the team in Research and Development to bring forward robotic reindeer.
You’ve seen the robotic dogs made by different companies? It was kind of like those – a plastic robot shaped like a reindeer designed to do even the super-reindeer work of Santa’s reindeer.
It didn’t go well.
First of all, they looked ridiculous. They all had a hard, white, plastic body. Lined up, the 10 rAIndeer they made looked like a little army of unfinished clay toys.
Those bodies were filled with electronic computer stuff that gave them incredible capabilities that real reindeer do not have.
For example, each one of the could speak 17 different languages. They could calculate any mathematical equation you could feed it, they could dictate Dickens, play videos, radio stations and podcasts, and they knew by heart every cookie recipe known to man on the planet.
Physically, they were something to behold.
They never got tired, they never slowed down and they could swim in waters down to 30 feet. Volcanoes could not touch them, tornados could not tear them apart, and snow and ice could not pile up on their thick, plastic and heated surfaces.
Watching them move was something to behold. Against regular reindeer they could jump higher and further, they could run longer, and if an object like a fence or a building got in their way they used complex propulsion motors to just get around it.
So why isn’t Santa using rAIndeer instead of reindeer?
Because they were long on artificial and short on intelligence.
Real reindeer can work as a team, using sleigh bells to power their rhythm. They can judge landing distance, use the trade winds and navigate by the stars in the night sky.
Oh, that’s another thing, too. The rAIndeer were solar powered. They couldn’t fly at night. That was just one reason why Santa said he would never use anything but natural reindeer to fly his sleigh. Santa has to work at night.
The rAIndeer, for all their intelligence, could never figure out how to work with each other.
In fact, when hitched to sleigh the rAIndeer would compete with each other rather than learning to pull together. That meant they could go fast but get nowhere in the process. Each time they went up they ended up flying in circles as their circuitry overloaded and they “flew” to beat each other. Their “intelligence” couldn’t grasp the idea of teamwork.
They had weird names. RuBot, DashBot, DanceBot, PranceBot, VixBot, ComBot, CuBot, DonBot and BlitzBot. Santa just couldn’t call them out and when he tried they all turned their heads and said, “How can I assist you today?” They just didn’t understand the word “go”.
In short, the rAIndeer Project was an utter failure and now their hollowed out bodies are planters in front of the offices of Research and Development (the petunias they hold are lovely).
The rAIndeer Project was secret for a long time but Santa had a video made of the tests they held with the robot reindeer and passed it around to every department considering the use of AI.
Several departments have been messing with this technology. The North Pole Post Office, the Wrapping Department and even North Pole Flight Command were all tinkering with AI.
Santa has made them stop. He put in place a rule: no AI for anything but tools. AI can not be used to develop a replacement for an elf of any kind.
ElfBot is a tool. An imperfect tool. But it’s just that, like any other tool, such as a wrench or a screwdriver.
You, as a tracker elf, could never be replaced by a bot.
Me, as a reporter elf, can never be replaced by a bot.
Reindeer, workshop elves, or any other kind of elf cannot be replaced by AI in any way, shape or form.
You see, as elves, we all have brains AND heart.
Including Santa.
That’s what separates us from AI. That’s what makes our work possible in helping Santa get around the world.
It’s not just because we’re physical. It’s because we’re smart. And we’re important. And we want to serve others.
AI can never do that.
Hi Gang,
Right now we are kind of in a holding pattern with Flight Command. I’ve asked them for clear direction of how we can help them and they keep telling me to just wait.
All the sleigh flight activity that’s not related to the test flights of Santa’s sleigh so far seems to be in Canada – most specifically in the Yukon, which is pretty sparsely populated. That’s also a land of a lot of lumber and it is told to me that wood is coming from there to supply Santa’s Workshop.
That is a place and that is a product that moves regardless of the weather. They do have plenty of early winter weather there and Flight Command knows all about it.
If that changes, I’ll let you know.
But for now, Sector 5 is going to focus on our regular work.
So – if you haven’t done roof reports and chimney inspections yet please close that up. And keep the weekly weather reports coming from your area.
Thanks, Elves!
It is only the end of September but I feel compelled to issue an alert for all Santa Trackers world wide.
There is a crisis in Santa’s Workshop and elves from nearly every department at the North Pole are mobilizing to help in the effort. We are equally called upon to join in the effort.
Starting TODAY, I am meeting via Zoom with Elf Supervisors, who are all at their stations at the Regional Tracking Centers. We are going through the latest instructions from North Pole Flight Command.
You can expect some specific instructions coming from each of them over the course of the next couple of days.
In addition, I have asked, and I believe he has already posted on the Elf Wall, for Elf Harold Star to remind you about the North Pole Chat already scheduled at SantaUpdate.com for this Sunday at 3pm EDT.
I hope to have new information and instruction that I can share at that time. As usual, chat recaps will be posted.
I do not yet have details to share at this time but I suspect most of what might be required of us will be added and specific weather reports for certain areas. I believe special missions to route needed supplies to the North Pole are being devised at this time and our instructions will be related to those missions.
What part, if any, Santa will play in these events are unknown. I can tell you, however, that is he very hands on with this whole process and that we can expect to hear more from him about this situation in the days and weeks ahead.
For now, my hope for each of you is that you will:
Thanks!
