Buma

@SaltyGoat17 Lets see. Should I pay US $2m and insure a vessel, which means the ship will still be under fire from missiles/drones/mines, and a hit would probably cost me $10s if not $100s million. Or just pay Iran $2m and be guaranteed a safe passage ? Tough call.

“Instead of Iran charging $2M/vessel going through the Strait, the U.S. will charge a $2M escort fee for every vessel, which is about $9B a month or $100B in revenue.” “We will waive that fee for any country that participates in the coalition to open up the Strait.” BRILLIANT!!

2/ @HKFP had the foresight to document the old 'Hong Kong Story' - a visual archive of 220 images... hongkongfp.com/hkfp-visual-ar…

@DannyDrinksWine Never seen a picture of a young Mifune before. Reminds me of young Robert DeNiro.

When Toshirô Mifune (三船 敏郎) first auditioned for 'TOHO', he was about to be rejected by the selection committee. They felt his demeanour was disrespectful. Akira Kurosawa (黒澤 明), who was impressed by his acting, intervened & proposed to change their evaluation method. The Rest is History. Akira Kurosawa reciting the above story in his own words: "IT’S NOT POSSIBLE for me to talk about 'Drunken Angel', which was released in 1948, without devoting some attention to the actor Mifune Toshiro. In June of 1946, in order to get into the spirit of postwar activity, Toho conducted open auditions to recruit new contract actors. Using the headline “Wanted: New Faces,” they got a tremendous number of applicants. On the day of the interviews and screen tests I was in the middle of the shooting of No Regrets for Our Youth, so I couldn’t participate in the judging. But during lunch break I stepped off the set and was immediately accosted by actress Takamine Hideko, who had been the star of Yamamoto Kajirō’s Horses when I was chief assistant director. “There’s one who’s really fantastic. But he’s something of a roughneck, so he just barely passed. Won’t you come have a look?” I bolted my lunch and went to the studio where the tests were being given. I opened the door and stopped dead in amazement. A young man was reeling around the room in a violent frenzy. It was as frightening as watching a wounded or trapped savage beast trying to break loose. I stood transfixed. But it turned out that this young man was not really in a rage, but had drawn “anger” as the emotion he had to express in his screen test. He was acting. When he finished his performance, he regained his chair with an exhausted demeanor, flopped down and began to glare menacingly at the judges. Now, I knew very well that this kind of behavior was a cover for shyness, but the jury seemed to be interpreting it as disrespect. I found this young man strangely attractive, and concern over the judges’ decision began to distract me from my work. I returned to my set and wrapped up the shooting early. Then I proceeded to look in on the room where the jury were deliberating. Despite Yamasan’s strong recommendation of the young man, the voting was against him. Suddenly I heard myself shouting, “Please wait a minute." The jury was made up of two groups: movie-industry specialists (directors, cinematographers, producers and actors) and representatives of the labor union. The two groups were equally represented. At that time the union was gaining in strength daily, and union representatives appeared wherever something was happening. Because of them, all decisions had to be made by voting, but I felt that for them to voice their opinions on the selection of actors was really going too far. Even the expression “going too far” doesn’t do justice to the suppressed anger boiling in me. I called for a time out. I said that in order to judge the quality of an actor and predict his future capacities you need the talents and experience of an expert. In the selection of an actor it isn’t right to equate the vote of an expert and the vote of a complete outsider. It’s like appraising a gemstone—you wouldn’t give a greengrocer’s appraisal the same weight you would a jeweler’s. In evaluating an actor, an expert’s vote should have at least three if not five times the weight of an amateur’s. I emphasized that I wanted a recount of the votes with more appropriate weight assigned to the experts’ opinions. The jury was thrown into an uproar. “It’s anti-democratic, it’s monopoly by directors!” someone shouted. But all of the production people on the jury raised their hands in approval of my suggestion, and even some labor-union representatives nodded their assent. Finally Yama-san, who was head of the jury, said that as a movie director he would take responsibility for his opinion of the quality and potential of the young actor in question. With Yama-san’s pronouncement the young man squeaked through. He was, of course, Mifune Toshiro." (Excerpt taken from "Something like an autobiography", Akira Kurosawa) Clip from: Drunken Angel (1948) Director: Akira Kurosawa

@fhcluk Freedom of speech. Optimistic outlook. Jobs and opportunities. Cohesive language/culture. Reputation.

Name one thing about Hong Kong that is worse than before the handover in 1997.

No Leslie Cheung being screened at this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival, which kicks off today. But of course we still remember Gor Gor.

23 years on: Remembering Hong Kong’s Leslie Cheung – actor and Cantopop superstar hongkongfp.com/2017/01/03/in-…

On April 1, 2003, Cantopop superstar Leslie Cheung jumped to his death from the 24th floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Hong Kong. A stream of Hongkongers paid tribute outside the hotel on Wednesday, 23 years on. Photos: Tom Grundy/HKFP. In full: hongkongfp.com/2017/01/03/in-…

April 1st at the Mandarin Oriental, 23 years later

@herandrews How much you think those delivery workers, waiters, and salon workers polishing your nails actually make ?

Why do Asians have such a high poverty rate in New York City? Is this a genuine phenomenon, or do they have low reported income because they work in cash businesses?

@CAMELCASTOff The difference between a legend and a loser is rather or not you got away with it and live well at the end. Is Egg a legend or a loser ?

Story time. I worked at GameStop for 11 years, starting in 2007. My store manager was a 500 lb man. I called him Egg. Egg pretty much was the worst person I've ever met. He would schedule you during your mothers funeral and laugh about it. Anyway. The worst thing Egg did was leave the store at 1pm (and stay clocked in stealing time). He would go to his buddy's house and have sex with hookers. This was in rural Alabama so you can imagine the quality of hooker. He came back at 5pm to clock out. Eventually all the employees at the store including myself complained anonymously to upper management about it. A few weeks later our District Manager came to the store "have a talk with Egg." He told Egg that he can no longer leave the store and steal time. He wasn't fired because our store ranked so well in sales metrics.(pro cards, reserves, etc). Egg decided the best way to move forward was to BRING HOOKERS TO THE STORE. He would walk them in the front door, which children in the store, and go into the back room to proceed. Right next to our products in the store room. After a few weeks, we made another anonymous tip. The REGIONAL director came to the store this time to investigate. Luckily, all the security tapes had been erased by our DM and Egg. No more questions were asked. Egg was not fired(because he ranked so well in metrics). He continued to do this hooker nonsense. I was promoted to store manager soon after and leave to go to a different store. Egg worked at GameStop for another 10 years.

@datingbyblaine How often do you find a woman who fits the criteria but are just not interested in someone that is nearly 50yo ?

Why is matchmaking expensive? To illustrate, here’s how I’ll lose money on a client’s $49,000 package. Client is 46, 6’2, exited tech founder. He’s looking for a woman 27-33, very specific criteria around match personality, appearance, and profession. Without diving into specifics, she: • Isn’t easily searchable online... • Isn’t likely to reply when we find her… • Isn’t likely to be single… • Often has a deal-breaker trait we can’t screen for without a phone call… • Isn’t necessarily interested in my client… I was expecting this to be a difficult search, so I quoted $49,000. I wasn’t expecting ~100 hours of labor to find each match, not including communication with the client! To date I’ve spent $45,000 on salaries for the women staffed on his search, plus $2,750 on styling and photos, and we still owe the client 2 matches... Before considering overhead (let alone opportunity cost) this will be a huge L financially. Things balance out though. Most engagements are profitable. Some engagements are quite profitable. For example, a new client in NYC paid $30,000 and paused after his first match, because he’s 99% sure we found his wife. That's still a new relationship, and engagements last 9 months (6 months of active matching + up to 3 months of pause), so we could be on the hook for more work in coming months. But you get the point 🙏

@rachallison1 @AliceFromQueens @datingbyblaine Age is not just a number. There are practical limits. Why risk it ?

@AliceFromQueens @datingbyblaine women can have kids past 33 lol

@Romy_Holland Spanking is a tool. If that is your only tool then yes, it is a problem. If used with other tools such as honesty, consistency, positive reinforcement, etc, it can be very useful.

i don’t understand how anyone can spank their kids and not think this will cause irreparable harm to that relationship. kids who get spanked mostly turn out to be healthy adults, but i’d bet they have significantly less trust in and respect for the person who spanked them. i mostly think it’s bad to spank your kids because it’s a terrible way to treat another person, especially one as vulnerable as your own child. but even from just a purely selfish perspective, it’s incredibly dumb and short sighted to damage such an important relationship just to get short term compliance.

@simmo1024 @bestofstarwar 1) Midichlorians was a bad idea. 2) Pod racing was cool, I don’t remember seeing any complaints. 3) I didn’t have a problem with Jar Jar Binks, but a lot of people didn’t like him. 4) That light saber fight was great. Highlight of the movie.

@bestofstarwar 1) Midichlorians 2) Pod Racing 3) Jar Jar binks. The lightsaber fights were superb though.

“I genuinely can't understand how the previous generation saw this in 1999 and said "this sucks".”

@stellachenyl The fallacy is thinking that white men stopped dating local because local women are too liberal. The reason white men are dating Asians is because Asian girls are easy for white men.

I've never understood WMAF couples where the White guy wants a traditional smart woman but is with an Asian liberal who hates her dad. Last I recall, White men say women who hate fathers are not good wives. So, why are some of them dating Asian liberals that hate their dads?

@TABECHAUYO He’s in Everything Everywhere All at Once.

ブライアン・リー（スキンヘッドでガタイ良くて異常にキビキビ動いてる方）マジで凄すぎるので、体が元気なうちに一本でも多くのアクションに出てほしい。

@austin_tunoi I can sorta understand losing millions of dollars. You just need to buy 2 or 3 homes. But a billion dollars ? How ? Doesn’t he have managers ?

Mayweather went bankrupt after earning $1.2B in his career. Seeing his houses and cars being auctioned is bizarre.

@PastorMarvy Probably because World War 3 ain’t good for anyone.

Why China chose not to take over Taiwan in this window still eludes me.

@ick_real Yes.

If a coworker has a car and lives near my house, and drives me to work every day, am I obligated to chip in for gas?

@DesireeAmerica4 It’s essentially old age insurance. It’s only a gamble if you consider insurance a gamble.

The biggest gamble of your life? Social Security. ​The system tells you to wait. Take it at 62: $1,800/mo. Wait till 70: $3,000/mo. ​Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Run the math. To actually profit from waiting, you have to live past 82. The average US life expectancy? 79. ​With the garbage in our food and the stress we carry today, making it to 82 is a massive bet. ​Are you taking the money at 62 and running, or holding out for the bigger check?