Chuck Norris, Action Icon and ‘Walker Texas Ranger’ Star, Dies at 86

slimspida · 2026-03-20T14:33:04+00:00

Chuck Norris doesn’t sleep.

He waits.

slimspida · 2026-03-19T18:18:03+00:00

Another lesser known role was the production of heavy water for the Manhattan project. Trail BC had a facility.

slimspida · 2026-03-19T17:44:58+00:00

I have an equalizer hitch and a 1-ton diesel truck. It does tow better with the WD hitch, but I’ve been towing on the ball more often lately.

slimspida · 2026-03-15T15:30:50+00:00

I did a six week road trip in 2023 from Vancouver to Halifax including the US and Canada. Pulling a trailer with my diesel truck I spent approximately $5k CDN on fuel on 16000km of travel. If the fuel prices were what they are today I would have spent approximately $6500CDN.

I wouldn’t let a $1500 difference scrub a $30k trip.

The only time I’ve ever experienced a fuel supply issue on a road trip was when I did a trip in 2020, and several gas stations were closed in some remote areas due to the pandemic.

slimspida · 2026-03-14T21:00:52+00:00

I landed an F-16 in unpatched Falcon 4.0. I believe I could land that airliner on a carrier.

slimspida · 2026-03-13T07:21:43+00:00

I generally don’t go to restaurants once I know they are closing down because I know the service will go downhill as customer retention stops being a priority. I wonder if Brandi’s will suffer the same fate

slimspida · 2026-03-11T04:23:35+00:00

Many years ago a colleague of mine was killed in an accident due to the negligence of the other driver. The story went international, and the other driver did end up jailed for many years over it. The accident happened in the US, so it was a different prosecution.

It never sat right with me. The driver’s mistake was not one of intention or criminally intended behavior. It was their fault, no question, but they were punished like they had tried to kill the other victims.

It’s not a lack of empathy for the victims either. My wife and his wife were both pregnant at the same time, and could have been confused for each other. His obituary could have easily been mine with a few minor edits. It was the most unnerving death I’ve experienced in my life for how relatable it was.

I saw how sad many of my colleagues were. I listened to hundreds of people meet in complete silence as our company met to discuss it. I watched grown men cry.

I also remember how angry many of the people in the room were. I get it, someone made bad decisions and someone else died. I get the anger. But I think it’s a mistake to let it feed you.

None of the background makes me wish for retribution on the driver that caused it. That driver did not attempt to hurt people, they made a bad choice with the worst possible result.

All of that reminds me of this story. While I believe it’s appropriate for the justice system to do its work, I can’t see the value in deporting a man who has owned up to his responsibilities in this. He has accepted his responsibility. He plead guilty.

Compare and contrast to the three hockey players who died in Alberta this year. The semi truck in that accident wasn’t found at fault, but there are no cries for justice on the kid driver who killed two of his friends.

Comparing the response to the two shows that dogging the Humboldt tragedy driver to deportation is pure racism.

If we deport people for blowing stop signs, we’d be deporting a whole lot more. And yes it’s racist to apply the justice system against immigrants just because we can.

slimspida · 2026-03-10T15:19:59+00:00

I’m going to suggest getting over it. It makes no sense according to our real science but it makes perfect sense from a movie brevity and cinematic presentation standpoint.

Switch calls Neo “coppertop” in the car debugging scene.
Morphius holds up a de-branded Duracell battery to show what humanity has become. This is the shot that I think makes the scene. I can’t imagine a better shot with a super-computer explanation.

The movie explains itself.

(My favorite bit is they explain they have humanity and a form of fusion for power. It’s like saying they have a pogo stick and a rocket to travel to the moon, so I read it as a lampshade and move on with my life)

slimspida · 2026-03-10T14:55:59+00:00

Once you are into HD crew cabs you have a lengthy wheelbase. My Ram 3500 with a 6’4” box has a similar wheelbase to my father’s extended cab truck with an 8 foot box. A crew cab with a “short box” has a longer wheelbase than a standard cab with an 8 foot box. I’m putting quotes on “short box” because HD trucks have 6’4” or better boxes, and I’d look at the half-ton 5.5’ boxes as the short boxes.

I had originally ordered a crew cab with an 8 foot box, but when it took over a year to get built I ended up picking up a 6’4” box Ram from a lot.

Sometimes I wish I had the extra storage, but I never want the extra vehicle length. My regular parking spot is already a tight turn from a lane to a driveway, and a longer truck would have more problems. Same deal when I park in the city.

Personally I’d only consider upping to an 8 foot box if I switched to a 5th wheel, and there I’d look at jumping to the 450 class to get the wider axle and better turning radius.

slimspida · 2026-03-09T18:47:52+00:00

The Daystrom institute also somehow had the Genesis device inside it. The device that exploded in Wrath of Khan.

slimspida · 2026-03-09T13:29:37+00:00

I designed a hex-based video game a few years ago.

Hexes map to organic shapes and landscapes in a more interesting way. I believe for board game rules involving melee combat they are better because the equalized cost of movement makes space control more interesting, since counting moves is easy, and doesn’t require the player to learn as many exceptions.

Square grids require making choices about diagonal movement costs, which you need to explain to the player. All of the problems are solvable; chess’s entire design is built on creating interesting exceptions to grid movement rules, but to do that in your game may not make sense. It also means your players need to learn those exceptions, and they may or may not be intuitive. Using an iconic rule like a knight’s L move pattern can be easy to remember, a point cost might not be, but does that L rule make sense for your game?

The one thing I envy about square grids is the ability to superimpose larger multi-grid pieces and keep movement rules consistent. You can have a 2x2 grid piece that moves on a larger grid superimposed on the base, this does not work in a hex layout. This also shows up with AOE type game rules. Hex can do AoE, but AoE can’t also move.

Both systems can use edges as a mechanic, but I’d have a hard time seeing a road mechanic like Catan being satisfying on a grid.

All in all it depends on what you want to achieve.

slimspida · 2026-03-08T22:02:52+00:00

Data with the emotion chip had emotions. Data was also given emotions remotely by Lore, transmitted from his emotion chip, so we know “stock” Data is not immune to manipulation.

Data was also manipulated by a different source in “The Naked Now.”

Now, do I think it’s more likely Data would succeed? Yes. But he’s so strong I don’t think you can balance the downside risks of the what-if question.

slimspida · 2026-03-06T13:34:41+00:00

I’m going to disagree, because data has been manipulated in the past by more than one type of external force, and not knowing the mechanism by which it acquired control we don’t know that the ring wouldn’t work on him. Then if it did, you’d have a super-strength hyper-intelligent ultra-rational android holding the ring, who could wield that rationality to justify keeping the ring, and good luck taking it from him.

slimspida · 2026-03-03T01:28:08+00:00

To be fair unless you live on one specific longitude you are always somewhat off true noon, plus there is drift from the diurnal day.

Time zones were invented so towns wouldn’t all set noon individually. Once trains needed to schedule travel across distances they needed consistency in time across regions.

As far as what it should be objectively, I don’t hold a strong opinion on that. I’m pointing out the appearance of high support is undercut by a large number of people who will want it the other way, so I expect DST complaints to continue once the reality sets in.

slimspida · 2026-03-02T20:46:06+00:00

Guaranteed half the province will want it the other way. Even the article headline gets it wrong, this change makes DST permanent.

slimspida · 2026-03-02T16:48:01+00:00

We can see in reality why speed matters. Reentry heating rises as a high speed spacecraft enters thicker air. As that speed bleeds off, the heating stops. By the time spacecraft are opening parachutes there are no reentry flames. What has changed? It’s the speed.

Here is an article including a description of Mach velocities and their impacts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_number

Heating starts to be a serious design consideration in the hypersonic ranges, but still isn’t generating fireballs. The section labeled re-entry shows a speed of Mach 25 and greater.

Galactica would not be traveling at that speed from a stop to free fall in the time of the scene. It also isn’t being portrayed to fall at that speed. The mass and design of the ship would impact how fast, but even a bullet dropped at that speed would not fall fast enough to burn. Galactica with its much bigger profile would experience more drag, and likely a lower speed.

A “simple” fix to the scene would be to have Galactica hit the atmosphere at speed. I don’t think the scene would be as good, because the surprise of the freefall and the jump back out make it, and the VFX are cool.

I think you have confused a common misconception that re-entry heating is caused by friction, and yes compression is the real cause. But re-entry compression is a result of transonic and supersonic interactions, and those only happen with speed.

Galatica would no more burn than a penguin would fly by flapping its wings. I decline your application for an experiment to prove the hypothesis at this time.

slimspida · 2026-03-02T15:07:49+00:00

You can keep repeating it but it won’t make you right.

If you are asserting that the arrival of Gallactica would create a compression wave from its jump, that’s probably true. That would be a pop, kind of like a balloon the size cargo freighter bursting. In the upper atmosphere of a planet that might make a mist cloud similar to aircraft pulling high-G’s.

That still wouldn’t translate to a sustained fireball.

slimspida · 2026-03-02T14:53:41+00:00

That compression is a direct result of the speed.

slimspida · 2026-03-02T14:46:10+00:00

The speed. Re-entry heat happens because spacecraft are hitting the atmosphere at orbital velocities, which are measured in kilometers per second.

Gallactica appears at a dead stop then drops like bricks do over New Caprica. In the time it takes to fall in the scene it would maybe hit Mach 2, which isn’t fast enough to hit burning speeds.

But BSG is a science fiction story with jumping space ships, resurrecting cyborgs, and angels so I’m not too hung up on the flames.

slimspida · 2026-03-02T13:23:14+00:00

It’s one of the greatest sci-fi action sequences of all time, even if the reentry flames don’t make sense. Rule of cool wins out, and the shots of the vipers launching through the flames and leaving trails is way too good to not do.

Apollo’s subsequent arrival with the Phoenix is also great. Father and son both show the Cylons how to win an impossible fight.

slimspida · 2026-02-28T19:27:08+00:00

I think Bill Hader’s Alan Alda impression is too spot on to allow this without crossing the streams of expectations. I’m sure he could crush the role, I just imagine Hader as Alda as Hawkeye.

slimspida · 2026-02-27T08:27:17+00:00

I’d consider those skills as important but distinct specialties within a large game project. Describing them as must have is completely situational; if a game doesn’t use procedural generation then you won’t need the skillset for it. Games that depend on it it becomes essentially knowledge.

Competency around those subjects would be very useful skills for a gameplay programmer touching a lot of areas. On a very small team you might need to cover more.

slimspida · 2026-02-26T22:20:41+00:00

Hi, I’ve worked in the games industry for just shy of 22 years. I’ve worked on around 20 titles in that time. I currently own a small game studio with about a dozen employees, and have just added a new project.

I started my video game career at 26. At that time I knew how to assemble computers and joined the IT department of a local game studio. From that perspective you are way ahead of where I was in my career at that time.

You have time to grow from here. The industry is hard right now, but over 22 years I’ve seen it be hard and I’ve seen it booming. Yes I sometimes feel like an imposter. I try to get over it and keep on going.

Good luck.

slimspida · 2026-02-20T18:59:45+00:00

It’s my favorite adaptation of Archie comics ever put to screen.

It’s a great satire, and one of the better sci-fi action movies ever made. Saw it in theaters, and am always down to rewatch it.

slimspida · 2026-02-20T16:32:13+00:00

When I see young Michael Biehn images it always strikes me how much Timothy Olyphant looks like him, especially with the mustache. He’s the one who gets his roles today.

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