QuietCupcake

I remember someone (probably here) saying that the Shadow of Mordor/War "Nemesis System" could have become a widespread gaming system similar to how the unique mechanics of Dark Souls games became an entire genre and now there are all kinds of games that use the system and tinker with variations on it to great effect now called "soulslike." But because WB or Ubisoft or whoever made a show of patenting the system (and apparently won actual lawsuit challenges to it?) there is no genre of "shadowlike" or "nemesislike" games. That it was a clear example of a patent actually depriving us of an entire potential genre of games.

edit: I swear I read this whole thread before commenting but I missed EllenKelly already mentioned it. And yes, it has been discussed around here.

I think we should be careful about saying that sort of thing. Strokes did happen to some otherwise healthy people at that age, it was just rare. The rate of strokes in younger people has been growing at least since the 90s. What would be really helpful knowledge would be to find out what the statistics are on the rate of strokes in otherwise healthy people under 60 over a really long time and see if there's an uptick around 2020. I'd bet anything that there is. The question I'd have is how big the difference is between pre and post 2020.

Edit: Sure enough.

One study published in JAMA in April 2021 found that the risk of stroke was more than twice as high for COVID-19 patients when compared to people of the same age, sex, and ethnicity in the general population—82.6 cases per 100,000 people compared to 38.2 cases for those without a COVID-19 diagnosis.

In another Swedish study published in the August 14, 2021 issue of The Lancet, researchers found that within a week of a COVID-19 diagnosis, a person’s risk of heart attack was three to eight times higher than normal, and their risk of stroke was three to six times higher. The study revealed these risks remained high for at least a month. The average age of people in the study was only 48 years.

https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/2022/01/covid-19-increasing-stroke-risks-people-of-all-ages

As information about COVID-19 has unfolded since the first cases were seen in the U.S., doctors in New York City have been noticing a troubling trend. Some young people who were mildly ill or had no noticeable coronavirus symptoms developed blood clots – and experienced strokes when those clots blocked blood vessels in the brain.

https://www.templehealth.org/about/blog/young-adults-covid-stroke-risk

I wish more people around where I am would ask "how is this still a thing?" It at least means you can give them the answer, exactly like you just did, which might in turn give them something to think about. Instead what I see from most people is more like this kind of sentiment: "Of course it's still a thing, it's just how things are now. Really it's always been like this. Colds happen, flu happens, covid happens. It's a fact of life, get used to it and get over it being a thing. You're still wearing a mask? What are you, some kind of hypochondriac who scrubs their hands raw every time someone sneezes?"

You kinda answered your own question.

then, like, isn’t basically every Western leader + Biden a “war criminal”?

First of all, it comes down to how you define what a war crime actually is and that needs to be pinned down with whoever you're talking to if there is any hope of having a meaningful conversation. Depending on the specifics of the definition, it's not necessarily that Putin isn't one but rather his crimes are so small and petty compared to every single NATO country leader, any leader involved in (for example) the Iraq war, and basically any leader that has taken part in colonialism or US imperialism. Hell, just the sanctions on Iraq before the last war are much greater crimes causing much more civilian suffering and death than anything that Russia (as led by Putin) has done in Ukraine.

To make the term meaningful, I actually don't think Putin should be included under the umbrella. The way Russia has conducted this war is actually astounding in how careful they have been to not cause civilian casualties. I forget the actual statistic here but the civilian deaths caused by the "shock and awe" of the US bombing of Iraqi infrastructure in the first 2 weeks of the Iraq war took something like 6 months or more in Ukraine to reach that same number. Through most of the conflict, Russia deliberately kept Ukrainian infrastructure intact. And fucking Netanyahu? Israel is openly mass murdering children and targeting hospitals and aid workers. They are conducting a visible, unambiguous, full scale genocide. It doesn't get more "war criminal" than that. Anyone, even among hardcore Russia hater libs that say Putin is a war criminal but Netanyahu is not are beyond fucking deluded. They aren't just deeply unserious, they're profoundly flippant.

See my edit to the OP.

Wait did WhyEssEff say something too, are are you talking about @[email protected]'s post here?

oh, my bad. I see you meant this. Edit again: WhyEssEff is awesome, but I think she gets a lot wrong in that post. Not the least of which being the legality/illegality of the end users using or talking about these sites. And people talking about them is not what gets them taken down.

Those are copy cat sites. Fuck the Guardian but no, they're not "lying." Fmovies has been shut down for weeks now.

Yeah, I've seen stremio mentioned a lot as the best way to go. It was always just easier to to go a known website, enter in a title, then play the movie. But at this point, with the other options being a bit hit or miss, it might be time for me to stop being lazy and get to using stremio.

For the post?

Or for the news it brings?

In addition to that, fmovies being gone is old news. What's new here is knowing what happened to it.

There is a difference between a mirror and a copycat site. This is not fake news.

Also, anyone who uses these free treat-dispenser netflix-killer sites, feel free to share any other decent ones you know of.

I have been using https://www.braflix.ru and https://ww4.123moviesfree.net since fmovies was murdered. They both have their issues and using an adblocker is strongly recommended. I had a bunch of others bookmarked, but a lot of them went down shortly before or after fmovies.

Like, there was fboxz.to, but now when you try to access their site, all that's there is some text that says this fucking cringe garbage:

We've been providing links to movies and shows for a long time. Now it's time to say goodbye. 
Thank you for being our friends and thanks for staying with us that long.
PS: **Please pay for the movies/shows, that's what we should do to show our respect to people behind the movies/shows.** 

(Emphasis mine.) My god, fuck off with that noise. What were you doing hosting pirated content if that's what you think? Or is that what the copyright pigs put up after seizing the servers, just pretending to still be the people who ran the place?