Its called inflation and is a godsend for a debtor nation like the US. With household debt at 100% of GDP and over $10 trillion on national debt, the policies of this government will inevitably be geared towards inflation. The need to keep inflation numbers low for now is simply to sucker people into lending us money at a low interest rate. At some point in the future, the US will inflate its way out of its debt. (Do you really think we'll ever actually pay back what we've borrowed?) When that happens, those who own debts will benefit, those who hold cash will cry.
Wait a second. At first you assert that the majority of the individuals would NOT make voluntary donations of their personal funds to make a social safety net possible. Later you state that the majority of those very same americans would find it unacceptable to lose such a safety net. See a problem here?
I think a more accurate statement is, the majority of those with wealth would not want to donate their money voluntarily. And a majority of those without it would find that unacceptable.
Three wolves and a lamb deciding whats for breakfast .
at the end of 6 months, that person would have a boat.
All a gamer has at the end of six months is a little character that a corporation says you have and that you must keep feeding $15 each month to keep alive for you.
You have nothing to fear, I just happen to believe that people who show that they have no respect for the rights of other people (in this case the right of a person to live) , dont deserve that right themselves. For instance, a liar should not be offended when he is lied to. A thief should not be offended when he is robbed. And a murder should not be surprised if he is murdered. If you live by the sword, you should also expect to die by it.
While it is a subjective question of morality on whether one murder justifies another. I do think you are incorrect in stating that the original poster is "no better than him if" he is advocating someone murdering him.
The murder of a murderer is not something to cry about. Hans Reiser's wife may have been a horrible horrible woman, but she wasn't (atleast to anyone's knowledge) a murderer. Even if you hold both their lives equally dear (which I do not), you have to admit one is atleast a better human being than the other
I think what he was trying to say was, companies bow down and embrace competitor's products when it makes financial sense. Just like Apple didn't want to miss out on 85% of the computer market, Microsoft may not want to miss out on % of the HD movie market.
Hrm... It would be interesting if the cost of harvesting it outweighted the investment to build the infostructure to bring it back to our planet. Even if bringing back those hydrocarbons to Earth was cost effective. I'm not sure it would be a good Thing.
I've always drawn solace from the fact that eventually oil will run out and we'll stop pumping smog into the air. Can you imagine if we were not suddenly able to pump hundreds of times that amount into the air before we ran out?? Holy smokes!
On the other hand, it would also be such an awesome thing for investment in science and space travel. If some portion of the extraction process needed human oversight, it would be an awesome thing for manned space travel. The building of the infrastructure, to support the mining of Titan itself would really be a milestone in human history. The point at which man kind ceased to harness the resources of his own planet, and started to harness the resources of his solar system. If infrastructure were built to mine Titan, it would make sense to resuse a large chunk of it to mine the asteroids too. The possibilities boggle the mind.
Notice how when we have nut jobs in the US we identify them as a minority of the people. Whacko guy blowing up federal buildings? Minority! Nut job pedophile priest? Minority! Speaking out against flag burning? Minority! White supremacists, racists and KKK? Minority! Jew haters, and perpetrators of hate crimes against homosexuals, Arabs, etc.? Minority!
Yet when you have a bunch of guys strap bombs on themselves and blow up a bus, a train, a plane or a building. Its not a minority.
BTW, I'm muslim, and I actually went to the wikipedia page to see what pictures were put up. Yes, I do know that looking at pictures of the prophet is forbidden in Islam, but the sole reason behind that is to prevent idolatry. Thats it. Nothing more. There are over 1 billion muslims on this planet, and yes they are more or less 50 years behind on the civilization curve. But thats to be expected.. thats why they are called 'developing nations' or '3rd world'. Lets try to get those guys up to speed without treating them like a bunch of villians, or sub-humans.
Yes it is infested with Jihadis right now.. Who is to blame for it becoming that way? Who is responsible for its army, police and other infrastructure getting bombed to rubble? What kind of circular logic are you using to justify the enormous loss in lives and money?
Where is this evidence that Iraq was trying to establish a Caliphate and destroy western civilization? Do not switch the point. Weapons of mass destruction was only ONE of the reasons for the invasion? Really? What was the primary reason then? the others? Revenge? Oil? Preventing the establishment of a Caliphate that would destroy Western Civilization?
Many believe WMDs were shipped to Syria on the even of war? That statement is so full of holes it's ridiculous. That is a vague unsubstantiated statement. Many believe that psychics can be clairvoyant. What's your point? If anyone of any significance really BELIEVED that Syria had Iraq's WMDs, we'd fighting with Syria.
Saddam was paying for the families of Suicide Bombers? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4535661.stm - Please read that. Lets have the Russians invade and over throw the American system of government.
It continues astonishes me just how many people confuse Islamic fundamentalist terrorism with the war in Iraq. It just goes to prove how successfully Bush's government has managed to brainwash such a large portion of the american populace. Saddam's government was in no way connected to Al Qaeda or any similar terrorist organization. Bush declared war based on his accusations that Saddam Hussein was trying to obtain, or already had Weapons of Mass destruction. Obviously, Bush was either misled, or was lying because they have found nothing to prove his accusations. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Pakistan has significantly more Islamic fundamentalism than Iraq does, it is also run by a dictator and was infact one of only three countries that recognized the Taliban government in Afghanistan. It is also a declared Nuclear power. If this was a war against Islamic fundamentalism, or to prevent WMDs from getting into the hands of Islamic terrorist organizations, we'd be at war with Iran and Pakistan instead.
No. I think it is a very valid comparison to make. The fact that Bush has led the US into a $2 trillion war ( *sarcasm* Who cares about lives right? Its the money we've lost that we REALLY care about *sarcasm*) with a country that didn't have WMDs, puts him on the list of either one of the most evil men on this planet, or one of the biggest morons. Either he knew he was lying and did it anyway, or he wasted away thousands of lives and trillions of dollars on his idiotic false accusations.
You cant blame anyone, when s/he wonders what all could have been possible with $2 trillion had we instead decided we wanted to spend it constructively. Had the American people elected someone with atleast average intelligence into the office of President, what could s/he have done with those $2 trillion? Built a transcontinental mag-lev perhaps? Lowered Taxes maybe? Paid off a good chunk of the national debt? Paid for the research of alternative energy? we'll never know. Because we've made a $2 trillion bonfire , and thrown a few thousand people in it for good measure... just to spice it up.
I know this is slashdot and all, but the person who wrote this summary is so hopelessly biased against Microsoft its not even funny... What ever you say, think or believe about microsoft. They are an extremely successful company. Your summary makes it sound like Microsoft is crumbling and worthless, but Microsoft is as dominant as it ever was, and there are NO signs of that changing any time soon. Yes there are competing products popping up here and there, and thats really a good thing.. but not one of those competing products has yet been able to overthrow Microsoft's dominance in its core fields.
Microsoft doesn't release more innovative products, because it simply doesn't need to. Its not trying to gain the upper edge on anyone.. When Microsoft saw Java becoming an issue to its dominance, it came out with.NET. When it saw Netscape becoming an issue to its dominance, it came out with IE.
When you're in first place, you dont really have to run harder to increase the distance between you and second place.. you just have to run hard enough so that second place doesn't take over your first place. Instead you just conserve your energy, and use it when its necessary.. Just because microsoft CAN do more, doesn't mean it needs to. In fact, its in the companies best interests not to crush all its competitors.
Agreed... Microsoft talking about morality and ethics is a joke.
When they lower their price on windows to $10 or less, and make it bug free, I'll stop stealing it.
That is really no excuse, if you dont like the advertizing on a website, dont go to the website. If you dont know if the website is free of obnoxious ads... DONT GO TO IT! Just like you wouldn't download and install any random application on the internet.
I dont think the suggestion is to move ALL crop farming indoors, but only the varieties that are most suitable for it. pretty much only small shrubs and grass type plants can be considered for farming indoors, it would not be very practical to farm a cherry tree, or a banana tree indoors. Yes there will be an environmental impact of moving farming indoors, but then, farming outdoors also has an environmental impact. Its just picking between the two types of environmental damage.
As a mail provider I wouldn't be surprised that the US and china were the source of a significant chunk of spam. They (the US especially) have a LOT of email users. What I'm interested is the ratio of good email to spam email. For instance, if the US makes up for 90% of all email sent, then is it really that bad if it makes up 25% of the world's spam? On the other hand Mexico may make up 1% of the world's email, but 90% of the email coming from there could be spam.
The volume of spam should be taking in the context of the usage of email. The RATIO of legit emails to spam is a better indicator of where the spammers are coming from than volume alone
umm as someone who have lived in the UAE for over 18 years, Let me tell you that yes male laborers could quite easily make up that ratio of people. You need to visit the UAE before you accuse the people of that country of slaughtering hundreds of thousands of kids. Your ignorance would be amusing if it wasn't so frightening. The UAE has a visa system for immigrants that denies them the ability to bring in their spouses to live with them unless they prove that they are earning above a certain amount. Also the cost of living in the UAE is such, that thousands of people send their families (or leave their families) in their countries of origin, while they live and work in the UAE to make a living (sending a portion or the majority of their earnings back to them).
The UAE's imbalanced ratio of women to men, is the result of some really bad immigration laws, and an environment that exploits cheap imported labor. I wont claim to know if there are no honour killings or only some (The government there does censor the news) but I am absolutely certain that killing young female children does not happen a whole lot. Islam has something called 'meher' which is basically a reverse dowry. The man who wishes to wed a woman must show he can support her and must 'gift' her large sums of money. (we are talking houses or thousands of dollars, (sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars). This gift amount demanded by women has been going higher and higher due to this shortage of women in that country, and because of the rising level of wealth in that country. As a result many young arab men, marry women from India, pakistan, vietnam, phillipines, Europe, Russia and the US because they are, quite literally, more affordable.
not to mention the size of the audience. If his blog gets 100 hits a month and 6 of them happened to come from linux computers instead of 3... that hardly says anything
I agree with your point, but disagree with your argument for it. I believe a slave is defintd by his or her lack of options. By denying him or her knowledge and access to alternatives. A farmer may scratch out an existence from his farm, or he may leave it if he chooses without facing any harm to himself. He may choose to become a merchant, a bandit, a goat herder, a priest. He must feed himself, but as a free person, you are able to choose how it is that you feed or provide for yourself. You can be a software engineer, or flip burgers, or paint art, or act, or be a lawyer. Its up to you. How successful you are is also up to you. I'd imagine a farmer is a better farmer than a goat herder.. but then again.. you never know.
A slave, by contrast, has no options. He must do what his master tells him. He may have the genius of mozart.. but if his master decides he must herd goats.. then he has no choice. His access to women and how many children he can have is also dictated by his master.
Maybe its a personal thing, but to me, if someone tries to deny me my options.. he/she is treating me like his/her slave. If someone is threatening me with physical coercion, (like a government of some sort. Kidding!... Actually, not really... ).. that coercion is being used to deny me my options. Whether it is done through physical coercion, or through other means is irrelevant.
I wonder what kind of social support network your mother in law has. Does she live alone? Because I for one am certain, that if my mom (or mom in law for that matter) were acting in that specific way you just described, I wouldn't be getting them help. I would BE the help. They'd loose Internet connectivity, and they'aad be taken for a long vacation to sub saharan africa (I hear they dont have internet connections there).
If there was fighting, screaming, crying.. THEN I'd take her to a doctor at that point and GET her help because it would be beyond my abilities to fix.
So my question is, why isn't anyone doing something about your mom in laws behavior?
As the owner of an old beat up sentra I obviously agree with you. However there are Real world measurements at which BMWs are superior, and it is precisely because the BMW excels at those, that it is a successful car company.
Here are some - 1) Looks. Just like an iMac, Jewelry, fancy tshirts, fancy cellphones, decorations, and art.. good looks ad value to your product 2) Quality. I'm willing to bet that a new BMW breaks down a lot less often than a 12 year old Ford. 3) Comfort. I know I hate taking long drives in my sentra because it keeps out very little road noise. I am willing to bet, the car cabin of a BMW is a lot quieter 4) Safety. If my sentra (or your ford) got into a collision with a BMW, I'd rather be the person sitting in the BMW 5) Status. Similar to looks, but again.. this adds value to your product. This may help you in getting a date.
The only positive point for driving an old junker is cost. Whether its associated with peace of mind, insurance, likelihood of getting stolen/scratched, etc. It boils down to cost.
Slashdot Mirror
Its called inflation and is a godsend for a debtor nation like the US. With household debt at 100% of GDP and over $10 trillion on national debt, the policies of this government will inevitably be geared towards inflation. The need to keep inflation numbers low for now is simply to sucker people into lending us money at a low interest rate. At some point in the future, the US will inflate its way out of its debt. (Do you really think we'll ever actually pay back what we've borrowed?) When that happens, those who own debts will benefit, those who hold cash will cry.
A Link to some info about Burj Dubai. The tallest man made structure ever built.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_dubai
See where the architects are from? The contractors? Structural Engineers? Dubai's ONLY contribution to this feat of engineering is money.
Wait a second. At first you assert that the majority of the individuals would NOT make voluntary donations of their personal funds to make a social safety net possible.
Later you state that the majority of those very same americans would find it unacceptable to lose such a safety net. See a problem here?
I think a more accurate statement is, the majority of those with wealth would not want to donate their money voluntarily. And a majority of those without it would find that unacceptable.
Three wolves and a lamb deciding whats for breakfast .
The deregulation didn't so much cause it, as it allowed it to happen.
haha.. that's evil.
And I thought I was being horrid when I was going to suggest to him that he set up a link farm landing page.
I like your idea better
at the end of 6 months, that person would have a boat.
All a gamer has at the end of six months is a little character that a corporation says you have and that you must keep feeding $15 each month to keep alive for you.
You have nothing to fear, I just happen to believe that people who show that they have no respect for the rights of other people (in this case the right of a person to live) , dont deserve that right themselves. For instance, a liar should not be offended when he is lied to. A thief should not be offended when he is robbed. And a murder should not be surprised if he is murdered. If you live by the sword, you should also expect to die by it.
While it is a subjective question of morality on whether one murder justifies another. I do think you are incorrect in stating that the original poster is "no better than him if" he is advocating someone murdering him.
The murder of a murderer is not something to cry about. Hans Reiser's wife may have been a horrible horrible woman, but she wasn't (atleast to anyone's knowledge) a murderer. Even if you hold both their lives equally dear (which I do not), you have to admit one is atleast a better human being than the other
I think what he was trying to say was, companies bow down and embrace competitor's products when it makes financial sense. Just like Apple didn't want to miss out on 85% of the computer market, Microsoft may not want to miss out on % of the HD movie market.
I've always drawn solace from the fact that eventually oil will run out and we'll stop pumping smog into the air. Can you imagine if we were not suddenly able to pump hundreds of times that amount into the air before we ran out?? Holy smokes!
On the other hand, it would also be such an awesome thing for investment in science and space travel. If some portion of the extraction process needed human oversight, it would be an awesome thing for manned space travel. The building of the infrastructure, to support the mining of Titan itself would really be a milestone in human history. The point at which man kind ceased to harness the resources of his own planet, and started to harness the resources of his solar system. If infrastructure were built to mine Titan, it would make sense to resuse a large chunk of it to mine the asteroids too. The possibilities boggle the mind.
Would it be worth it though?
Notice how when we have nut jobs in the US we identify them as a minority of the people. Whacko guy blowing up federal buildings? Minority! Nut job pedophile priest? Minority! Speaking out against flag burning? Minority! White supremacists, racists and KKK? Minority! Jew haters, and perpetrators of hate crimes against homosexuals, Arabs, etc.? Minority!
Yet when you have a bunch of guys strap bombs on themselves and blow up a bus, a train, a plane or a building. Its not a minority.
BTW, I'm muslim, and I actually went to the wikipedia page to see what pictures were put up. Yes, I do know that looking at pictures of the prophet is forbidden in Islam, but the sole reason behind that is to prevent idolatry. Thats it. Nothing more. There are over 1 billion muslims on this planet, and yes they are more or less 50 years behind on the civilization curve. But thats to be expected.. thats why they are called 'developing nations' or '3rd world'. Lets try to get those guys up to speed without treating them like a bunch of villians, or sub-humans.
Yes it is infested with Jihadis right now.. Who is to blame for it becoming that way? Who is responsible for its army, police and other infrastructure getting bombed to rubble? What kind of circular logic are you using to justify the enormous loss in lives and money?
Where is this evidence that Iraq was trying to establish a Caliphate and destroy western civilization? Do not switch the point. Weapons of mass destruction was only ONE of the reasons for the invasion? Really? What was the primary reason then? the others? Revenge? Oil? Preventing the establishment of a Caliphate that would destroy Western Civilization?
Many believe WMDs were shipped to Syria on the even of war? That statement is so full of holes it's ridiculous. That is a vague unsubstantiated statement. Many believe that psychics can be clairvoyant. What's your point? If anyone of any significance really BELIEVED that Syria had Iraq's WMDs, we'd fighting with Syria.
Saddam was paying for the families of Suicide Bombers? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4535661.stm - Please read that. Lets have the Russians invade and over throw the American system of government.
It continues astonishes me just how many people confuse Islamic fundamentalist terrorism with the war in Iraq. It just goes to prove how successfully Bush's government has managed to brainwash such a large portion of the american populace. Saddam's government was in no way connected to Al Qaeda or any similar terrorist organization. Bush declared war based on his accusations that Saddam Hussein was trying to obtain, or already had Weapons of Mass destruction. Obviously, Bush was either misled, or was lying because they have found nothing to prove his accusations. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Pakistan has significantly more Islamic fundamentalism than Iraq does, it is also run by a dictator and was infact one of only three countries that recognized the Taliban government in Afghanistan. It is also a declared Nuclear power. If this was a war against Islamic fundamentalism, or to prevent WMDs from getting into the hands of Islamic terrorist organizations, we'd be at war with Iran and Pakistan instead.
No. I think it is a very valid comparison to make. The fact that Bush has led the US into a $2 trillion war ( *sarcasm* Who cares about lives right? Its the money we've lost that we REALLY care about *sarcasm*) with a country that didn't have WMDs, puts him on the list of either one of the most evil men on this planet, or one of the biggest morons. Either he knew he was lying and did it anyway, or he wasted away thousands of lives and trillions of dollars on his idiotic false accusations.
You cant blame anyone, when s/he wonders what all could have been possible with $2 trillion had we instead decided we wanted to spend it constructively. Had the American people elected someone with atleast average intelligence into the office of President, what could s/he have done with those $2 trillion? Built a transcontinental mag-lev perhaps? Lowered Taxes maybe? Paid off a good chunk of the national debt? Paid for the research of alternative energy? we'll never know. Because we've made a $2 trillion bonfire , and thrown a few thousand people in it for good measure... just to spice it up.
I know this is slashdot and all, but the person who wrote this summary is so hopelessly biased against Microsoft its not even funny... What ever you say, think or believe about microsoft. They are an extremely successful company. Your summary makes it sound like Microsoft is crumbling and worthless, but Microsoft is as dominant as it ever was, and there are NO signs of that changing any time soon. Yes there are competing products popping up here and there, and thats really a good thing.. but not one of those competing products has yet been able to overthrow Microsoft's dominance in its core fields.
.NET. When it saw Netscape becoming an issue to its dominance, it came out with IE.
Microsoft doesn't release more innovative products, because it simply doesn't need to. Its not trying to gain the upper edge on anyone.. When Microsoft saw Java becoming an issue to its dominance, it came out with
When you're in first place, you dont really have to run harder to increase the distance between you and second place.. you just have to run hard enough so that second place doesn't take over your first place. Instead you just conserve your energy, and use it when its necessary.. Just because microsoft CAN do more, doesn't mean it needs to. In fact, its in the companies best interests not to crush all its competitors.
Agreed... Microsoft talking about morality and ethics is a joke.
When they lower their price on windows to $10 or less, and make it bug free, I'll stop stealing it.
That is really no excuse, if you dont like the advertizing on a website, dont go to the website. If you dont know if the website is free of obnoxious ads... DONT GO TO IT! Just like you wouldn't download and install any random application on the internet.
I dont think the suggestion is to move ALL crop farming indoors, but only the varieties that are most suitable for it. pretty much only small shrubs and grass type plants can be considered for farming indoors, it would not be very practical to farm a cherry tree, or a banana tree indoors. Yes there will be an environmental impact of moving farming indoors, but then, farming outdoors also has an environmental impact. Its just picking between the two types of environmental damage.
Yes, but when the revolution comes.. the lawyers will be the first up against the wall.
As a mail provider I wouldn't be surprised that the US and china were the source of a significant chunk of spam. They (the US especially) have a LOT of email users. What I'm interested is the ratio of good email to spam email. For instance, if the US makes up for 90% of all email sent, then is it really that bad if it makes up 25% of the world's spam? On the other hand Mexico may make up 1% of the world's email, but 90% of the email coming from there could be spam.
The volume of spam should be taking in the context of the usage of email. The RATIO of legit emails to spam is a better indicator of where the spammers are coming from than volume alone
umm as someone who have lived in the UAE for over 18 years, Let me tell you that yes male laborers could quite easily make up that ratio of people. You need to visit the UAE before you accuse the people of that country of slaughtering hundreds of thousands of kids. Your ignorance would be amusing if it wasn't so frightening. The UAE has a visa system for immigrants that denies them the ability to bring in their spouses to live with them unless they prove that they are earning above a certain amount. Also the cost of living in the UAE is such, that thousands of people send their families (or leave their families) in their countries of origin, while they live and work in the UAE to make a living (sending a portion or the majority of their earnings back to them).
The UAE's imbalanced ratio of women to men, is the result of some really bad immigration laws, and an environment that exploits cheap imported labor. I wont claim to know if there are no honour killings or only some (The government there does censor the news) but I am absolutely certain that killing young female children does not happen a whole lot. Islam has something called 'meher' which is basically a reverse dowry. The man who wishes to wed a woman must show he can support her and must 'gift' her large sums of money. (we are talking houses or thousands of dollars, (sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars). This gift amount demanded by women has been going higher and higher due to this shortage of women in that country, and because of the rising level of wealth in that country. As a result many young arab men, marry women from India, pakistan, vietnam, phillipines, Europe, Russia and the US because they are, quite literally, more affordable.
not to mention the size of the audience. If his blog gets 100 hits a month and 6 of them happened to come from linux computers instead of 3... that hardly says anything
Why does that ring a bell?
I agree with your point, but disagree with your argument for it. I believe a slave is defintd by his or her lack of options. By denying him or her knowledge and access to alternatives. A farmer may scratch out an existence from his farm, or he may leave it if he chooses without facing any harm to himself. He may choose to become a merchant, a bandit, a goat herder, a priest. He must feed himself, but as a free person, you are able to choose how it is that you feed or provide for yourself. You can be a software engineer, or flip burgers, or paint art, or act, or be a lawyer. Its up to you. How successful you are is also up to you. I'd imagine a farmer is a better farmer than a goat herder.. but then again.. you never know.
... Actually, not really... ) .. that coercion is being used to deny me my options. Whether it is done through physical coercion, or through other means is irrelevant.
A slave, by contrast, has no options. He must do what his master tells him. He may have the genius of mozart.. but if his master decides he must herd goats.. then he has no choice. His access to women and how many children he can have is also dictated by his master.
Maybe its a personal thing, but to me, if someone tries to deny me my options.. he/she is treating me like his/her slave. If someone is threatening me with physical coercion, (like a government of some sort. Kidding!
I wonder what kind of social support network your mother in law has. Does she live alone? Because I for one am certain, that if my mom (or mom in law for that matter) were acting in that specific way you just described, I wouldn't be getting them help. I would BE the help. They'd loose Internet connectivity, and they'aad be taken for a long vacation to sub saharan africa (I hear they dont have internet connections there).
If there was fighting, screaming, crying.. THEN I'd take her to a doctor at that point and GET her help because it would be beyond my abilities to fix.
So my question is, why isn't anyone doing something about your mom in laws behavior?
As the owner of an old beat up sentra I obviously agree with you. However there are Real world measurements at which BMWs are superior, and it is precisely because the BMW excels at those, that it is a successful car company.
Here are some -
1) Looks. Just like an iMac, Jewelry, fancy tshirts, fancy cellphones, decorations, and art.. good looks ad value to your product
2) Quality. I'm willing to bet that a new BMW breaks down a lot less often than a 12 year old Ford.
3) Comfort. I know I hate taking long drives in my sentra because it keeps out very little road noise. I am willing to bet, the car cabin of a BMW is a lot quieter
4) Safety. If my sentra (or your ford) got into a collision with a BMW, I'd rather be the person sitting in the BMW
5) Status. Similar to looks, but again.. this adds value to your product. This may help you in getting a date.
The only positive point for driving an old junker is cost. Whether its associated with peace of mind, insurance, likelihood of getting stolen/scratched, etc. It boils down to cost.