Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 9:29 am

Ok, so how does traffic court go? I've got a court date in the morning for a $480 red light ticket, and I have $300 put together. I've read that I basically have to put up the full amount as bail to plead my case, but literally all I want to say is "yeah, I fucked up. I drive delivery and I was worrying about getting back to work fast, not thinking about the red light. I work minimum wage and not even full time, can I have a bit of leniency here for my first offense in five years?"

So what can I expect when I get there?

sendaz · Post by **sendaz** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 10:50 am

When you say court date are you being called in to the clerk's of the circuit court's office or actual in front of a judge. I ask as different states may handle it differently and a red light is usually just go in a pay the clerk in a lot of places.

While it is unlikely they will reduce the fee, in most states you can request an one-off extension, giving you an additional 30 days to pay the ticket, but this is solely at the clerk's discretion to give.

erik · Post by **erik** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 10:50 am

Prak wrote:Ok, so how does traffic court go? I've got a court date in the morning for a $480 red light ticket, and I have $300 put together. I've read that I basically have to put up the full amount as bail to plead my case, but literally all I want to say is "yeah, I fucked up. I drive delivery and I was worrying about getting back to work fast, not thinking about the red light. I work minimum wage and not even full time, can I have a bit of leniency here for my first offense in five years?"

So what can I expect when I get there?

Not exactly your area, but close. Most of the cali ones are similar...

https://www.saccourt.ca.gov/traffic/faq.aspx wrote: Can I make monthly payments on a failure to pay?

Monthly payments can be made to the outside collection agency, but it will not stop any suspension of your driving privilege. You must pay the fine in full in order to have your license released.

Fines
Are there any alternatives to paying the fine?

There are alternatives to paying a fine, if you qualify. Community Service is available for infraction violations. However, you will not be considered for this option unless you have a significant financial hardship. You can expect the Judge will ask you questions about that hardship. In addition, the Court will review your driving and court appearance record before any such request is granted. Even if community service is granted, you will still be required to pay court fees. In addition, there will be fees due to the Community Service Office.

You cannot perform community service and request Traffic School at the same time.

For misdemeanor violations you can serve jail time in lieu of paying the fine. You will also be required to pay court fees and fees to the Sheriff's Work Project office.

You must personally appear in court to request either of these options.

Can I request a reduction of the fine?

The Court will not negotiate or lower your fine at arraignment. If you enter a plea of Guilty or No Contest, the Court will use the standard fine from the Uniform Bail and Penalty Schedule (California Rules of Court 4.102) - external link. This amount can also be increased due to points or priors on your driving record.

Pleading financial hardship may get you community service, which may or may not save you money (having to travel, time lost to potentially work). You may also need to provide evidence of inability to pay. [edit]There may be options for payment plans as well.[/edit]

Don't expect to haggle the ticket fee. You could beg for a reduction in the cost of traffic school, but I don't know if they offer traffic school for red lights. I probably wouldn't go too in depth for explanation.

First offense in 5 years doesn't sound as impressive as I know it feels. I used to get a speeding ticket every 3 years (and once a year as a teen) and then I started driving more reasonably. It's been 6 years since my last ticket (45 in a 35, after construction was done and the area was supposed to be 50, but apparently not til next week so it could be used for tickets) but I still am a repeat offender objectively and in the system's eyes.

While it may be possible to plead not guilty and either bargain with the prosecutor ahead of or at the next trial date, or hope that the officer writing the ticket doesn't show... My recommendation is to just ask for community service due to financial hardship.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 10:55 am

Area is Sacramento, and it's a traffic cam ticket, if that matters

erik · Post by **erik** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 11:14 am

Oh a fuckin cam ticket. I'll leave that to anyone more knowledgeable if that's something that you can just mail in a response politely saying fuck off, or ignore.

Apparently if you don't schedule a court date and completely ignore it in LA it is just sent to a collection agency and not the DMV, and they don't even report the debt to credit agencies (reading articles from a couple years ago, circumstances may have changed). Outside of LA, dunno.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 8:39 pm

Hadanelith wrote:It just means that I have a 1TB drive that I can't really use for much right now sitting there. Waiting.

After taking the free upgrade offer, your CPU serial number, itself, was noted in the Microsoft validation servers, with an entitlement for Win10. You may install the operating system on that hardware at any time from whichever install media you want. You don't need to keep it in a bottle. You actually didn't even need to install it as an upgrade in the first place; the Win7 license would have validated (during the free upgrade period) just fine.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Sep 05, 2016 9:38 pm

How would one go about purchasing the sovereignty of a highly impoverished country with an extremely corrupt government that was willing to sell it?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:21 pm

a.)
carefully
b.)
not at all, seeing how the country does not actually belong to the government trying to sell it . .
Only the things not privatized still belong to the government and could be sold.
Privatized stuff, by definition has already been sold by the government to somebody else, so they can not sell it again.
Same with plots of land, if they are actually sold and not just rented out.

And after that you are faced immediately with the next problem:
You just gave your money away to buy a country.
Now you have no money but a country. Or rather, parts of a country.
But probably no money left to actually keep the country running.
If you buy a country that is working on a deficit and already has a non substantial ammount of debt to other countries . . yeah, no dice here.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:39 pm

Well, the idea is that Microsoft gives the El Presidente for Life of Shitholeistan 1 billion dollars and in exchange he declares that Microsoft is now El Presidente for Life of Shitholistan then retires to a beachfont condo in the Bahamas.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:55 pm

And then Microsoft now has billions of debt of shitholistan owed to whoever was dumb enough to give them money in the first place.
Meanwhile, Mircosoft does now not have a billion dollars anymore, because that went to the guy who could scream:"I AM GREAT LEADER!" the loudest and now the 2nds in command are expected to just pucker up and accept you as their new benevolent overlord without trying to axe you to become prime heat or at least trying to get rid of their own competition and getting more money and power for themselves because they are, at their hearts, just such good people, only their boss had ruined them for anything else?

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Tue Sep 06, 2016 7:45 am

If the country is in a bad state, you get in very good terms with the leader of whatever opposition there is and provide him with weapons and assistance in exchange for whatever you want out of the deal.

At least it worked for the banana companies in the US.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Sep 10, 2016 12:58 am

Okay, I have to ask... Who the fuck is Hatsune Miku, what is she from, and why is she godfucking popular?

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Sep 10, 2016 1:03 am

Shrapnel wrote:Okay, I have to ask... Who the fuck is Hatsune Miku, what is she from, and why is she godfucking popular?

The relevant wikipedia article seems pretty informative.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Sep 10, 2016 1:38 am

So what the fuck is a volcaloid then? A synthesizer virtual reality AI holodeck porn program? I thought it was an anime! I'm so confused right now.

There's already too much uncertainty in my life to read an article filled with "citation neededs"!

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Sep 10, 2016 2:45 am

As I understand it, vocaloid refers to the anime style mascots of a line of digital audio software from Japan.

Basically it's the same deal as the drawn characters that represent various chan's, and Zone-tan and whatever Shadman calls his draw on the same idea. But Vocaloids are not inherently pornographic.

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Sat Sep 10, 2016 4:42 am

Technically the vocaloid is just the software. A vocaloid is a set of music software that can produce a singing voice. There are several different models. The idea behind the vocaloids is that they empower composers to experiment with voice in a way that had long been available for purely instrumental production.

Hatsune Miku is an animated digital character that uses the initial (and now much-tweaked) vocaloid package, but has also become her own brand. She does commercials and stuff too as a sort of free-living digital mascot (which is not uncommon in Japan), and also does hologram-based concerts where she 'performs' songs created by various artists using the vocaloid package.

Miku is much more popular than any of the other vocaloid mascots and has a considerably broader presence and some of the songs she has music videos and the like for are done by fairly famous J-pop creators. This probably has something to do with early access to merchandising and a successful marketing campaign, but she's now fairly well embedded into the Japanese digital media sphere.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Sep 10, 2016 7:23 am

There you go, Shrap.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Sep 10, 2016 2:11 pm

Ahh. Now I understand. Thanks, Mechalich.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Sep 11, 2016 4:42 am

Are brass bands inherently worse live (in a smallish bar) or does the one I'm listening to waiting for a table just suck?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Sep 11, 2016 8:31 am

Probably a bit of both.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Sep 11, 2016 9:14 am

I'm sure my hangriness wasn't helping my impression of them, either.

Most notably, the trumpets were overpowering the rest of the band.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sun Sep 11, 2016 12:35 pm

Prak wrote:Are brass bands inherently worse live (in a smallish bar) or does the one I'm listening to waiting for a table just suck?

Acoustics do matter. Smallish bars are going to have crappy acoustics.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun Sep 11, 2016 1:34 pm

Brass bands are loud, which is often unpleasant, and if you're close enough to see the performers you're probably close enough to hear all the breath-y sounds which are necessary for wind instruments and which people who don't deal with woodwinds and shit usually find appalling. They edit that shit out on recordings.

Hadanelith · Post by **Hadanelith** » Sun Sep 11, 2016 7:21 pm

Brass definitely works best in a concert hall or the open air. Cramped conditions are VERY BAD for brass instrument acoustics.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Sep 13, 2016 10:36 pm

How much space would you need to store enough food to give 1.2 billion people adequate nutrition for a decade?