Sean Cunningham, the director of Friday the 13th, is very vocal that Friday the 13th’s theme is not that “sinners must be punished”. He saw it as “bad things happening to good people for no apparent reason.” He also rejected Gene Siskel’s complaint that the film was “misogynistic”. Cunningham said the film is not meant to be sexist, and both males and females get punished equally in this movie.
John Carpenter was similarly dismissive when critics complained that Halloween was pushing an old testament puritanical sex-must-be-punished-by-death moral code on the audience. Debra Hill, his co-producer and screenwriter on the project said in response: “I think people are reading moral and sociological messages into a simple horror story that has no agenda to lecture the audience in any way.”
So, all those pundits and critics that say early horror movies were puritanical are just projecting their own interpretations on something that was never intended to be the case.
Vector Databases for Semantic search and AI application
Windows Developer does a decent job of covering different Windows UI frameworks such as WinUI, WPF, WinForms, .NET MAUI, Uno Platform, Avalonia, React Native, and Progressive Web Apps.
The reality of running a business in Portland 2025
In this video from the Portland City Council, local Portland business owners describe the daily nightmares they deal with when running a business in 2025.
This is not hyperbole. It’s not ‘fake news’. It’s the real life stories told by local shop owners and workers getting guns and knives pulled on them, being assaulted, calling in people having serious mental health crises (screaming, stripping, masterbating, assaulting passerbys/employees, or standing nude in front of their shops) and the city police and services do nothing. Their shops experience regular break-ins they must pay for out of pocket, rampant shoplifting and violent confrontations, homeless campers right in front of their businesses that scare away customers and employees, spending thousands out of pocket for emergency repairs, being dropped for insurance, cleaning up drug paraphernalia, vomit, human feces, and urine on a daily basis.
As someone that volunteers at a local public entity, I can confirm all of this is true. We had to deal with this on a DAILY basis. We often had to do twice daily sweeps around the building to clean up multiple piles of human feces, drug paraphrenia such as needles, foil, bloody bandages, etc. All of which are serious biohazards. Local “harm reduction” groups gave out free drug paraphernalia – all within 100 feet of an elementary school. Children there would see open air drug use right outside the windows of their school – and it was all legalized by Measure 110. Calling cops or city services did nothing. Police response for dangerous individuals was upwards of an hour – if they came at all. Other city services would pander, victim blame, and ultimately never do anything. The problems have been going on for months to years now – with little end in sight.
The semi-repeal of Measure 110 helped – but Portland is still a deeply troubled city that I cannot recommend to anyone. This is especially true for anybody looking to start a local business.
Nathan Baggs wanted to play a retro version of Jurassic Park, but found it was busted due to DRM. He then proceeds to walk through how to hack it with a debugger and binary/disassembly tools such as Ghidra, x64dbg, CFF Explorer, and PE Bear.
It’s a great video on how people go about hacking old programs.
In 2023, Portland schools saw an astounding 17.3% enrollment decline. Parents simply pulled their children out of the failing, dangerous school system into private schools or moved elsewhere. What’s worse, is this trend has not only not stopped, but continues to see loss of students. This, all despite some of the highest spending per student and 30 years of complete Democratic party control.
Part of this may be due to the steady, 3 straight year population decline of Portland as people leave some of the highest taxes in the country, one of the highest property crime rates, and some of the least affordable housing due to urban growth restrictions. How bad is this decline?
The 2015 forecast, for example, predicted about 55,000 students for the 2028–29 school year. The latest forecast predicts PPS will dip below 40,000 that year, enrolling 39,945—about a 27% decline.
This means that Portland schools are about to see their funding dramatically cut since it’s based on student population – probably by about 30%.
The greatest challenge to future games will be competing against those already out there – and that are refusing to go anywhere.
GamebizIndustry did a very interesting 2 part write-up on the current state of the game market that provides some data and commentary on the current gaming marketplace.
Some interesting points:
Game spending is down as inflation and food/housing costs have gone up after Covid over-exuberance. Player counts are back to a more stable and sustainable level.
Total game spending has been flat the last several years as we exited Covid. However, more games are getting released all the time so the simple math tells you the average game is making less than it was a few years ago.
When a game now cost $200-250 million to make (instead of $20 million like in the past) risk tolerance goes to zero. Expect far less innovation in big titles and low-risk sequels.
Behemoth games like Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, or Call of Duty are sucking all the air out of the room. They are ‘black hole’ games that suck everything in and keep it there.
Those games are amazing at funneling players and keeping them there with their social hooks.
Every IP holder is trying to get their IP into a Fortnite or into a Minecraft rather than building out their own games, because that’s where the audience is.
A third of people who turn on their consoles every week are playing Fortnite. Half of the total hours spent on PlayStation or Xbox every month is in just the top ten live-service games. That’s before anyone else even gets a chance to be played even once.
The data is clear: console buyers are becoming older and more affluent and the younger generations are choosing mobile or PC because of the ease of entry and because they already have the devices.
What you’re seeing, particularly with younger consumers, is a default to the free-to-play entry point.
Platform exclusive content’s days are numbered
Everyone’s publishing everywhere. The expectation is that whatever I want to play, I can play it wherever I want. If not, I’m not interested.
$80 price points
Upfront price is a huge barrier to get people even to try a game. Why pay $80 when Fortnite is free and “big, complex, and with so many different ways of playing”
Anything targeting the $80 price bracket is likely to either be a sequel or something that’s similar to another game that sold well – a ‘comparable’.
Even though the combination of outsourcing and AI could help to curb the rapid acceleration of game development costs, they are not sure it will actually create the deceleration of cost. AI is like Excel for accountants. It’s a tool that makes part of their job easier, but it’s still hard work that requires expertise.
The future of game development will probably look more like movie production. Studios will likely only retain a small band of creative directors and producers, then hire contractors or co-development studios once the pre-production is done and concept set.
