I have a Wii U. I haven't really noticed a huge difference between load times on disk versus the external USB2 hdd. From what I've read, the transfer rate is comparable and most game data is sequential. For most first party games (Nintendo land, NSMBU, Pikmin 3) the loading times been fantastic. Third party games have been good as well (such as Rayman Legends), with the possible exception of Lego City Undercover (off the hdd) where the load times are noticeably bad.

Read Robert J Lifton if you want to understand how the methods of coercion work in environments such as China. Generally, torture is not required and is often even counter productive. A controlled environment, obsessive demands for confession, encounter groups, and an alternating system of punishments *and rewards* are much more likely to be used. With these methods you can have a very high success rate in not just getting people to say what you want, but to believe it as well.

Also there are many phones that will refuse to charge *at all* without these pins.

Yeah. I meant Nexus S. I have a Nexus 7 as well and it's still getting updates, but it's only a year old.

AFAIK, the support for Lion was dropped for the 1st generation core series because the processor could not actually run it. Windows 8 has a similar issue in requiring NX bit support. It's not like Apple is artificially engineering obsolescence. You're right that Apple does tend to abandon old OS'es, but then again, they don't have the install base XP does so there isn't a huge reason to. Old Macs aren't being turned into bots. They might not be as "secure", but for most people, they're secure enough.

I meant "Nexus S", though I do wonder how long my Nexus 7 will continue to be supported.

The iPhone 4 is still getting updates. The 3gs *just* stopped. My partner's nexus 7 stopped getting updates last year. My Galaxy S was outdated i bought it and maxed out at 2.2. Were it not for Cyanogen Mod, which most people don't have a clue about, much less how to install it, that's what I would still be on. You can say what you want about apple, but they generally do update their products for as long as they're capable. Even my 6 year old Macbook Pro is still able to run the latest OS.

A troll is plausible and intended to provoke response. This is not. This is satire.

On this issue there have been conflicting reports on just about everything. You have to be very selective with what you choose to believe to blame one side or the other. As I said, even if chemical weapons were used, it's not at all clear by who. It wasn't too long ago Carla Del Ponte from the UN's inquiry on this issue was stating publicly that eye-witness accounts paint the rebels as the ones who used the weapons, not Assad's forces. Kerry likes to think that only Assad has access to chemical weapons but the US's record on WMD intelligence is, i'm sorry to say, lacking to say the least. It wouldn't be the first time chemical weapons were used by non-governmental forces. Aum Shinrikyo used sarin in Tokyo. Rajneeshee carried out a bioterror attack in Dallas in '84. If these things can happen under our noses in the west, you really think rebels with funding and support from nation states can't get their hands on any, or manufacture some?

I believe it was the UN who reported that, actually.

Ban Ki Moon's spokesperson explicitly said the UN inspectors would not be doing that. So whether the rebels have faked any attacks or have attacked themselves -- we may never know. At least not for a long time and certainly not before western forces attack. I think at this point even finding evidence of use doesn't really matter. Western politicians have been talking too tough for too long and the perception if we back down would be disastrous for them. They'd be seen as abetting Assad's war crimes through inaction. We're locked in to a course of attack by politics and public perception. Truth be damned. Well. The egg will be on all our faces once the rebels we put in power start committing genocide.

It's a choice between Assad's war crimes or the "rebels" committing genocide. Some of the more vocal rebel factions have made it quite clear that Alawites and Shiites are kuffar (infidel) apostates from Islam and will be killed should they ever gain power. That's to say nothing of the Christians and other minorities. Even, as is pointed out by the rebel interviewed, secular Sunnis are kuffar as far as they are concerned. Assad, as bad as he may be, is the lesser of two evils. Or do you think we can occupy the place indefinitely keeping each side from killing each other, because that worked so well in Iraq.

You can guarantee Israel will deal with (the vast majority of) any chemical stockpiles should the Assad govt. fall. They do not want those weapons ending up in the hands of terrorists who cannot be reasoned with or deterred.