Depending on how unpleasant it is, pollution is anywhere from a cost imposed on others to lethal violence visited on others, and a 'pollution standard' is the state explicitly granting the right to inflict a certain amount of that on everybody else. It's like talking about 'theft standards' for regulating the activities of pickpockets to a certain amount per wallet...
You are indeed correct about this. On the other hand, 'no pollution allowed' isn't very economical either, and it IS generally tough to seperate out just which factory/industry killed which person via pollution. Complicating this is that, generally speaking, ONE pollution source isn't enough to kill anybody; poison is in the dose, after all.
As my original post was a one-liner unless you have a really small screen, I didn't get into that stuff. Still, in my view pollution should be charged for. No giveaways. If you're going to cause $1M in economic and non-economic damages in order to create $100M worth of industrial production, but stopping that pollution would cost $5M*, I believe that it's reasonable for the government to charge $1.1-1.2M or so(gotta cover overhead) and put that money towards remediation/restitution.
If paying for the externalities makes the business unprofitable, it probably shouldn't be in business.
Well, I did a quick google search on emissions, a fair bit about cars, not industry. My general conclusion is that the differences are basically a wash. Which is why I mentioned 'aren't even trying, pollution wise'. China for the most part isn't even trying. The USA at least tries.
A country that is trying to protect itself will generally protect it's neighbors as well.
Now, I'm mostly libertarian, but in the whole 'your right to throw your fist stops at my nose' sense I'd be okay with imposing tariffs on products that aren't produced up to US pollution standards, or even trade restrictions against countries that aren't even trying, pollution wise.
Maybe some analogue to these guys? As for the article, my response:
His two hour commute - Well duh it can be considered research! If he's 'driving' a prototype self driving car you need it to be able to handle all sorts of situations, including rush hour traffic. Given that accidents are still a low order event(most people make it through without an accident each day), you need a LOT of hours in the vehicle to get statistically valid results. Plus, as a developer he can use the time to muse on optimization schemes, notice anything out of spec, etc...
Association with the military- Google bought a military research company. They don't even consider that maybe Google was after the research to reuse it for civilian purposes. Technology that can deliver a missile to a target can be used to help navigate a drone, whether it's a spyplane or cargo craft.
77 unit apartment building - 'cyber-capitalist utopia'? What the hell is this supposed to mean? Searching around I found this description of the buildings. Seems to have some neat sustainability ideas.
The Nautilus Group is composed of designers and builders who have created military installations, malls, and hospitals. Levandowski is now making his contribution to the further sterilization and gentrification of Downtown Berkeley and Shattuck Avenue.
So they're professionals. So frigging what? The military needs buildings as well, and generally speaking has the same demands as any other business - outside of very specific buildings(such as munitions dumps), their warehouses, offices, and housing are no different than civilian versions.
"The proposed project is a testament to the arrogance, disconnection, and luxury of the ruling class. Growing their own vegetables in a rooftop garden and selling them to other wealthy people allows them, somehow, to pretend that the planet is not being ravaged by the same economy they depend on for their wealth, comfort, and safety."
...So doing something about our resource usage/despoiling the planet is 'pretending'? Students and 'young professionals' who are poor enough to work on a rooftop vegetable garden are the 'ruling class'? I'm not going to say that there will be poor people living in these apartments, but they probably won't be.1%ers in the states either.
He had Google Glasses over his eyes, carried his baby in his arm, and held a tablet with his free hand. As he descended the stairs with the baby, his eyes were on the tablet through the prism of his Google Glasses, not on the life against his chest.
Oh my god, if he's not paying attention to the baby he's a robot!!! Never mind the physical sensations providing constant feedback about the kid's status.
There are men and women in the Congo, slaving away in giant pits in order to extract gold and other precious metals from the earth. This gold will go into phones and tablets made by companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Anthony Levandowski has never worked in a pit mine nor will his children.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, not much gold in electronics today, it's too expensive.
In short, sounds like the protestors are a group of delusional, self absorbed luddites.
And something like a homeowners association is a social-contract coop-like thing.
HOAs might be more social in nature, but traditional coops like USAA, utilities, and farmer ones are pretty much pure business. That's why I said 'more' rather than 'instead'. Nearly everything is a mix of both anyways. Farmers have the right to withdraw from coops, I don't have to do business with USAA, etc...
Indeed, HOAs are much closer to being governments than traditional coops. Which leads to why your comparison/republican attack rant is still a failure becuase Cooperatives are explicitly NOT governments - they generally lack the power to fine, enforce law, etc... Well, short of 'Pay us X or we won't do business with you', but that's a pretty standard power for business to have anyways.
Other than that, your rant about the republican party still
Cooperatives have a long history - farmer's cooperatives, for example. They're business contracts more than social contracts, and very much predate the republican party. Heck, USAA originated as a cooperative because army officers couldn't otherwise get auto insurance.
So, nice bit of conspiracy theory, but pretty much completely untrue.
You should have seen the look on my realtor's face when I started going through the contract line by line, page by page.
And actually, you're still wrong. When I say informed, I mean it. I'm fully aware that I, much less the average person, can only understand so much, have so much time to go through fine print. As such when it comes to individuals I place a great deal of weight on what I call 'the standard contract'. For a retail store, for example, the 'standard contract' for purchasing would include things like a 30 day return policy on all goods. Don't want to offer a 30 day warranty? You're going to have to show that customers have adequate notification of the variance.
I know full well that NS is probably basing doing this on some clause in their terms of use - possibly terms introduced a while back in one of those 'agree or no longer do business with us' emails. I don't give a hoot because, as you say, it's only weirdos like me that actually read the things.
Contracts are for the little people to keep up.Companies shouldn't be bothered with such trivialities especially when they cut into profit.
That's a capitalist/corporist/fascist viewpoint though, not a libertarian one though. To libertarians, contracts agreed upon by consenting informed adults are king.
No, an email that says 'Call X or we'll charge you' is NOT informing, and a failure to respond is NOT consent. In my lolbertopia Network Solutions would be fined huge bins of money for this.
Also, he wore the glasses for 6 weeks WITHOUT prescription lenses, he'd only had his prescription lenses for the previous two weeks.
Yeah, not an option for me. Makes me wonder how he spent $600 putting lenses in them if they're that light. Mine would only hit that high if you combine the high index, transitions, etc...
In my case if I didn't happen to have a spare pair with me it'd be equivalent to denying a person his wheelchair. Uncorrected my vision is bad enough to give me headaches such that when I don't have them on I normally close my eyes and operate blind by preference.
It doesn't just apply to the USPS, it applies to any delivery service. The hammer is just a bit bigger/quicker if they use USPS. Deliver something unsolicited to somebody, it's effectively a gift.
Given that he talked of shrink-swell ground, I think he's worrying less about the joints than the conduit itself, which can be warped/stretched to the breaking point.
An extreme example would be a conduit buried through a earthquake fault line - and after a good shake one side is displaced 6-12" to the left.
Then there's things like tree roots, rodents, etc...
10+N*5? Talk about overkill! When I worked in fast food we don't need no hour to prep for 10 people.
I'd say it's more N-5. Don't bother calling if you have less than 6 people. We only 'need' more than an hour if you're showing up with well over 60 people, and in the name of freshness we aren't going to start cooking until you're less than 10 minutes out anyways. The 60 minutes gives us time to maybe get somebody in early/keep somebody back for a bit, nobody on break.
For that matter, if 'most' are individually paying the cook line can keep up with the order-takers(exception exists). The ability to pop out 50 patties every 5 minutes does that, drop full bags of chicken nuggets, etc...
Indeed. All the variations of memory today seem to have about the same latency. RAM that cycles faster simply takes more cycles to start returning requests, though once it starts it IS faster.
Incorrect. It doesn't matter whether it's USPS, UPS, Fedex, drop-shipper or deliveryman setting milk bottles outside your door. You cannot create an unsolicited debt merely by sending somebody merchandise, even if it's 'Return if unsatisfied!'. The problem was apparently bad enough in history that even free return shipping isn't excuse enough.
There's a reason it's on the FTC page and not the USPS one...
I'll note one thing: 'Unsolicited Merchandise' is NOT a company making a mistake when they ship you the wrong item after you order from them. It's also not the delivery company delivering to the wrong address.
The trick is that with a few tech savvy people providing disputing logs you can then elevate it to class action status, much like a standards board. Get a few people complaining about being charged overweight and it causes some big nastiness.
Then again, I remember reading about the weights and measurements board while I was in ND. Talk about a group you DON'T want to piss off. Since bandwidth is indeed something that can be 'measured', a state's weights&measurements organization might be able to intercede, though they may lack the skill to do so.
Its a telephone coop, which suggests small town rural.
I'm kind of surprised about the cooperative part. I'm very much NOT happy about the cellular plan pricing levels, but something like $1/5GB wouldn't break my heart.
We do similar things now by charging more for a 'faster' connection right now, with the idea that if you get a 1mb connection you'll be using less data than if you get a 5mb. There are some issues with this - for home connections slower connections are often done simply by limiting the modems, providing 20mb service from the home to the ISP generally costs no more in hardware than 1mb. The problem with this is that it 'encourages' offline use like bittorrent for downloading. 'burst' capability is very much desirable for those that only use their connection while they're home/online, so under this plan rather than artificially limiting the modems, you simply charge for usage. So you can get a 20-100mb connection for cheap, as long as you don't use it much. Basically the electricity model.
I'll also note that the members of the cooperative are up in arms over it. Given that it IS a cooperative, the board might find themselves being changed out.
So do what old Hairy does, when a site "appeals to turn off your blocker" I head straight to their forums and ask them right out "Are you gonna take financial responsibility when one of your ads infects one of my customers?" and then point out how trivial it is to bypass the blockers with non-threatening content. You'd be surprised how many people don't know that those pieces of malware they "just keep getting somehow" are coming from assholes like in TFA and spreading the word is required to bring this to a head. They are making profits from a risky business, they should have to assume the downsides as well as the profits and clean up their own messes.
You make good points. Hell, I even have adblock set to 'let certain non-obtrusive ads through'. You want your ads to be let through? Fine. Follow Adblock's rules and they'll be let through. Otherwise I'm protecting my computer. I install adblock because of the malware, speaker hijacking*, screen-grabbing, etc...
*Autoplay video ads? Extra-special block! I'm trying NOT to annoy my roommates.
Nope, because I view the credibility of those that say the landing was a hoax as lower than the credibility of those that say it actually happened.
Thus how it goes in this thread - I view the credibility of those that say they've seen it happen higher than those that say it's impossible, especially when it's pointed out that Apple has changed how the market operates several times. In addition, I have *vast* faith in how scummy scummy app developers can be.
However, because in many jurisdictions you have to pay more to see a judge about the fine assessed to you for a traffic violation than it does to simply pay it, I consider the cop giving you a ticket about the same as being convicted for it, because you just got handed a $X penalty for doing something.
When you have to pay $200 in court costs to see a judge over a $150 ticket, what would you do? What would most people do? I'm not saying this is right, but it is reality.
Preferred stock is a partnership in a company, with voting rights; Common stock is a pink sheet, possibly with voting rights, but it can be revoked if the company files bankruptcy (Preferred makes you a stakeholder, and if you liquidate the company then the Preferred shareholders get a cut of whatever's left after paying creditors).
Either you're not in the USA or you made a mistake. Common stock is the one with voting rights, preferred stock is the one typically without voting rights. While there are different types of preferred stock, they generally pay out before common stock for dividends/bankruptcy in exchange for that loss of control.
Wait, you've seen games like this on Android and thus stories about it being true on iOS must be true?
Not saying it's true, saying I believe others who've stated it. The games I was thinking of were obviously ported to both systems, so I figure the scummy things they were doing on Android were also present on IOS. While I figure that IOS cleaned it up on a regular basis, I'm also aware that scummy app developers, like scummy lawyers and telephone 900 numbers(back in the day) will skirt the rules any way they can.
Basically, whenever you start discussing currencies, it gets pretty abstract and very stupid quite quickly.
Arbitage on the margins(international transactions for example) aside, the main reason most stores only want to accept 1 currency is mostly convenience. For the most part, $1 USD is $1 USD whether it's cash, check, credit card, or even paypal. Bitcoin you have to worry about what it's trading for now and what it might be trading for in the future when you go to trade it for a different currency or even goods.
But yeah, it starts simple but very quickly gets incredibly complex, like a fractal equation.
Slashdot Mirror
Depending on how unpleasant it is, pollution is anywhere from a cost imposed on others to lethal violence visited on others, and a 'pollution standard' is the state explicitly granting the right to inflict a certain amount of that on everybody else. It's like talking about 'theft standards' for regulating the activities of pickpockets to a certain amount per wallet...
You are indeed correct about this. On the other hand, 'no pollution allowed' isn't very economical either, and it IS generally tough to seperate out just which factory/industry killed which person via pollution. Complicating this is that, generally speaking, ONE pollution source isn't enough to kill anybody; poison is in the dose, after all.
As my original post was a one-liner unless you have a really small screen, I didn't get into that stuff. Still, in my view pollution should be charged for. No giveaways. If you're going to cause $1M in economic and non-economic damages in order to create $100M worth of industrial production, but stopping that pollution would cost $5M*, I believe that it's reasonable for the government to charge $1.1-1.2M or so(gotta cover overhead) and put that money towards remediation/restitution.
If paying for the externalities makes the business unprofitable, it probably shouldn't be in business.
*All numbers made up.
Well, I did a quick google search on emissions, a fair bit about cars, not industry. My general conclusion is that the differences are basically a wash. Which is why I mentioned 'aren't even trying, pollution wise'. China for the most part isn't even trying. The USA at least tries.
A country that is trying to protect itself will generally protect it's neighbors as well.
Now, I'm mostly libertarian, but in the whole 'your right to throw your fist stops at my nose' sense I'd be okay with imposing tariffs on products that aren't produced up to US pollution standards, or even trade restrictions against countries that aren't even trying, pollution wise.
Maybe some analogue to these guys?
As for the article, my response:
His two hour commute - Well duh it can be considered research! If he's 'driving' a prototype self driving car you need it to be able to handle all sorts of situations, including rush hour traffic. Given that accidents are still a low order event(most people make it through without an accident each day), you need a LOT of hours in the vehicle to get statistically valid results. Plus, as a developer he can use the time to muse on optimization schemes, notice anything out of spec, etc...
Association with the military- Google bought a military research company. They don't even consider that maybe Google was after the research to reuse it for civilian purposes. Technology that can deliver a missile to a target can be used to help navigate a drone, whether it's a spyplane or cargo craft.
77 unit apartment building - 'cyber-capitalist utopia'? What the hell is this supposed to mean? Searching around I found this description of the buildings. Seems to have some neat sustainability ideas.
The Nautilus Group is composed of designers and builders who have created military installations, malls, and hospitals. Levandowski is now making his contribution to the further sterilization and gentrification of Downtown Berkeley and Shattuck Avenue.
So they're professionals. So frigging what? The military needs buildings as well, and generally speaking has the same demands as any other business - outside of very specific buildings(such as munitions dumps), their warehouses, offices, and housing are no different than civilian versions.
"The proposed project is a testament to the arrogance, disconnection, and luxury of the ruling class. Growing their own vegetables in a rooftop garden and selling them to other wealthy people allows them, somehow, to pretend that the planet is not being ravaged by the same economy they depend on for their wealth, comfort, and safety."
...So doing something about our resource usage/despoiling the planet is 'pretending'? Students and 'young professionals' who are poor enough to work on a rooftop vegetable garden are the 'ruling class'? I'm not going to say that there will be poor people living in these apartments, but they probably won't be .1%ers in the states either.
He had Google Glasses over his eyes, carried his baby in his arm, and held a tablet with his free hand. As he descended the stairs with the baby, his eyes were on the tablet through the prism of his Google Glasses, not on the life against his chest.
Oh my god, if he's not paying attention to the baby he's a robot!!! Never mind the physical sensations providing constant feedback about the kid's status.
There are men and women in the Congo, slaving away in giant pits in order to extract gold and other precious metals from the earth. This gold will go into phones and tablets made by companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Anthony Levandowski has never worked in a pit mine nor will his children.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, not much gold in electronics today, it's too expensive.
In short, sounds like the protestors are a group of delusional, self absorbed luddites.
And something like a homeowners association is a social-contract coop-like thing.
HOAs might be more social in nature, but traditional coops like USAA, utilities, and farmer ones are pretty much pure business. That's why I said 'more' rather than 'instead'. Nearly everything is a mix of both anyways. Farmers have the right to withdraw from coops, I don't have to do business with USAA, etc...
Indeed, HOAs are much closer to being governments than traditional coops. Which leads to why your comparison/republican attack rant is still a failure becuase Cooperatives are explicitly NOT governments - they generally lack the power to fine, enforce law, etc... Well, short of 'Pay us X or we won't do business with you', but that's a pretty standard power for business to have anyways.
Other than that, your rant about the republican party still
Cooperatives have a long history - farmer's cooperatives, for example. They're business contracts more than social contracts, and very much predate the republican party. Heck, USAA originated as a cooperative because army officers couldn't otherwise get auto insurance.
So, nice bit of conspiracy theory, but pretty much completely untrue.
You should have seen the look on my realtor's face when I started going through the contract line by line, page by page.
And actually, you're still wrong. When I say informed, I mean it. I'm fully aware that I, much less the average person, can only understand so much, have so much time to go through fine print. As such when it comes to individuals I place a great deal of weight on what I call 'the standard contract'. For a retail store, for example, the 'standard contract' for purchasing would include things like a 30 day return policy on all goods. Don't want to offer a 30 day warranty? You're going to have to show that customers have adequate notification of the variance.
I know full well that NS is probably basing doing this on some clause in their terms of use - possibly terms introduced a while back in one of those 'agree or no longer do business with us' emails. I don't give a hoot because, as you say, it's only weirdos like me that actually read the things.
The real solution for the "natural monopoly" is to have the infrastructure owned by the government, and providers buy service from there.
I'm fond of local cooperatives. Not technically government, but owned by the customers, so they're beholden to them.
Contracts are for the little people to keep up.Companies shouldn't be bothered with such trivialities especially when they cut into profit.
That's a capitalist/corporist/fascist viewpoint though, not a libertarian one though. To libertarians, contracts agreed upon by consenting informed adults are king.
No, an email that says 'Call X or we'll charge you' is NOT informing, and a failure to respond is NOT consent. In my lolbertopia Network Solutions would be fined huge bins of money for this.
Also, he wore the glasses for 6 weeks WITHOUT prescription lenses, he'd only had his prescription lenses for the previous two weeks.
Yeah, not an option for me. Makes me wonder how he spent $600 putting lenses in them if they're that light. Mine would only hit that high if you combine the high index, transitions, etc...
In my case if I didn't happen to have a spare pair with me it'd be equivalent to denying a person his wheelchair. Uncorrected my vision is bad enough to give me headaches such that when I don't have them on I normally close my eyes and operate blind by preference.
It doesn't just apply to the USPS, it applies to any delivery service. The hammer is just a bit bigger/quicker if they use USPS. Deliver something unsolicited to somebody, it's effectively a gift.
Given that he talked of shrink-swell ground, I think he's worrying less about the joints than the conduit itself, which can be warped/stretched to the breaking point.
An extreme example would be a conduit buried through a earthquake fault line - and after a good shake one side is displaced 6-12" to the left.
Then there's things like tree roots, rodents, etc...
10+N*5? Talk about overkill! When I worked in fast food we don't need no hour to prep for 10 people.
I'd say it's more N-5. Don't bother calling if you have less than 6 people. We only 'need' more than an hour if you're showing up with well over 60 people, and in the name of freshness we aren't going to start cooking until you're less than 10 minutes out anyways. The 60 minutes gives us time to maybe get somebody in early/keep somebody back for a bit, nobody on break.
For that matter, if 'most' are individually paying the cook line can keep up with the order-takers(exception exists). The ability to pop out 50 patties every 5 minutes does that, drop full bags of chicken nuggets, etc...
Indeed. All the variations of memory today seem to have about the same latency. RAM that cycles faster simply takes more cycles to start returning requests, though once it starts it IS faster.
Pretty sure those laws relate only to the USPS.
Incorrect. It doesn't matter whether it's USPS, UPS, Fedex, drop-shipper or deliveryman setting milk bottles outside your door. You cannot create an unsolicited debt merely by sending somebody merchandise, even if it's 'Return if unsatisfied!'. The problem was apparently bad enough in history that even free return shipping isn't excuse enough.
There's a reason it's on the FTC page and not the USPS one...
I'll note one thing: 'Unsolicited Merchandise' is NOT a company making a mistake when they ship you the wrong item after you order from them. It's also not the delivery company delivering to the wrong address.
The trick is that with a few tech savvy people providing disputing logs you can then elevate it to class action status, much like a standards board. Get a few people complaining about being charged overweight and it causes some big nastiness.
Then again, I remember reading about the weights and measurements board while I was in ND. Talk about a group you DON'T want to piss off. Since bandwidth is indeed something that can be 'measured', a state's weights&measurements organization might be able to intercede, though they may lack the skill to do so.
Its a telephone coop, which suggests small town rural.
I'm kind of surprised about the cooperative part. I'm very much NOT happy about the cellular plan pricing levels, but something like $1/5GB wouldn't break my heart.
We do similar things now by charging more for a 'faster' connection right now, with the idea that if you get a 1mb connection you'll be using less data than if you get a 5mb. There are some issues with this - for home connections slower connections are often done simply by limiting the modems, providing 20mb service from the home to the ISP generally costs no more in hardware than 1mb. The problem with this is that it 'encourages' offline use like bittorrent for downloading. 'burst' capability is very much desirable for those that only use their connection while they're home/online, so under this plan rather than artificially limiting the modems, you simply charge for usage. So you can get a 20-100mb connection for cheap, as long as you don't use it much. Basically the electricity model.
I'll also note that the members of the cooperative are up in arms over it. Given that it IS a cooperative, the board might find themselves being changed out.
So do what old Hairy does, when a site "appeals to turn off your blocker" I head straight to their forums and ask them right out "Are you gonna take financial responsibility when one of your ads infects one of my customers?" and then point out how trivial it is to bypass the blockers with non-threatening content. You'd be surprised how many people don't know that those pieces of malware they "just keep getting somehow" are coming from assholes like in TFA and spreading the word is required to bring this to a head. They are making profits from a risky business, they should have to assume the downsides as well as the profits and clean up their own messes.
You make good points. Hell, I even have adblock set to 'let certain non-obtrusive ads through'. You want your ads to be let through? Fine. Follow Adblock's rules and they'll be let through. Otherwise I'm protecting my computer. I install adblock because of the malware, speaker hijacking*, screen-grabbing, etc...
*Autoplay video ads? Extra-special block! I'm trying NOT to annoy my roommates.
Nope, because I view the credibility of those that say the landing was a hoax as lower than the credibility of those that say it actually happened.
Thus how it goes in this thread - I view the credibility of those that say they've seen it happen higher than those that say it's impossible, especially when it's pointed out that Apple has changed how the market operates several times. In addition, I have *vast* faith in how scummy scummy app developers can be.
However, because in many jurisdictions you have to pay more to see a judge about the fine assessed to you for a traffic violation than it does to simply pay it, I consider the cop giving you a ticket about the same as being convicted for it, because you just got handed a $X penalty for doing something.
When you have to pay $200 in court costs to see a judge over a $150 ticket, what would you do? What would most people do? I'm not saying this is right, but it is reality.
Preferred stock is a partnership in a company, with voting rights; Common stock is a pink sheet, possibly with voting rights, but it can be revoked if the company files bankruptcy (Preferred makes you a stakeholder, and if you liquidate the company then the Preferred shareholders get a cut of whatever's left after paying creditors).
Either you're not in the USA or you made a mistake. Common stock is the one with voting rights, preferred stock is the one typically without voting rights. While there are different types of preferred stock, they generally pay out before common stock for dividends/bankruptcy in exchange for that loss of control.
Wait, you've seen games like this on Android and thus stories about it being true on iOS must be true?
Not saying it's true, saying I believe others who've stated it. The games I was thinking of were obviously ported to both systems, so I figure the scummy things they were doing on Android were also present on IOS. While I figure that IOS cleaned it up on a regular basis, I'm also aware that scummy app developers, like scummy lawyers and telephone 900 numbers(back in the day) will skirt the rules any way they can.
Basically, whenever you start discussing currencies, it gets pretty abstract and very stupid quite quickly.
Arbitage on the margins(international transactions for example) aside, the main reason most stores only want to accept 1 currency is mostly convenience. For the most part, $1 USD is $1 USD whether it's cash, check, credit card, or even paypal. Bitcoin you have to worry about what it's trading for now and what it might be trading for in the future when you go to trade it for a different currency or even goods.
But yeah, it starts simple but very quickly gets incredibly complex, like a fractal equation.
You're obviously new to the ways of the world.... Or at least the USA.
So much depends on how the cop presents it, and keep in mind that most fines are a fraction of the expense of fighting one.