It's still a good question. I just wanted to point out that evolution doesn't always select for the optimal case.
If on the other hand you make the presumption that an ancestor species had it, then you might wonder why we lost that ability. Sure, it might not affect survivability before age of reproduction either way. But then why did only those without the ability survive?
There were never humans [or any apes] with the ability. We didn't lose it, we never had it to begin with.
Species with the ability did survive though; some primates have it. We happen to be part of the branch that don't.
Evolution produces entities that meet the following criterion: sufficient to survive and reproduce.
Regenerating limbs doesn't help with that very much. If you get into a situation where you need to regenerate a limb, you'll probably die anyway. Most of human evolution took place before civilisation, let alone modern medicine.
Also, try to bear in mind that evolution isn't a thinking entity. It doesn't matter what upsides or downsides a given trait conveys from a human perspective. It's just a process which follows a pattern, and that pattern doesn't necessarily produce improvement. In fact its standards are incredibly low.
One would(perhaps naively) assume that regeneration is an obvious survival advantage, and that losing regenerative capabilities would be a handicap. That being so, one would tend to suspect that an anti-regeneration gene would be fairly strongly selected against. Since this gene is, in fact, rampant in mammals, one is led to the suspicion that there must be some sort of upside.
We can't synthesise vitamin C either, but there's no benefit to that. Almost all other animals can synthesise it, but we get scurvy and die unless we ingest it.
If it doesn't kill you before you can reproduce, and it doesn't make you infertile, it can be passed on. We lack that ability because one of our ancestors lacked it, but survived and reproduced regardless.
Because of that low standard for selection, it's relatively easy for a trait to be irrelevant to the selection process, good or bad.
The LHC hits.
The LHC hits.
The LHC hits.
Universe, your life force is running out.
The LHC hits.
The LHC hits.
You die...
Do you want your posessions identified?
Goodbye Universe the universe...
You died in the Multiverse of Doom after 13700000000000 moves, killed by a grid bug named LHC.
You were level 300000000000000000000000000 with a maximum of infinity hit points when you died.
I have a netbook with the same chipset. Unfortunately, you're screwed.
Games more than a decade old are a serious struggle for it even at minimum settings. The thing is weaker than diluted piss. Games like HL2 will be unplayable.
True, it breaks fairly often. Actually in the last two updates, the changelog mentions fixing offline mode.
Personally I just use cracks with the games I buy from Steam. That removes it from the equation when I don't want it there, meaning I get the best of both worlds.
Unless you're a really tiny developer, it's just an excuse.
Making millions upon millions of dollars on each big PC game release is not what I call a problematic situation. No big game has ever failed to make a profit due to piracy. Not that I know of.
I believe they explicitly mentioned that was an absolute pain to program for at some point. Valve are already rolling in money because of Steam and they're a small company, so it's not a high priority.
Long ago? CPU architectures aren't static. A Nahalem isn't exactly a Northwood you know.
It can make a big difference to some applications, like 3D renderers. Sometimes it doesn't help, but disabling it without considering the typical load is unwise.
It can be hardware accelerated on the GPU. That's it.
The benefit: Physics is one of those easily parallelised problems so a very large increase in complexity is possible.
The drawbacks: There's less GPU time available for drawing stuff so your framerate suffers. And of course, it's limited to Nvidia hardware only.
The latter leads to a drawback of its own: the technology can't be used to its full potential because many people who buy a game won't have the necessary hardware. So it can't be used in ways that would affect gameplay.
Its the advertisers fault. I understand that advertising is all about making sure your message is heard above the noise
Well that's really the principle at work here isn't it.
To an advertiser, the content of the site is noise. To us the adverts are noise. Some people block adverts on that principle alone.
The rest depends on the signal-to-noise ratio. Too far in one direction and you don't get enough money, too far in the other and you alienate your readership. The key is balance.
Advertisers forgot that. They took the short-view and went with increasingly intrusive and annoying adverts. They broke the balance in their favour, so we broke it in ours with filtering tools.
It just so happens that it's easier to block every advert on the entire Internet than to be selective about it. And here we are.
According to the article, it's different because it more directly affects the amount of money derived from Internet advertising. On TV it's based on prediction, on the Internet it's based on actual data.
If the game tanks, and the piracy rates are no higher than expected, that sends a different message. It tells them that the piracy rates aren't to blame for the "lost sales" - customer boycotts are.
That would make the execs look bad. Therefore, such a circumstance is not physically possible. Instead, the pirates have simply evaded detection because they are sneaky and evil.
Um, isn't it usually the exact opposite? The initial version is more difficult to crack because its mechanisms aren't known. A partially known subsequent version is much easier than the first.
Slashdot Mirror
If on the other hand you make the presumption that an ancestor species had it, then you might wonder why we lost that ability. Sure, it might not affect survivability before age of reproduction either way. But then why did only those without the ability survive?
There were never humans [or any apes] with the ability. We didn't lose it, we never had it to begin with.
Species with the ability did survive though; some primates have it. We happen to be part of the branch that don't.
Evolution produces entities that meet the following criterion: sufficient to survive and reproduce.
Regenerating limbs doesn't help with that very much. If you get into a situation where you need to regenerate a limb, you'll probably die anyway. Most of human evolution took place before civilisation, let alone modern medicine.
Also, try to bear in mind that evolution isn't a thinking entity. It doesn't matter what upsides or downsides a given trait conveys from a human perspective. It's just a process which follows a pattern, and that pattern doesn't necessarily produce improvement. In fact its standards are incredibly low.
Evolution doesn't converge toward perfection, or even improvement.
Why is it inactive? Its inactivity didn't kill our ancestor, and they done fucked a bitch. Here we are.
One would(perhaps naively) assume that regeneration is an obvious survival advantage, and that losing regenerative capabilities would be a handicap. That being so, one would tend to suspect that an anti-regeneration gene would be fairly strongly selected against. Since this gene is, in fact, rampant in mammals, one is led to the suspicion that there must be some sort of upside.
We can't synthesise vitamin C either, but there's no benefit to that. Almost all other animals can synthesise it, but we get scurvy and die unless we ingest it.
If it doesn't kill you before you can reproduce, and it doesn't make you infertile, it can be passed on. We lack that ability because one of our ancestors lacked it, but survived and reproduced regardless.
Because of that low standard for selection, it's relatively easy for a trait to be irrelevant to the selection process, good or bad.
You know, every single person I have ever heard say "most people are idiots" has never been all that high a wattage bulb themselves.
Of course our wattage is low, we're CFLs.
You must be an incandescent. My condolences, peasant.
Are they customers? A billion people doesn't mean a billion people who'll buy your stuff.
Disclaimer: I was a Clinton supporter.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
The LHC hits.
The LHC hits.
The LHC hits.
Universe, your life force is running out.
The LHC hits.
The LHC hits.
You die...
Do you want your posessions identified?
Goodbye Universe the universe...
You died in the Multiverse of Doom after 13700000000000 moves, killed by a grid bug named LHC.
You were level 300000000000000000000000000 with a maximum of infinity hit points when you died.
The alternative is politicians who can't be held responsible for their actions.
Which is worse: politicians that can be cowed by the media, or politicians who aren't answerable to the media at all?
I forgot to post this highly convenient page: The three games along with the three OS binaries.
I have a netbook with the same chipset. Unfortunately, you're screwed.
Games more than a decade old are a serious struggle for it even at minimum settings. The thing is weaker than diluted piss. Games like HL2 will be unplayable.
True, it breaks fairly often. Actually in the last two updates, the changelog mentions fixing offline mode.
Personally I just use cracks with the games I buy from Steam. That removes it from the equation when I don't want it there, meaning I get the best of both worlds.
So it has a button, but doesn't have a button? Hmm...
It's not like it matters anyway. If you want a better mouse, can't you just buy any old USB mouse? Get an MX518 and button your way to glory.
Second, piracy is a real problem on the PC.
Unless you're a really tiny developer, it's just an excuse.
Making millions upon millions of dollars on each big PC game release is not what I call a problematic situation. No big game has ever failed to make a profit due to piracy. Not that I know of.
I believe they explicitly mentioned that was an absolute pain to program for at some point. Valve are already rolling in money because of Steam and they're a small company, so it's not a high priority.
(And people say PC gaming is dying. Hahaha)
Speaking of Marathon, Bungie open-sourced that a while back. All three games are available for Windows, OSX and Linux for free from their site.
I played through the first one last year. Very fun game with an interesting setting.
Long ago? CPU architectures aren't static. A Nahalem isn't exactly a Northwood you know.
It can make a big difference to some applications, like 3D renderers. Sometimes it doesn't help, but disabling it without considering the typical load is unwise.
It can be hardware accelerated on the GPU. That's it.
The benefit: Physics is one of those easily parallelised problems so a very large increase in complexity is possible.
The drawbacks: There's less GPU time available for drawing stuff so your framerate suffers. And of course, it's limited to Nvidia hardware only.
The latter leads to a drawback of its own: the technology can't be used to its full potential because many people who buy a game won't have the necessary hardware. So it can't be used in ways that would affect gameplay.
Don't forget this part: "To the maximum extent of the law."
Or in laymen's terms: "Half of this document is invalid."
Companies can't disclaim themselves from the law at their whim. If the law says a good has to be fit for purpose, it has to be. The end.
EULAs are fantasy wishlists. It's what they want, not what they have.
Its the advertisers fault. I understand that advertising is all about making sure your message is heard above the noise
Well that's really the principle at work here isn't it.
To an advertiser, the content of the site is noise. To us the adverts are noise. Some people block adverts on that principle alone.
The rest depends on the signal-to-noise ratio. Too far in one direction and you don't get enough money, too far in the other and you alienate your readership. The key is balance.
Advertisers forgot that. They took the short-view and went with increasingly intrusive and annoying adverts. They broke the balance in their favour, so we broke it in ours with filtering tools.
It just so happens that it's easier to block every advert on the entire Internet than to be selective about it. And here we are.
According to the article, it's different because it more directly affects the amount of money derived from Internet advertising. On TV it's based on prediction, on the Internet it's based on actual data.
If the game tanks, and the piracy rates are no higher than expected, that sends a different message. It tells them that the piracy rates aren't to blame for the "lost sales" - customer boycotts are.
That would make the execs look bad. Therefore, such a circumstance is not physically possible. Instead, the pirates have simply evaded detection because they are sneaky and evil.
Um, isn't it usually the exact opposite? The initial version is more difficult to crack because its mechanisms aren't known. A partially known subsequent version is much easier than the first.
Look in the mirror pal.
Well, you'd have to buy all your games again wouldn't you?
.
That would be just awful. For you