Battlefront has never been disappointing in that regard and the previous 2 versions are still worth getting on a LAN and playing with friends. Hopefully this version of BF will allow the type of gameplay that has been available in the past to continue, instead of forcing you to be online like many games are now.

After all the gameplay has to be good AND it has to be fun to play.

That's an interesting question. I think that depends of if you believe it's is supposed to. Law replaced belief systems as ways to maintain reasonable behaviour to build society, like 'I won't kill and eat my neighbour if I am starving' all the way through to 'if you make a contract with someone, it's binding'.

Personally I think it does when it is given the resources to function properly which means it should be malleable enough to adapt and improve to the needs of changing human civilization. I think that the benefit it provides to society is that civility is enforced so that other more constructive things can occur. Justice is the balancing act that settles disputes and truth (via learning as is the case with this) is the 'ah-ha' moment that allows lessons to be learned about things that caused a problem for people to be codified into law to prevent/resolve the problem in the future.

Civil, being the key word, for people often are not, which is why laws were necessary in the first place to build a civilization. I think there are plenty of places around the world where it doesn't function properly so it's possible to experience life without justice or truth.

Overall though I think that societies with high levels of justice and truth in their legal systems have higher standards of living for their participants because corruption, that brings down a society, is minimized.

I'm becoming more convinced that Police are often too lazy to do police work and now reviews of the cases shows evidence procedures stacked in favour of the prosecution. If the Court systems do not have mechanisms to self correct evidence procedures how can there be any trust that policing will lead to outcomes that protect society.

Justice is impossible if the system is not Just.

complete reform of the way congresscritters are funded to get to sit in congress so that it is truely representative of the people...but fat chance of that.

Finally some talk about the topic - campaign finance reform. When do we want it, NOW, when will we get it....ummmm.

He might be talking about when there were fewer moron anonymous trolls, I miss that slashdot too!

Doppler shift. All the jokes about it's manhood, if it is or isn't a planet, got it down spectrum.

People will die. It's that simple. It is not safe, it is not known and mars is an environment hostile to human life. For the first people doing this, isolation will be another issue to deal with.

It seems like an unrealistic ambition to attempt a Mars landing without an established space transport infrastructure, in the same way moon landings were attempted. Consequently, IMHO, I think any realistic colonization of Mars will start with humans orbiting it. First in a capsule/ship, then in a space station with repeatable journeys back home. Who knows, it maybe cheaper to just send a space station there in the first place and solve all of the problems of not having a magnetosphere to shield it first.

Once the infrastructure is established isolation will become less of a problem. The biggest problem we have NOW is the will to get human crewed craft out beyond LEO.

and where would you find the time?

Yeah, the budgets wasted on such a fruitless endeavour by turning a public health issue of addiction into a crime and policing issue.

Yeah, If you were going to impeach Clinton it should have been for not putting down a case of Kentuky's finest in front of President Boris Yeltsin and saying "Sign this Nuclear Disarmament treaty". The greatest missed opportunity ever.

Yet there is still no legal requirment for the oversight of these spying powers.

I'd say you've nailed it right there.