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SeaQuest DSV
Game Name: SeaQuest DSV
Platforms: SNES
Publisher(s): Malibu Games
Developer(s): Sculptured Software
Genre(s): Strategy
Availability: Second hand
In the "near future," technology has made undersea colonization a way of life. The United Earth Oceans organization was created to keep peace in the seas, and the SeaQuest is their flagship. A submarine the size of an aircraft carrier, SeaQuest represents the most advanced (and most impractical) submersible ever built. The first season of the show had the crew pursuing scientific missions, making archeological discoveries, and preventing ecologic disasters. Admirably, this is much of what you can expect out of the console game.
Blow up pirates in the overworld for cash.
Taking the popular format of a "training simulator," you're put in command of the SeaQuest as a junior officer. The game is divided into three ocean zones, each accessed sequentially as you raise your rank. Each ocean zone has three to four missions you'll need to complete, ranging from stopping nuclear reactors from going critical to foiling local pirates. There are also a limited number of mining zones where you can optionally collect treasure to increase your funds – more on that in a bit.
Ocean zones are traversed in a 3/4 perspective overworld. Here you chug along as the mighty SeaQuest, avoiding sea walls, enemy submarines, and the occasional mine or turret. SeaQuest can launch about eight different kinds of torpedo from its forward tubes, or drop mines and countermeasures out its back. You have two dedicated firing buttons, and can customize what they shoot at any time. Homing torpedoes lock their targets with the shoulder buttons. You also have the ability to raise and lower the ship among three different depth levels with X and A, allowing you to line up a shot or to duck incoming torpedoes. It gives an extra level to what is otherwise completely standard combat.
When you're in range of a mission zone, you can head to the launch bay. Missions are always side-scrolling affairs, and always completed with six mini-subs launched from the SeaQuest. Every one of these (near as I can tell) is taken from the show, and each has unique capabilities and handling characteristics. The HR Probe can flip switches and carries a welding torch. The Stinger is the only ship that can rotate and fire 360 degrees, and is needed for clearing out things above or below. The Truck is a beastly combat unit, and is one of only two ships that can pick up cargo. The Crab has no weapons, but can drill, rescue survivors, and blow away sand with air jets. Finally, Darwin the Dolphin is weak and unarmed, but is so fast he can rocket past turrets before they can turn to track him.
The Stinger can rotate and fire.
You'll need to use a combination of ships to complete missions. At the most basic, you'll need to send in a combat ship to clear the area before one of your unarmed support craft can do what needs doing. As things get more complicated, you'll trade off between ships multiple times in the level as you open a path. There are also places some ships can go that others can't, due to their size or surrounding "danger" – e.g. both the HR Probe and Darwin can flip switches, but the Probe can pass through plasma jets that would scorch the dolphin. Switching craft is simple as returning to a beacon back at mission start, and any progress you've made is kept. However, any damage a ship has taken is not repaired, and it doesn't seem you can abort a mission once you've committed to it.
This is where the money comes in. You start with one of each craft type, and if you lose any, or want extras on reserve, you have to buy them. Ammo used in missions is infinite and free, but all your shots in the overworld come from a finite stock. If you fire all your torpedoes, or want to stock up on some more expensive homing varieties, you have to buy them. The occasional mission also penalizes you for destroying parts of a friendly colony's security system – even though it's shooting at you, you'll have to reimburse them the cost – and should one of your errant torpedoes happen to nuke a facility in the overworld, well, you'll be paying for it.
Luckily, money isn't too hard to come by. You earn a few hundred for sinking pirates in the overworld, you can supplement your income with mining missions, and cash bonuses for completing missions are all generous enough to keep you stocked through normal play. Your weapons also get reloaded each time you graduate to a new ocean zone. It seems like a bit of a hassle for a commander of a military vessel to have to cut checks for every piece of equipment he uses, but it does add some extra challenge (in those "don't blow up the colony's stuff" missions), and is handled fairly overall.
Here's another maze that you get to navigate in the dark this time.
In fact, the whole game structure is surprisingly creative, and quite true to the show (the first season, anyway). You'll be securing atomic bombs from a crashed Cold War bomber, patching up leaking holes in a sunken oil tanker, and stopping eco-terrorists from blowing up a battleship. It's the kind of peaceful, ecologically-minded stuff that NBC executives feared made the first season boring, but it actually keeps things unique, and the light puzzle nature of each mission keeps you thinking. I really enjoyed swapping out my specialized tools to get the job done, and rarely felt that aspect was a burden. If nothing else, this isn't the lazy, side-scrolling shooter cash-in it absolutely could have been, and I appreciate that.
Unfortunately, the difficulty in this particular version gets extreme, possibly to make up for the relatively short length (only 13 missions total). Most levels are designed as elaborate 2D mazes, forcing you to wind through gauntlets of turrets or other defenses, avoid dead ends, and try to find your objectives. Most missions further include a time limit, with failure resulting in a hard Game Over. While the mission brief gives you a good idea of what you need to be looking for, you have no time to actually explore the levels and find the correct paths – the 10 minutes you're given is always cutting it close just to complete the tasks, and I can say with confidence that no one will be able to figure out many of the later levels on the first try. Even if you're quick, levels like the haywire security system or the bomb defusal task are designed with necessary trial and error to get the right sequence.
These issues are nothing compared to the game's most egregious problem – in the SNES version, you only get passwords for the start of each ocean zone. You cannot save your progress within the zone, and failing any of the missions doesn't just restart you at the beginning of the zone, it restarts you at the mandatory mission that introduces the zone. For the second zone, you have to charge the Speeder past a network of pirates waiting in ambush. For the third, you have to navigate Darwin through an enormous reef maze and reach a bomb in two minutes. Again, using a password forces you to play these missions over every time, and only then start from the beginning of the zone.
Darwin needs to figure out the correct switch pattern, while under fire.
It's inexcusable, especially considering that the Genesis version gives you passwords after completing each mission. Especially strange is that there are mission passwords, but only for a "training" mode that kicks you back to the menu after completion. Playing legit, I can only assume you're meant to poke at each mission and take notes – marking down the correct code for each group of security switches, learning the paths, slowly figuring out the early steps to get you in a little further, until you can execute it perfectly. It would certainly stretch out the longevity of the game – if you'd even be willing to put up with it. Yet even with save states, I found myself reloading earlier in the mission closer to 40-50 times due to all the trial and error eating away at the nefarious time limit. Asking you to play each mission that many times just to figure it out is getting laughable.
The menu system is a bit counter-intuitive as well. In the overworld, the Select button takes you to the bridge menu, where you can enter passwords, look at a map, or read mission orders. This is a click-driven interface, so you'll have to steer a cursor around with the D-pad. The map has two modes, one that lets you scroll around and one that shows mission locations, but you can't do both at the same time for no reason whatsoever. Out in the overworld, you're never informed when you're within range of a mission – you'll have to check the map screen, steer to the spot, check if you can launch subs yet, if not, adjust, back to the map screen and repeat.
Graphics sell the underwater location reasonably well. Blue and brown are obviously overused, but ships are easy to make out against the background, there's a nice shimmer effect and trailing air bubbles, and sunken ships and the like feel appropriately gargantuan. The only real complaint here comes with the game's many drab colony levels – it's difficult to tell what is a block of concrete and what is supposed to be in the background. This leads to a more than a few cases of having to feel around to find a path, but luckily your mini-subs take no damage from bumping into things. Switches similarly blend in, and you'll need to know you're looking for them to have any chance of spotting them. Audio is all variations of the SeaQuest theme, all the time. It gets tiresome, as you would expect.
In the end, the SNES version of SeaQuest DSV is a case of good concepts and bad design. To be clear, the more grating aspects of the missions will still be completely present in the Genesis version, but the inability to restore your progress in the SNES version makes the challenge level simply absurd. It's naturally the more colorful version, and the interplay between ships to solve puzzles is certainly neat, but the extreme trial and error required just doesn't make this much fun.
Tackle missions that are true to the first season of the show. Interplay between units with different abilities is generally handled well. Need to buy your own equipment, but money is reasonably easy to find.
No mission passwords in the SNES version – failing any mission in a zone means restarting that entire zone. Puzzles are well designed, but the levels are large, confusing mazes. Ships don't control well at high speeds. Far too much intentionally-designed trial and error.
Tags: sci-fi, strategy, tv show
Posted in Super NES
The J Man loves him some video games, of all eras and types. Finds them, plays them, then writes about them here for curious future generations. Follow him on Twitter at @BurningStickMan for even more musings and questionable life decisions.
carlmarksguy says:
Woo, more SNES game reviews! This game looked kind of interesting but I'd heard bad reviews of it before.
Though your review makes it seem more interesting in general (specifically the non-mission parts), but it sounds like its core game mechanic for the missions is pretty horrible (timer kills you, try that whole level again).
Though even if the game wasn't broken, I don't think I could deal with the "go back to the entry point to switch vehicles" — I can't even play Lost Vikings because I have to run three separate guys through the whole level.
The J Man says:
I'm curious to see how the Genesis version handles. Every button on the SNES pad was used, so I'm wondering how well that translates. But even with mission passwords, the sheer trial and error required is asking a whole lot of the player.
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Zygo Reveals Verifire Asphere+ at Optifab 2021
Optical metrology leader Zygo Corporation — a business unit of Ametek Inc. — announces today that it will be revealing its Verifire Asphere+ — which represents the latest addition to the company's Verifire series of laser Fizeau interferometers — at the SPIE.Optifab October 18-21 2021 in Rochester, New York (US).
The Verifire Asphere+ ( VFA+) builds upon the success of the Verifire Asphere Interferometer, which was made specifically for fast, noncontact, high-resolution 3D metrology of aspheric surfaces.
The VFA+ leverages the benefits of Fizeau interferometry through a unique combination of precise, high-resolution, fast, and full aperture metrology for axisymmetric aspheres. This allows faster convergence on deterministic polishing feedback for more efficient surface generation, and coverage of form error and mid-spatial frequency surface characteristics with one instrument. The system is also flexible, with the ability to measure a range of aspheres with only the change of the reference optic.
The VFA+ supports the trend in industry for the prolific use of aspheric optics. Aspheric surfaces are leveraged in a plethora of optical systems and are a powerful way of reducing the number of elements required in a system, simultaneously enhancing a system's performance and reducing size and weight. The ability to produce aspheres cost-effectively and which conform precisely to design intent is of central importance to many manufacturers working in the optics sector. As a result, ultra-high precision measurement systems are critical infrastructure as it is not possible to produce surfaces better than can be measured.
In addition, an optional secondary stage is integrated in the VFA+ to accommodate a computer-generated hologram (CGH) to push aspheric shape coverage even further, accommodating freeform, cylinder and off-axis conic surfaces. This future compatible investment will open the doors for flexible optical fabrication technology. As a result, quality assurance becomes more cost effective, is easier to execute and delivers results more efficiently.
The VFA+ pushes the boundaries of what is possible in the design and production of ever more precise freeform and aspheric optics, and as such is an enabling technology, stimulating innovation in the optics sector. The ZYGO team invites all attendees at SPIE.OPTIFAB to visit them to see the VFA+ in action, and to discuss its use in precision asphere production.
The Verifire series represents a complete line of high-performance metrology instruments for the measurement of plano, spherical, and aspherical surfaces and material characteristics, and provides a variety of proprietary acquisition techniques to ensure optimum metrology in a wide range of environments.
Labels: Zygo,Verifire,laser Fizeau interferometers,asphere,aspheric,optics,Optifab
Researchers Use Ghost Imaging to Speed Up X-ray Fluorescence Chemical Mapping


Pope John Paul II's false views on human reproduction
In 1994, Pope John Paul II published a book titled Crossing the Threshold for Hope, part of which discusses the science and ethics of human reproduction. Since the Roman Catholic Church issues many announcements on this issue, and interferes with politics around the world, it would help if the Pope got the science correct. But he didn't, as English biologist John Godfrey critiqued in a January 1995 article in Nature magazine, which is listed below.
One of the Pope's arguments is that a newly fertilized egg is as human, with the same rights, as a baby or an adult. The nonsense of this view can be see in a practical test mentioned by the eminent reproductive biologist Anne McLaren, in an article titled A Scientist's View of the Ethics of Human Embyronic Stem Cell Research. In her article, she somewhat ridicules positions such as those of the Pope with the following comment:
One view of the moral status of the human embryo is that, from the one-cell stage onward, or from fertilization onward, the moral value of the embryo is equal to that of a newborn baby or an adult human being. This is the official view of the Roman Catholic Church. .... Yet I wonder how many even of that persuasion would choose the embryos in the burning building test ("Which would you rescue first, the freezer containing 20 8-cell embryos, or the baby?")?
The Pope and the ontogeny of persons: In his recent book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II airs his views on human reproduction. The pity is that he ignores most of modern genetics and embryology.
by John Godfrey, Nature, 12 January 1995, page 100
"The concept of 'person' is not only a marvellous theory; it is at the centre of the human ethos ... in this field more than in any other, collaboration among pastors, biologists and physicians is indispensible." Thus the Pope, in his new book, Crossing the Threshold. In a discussion of Thomas Aquinas, he writes: "It is not good that his thought has been set aside in the post-conciliar period; he continues, in fact, to be the master of philosophical and theological universalism." Why, then, does the Pope dispense with both modern biological knowledge and Aquinas's teachings when dealing with issues of human reproduction?
The fundamental biological and ethical issue he raises is the origin of an individual person during life before birth. There is no moment when human life starts. It is clear that both the egg and the sperm are alive, and that their life is human, and that life is continuous from one generation to the next. Yet life, at this stage, is not yet that of a person.
The Pope accepts the misconception that there is an instant when fertilization happens. The process of fertilization is complex, taking about two days. It can involve more than one sperm nucleus, at least for a time. During this period genetic identity is yet to be established. There is a rapid and irreversible change at the activation of the egg. Activation, though rapid, is not instantaneous. Its very speed is probably an evolutionary adaptation of eggs to inhibit fertilization by many sperms. The activation that blocks polyspermy has two distinct phases: the first is quick by incomplete, the second slower but complete. A more severe difficulty is that activation, essential though it is to further development, precedes the chromosomal events that establish the genetic identity of the zygote. So a new individual cannot have her or his origin at activation. For about the first four days, all the genetically determined properties of the fertilized egg are maternal. Only after this do paternal genes begin to act, with gene expression characterizing the new individual.
Even then, stable individuality is some way off. Genetically different cells may still be exchanged by twins. Until a couple of weeks after fertilization a single embryo may still divide to produce identical twins. The component parts of what now becomes an unambiguous individual gradually develop. Crucial to the function of the brain is the laying down of insulation along the nerve cells. This starts late in pregnancy but is not complete until after birth.
The picture of nascent human that emerges from modern embryology is one of seamless change. There is no biological discontinuity that would be a candidate for a moment of unique philosophical significance, whether the advent of the individual person or the infusion of the soul. Thus, we should envisage human persons coming into being by continuous progression during ontogeny, as they did during phylogeny; as each bright day is imperceptibly created during dawn. So the rights of, and our duty towards, the unborn must similarly grow gradually.
It is understandable that ethical thinking should have been founded on obsolete biology. Roman Catholic doctrine is that the soul is infused during pregnancy at a particular, but unspecified time. The present teaching of the Pope, and his church, short of doctrine, is that there is a serious possibility that this time is that of conception. Assuming that this is so avoids the danger of committing unintended homicide. I am not sure if [what the Pope refers to as] 'conception' is meant to be implantation, or the fertilization that precedes it. The distinction is not trivial. Many fertilized eggs fail to implant quite naturally. Is each of these to be considered the death of a person, even though most pass away unnoticed? Other eggs may not lead to a pregnancy because the woman is using an intrauterine device as a contraceptive. However, this acts to prevent implantation in the uterus, not fertilization.
Aquinas, for long the received philosopher of the Catholic church, based his views on the observations and opinions of Aristotle. He believed that animation (ensoulment) occurred in three stages that were completed around 40 days after conception in the case of males, or 90 days in the case of females. Apart from the exotic error about the supposed differences between the sexes, based on misleading evidence available to him, Aquinas's thoughts have, as so often, a disturbingly moderm ring. His view that ensoulment is progressive is more nearly in tune with our present knowledge of biology than the instantaneous picture of events that the Pope adopts. Until the late nineteenth century, Christian tradition, following Aquinas, tended to grade the protection to the incipient person according to the stages of its development.
The Vatican has serious problems on the issues associated with human reproduction, with both the laity and the priesthood. The bare facts of demography show that many Catholics do not practise what is preached by their church. The gulf between Rome and Italy on contraception and abortion is clear from social surveys and from the permissive legislation that was brought in by the Italian parliament. This might not be so serious if leading thinkers within the church were not so divided. The protest links liberal thinking on reproduction with objection to what is seen as authoritarian reactions to it by the Vatican.
Not only has the Catholic church recently taught that all stages of human development are morally equivalent but it has also adopted an unbending moral legalism in the application of the consequences of this view. This rigidity is not in keeping with important strands of traditional teaching. Aquinas held that fairness or good sense (Epikeia) should be used to recognize when human law might be inappropriate in a particular case. In his words, "Laws are made for human actions. But such actions are individual and concrete situations, and they are infinitely variable." and "The law should not be followed when to do so would be wrong." His theory of exceptions is in contrast to current unbending interpretation of his theory of natural law. The application of (Epikeia) enhances justice, revealing glimpses of a higher 'law beyond the law'. It has been possible to ignore his humane view because he wrote so briefly of it in his Summa Theologiae, probably because of the way he fitted it into the symmetrical formal design of his work.
In a finite world with limited resources, the biological issues with which the Pope deals affect everyone. The recent United Nations population conference made little progress partly owing to pressure from the Vatican. (see Nature 371, 185; 1994). Pope John Paul should, first, consider afresh Aquinas's writing on fairness, and on the unique nature of people and their circumstances; and, second, look at the light that modern genetics and embryology sheds on the concept of a person and of her or his origin. He could then properly advise people on how best to lead their sexual and reproductive lives.
John Godfrey, associate of the Centre of Human Ecology, University of Edinburgh.
An article in the March 2002 issue of Life Extension (www.lef.org), "Therapeutic Cloning Under Fire" consists of an interview with stem cell researcher Michael West. In the article, West similarly criticizes the Vatican's bad science:
LEF: Isn't it true that the position of the Catholic Church is that, if you destroy the embryo after fertilization, you are destroying life?
WEST: That's right. The Catholic Church takes the position (as do some others) that life begins at conception. I just don't know, nor do I think they know, how they came up with this. What happens is that the fertilized egg divides to form a little ball of cells, like a tiny lump of clay. If this little ball of cells doesn't implant in the uterus, it will die. It is estimated that 80% of these little balls of cells never attach to a uterus and consequently die. And for those that do attach, one, two or even three human beings (identical twins) can be formed. We know that. And we can actually determine when individuation begins, which is about two weeks after development begins. So it simply doesn't make sense to say "a human life begins at conception". Certainly cellular life is created at conception, but it's not yet a human life.
.... Up to 80% of all pre-implantation embryos die, but I don't see our critics calling for a billion dollar crash program to try to save these embryos.
LEF: A cadaver with a beating heart and no brain function can be a source of organs for others, yet nobody worries about that.
WEST: Yes, such a person has billions of living cells, even in the brain, but is considered a non-person, yet people argue that a microscopic ball of cells with no body cells of any kind, that you could balance on the point of a pin, should be considered a person with a right to life. I can draw an analogy to the World Trade Center attack. Our critics are in effect saying "You attacked the World Trade Center buildings." But I argue that not only were there no people in the buildings, but the buildings hadn't even been constructed yet. In fact, the architect hadn't yet decided to have one tower or two. That's the state of development we're talking about here. This microscopic ball of cells is a collection of the most blank cells you could ever find. A piece of dandruff is more human than these cells.


Hvorfor fik Keynes ikke Nobelprisen i 1920'erne?
Af Jonas Herby, den 21. november 2022. Skriv et svar
Det er spørgsmålet som min medforfatter på lockdown-studiet , Lars Jonung, stiller i dette nye paper udgivet i The Scandinavian Journal of Economics.
Her er abstract:
John Maynard Keynes became famous with The Economic Consequences of the Peace published in 1919, a harsh critique of the Versailles peace treaty. As a consequence, Keynes was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922, 1923, and 1924, and evaluated in advisory reports for the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian parliament. This paper summarizes these appreciative reports. The appraiser even informed Keynes that he was "one of the foremost candidates proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize". Still, the Prize was not awarded to him. This paper ends with a speculative answer to why the Prize was not given to Keynes.
Lidt udpluk for de interesserede men TL;DR's.
It is clear from the list of laureates after the Great War that Keynes did not fit into the general pattern of laureates. He was not a political actor who promoted the League of Nations, nor was he active as an official working for international cooperation and peace. He did not even hold an official position. He was an independent voice outside the establishment trying to foster peace using economic analysis. […]
Keynes was a controversial choice for many reasons. He emerged as a voice not just outside of the establishment, but critical of it, with the publication of The Economic Consequences of the Peace. There, he clearly showed how an international agreement such as the Treaty of Versailles could turn into a threat to a peaceful world. […]
To give the Prize to Keynes in 1923 or 1924 might be viewed as a criticism of Wilson, and thus of his Prize, and indirectly of the establishment of the League of Nations, an outcome of the Treaty of Versailles.
Og mere politik:
Another reason might be the political views held by members of the Nobel Prize Committee. A rift could be sufficient for the Prize not being awarded (see Abrams, 2001, p. 23). As the Committee consisted of politicians from the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, and the Labour Party – the latter party was openly revolutionary in its outlook in the 1920s – it is easy to imagine that political differences could give rise to a deadlock in the Committee.
Der er mere i Jonung (2022). Når man ser på, hvem der har fået fredsprisen de sidste 20 år (fx Al Gore og Barack Obama, for at tage nogle af de mest absurde tilfælde), kan man godt undres lidt over, at manden, der argumenterede for, at Versailles-freden ville danne grundlaget for 2. Verdenskrig, ikke fik den.
Men sådan er politik desværre nogle gange.
Dette indlæg blev udgivet i Ikke-kategoriseret den 21. november 2022 af Jonas Herby.
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From Ice Cube to Rick Ross: Rappers With Eyes and Ears for Talent
By Soren Baker
A mid-1980s trip to New York opened Ice-T's eyes. Then based in Los Angeles, he had traveled to Manhattan to get a record deal and ended up getting much more, namely a new perspective on how rap could operate.
"Once I was in New York, I got put on by the Zulu Nation, Afrika Islam, Bam[baataa], and all of them," Ice-T says. "I was interested in the way the Zulu Nation operated. Basically the Zulu Nation was a group of groups with a common goal, which was Hip-Hop. And I dug it. I dug the fact that the New York groups weren't fighting. I dug the whole philosophy, but I knew that Zulu was a little too Afrocentric for LA because LA was on the gang tip. So I modeled [my Rhyme] Syndicate after what [New York gangster] Lucky Luciano created called The Commission, which was a bunch of mob families that agreed to sit down before they would beef."
Ice-T adopted an approach in which he wanted to see other artists succeed. "I'm not competing with anybody," says Ice-T, who became the first West Coast rapper to sign a deal with a major label when he inked with Sire/Warner Bros. in 1986. "It was just a whole bunch of people in LA that really were very, very talented. I could just tell they were talented, from DJ Aladdin to King T to DJ Pooh. There's so many different people that were around, but I was just the first to jump off. So instead of just being like, 'Fuck it. I'm the star,' I'm like, 'Look, if I can make it, I'm going to try to help you guys.' When I got to Warner Bros. and I got my foot in the door and I had a couple of gold records, I was able to do a Syndicate album."
Rhyme Syndicate's 1988 LP Comin' Through gave artists such as Low Profile (W.C. and DJ Aladdin), Everlast (of House of Pain), Toddy Tee (of "Batterram" fame), and Tim Story (director of Barbershop, Fantastic Four, Think Like a Man, Ride Along, Ride Along 2) their first national exposure in the major label system. Ice-T was also able to get major label deals for Everlast with Warner Bros., and Divine Styler and Donald D with Epic.
"My whole agenda was to create a West Coast movement of rappers, to get as many people on their feet as possible," Ice-T says. "It was the opposite of, 'I want to be the biggest star, the only person.' To try to go up against the country with one group, or one person, that's a daunting task."
EPMD had a similar mentality. Like Ice-T, Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith sought originality in their protégés. Few rap groups were more distinctive than Das EFX.
The duo of Drayz and Skoob were discovered by rap titans EPMD at a talent showcase at Virginia State University, where Drayz and Skoob were attending. Das EFX joined EPMD's Hit Squad unit, which also included K-Solo and Redman, and became platinum superstars and trendsetters because of their distinctive rhyme style, accented by adding "ity" to the ends of words and infused with nursery rhymes and other random pop-culture references.
EPMD's blessing was a massive conduit to getting in the door for Das EFX. "That was basically the stamp of approval for us," Drayz says. "They didn't have a long track record for putting out or breaking artists at that moment, at that time. But what they did have was a string of gold albums. They were one of the greats, so for them to have put the stamp on us, at least half the battle was won."
Around the same time on the West Coast, Ice Cube had left N.W.A and was rising to superstardom as a solo artist and actor in the early 1990s. He introduced his Da Lench Mob collective of artists on his debut LP, 1990's AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, and showcased his protégé Kam on "Color Blind," a track from his second album, 1991's Death Certificate. The following year, the politically driven Kam released his single "Peace Treaty," which celebrated Los Angeles' 1992 gang truce, on Ice Cube's Street Knowledge and EastWest Records, a division of Atlantic Records.
Kam was well aware of the impact Ice Cube had on his career. "I definitely got a boost by coming in the game through him," Kam says. "[EastWest Records] valued his word. At that time, anything that he touched was golden.
Label heads didn't know what was hot and what wasn't. So they felt that if he says it's hot and he's putting that kind of stamp on it, then it must be that. He had me bypass all the other little procedures and processes that that artist would have to go through."
Like Ice-T, Ice Cube was drawn to originality. But Ice Cube's lens was more focused stylistically when it came to his protégés, a remarkable list of artists that included Yo Yo, Da Lench Mob, Del the Funky Homosapien, as well as Kam.
"It all had to do with street stuff," Kam says. "That's why it was called Street Knowledge. His image was a street image, so all of them had to do with representing different aspects of Los Angeles or West Coast street life. He saw the value in that, which was anti-establishment. Ghettos manifested themselves in all kinds of different ways, so he knew there was value and financial value in being able to find talent that represented their perspective or paradigm of the streets that they came from."
As rap became increasingly more popular, it remained a street-driven and street-centered art form. A long-gestating crew of New York artists were ready for their time. RZA and his childhood friends and relatives famously formed the Wu-Tang Clan, which exploded in popularity in 1993 thanks to its landmark Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) LP and "Protect Ya Neck," "Method Man," and "C.R.E.A.M." singles.
RZA produced material for every member, tailoring music to the personality of each one. "I had the most time with everybody," RZA says. "I'm like the common denominator between the Wu. Some of the Wu didn't know each other, but they all knew me. Me and Meth had been making demos since Meth was 14 years old. Me and Dirty were making demos since we were kids. Me and GZA have been bonded for life. We've been making demos and making songs since 13, 14 years old. With Raekwon, we were doing demos at 11, 12 years old. So I was blessed with the knowledge of who they were and who they are as artists. With Ghostface, we probably did our first demo at 15, 16. We were roommates since we were 18. By the time we're the Wu, we're 23 years old and I know these brothers well. The funny thing is that I had already prepared a lot of the albums [we did] by knowing so many of the demos we made."
Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Diddy, Lil Wayne, and Rick Ross are among the other artists from different rap generations to introduce some of the genre's most popular and best talent, including Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Snoop Dogg, The Notorious B.I.G., Drake, and Meek Mill, respectively. When artists worked with emerging talent, the music clearly benefitted.
"If I saw somebody else with talent, I'm like, 'I'd much rather be friends with you than enemies,' " says Ice-T. "Why be enemies? I'm not competitive like that."
* HEADER CREDIT: Mack 10, Ice Cube and WC of Westside Connection visit "Yo! MTV Raps" on November 28, 1996 in New York City. (Photo by Al Pereira/Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives).


Duggar Sisters' Lawsuit Was Supposed To Go To Court The Same Week As Josh Duggar's Trial, But Now It Has A New Date
There's been a lot of legal stuff going on with the Duggar clan of late. The most notable of these was Josh Duggar's trial and subsequent conviction on child pornography charges. Other Duggar sister Jana is also dealing with a minor legal incident and her famous sisters Jinger, Joy-Anna, Jessa and Jill are also embroiled in a lawsuit of their own. The latter was supposed to go to court the same week as Josh Duggar's trial, but has officially been delayed.
Reports this week indicate that that a lawsuit the reality stars had initiated against varying parties, including the city of Springdale, Arkansas, had been scheduled to begin before the New Year. The trial date related to the suit had been scheduled for December 9, 2021. However, those of you who followed the Josh Duggar trial may already know that while his stint in court began the week of November 21, it ran through December 9. Many Duggar family members were present in the courtroom during that trial.
The sisters' trial was ultimately delayed, with a potential settlement to be conferred on February 18, according to a report over at The Sun. If the trial moves forward, the new court date will be April 18, 2022, with a pre-trial conference set a little earlier in the schedule on April 11. The trial itself is expected to last 7 days.
Interestingly, a source close to the situation reported to the outlet that the trial had been delayed and that the delay could very well have ramifications for the Duggar sisters' own suit. To understand how one could impact the other, you need the background on the Duggar sisters' suit. The gist is Joy-Anna Forsyth, Jessa Seewald, Jill Dillard, and Jinger Vuolo are suing the city of Springdale, varying police officers and others over a molestation report that was released to In Touch back in 2015 and led to the cancellation of 19 Kids and Counting, in which Josh prominently appeared.
The molestation report was released to the outlet as part of a Freedom of Information Act request and detailed how Josh Duggar had molested several young women when he was still a minor, including four of his sisters. No charges had ever been filed in the case, but the molestation report came up as a topic of interest in Josh Duggar's recent child pornography case as well.
To also note, a similar suit Josh Duggar had previously filed was dropped, yet the lawsuit from the four Duggar sisters was noted to be different because they were victims in the case, and had filed around the idea that after the report came to light it put them in the spotlight in an unwarranted way, and caused major distress as well as ramifications to their careers. In fact, 19 Kids and Counting was cancelled after the report broke (though a second series without Josh, Counting On, was later commissioned).
Now, per the source at The Sun, the outcome of the eldest Duggar brother's trial may have ramifications in this suit. They noted:
They've been allowed to proceed on their case against the police department and a couple of police officers.That was supposed to go to trial the same week as Josh's trial, but it got reset. If there is a trial, the damages could be cut as a consequence of Josh's conviction.
The source was not named, and the comment is based on speculation that Duggar's conviction could impact the other case. However, given the molestation report was a talking point when it came to what would be and would not be incorporated into the child pornography trial, it is interesting how the Josh Duggar court case and the Duggar sisters' case came to be interwoven in some ways all these years later. The Duggar sisters' lawsuit was filed in 2017.
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Real Housewives Of Salt Lake City's Mary Cosby Is Responding To Fans On Social Media, And It's Not Going Over Well
They say it's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary, and that's likely particularly true if you've been denied access to those things for an extended period of time. After Britney Spears was released from the conservatorship she'd been under, the singer has been reintroducing herself to some of life's simple pleasures. Last summer Spears was super pumped about regaining the freedom to drive, and in January the "Toxic" singer documented drinking her first glass of wine in over a decade. The newlywed continued to celebrate the post-conservatorship life by sharing her first trip to a bar.
Fans of the former pop singer are accustomed to seeing Britney Spears dancing and twirling and modeling different outfits at her and Sam Asghari's new home. However, the "Toxic" singer took her followers on an exciting field trip, in which she and her assistant patronized a local drinking establishment. She shared her trip — and a sarcastic remark — on Instagram:
(Image credit: Instagram)
As she and her assistant Victoria Asher apparently enjoyed a drink and an app, Britney Spears couldn't help but throw a little shade at her family, remarking that she was "so so grateful" for not being allowed to have a cocktail for the 13 years after her father Jamie Spears took control of her life. In fact, the 40-year-old said in her post this is her first time to partake in such an adventure. In the video, she shared:
This is my first time at a bar. First time. I feel so fancy, and I feel so sophisticated.
Britney Spears definitely deserves to enjoy all of the fancy and sophisticated things in life. It was a lot more than the keys to the car and a glass of wine that were denied Britney for those 13 years. She's compared her Jamie's Spears' treatment of her to sex trafficking, saying she was forced to work against her will seven days a week with no days off. She testified that she was not allowed to get married or remove her IUD to try to have another baby.
She also said she was not allowed to perform new music or remix her old songs, and it seems like that's another freedom she's taking back. It's been reported that the "Baby One More Time" singer met with Elton John to do a duet of "Tiny Dancer in a "super secret" recording session. Her new husband Sam Asghari also has hinted that his wife hopes to return to performing at some point.
Speaking of Sam Asghari, the end of the conservatorship meant that Britney Spears was finally allowed to marry her longtime boyfriend, who proposed in September 2021. Spears and Asghari tied the knot in a fairytale wedding June 9, in front of friends including Paris Hilton, Drew Barrymore and Madonna, before embarking on a two-week yacht honeymoon. The free life certainly looks good on the former pop star, and even as the court battles related to Spears' conservatorship continue, we love to see her taking full advantage of her freedom.
Sure, they may have eaten a person back in the day. But there are some things the grown women of Yellowjackets just wouldn't do. On this, the actresses who play them — Tawny Cypress, Juliette Lewis, Melanie Lynskey and Christina Ricci — agree, as they gather in a backyard in L.A.'s Topanga Canyon in late July, just a few weeks before they start filming the second season of their breakout show.
The Showtime survival thriller, created and executive produced by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, earned seven Emmy nominations, including outstanding drama series and acting nominations for Lynskey and Ricci. The Yellowjackets storyline alternates between 1996 and the present day as it follows members of a high school girls soccer team whose plane crashes and strands them for 19 months in the wilderness, where they resort to cannibalism to survive.
Part of the show's nostalgic appeal relies on its casting of these actresses, three of whom audiences knew as young women for their slyly offbeat roles in films like The Addams Family (Ricci), Cape Fear (Lewis) and Heavenly Creatures (Lynskey), to play the crash survivors as adults. In this conversation with THR, Cypress, Lewis, Lynskey and Ricci disclose their '90s regrets, share what it means when you call an actress "quirky" and reveal how survival bonds women — including in the trenches of Hollywood.
Who here knew each other before the show?
MELANIE LYNSKEY (Points to Christina Ricci.) We knew each other a little bit. I went to a Nick Cave concert by myself, and Christina came up and —
CHRISTINA RICCI I was very excited to see you.
LYNSKEY So excited. We were having a lovely chat, and then she's like, "Are you here by yourself?" She's the coolest person of all time, and I was intimidated. I just felt embarrassed to say, "I've come to a concert by myself." I was like 24 or something.
RICCI I was impressed because I couldn't go anywhere by myself.
LYNSKEY I also went to see Clay Aiken by myself because nobody would come with me.
It's surprising that none of you had worked together over the years.
JULIETTE LEWIS It's wild when you've been around so long, and you sort of have a kindred connection to people. There's certain actors you're like, "Mmm, we're not of the same tree," and then there's other actors you're like, "Oh, yeah. We have some roots."
Juliette, Melanie and Christina, all three of your Wikipedia entries say some version of, "Often plays quirky or offbeat characters." What do those words mean to you?
LEWIS Real people, specific and unpredictable.
LYNSKEY I remember I got cast in a movie when I was like 21, and the description of the character before I auditioned was "Blah, blah, blah, the beautiful girl who sits next to him in school." Then, at the table read, it had been changed to "Blah, blah, blah, cute and quirky." I was like, "You don't need to change it. Just keep it …" They're like, "We better change this description or people will be like, wrong actress." So, sometimes it feels … I don't know. I never liked that word, "quirky."
RICCI When you say that all of us had this description, that to me speaks to a past time, when, if you weren't the leading-lady ingenue then you were quirky and offbeat. All right, so there's two groups for actresses? In a way, I'm fine with being in the category I'm in because what it means to me is that I have made an effort in my career to do things that I feel like I haven't seen before. So, in some ways, I like it. In other ways, I'm like, "Ugh." It's a little dismissive. A little cute and dismissive.
LEWIS We come from the '90s where, when I had blond hair, I was the pretty airhead, and then I dyed my hair dark, and I was the wisecracking, sarcastic girl. But yeah, I think it's really neat that we've all carved this path of range and specificity.
Isn't another term for that "character actor"?
RICCI But "character actress" used to be something they used to describe an ugly woman.
TAWNY CYPRESS Or Abe Vigoda.
RICCI Back in the late '90s, my agents were always like, "We have to be so careful you don't become a character actress. If we're not careful, you're going to end up just like Jennifer Jason Leigh." I was like, "I like her." They were so afraid of me not being a leading lady, of me not being sexually attractive to people. It was really the last thing I ever wanted, was for anyone to be attracted to me.
LEWIS My dad was a character actor. So to me, it was something that was super noble. It was a world of adventure and not limiting. I rebelled against the system, the PR system of being in some bizarre idea of beauty. I really revolted against that, for better or for worse. Crying in a bathroom at a photo shoot, like, "I won't come out." They want these doe-eyed looks. That's for sure what I didn't do in pictures, so I always looked slightly insane, which I prefer over, like, "Do you want to fuck me?"
Tawny, what was your sense of what the expectations were for you when you were starting out?
CYPRESS I've had a different row to hoe. I've spent my whole career doing shitty roles of the sassy one on the side. Honestly, growing up as an actor, I wanted to be an ingenue.
LEWIS Isn't that funny? And I wanted to be sassy and opinionated.
CYPRESS I couldn't be an ingenue. I just couldn't. It's just not in me, you know? I was never presented with those roles, ever, and I was like, "Oh, OK. That's not who I am." I sort of, growing older, have embraced my Jersey side, and I am who I am, and this is what you get.
LYNSKEY I started calling myself a character actor in interviews when I was really young because I think it was reclaiming the term or something. I think I just was like, "That's what I am." My agents had all that kind of intensity around it, too. I remember when I did Coyote Ugly —
RICCI Oh my God, you got a piece in that? I went up for that, and I didn't get it.
CYPRESS I did too.
LYNSKEY I played the best friend from Jersey. But the scrutiny that was on Piper [Perabo], who's one of the coolest, smartest women, just the way people were talking about her body, talking about her appearance, focusing on what she was eating. All the girls had this regimen they had to go on. It was ridiculous. I was already starving myself and as thin as I could possibly be for this body, and I was still a [size] four. That was already people putting a lot of Spanx on me in wardrobe fittings and being very disappointed when they saw me, the costume designer being like, "Nobody told me there would be girls like you." Really intense feedback about my physicality, my body, people doing my makeup and being like, "I'm just going to help you out by giving you a bit more of a jawline and stuff." Just the feedback was constantly like, "You're not beautiful. You're not beautiful." In your early 20s, so much of it is about beauty, and how people respond to you, and do people want to fuck you? Do people think you're their best friend? Even the best friend thing, I started to be like, "I don't want to do that too many times."
Did you have to unlearn anything that people tried to teach you when you were starting out?
LEWIS I had developed such a survival mechanism to protect my autonomy, sort of, "You don't own me. You don't tell me my value. Only I do." I was extremely self-critical — it still happens — of my work. It's almost like a defense mechanism that no one could talk shit about me more than I can. There's all these things that are wrapped up in how to survive a system. That's what I'm unlearning today — to be softer. This is a really remarkable industry to be a part of. I feel honored to be a part of it and what it gave me, but I do still hold on to what it took from me in my youth.
Given what you all experienced coming into the industry, do you feel at all protective of the younger actresses who play the younger versions of your characters?
LYNSKEY (Begins to cry.) So much. I feel very protective. At the beginning of production, I sent them all an email, and I just was like, "Whatever you need, if you need a voice, if you need someone to go to the producers for you, whatever you need," and they were kind of like, "Cool. Thanks." They're fine.
CYPRESS Totally fine. Jas [Jasmin Savoy Brown] was a boss on set. She's like, "This is how we're doing my hair. This is what we're doing."
RICCI They're very much of a different generation.
CYPRESS I am protective of Jas in the fact that she is so sexually positive, which I love. She has taught me so much, just knowing her as a person. But I'm like a mama bear to her, or a big sister. I'm like, "What are you putting online right now?" She's like, "Whatever. Whatever. This is life, man. I love myself." I'm protective, but I'm also in awe of her, you know?
LEWIS But there is a thing I always want to say to young people: Cultivate other interests deeply so that you're not getting all your life's blood from this industry, or your self-worth.
Is there anything you miss about the '90s?
LYNSKEY I have a lot of love letters from the '90s.
RICCI Someone used to fax me love letters when he was on tour. I did not save them. I throw everything out. I had a specific thing when I was a child, that we would be punished by the things that we loved being destroyed. My husband, who is a much healthier individual, has gone back and found all my old magazine covers on Etsy because he thinks it's horrible that I never saved them. As a child, I learned that this is going to be taken from me, so why save it anyway?
LYNSKEY That's heartbreaking. Well, I saved everything because I'm basically an emotional hoarder. I have this literal suitcase, an old-fashioned suitcase.
RICCI This is very dark, but I would just like to go back to that age and do it over again and not make so many fucking mistakes. Honestly, I regret so much.
CYPRESS Me too. One thousand percent.
LEWIS Me too.
RICCI I'd like to go back to 1996 and be like, "All right … we had a practice run. It went OK, but it wasn't really as great as we wanted it to be. We're going to do this again." People who are like, "I have no regrets." What fucking magic life did you live?
LEWIS Where they go, "I don't regret anything because that led up to this moment." Really? The thing that could've put my dad in an early grave, I fucking regret it. Yes. I was very scary as a young teenage person.
CYPRESS Yeah. I hurt a lot of people growing up, and I wish that I didn't. I was going through my memory box. It was my great-great-grandmother's she brought over from Hungary. It's huge, and it's filled to the brim with everything from my life. I came across a note from high school. It was my first gay friend, and it broke my heart because he was like, "I want to thank you for not talking to me anymore and just cutting me off the way that you did. It made it hurt less." I literally was crying, and I had to call him and be like, "I just came across this note, and I'm so sorry that I was that person to you." When I think back, I think how wonderful our relationship was, but I was a shit, you know? I would definitely do so many things differently.
LEWIS I've had those moments where I turned into … Because I've been bullied, but when I was 11 and got in a fight with a girl, I was mean [the same way] how a girl was mean to me. I was really vicious.
LYNSKEY I think people without regrets are narcissists. I think they're lying to themselves.
RICCI Denial is the only way to get up that river.
What did you all feel when you learned that Roe v. Wade was overturned?
RICCI It's really horrible to be told so plainly what your value is.
LEWIS I wish the two factions can talk, like, "Hey, what do you do with a bad situation, poverty and drug addiction, and rape?" You have to have an option that is salvageable or is sustainable for the survival of a person, a woman who's living.
CYPRESS I don't really give a shit what your reason to have an abortion is. It's your fucking body. I don't really fucking care. You don't want to be a mom, right? That's your fucking decision. Look, we can put morals on it and say, "Well, only when you're raped, or only if it's …" It's like no, dude. It's either in or out. We're either telling women what to do with their bodies or we let them have their own choice. I am of the mind, choice. I'm not going to judge you for making that decision.
LYNSKEY And there seems to be this general lack of compassion and empathy that's just growing and growing. There's so much hatred, and people are unable to look at another person's life and go, "Oh, you know, that's an untenable situation," or even, "That's a difficult situation." There's no grace given to anybody else. There's no empathy. You don't get to make decisions for somebody else. You don't know what's right for them.
Is there a place for TV and film in that conversation?
CYPRESS I mean, that's what TV and film do. That's what art is. On Yellowjackets, let's talk about Shauna's baby in the woods, you know? Yeah. I think we have a lot of room to speak on this subject, and I hope we do.
Did anybody have their kids on set for season one?
LYNSKEY (Points to Ricci.) We did.
RICCI And I was pregnant. I didn't tell anyone but these ladies that I was pregnant for six months. When we started, I was six weeks pregnant. It was difficult. There were so many times where I was like, "Ooh, when they find out I'm pregnant, and they made me sit in this smoky room all day. When they realize that they made me stand for eight hours, and I'm pregnant, and I have this horrible sciatica, and it's 100 degrees, oh, they're going to feel so bad." They didn't feel bad at all. But anyway, it was fine. In fact, it would've been helpful if I was playing a more emotional character because I can give a real good performance when I'm pregnant, real emo.
How would you finish the sentence, "Yellowjackets is really about …"?
CYPRESS Women. PTSD.
LYNSKEY Trauma.
CYPRESS Friendship.
RICCI Haunting, the way trauma haunts you. The way you can never escape. The way it twists people in different ways.
LEWIS Aberrant survival tactics.
We know that these characters have done a bunch of aberrant things, as you say, including cannibalism. But do you have in your mind an idea that, "OK, she may have eaten another human being, but she would never do this"?
RICCI I know when they confront me because I'm like, "OK, she wouldn't do that." Misty wouldn't drink that drink. Originally, in the script, she was drinking a Brandy Alexander, and I said, "No, Misty would drink a chocolate martini." I have rules and stuff for her in my head, and they do conflict with the writers sometimes. I don't think she actually is interested in men, at all. I think she does it because she's bored, or because she thinks that's what she's supposed to do. Then, she's also realized that she can have a lot of fun trying to trick them into having sex with her when they don't want to. It's like men will kind of know that you don't want to have sex with them, but if they can get you to have sex with them, they won.
LEWIS It's a power thing.
RICCI Misty's way of doing it is through this really horrible manipulation, making him feel guilty and having sex with her while feeling guilty, which would be a terrible experience.
When you have a different perspective on your character than the writers, what do you do?
RICCI That's part of the thing with TV that I've learned now, being involved in a production but not being one of the EPs, so you aren't a part of creating what people do. "OK, they wrote this scene. I have to play this scene. If she was in this situation, how the fuck would she be in this situation, and why would she be?" Then, you don't have to tell other people what you come up with. They can find out about it later when you do press.
Does anybody else have a line in their mind that their character wouldn't cross?
LYNSKEY I had one. There was something written into a script where I was going on a date with my lover, and they had me going into my daughter's bedroom and taking her underwear, which was just not practical because I wouldn't fit it. She's little. But also, ew. I think there was something, apparently, somewhere, people liked the thing in the pilot where I'm masturbating in my daughter's bedroom. I was like, "Can that just be an isolated incident? I don't want it to be a theme." So I just was like, "I don't want to do that." They were great about it.
LEWIS It comes, I think, with experience and respect, that they appreciate if you have a point of view. I have an "anything goes" stamp on me, which they all know. But I have strong ideas, especially about my trajectory in midlife. I've looked at Natural Born Killers recently, and I'm like, "Jesus." Thank goodness I had a partner like Woody Harrelson, but it is so sexual. No one forced me into that. I was a young nihilist who didn't give a fuck, and I felt comfortable with Woody, and I liked the material. But nowadays, I'm very particular. So, they had written a sex scene, and I was like, "I don't know. I don't know that she even gets off. I don't know that she even can have orgasms." That's how deep I went. So it was more like, is she doing something to get something? At the end of the day, I just didn't even think she fucks, sorry to be so graphic, at this juncture that you saw in season one. I think she might've had relationships with all of them in the wilderness. I don't know if they're going to write it, but that's what I'd like to think of Natalie.
LYNSKEY That's what I think too.
RICCI What? I never thought of that. Who would they be making out with? I guess each other.
The finale hints that there may be additional Yellowjackets who survived into adulthood. Have actors been cast for those roles?
LEWIS Wait, Melanie, didn't you say that on our chain, that someone we like is cast to be … (At this point there is meaningful eye contact among the four women.)
RICCI We don't know for sure. That's what we've heard was close to happening.
LYNSKEY We don't know anything.
On season one, you were making this show under the radar. Now there's so much fan speculation. Does that change the way you approach the work?
RICCI There's more pressure going into season two.
CYPRESS Have you guys also had that feeling of like, "Can I do this? Is it going to be good, the second season? Am I going to fuck this character up?"
LYNSKEY I have those fears.
RICCI Me too, but because TV is so fast, and you have so little time with the information, the process of talking about the show afterward helps you to evolve your take on your character. To understand things that were intended with the character that maybe weren't clear originally because you get to hear the EPs talk about it. I'm going to make changes in the next season based on what I have come to realize through all this talking.
RICCI Well, that's a secret.
How much do you want to know about the path that your character is on?
CYPRESS Fuck, I want to know everything. I sit there, and when I think about the show, I think, "What the fuck are they going to do with this character?" There's so many different parts to her right now. The dog thing. She's now a senator. There may be an old love coming back, you know? I'm like, "How are they going to do this?" I just want to know.
LYNSKEY Now you're a full-time dog killer.
RICCI I didn't even know that you were supposed to be the one that killed the dog.
CYPRESS What?
RICCI I thought, "Oh, well maybe somebody broke in."
LYNSKEY That could still be, right?
CYPRESS Wait, give me more to think about.
So you don't go to the writers and say, "To be clear, did I kill the dog?"
CYPRESS Oh, we do. They just say, "Mmm."
RICCI "We don't know."
CYPRESS But they do know.
RICCI I don't think they're trying to control us with no information or anything. Sometimes, they don't want to commit to something that hasn't been necessarily set in stone. I do find it frustrating to not know, and we're never able to know fully. I have decided to learn how to function with knowing nothing.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
This story first appeared in the Aug. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Shockwaves from Warner Bros.'s cancelation of Batgirl have had many fans questioning the possibility of other DC-connected projects following suit. Amid outcries from fans of Batgirl, Michael Keaton, Brendan Fraser, and even Snyderverse fans who are always eager to picket Warner Bros., Peacemaker fans started asking James Gunn whether there was any possibility that his DC work was going to suffer amid the company's cost-cutting exercise. Ironically, considering the history that led James Gunn to work with DCEU characters, it seems that the director and his shows are the only ones who are "safe."
What seems like a lifetime ago, James Gunn was all set to start work on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 for Disney and Marvel Studios when some old Twitter posts led to him being unceremoniously sacked. By the time Disney backtracked on their firing, Gunn was already committed to directing The Suicide Squad for Warner Bros., which is why Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has taken so long to arrive. Now, during all the chaos at Warner Bros., it appears that Gunn is not worried at all about the second season of Peacemaker getting the ax. When asked if the show was safe, Gunn simply replied:
"Yes, guys, calm down."
That is a relief for fans of the small sub-universe Gunn is building inside the DCEU, which along with The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, is set to include at least another unannounced project and be linked to the Amanda Waller series that is in development. At least that side of the franchise doesn't appear to be going anywhere.
Related: Peacemaker: Will More Suicide Squad Members Appear in Season 2?
Is Warner Bros. Still Planning on Rebooting The DCEU?
There have been rumors of a "soft-reboot" coming to the DCEU for a long time, and while it seems at times like Warner Bros. is heading in that direction, they have constantly denied any such intention. During San Diego Comic-Con, the entire focus of the Warner Bros. live-action DC panel was on Black Adam and Shazam! Fury of the Gods. Both of these movies have their small links to the wider DCEU, and once again, Warner Bros. seemed to be causing confusion by including a Justice League montage within the Shazam sequel while at the same time professing that they are not revisiting that particular DCEU set up in any way.
One thing clear from Dwayne Johnson's appearance at SDCC is that he believes that Black Adam is setting the tone for a new DCEU, and based on everything else that is happening, he could be right. While there is no way of telling exactly where the franchise will be heading beyond The Flash in 2023, with new additional entries like Wonder Woman 3 constantly being stuck in limbo, it has been made clear that some big changes are being made in regards to the DCEU and fans will be hoping that those changes bring some kind of consistency to the franchise before it ends up crashing down around itself.


Group canvasses support for Buhari
Home » Group canvasses support for Buhari
By Umar Muhammad Puma
A group, Buhari Friends Organisation Network has called on Nigerians to vote for General Muhammadu Buhari in the 2015 general elections.
The in a statement issued yesterday signed by its National Coordinator, Saint Athanasius Okon said its earlier call to the delegates few days to the convention was successful. It therefore said it is making the same appeal to the Nigerian voters to vote for Buhari in the general elections in 2015.
The group said the APC presidential candidate has a lot to offer for the country as he promised to make all the necessary sacrifices for the development of the country. It noted that the statement made by Buhari at the convention ground that he has more than money to offer Nigerians was indeed historic.
The group stressed that the money being given to the electorates by the politicians to buy their votes only enables them to steal when they get to the positions and break the promises they made to the electorates during their campaigns.
"With peculiar circumstances and challenges occasioned by the past and present selfish political rulers , we need leaders this time around, as we are tired of rulers that are selfish and heavily corrupt. We are tired of pseudo-politicians and pretenders that masquerades themselves in the corridors of power who claimed to be democrats. We are tired of those who see stealing of commonwealth to be different from official corruption," the group stated.
It added that as it has earlier called on the delegates to do what is right in their choice of candidate for the party, they wanted Nigerians to also be mindful of the fact that the first step of having good governance is to elect good leaders without prompting through dubious last minute inducement during the election which will at the end jeorpardise their future.
"As we called on the APC National delegates to please do the needful and vote for the right person to be our symbol for the necessary change, which they graciously obliged us, today we are now extending same request to the collective Nigerian electorates of not less than 70 million to please buy into the campaign for positive change," it said.
No official result yet on our primaries, says Kwara PDP chairman
Court stops Jimi Agbaje from parading himself as PDP guber candidate


February 14, 2011 December 31, 2013 / aaronmbuckley
I never got to watch this in the cinema unfortunately as I didn't really know anyone else that was interested in seeing it and I'm not really one to go to the cinema on my own. Although perhaps it's something I should do when there's a film I want to see that no one else does, as I find I don't really buy a lot of DVDs so tend to go to the cinema as much as I can instead. When I saw that this film was available to rent on iTunes for 99p then I just had to do it, and I'm glad I did. Since I rented it from iTunes though I only watched the 2D version, but I don't think 3D would have really helped the movie that much, unlike films like Avatar where the 3D takes the film to a whole other level. But then I could be wrong since I haven't seen StreetDance in 3D.
Whilst it's not a great film in terms of story and acting I did still enjoy it. I'd heard some pretty bad reviews of this film from some friends so was quite worried about watching it, but the opening credits came up and I was like this film isn't that bad, the opening credits are quite good. It was shot well, had great sound, and the actors seemed fine. That was until they opened their mouths! Being British you'd think I would like to watch a film where the actors have British accents, but for some reason I just found it so bad. Now bad acting doesn't usually bother me that much, but because they were British accents I knew for a fact that they were bad actors. And the story was another thing that was awful.
But after about 15 minutes I found myself getting used to the bad acting and it didn't really bother me that much, I just wanted to watch the film for the dance sequences anyway. Although as the film went on I found that the story just got better and better. Yes it was still cheesy, but it was good cheesy. Mixing streetdance with ballet I found really sucked me in as well, because I love it when you get two opposites and crash them together. Mixing dance and music genres together has created some of my favourite pieces.
When this film was promoted though it was plugged as featuring Diveristy, Flawless and George Sampson from Britain's Got Talent. However, this seemed more like a promotional plug for both them and the film. Diversity perform once in the film and it isn't shot that great. Flawless do about three performances all of which are very good and are the best of the lot. And George Sampson does one dance performance at the end which is pretty cool. But most of the dancing is done by the dance crew which the film is about, and they are pretty good. I enjoyed all the dance sequences apart from Diversity's due to it being filmed poorly, and I also enjoyed the fact that there are actually lots of dance sequences.
If you're into street dance or ballet then I'd say check this film out. But I wouldn't go as for as to say that you should buy the DVD and watch it again and again, because I'm not sure I'd watch it again. It was enjoyable, but definitely more of a one time thing.
Dance, DVD, Film, Review, Street
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We hold your data for the following periods:
Applicant data is held for one year following an unsuccessful job application
General employee data (personal, vehicle, characteristics, qualification and skills), previous employment records and performance is stored for the duration of the individual's employment, plus three years, except for employee data for individuals working with children which is stored for the duration of the individual's employment, plus 45 years
Absence data and medical records are stored for the current year, plus two years, except for health surveillance records which are kept for up to 40 or 50 years, depending on which type of record they are.
Employee relations case files (disciplinary, grievance, capability and conduct) are stored for two years, unless a different retention period is identified as part of the outcome of the case
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We routinely share employee / applicant information with:
the Office of National Statistics (ONS) on a statutory basis under section 1 of Statistics of Trade Act 1947
Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) on a statutory basis under
the Income Tax (Pay As You Earn) Regulations 2003 (SI 2003/2682);
the Social Security (Contributions) Regulations 2001 (SI 2001/1004); and
the Income Tax (Construction Industry Scheme) Regulations 2005 (SI 2005/2045)
Duradiamond Healthcare, our Occupational Health provider, on a contractual basis as part of pre-employment checks, management or ill health retirement referrals detailed in our Sickness Absence policy
Sodexo Holdings Limited, our staff benefits provider, on a contractual basis to provide staff benefits to employees
Tuskerdirect Limited, a staff benefit provider, on a contractual basis to provide a salary sacrifice car scheme to employees
BMG Research, an independent research agency, on a contractual basis to provide our staff survey
Kent County Council, our criminal records check provider, on a statutory and contractual basis to undertake DBS checks on our behalf
Learning Pool Limited, our e-learning provider, on a contractual basis to allow access to our e-learning platform
We will share employee information with third parties as part of Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE), the data provided will be in two parts
Anonymised data detailing staff numbers, staff absences, numbers and kinds of employee relations cases. This data forms part of the initial due diligence relating to any TUPE transfer and will be shared with any third party with a specific interest in transferring staff as part of a commercial or procurement project
Specific "employee liability information", including but not limited to:
the identity of the employees who will transfer;
the age of those employees;
information contained in the 'statements of employment particulars' for those employees;
information relating to any collective agreements which apply to those employees;
instances of any disciplinary action within the preceding two years taken by the transferor in respect of those employees in circumstances where the Acas Code of Practice on discipline and grievance applies;
instances of any grievances raised by those employees within the preceding two years in circumstances where the Acas Code of Practice on discipline and grievance applies; and
instances of any legal actions taken by those employees against the transferor in the previous two years, and instances of potential legal actions which may be brought by those employees where the transferor has reasonable grounds to believe such actions might occur.
This data forms part of the due diligence relating to a TUPE transfer and will be shared with the third party identified as the future employers of staff after the transfer, following or as part of a commercial or procurement activity.
In both cases the information will be provided as part of our statutory obligations detailed in Regulation 11 of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006. Other data sets may voluntarily be provided as part of the TUPE process.
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We share employee / applicant data with the third parties detailed above in order to meet statutory or contractual requirements.
We do not share information about individuals without consent unless the law and our policies allow us to do so.
Data collection requirements
To find out more about the data collection requirements placed on us by the ONS and HMRC go to:
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/10-11/39
www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/2682/contents/made
Both the ONS and HMRC may share information about employees / applicants for
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The ONS and HMRC have robust processes in place to ensure the confidentiality of our data is maintained and there are stringent controls in place regarding access and use of the data.
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To be granted access to employee / applicant information, organisations must comply with strict terms and conditions covering the confidentiality and handling of the data, security arrangements and retention and use of the data.
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Under data protection legislation, individuals have the right to request access to information about them that we hold. To make a request for your personal information contact data.protection@suffolk.gov.uk
You also have other rights regarding your personal data which are set out in SCC's corporate Privacy Notice, which can be seen here: www.suffolk.gov.uk/about/privacy-and-data-protection
If you have a concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, please contact us in the first instance, by writing to the Data Protection Manager at Constantine House, 5 Constantine Road, Ipswich IP1 2BX or by e-mailing data.protection@suffolk.gov.uk
Alternatively, you can contact the or the Information Commissioner's Office at https://ico.org.uk/concerns
SCC's corporate privacy notice is available at www.suffolk.gov.uk/about/privacy-and-data-protection. If you would like further information about this privacy notice, please contact: humanresources@suffolk.gov.uk
We process data submitted through Suffolk Jobs Direct and recorded on iTrent on behalf of our partners; Mid Suffolk District Council, Babergh District Council, Suffolk Coastal District Council, Waveney District Council, South Norfolk Council and Schools' Choice. For details of their privacy statements, please click on the links below:
www.eastsuffolk.gov.uk/legal-and-privacy-statement
www.babergh.gov.uk/the-council/your-right-to-information/data-protection-act
www.midsuffolk.gov.uk/the-council/your-right-to-information/data-protection-act
www.south-norfolk.gov.uk/about-us/data-protection
www.schoolschoice.org/system/files/Vertas%20Internet%20Privacy%20Notice.pdf
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You are here: Home › Amagakure Gido: 100 Blossoms to Love
Amagakure Gido: 100 Blossoms to Love
By Himi on 2014-03-03 in Reviews, Shelved
I posted nine of my favorite yakuza themed stories and my friend asked, "you never read 100 Blossoms to Love?" So, obviously I was missing out on something, because it seemed not only like she expected me to have read it, but if I had, it would have definitely made the list. Or I could have been reading way too much into the quick question. Either way, it got me to read it, and I'm glad I did.
Honestly, this story is just the cutest thing. We meet Kotaro, the heir to a yakuza family who grew up with romanticized notions of the underworld due to the yakuza films his grandfather shared with him. He's been looking for someone to call "aniki," but has been unable to find anyone (suitable). Just when he thinks it's a lost cause, he witnesses Toraji taking down a would-be purse-snatcher. Cue the sparkles.
While daydreaming outside of Toraji's place of business about what it would be like to call this everyday hero "aniki," Kotaro absentmindedly plucks the petals off a flower. Now, Toraji's a florist and it's understandable that he doesn't look too kindly on floral abuse, so their first real meeting doesn't play out too well. But Kotaro is such a pure-hearted guy and it's his pure heart and his seemingly irrepressible spirit that convinces Toraji to give him another chance and eventually pulls him in. Fortunately for Toraji, he doesn't mind being pulled in, although he's not always completely aware of when it's happening.
With the help of Toraji's sister who owns the flower shop, Kotaro's colorful yakuza kin, and a few more cast members, 100 Blossoms to Love turns out to be something of a yakuza fairytale. A prince searching for his true love, a night in uh … floral armor, a rescue, a storied past, a pervy uncle, and a few twists along the way.
It's a solid, well-paced story and Toraji and Kotaro's relationship kept me smiling, giddy, and laughing. I hope Amagakure has other works with a similar tone, because I could certainly go for more. And as for the list, I think it should be there, too.
Notes: I read the Toraji's brother's story, Akunin o Nakaseru Houhou, and I liked it. Not as much as this, but was pretty good, but the tone wasn't as lighthearted. There's also another continuation–the final, I believe–Warudakumi ni mo Hana wa Furu, which I'm looking forward to.
100 blossoms to love, amagakure gido, bl manga, jmanga, rex
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Leading for purpose and growth
We worked with the executive team to create highly experiential workshops supported by one-to-one and team coaching sessions, enabling the leadership team to:
Collaborate by uniting teams around the mission, above functional agendas, and by being more human, open and mutually supportive of each other.
Create space for the teams to speak up, be heard, and take more ownership of and accountability for their roles.
Innovate by igniting a 'we can' attitude towards perceived challenges and turning creative solutions into fresh commercial opportunities for the organisation.
Remploy, a strongly mission-driven service organisation was exiting government ownership to become part of the MAXIMUS family. The Chief Executive and her leadership team recognised the need to lead the organisation in a radically different way to sustain and advance their mission through the commercial opportunities now open to them.
The organisation needed to rapidly adjust to being 30% employee-owned and 70% by a US service sector giant. At the beginning, the leadership team was unsure of how they needed to change and how they would continue to achieve their profoundly rewarding mission in vastly different circumstances. The leadership needed to engage with and adapt to the majority owner's clear commercial processes and strong performance culture. Also, co-workers, as part owners, were now asking different questions and developing fresh expectations of their employer.
Having successfully come together to steer the organisation through the process of leaving public ownership, the leadership team needed to embrace the new opportunities opening up to them. They were compelled to engage constructively and positively with the inherent risks, rather than be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the change.
Over the course of a year, we developed and facilitated three highly experiential workshops, interspersed with personal, one-to-one and team reflection, learning and course correction sessions.
The transformational workshops focused on real work, using head, heart and body intelligence to create lasting change in relationships and breakthrough changes in perspectives on performance, new business opportunities and improved stakeholder relationships. People understoodeach other more deeply and more intimately and real actions were agreed.
The different reflection and learning interventions between the workshops maintained momentum around the agreements and commitments made during the events. One-to-one conversations enabled people to review the effect of the leadership changes they were making and identify next steps. Small and whole team coaching conversations made it easier for the team to reflect together on how they were adapting their ways of working.
The leadership team shifted from individually holding doubts and questions to being confident and united behind a strengthened sense of mission and purpose. This became the foundation for increased collaboration, as they prioritised the mission above their individual functions. This rippled out to create a positive, confident energy throughout the organisation, and strong partnering with their parent company
The collaboration was grounded in the team knowing each other at a deeper, more intimate, level. Facing difficulties they 'leaned in' rather than being isolated. They genuinely celebrated colleagues' achievements and robustly challenged each other, valuing their diverse views
They adopted a fresh leadership style defined by stepping back, listening and allowing their team members and other co-workers space for more accountability and responsibility. This enabled them to prioritise new business and commercial opportunities.
The approach WDI took helped me and my leadership team have the confidence to reflect and make significant changes in how we lead at the most important time ever in our history. The changes have rippled throughout the organisation, setting us up to create and embrace the opportunities opening up to us.
Beth Carruthers, CEO, MAXIMUS People Services


Living in Taiwan
Moving to Taiwan || A Guide By Those Who Made The Move
Living in Taiwan • By Zoe Stephens • October 9, 2022
Moving to Taiwan (in 2023) || The Ultimate Expat's Guide
From the LTL Expats
Moving anywhere in the world can be both an exciting, and daunting task.
Depending on where you're coming from, moving to Taiwan may create a big distance between you and your hometown.
So, we've put a guide together including key information and facts on what to expect regarding the most important things that may be on your mind when preparing for a move abroad!
Let's get stuck in…
Moving to Taiwan || Map of Taiwan
Moving to Taiwan || Currency in Taiwan
Moving to Taiwan || Time in Taiwan
Moving to Taiwan || Weather in Taiwan
Moving to Taiwan || Language in Taiwan
Moving to Taiwan || Things to do
Moving to Taiwan || FAQs
See what Tobias and Mikkel thought of Taiwan
Moving to Taiwan: Taiwan Map
Moving to Taiwan – Map of Taiwan
Taiwan is a relatively small island located in East Asia and has a population of 23.3 million.
Due to its small, compact size, the Taiwan map is fairly easy to navigate.
Most people head to its capital, Taipei, which is home to the Taipei 101 tower.
Let's also not forget, the world's tallest Starbucks at the top, boasting a great view of Taipei city.
The northern part of Taiwan, where Taipei the capital is located, is part of the sub-tropical climate zone, whilst the southern part is part of the tropical climate zone.
The island of Taiwan lies on the earthquake fault line, meaning that earthquakes are possible and not uncommon during modern times.
NOTE – LTL's school is based in Taipei, the heart of Taiwan.
Group Class at LTL Taipei
Building Your Expat Life in China and Coping With People Moving Home || Part 1
Find out first how to make your expat life in China easier from the start, and how to deal with your friends moving home with LTL Language School.
Moving to Taiwan: Taiwan Currency
Currency: New Taiwan Dollar (NTD).
1 USD = approx 30 NTD (correct at time of publication)
The name of the Taiwan currency name is the "New Taiwan Dollar", NTD or NT$ in its shortened form.
The ISO code of the Taiwan currency is TWD, which you will need for the currency rate online.
To refer to Taiwanese money in every day Taiwanese, Taiwan currency is often referred to as 'kuai', literally meaning 'piece'.
This is the same as how it's referred to in the Mainland China (either that or Renminbi, more formally)
You will hear this form of language in all aspects of life in Taiwan, from on the streets, to chatting with friends or in the office.
The highest denomination in cash is 2000$ and the lowest is 100$ although coins go as low as just 1$.
Useful Conversions (true as written in October 2022)
Cost/Currency
1 NTD 0.23 0.031 0.031 0.027
50 NTD 11.26 1.55 1.56 1.35
250 NTD 56.32 7.77 7.18 6.75
1,000 NTD 225.28 31.09 31.25 27.00
A Guide to the Taiwan Entrepreneur Visa
An Insight into the Taiwan Entrepreneur Visa and How to Get One Yourself A blog all about the Taiwan Entrepreneur Visa – a big thanks to Julien for writing all about his personal experiences of opening a company and applying…
Moving to Taiwan: Taiwan Time
Taiwan, like Mainland China, has the same timezone throughout the entire country.
The Taiwan time zone is CST (China Standard Time), GMT + 8.
Taiwan Timezone – The same as China : 8 hours ahead of GMT
Moving to Taiwan: Taiwan Weather
Travel to this island in the tropical zone and you can forget about bringing your winter coats.
It has a beautiful warm climate throughout the whole year although experiencing Taiwan weather in summer can be a tad too much, as humidity levels, as well as heat rise above comfortable for most.
Because of the tropical climate, leaving your winter coats behind is a good idea, but don't forget your umbrellas!
Taiwan weather can be very unpredictable, especially during typhoon season between July and September.
One minute a downpour, the next beautiful blue skies. Don't forget to bring your umbrella with you in your bag!
The average amount of rainfall per year is 2,500mm and there are about 3-4 typhoons that hit the island per year.
Such typhoons have been known to have devastating impact, such as flooding, landslides, and causing damage to infrastructure.
Because Taiwan is an island, although the Taiwan weather may sound unbearable to some who don't like warm summers, don't fear!
There is a constant sea breeze passing through meaning to doesn't get too stuffy.
Taiwan Weather Temperature:
Annual average – 22 °C
Annual average lowest – 12 to 17 °C
Spring average – 25 °C
Summer average – 30 °C
Autumn average – 20 °C
Winter average – 16 °C
Moving to Taiwan: Taiwan Language
Apart from the fact that people in Taiwan use Traditional Chinese instead of Simplified Chinese as their writing system, there are still several differences between Taiwanese Mandarin and Chinese Mandarin.
You can check out our blog all about Taiwanese Mandarin and get yourself fully clued up!
At LTL – our classes in Taiwan are either taught using Traditional Chinese or Simplified Chinese.
Sign up and YOU have the power to choose what YOU want to learn.
Things You Have To Know About Taiwanese Mandarin
What is the difference between Taiwanese Mandarin and Standard Mandarin? What language do they speak in Taiwan? Your questions are all answered here.
A note on VPNs
An important note distinguishing Taiwan and Mainland China is the use of VPN. Traveling to China for any period of time and you'll want to get yourself a VPN, whether free or paid.
Taiwan's internet, however, does not require the use of a VPN to access some of your favourite sites such as Facebook and Netflix.
So, surf away!
Things to do in Taiwan
Luckily for you Taiwan is packed with things to do!
Even better still… we have dedicated not one, but two posts towards things to do in Taiwan!
Our first post is about the top things to do in Taipei – the things on the bucket list you have to do. These include:
Visit the Taipei 101
Head to the Addiction Aquatic Development
Visit the incredible night Markets
Check out our post to see the rest.
Things to Do in Taipei (2023 Update) | The Complete Guide
Follow our huge list of things to do in Taipei. Everything from the best things to eat, and the best day trips outside of Taipei. You cannot miss these!
Our next post is about the quirkier, fun things to do in Taipei that usually slip under the radar. These include:
Going for a knife massage
Have your fortune told by a bird
Sitting on a giant waterlily
See how those lists differ. We didn't even mention the poo-themed restaurant either!
Something for everyone in Taipei!
What is the weather like in Taiwan?
Warm, humid and wet. The annual average is 22 °C and temperatures rarely go below 12 °C and above 35 °C .
What currency is used in Taiwan?
In Taiwan the NTD is used. This is the New Taiwan Dollar and converts roughly to 1 USD = approx 30 NTD (correct at time of publication).
What is the population is Taiwan?
Taiwan has a population of 23.3 million people.
What is the capital city of Taiwan?
The capital city of Taiwan is Taipei City.
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Taiwan Aboriginal : The Truth about Taiwanese Aboriginals with LTL Taiwan 4 years ago
[…] you're planning to visit Taiwan as a tourist, or coming to live, work, or study, don't forget to head back to its roots and include checking out the Taiwan […]
Former Name of Taiwan: Isla Formosa and Taiwan History - LTL Taiwan 4 years ago
[…] turn, this means that it has an incredibly unique culture. This is why you should definitely put a visit to Taiwan on your bucket list. It is a place like no other. Plus, it's a great place to study Mandarin […]
Taiwan Flag: The Flag of the Republic of China - LTL Taiwan 4 years ago
[…] Taiwan flag is the flag of the Republic of China (Taiwan). It is a great source of pride for many Taiwanese people and can often be seen around the country. […]
Hattie 2 years ago
I miss TW, spent 3 amazing years there. Would love to go back
Max Hobbs 2 years ago
Taiwan would welcome you back with open arms Hattie!
Paola 1 year ago
Best placed I ever lived!
LTL Team HQ 1 year ago
It's right up there! Always top of those expat ranking lists.