Some of us are engineers who have MATLAB open (or engineering students), so this makes sense if you don't want to open up another app. Plus MATLAB is great for multiple calculations with variables.

I don't blame you, it's not like you skipped probation on a serious crime like homicide or robbery. The system sucks anyway, we all know it.

That's very weird. If it's true, then I'm sorry, but I was talking about a legitimate error, like in no court date or missing a summons, not misinterpreting what was written. However, a June 12 court date after a June 10 ticket seems extremely unlikely considering, between friends and myself, we've accumulated quite a few tickets and the court date tends to be about a month and a half in the future. I agree with Hordeking, if you get a decent lawyer and still have the ticket, you could argue that in court.

I'm from NYC, I was once parked in a bus stop (didn't realize, it was snowing heavily and the sign was missing). Lo-and-behold, when I got to my car, I had a ticked in one of my wheelwells. Luckily the cop realized I couldn't tell it was a stop and purposefully filled it out incorrectly (amusingly he left out what traffic rule I violated.) Anyway, the ticket would have cost like $300 (some absurd amount). On another note, if there is even one error on your ticket, they will throw it out, so it's good to thoroughly check the ticket.

Neutral's not a gear... it's an absence of a gear.

I don't agree with your specific points, but you seem to indirectly note the more prominent aspects of our society. As a student in engineering, one who excelled in math, science, and history (too) during high school, the problem is not thinking out of the box or against the grain, it's that doing so requires us to do work. This current generation, from what I've seen as being part of it is the lame by-product of the 80s generation, full of people wanting something (a lot of it), but also doing some work to get there. Today oft too many people are taking the easy road and expecting everything to come to them (hence why I absolutely loathe Paris Hilton or anyone else who profits solely off of who they are and not what they do); they have no more of a can-do attitude than the retiree (of which I'm not making a case against at all) who expects the government to take care of them. The solution to this epidemic is to make the consequences of these poor decisions clearer and more concrete to the youth of today and tomorrow. Sadly, there are few models for these people in the world today outside of many involved in this community as well as firms across the United States. Corporations which rely on ingenuity and hard work from these people are being damaged by these robber-baron-esque CEOs who plague the very being of large groups of people working together. The current administration is full of people who consistently failed at what they tried/are trying to do and still lived an easy, care-free life. Most notable successes nowadays are people 'getting lucky' and not being inventive or working hard and that will make change a very difficult process, especially difficult for a culture that takes it easy.