geekosystem

Despite their (largely deserved) reputation as merciless hunters and place as one of the apex predators in the world, male orcas, or killer whales, live with and depend on their mothers well into adulthood. A study published this week in the journal Science suggests that this dependence may be the reason behind the surprisingly long menopause experienced by most female orcas. Female killer whales are known to live into their 90s, but are usually done having children in their 30s. It appears the impetus behind that is to get the breeding out of the way early, so they can spend the rest of their lives caring for their sons, whose dads, occasional girlfriends, and bosses at the call center perpetually just don't get them.

Nowadays, piracy protection usually focuses on prevention rather than punishment, but back in The Day, before technology allowed constant Internet connections and horrible, system-degrading mechanisms, developers had to get creative with piracy protection. The above video shows one instance of how EarthBound, known as Mother in Japan, got clever and sneakily evil with their protection: At the boss fight with Giygas, the game freezes and forces the player to reset, and when they return to the saves menu, they discover the game erased their save file, causing them to lose all of their progress. EarthBound games are oldies, so the piracy protection focused on checking if the game was using a cartridge copier. At least back then, one could find humor in the ways developers dealt with piracy; now it's all constant Internet connections and registry edits.

(via reddit)