I can read from the various posts in this thread that you all think it's a walk in the park to fix these old 80's computers, oh boy...you guys may know a couple of common things such as dry soldering and drying capacitors, but there's a lot more to fixing those things than you might know.
One of the most common faults of the 80's was the ROM/RAM circuits, they where often clusters of 2/4/8 kilobyte ram chips (often 4164 etc.), and finding dead ones requires a couple of "old skool tech skills", one of the simplest one is the "thumb test", is one of the Ram chips very hot (you could of course use a bottle of cold-spray, I don't know what it's called in your country...but to us it was just Cold spray, this is essentially a spray that sprays super cool air because of a chemical process when in comes in contact with air, the surface will be really cold, forming ice crystals) and then you can see clearly which surface is getting hot fast. Another method is to use the oscilloscope to see if anything is out of the ordinary (you need to know how it looks as an image first, the voltage changes because of the logic communication will form an image, and if you know how it looks when normal, this is also a method we used.)
You can also use a logic tester, this is an instrument that can monitor the traffic in those logic circuits, you can set it to the speed of the actual logic (usually 1 to 20 MHz, depending on the computers speed) and see if everything is okay.
Another common flaw back then, was broken prints...over some time, these boards gets really hot, and this stretches the metal on the PCBs, and broken connections is some of the hardest things to find.
Another typical flaw is design flaw, over time...we needed to change I/O chips on certain models simply because it was so badly designed that they would eventually go bust, they where very sensitive too...so many of the DIY'ers out there who made their own Fast-Loaders/Robotics connected to the I/O ports would regularly blow these chips.
Pity I live in Scandinavia, I'd love to retire doing this:)
And people don't explain what they want something to look like. They send a cad or other type of file that defines what they want, not some inaccurate poorly rendered result of a cad file.
Well, I've been working for YEARS in the merchandise/nick-nack/gift production industry and I know my competitors well, in fact...I got my job because everyone else does it the old fashioned way, and if there's something key accountants know...is the hardship of communicating their ideas to the production teams in e.g. China.
Cad files is what we have after visualizing a product anyway, but good luck sending that to the factory in China. Most often the factories and production facilities in China depend heavily old older software and huge machinery that can't even use our files. It's WAY better to send them a sample for them to copy, these people are EXPERTS at copying stuff.
Even little things like a logo on an USB stick, they will and can get wrong if they don't know exactly how it looks from all angles. You'd be amazed how often this happens.
Valid questions, I'll try to answer a few, and hopefully that answers some of the other peoples concerns as well:
Sure, 3D printing isn't yet for everyone, and yes - it does take both knowledge and experience. One of those things are of course 3D modelling experience, the better 3D modeller you are...the better your results will be, and of course the faster you'll get it done.
Another thing you need to be somewhat experienced at, is how to model things FOR a 3D printer, this is because if you just "print" without any planning, you're most likely to end up with having to experiment so much that you'll make 10s of misprints, costing you a small fortune in ABS plastic.
You also need to know to remove bugs in your model, all STL files must be properly CLEANED before converted to an STL file. This means you need to understand how to make clean models, remove double vertices, double faces, edges etc. You also need to understand where to apply support for the various parts, most printers can't really print into thin air...so you need to model some temporary holders/molds that holds the printed object in place while printing. You also need to consider how to clean up the final model, most cheaper printers will leave some ugly looking stripes (due to the printing process), which you need to sand down later, if you have too many details, it'll make it pretty though to clean up later on.
The design process time depends entirely on the object complexity at hand. For example, a small cover for a battery can take as little as 1 hour to design (I'd probably do it in less than 10 minutes), but the printing process itself takes a lot longer. If you where to make a complex cogwheel construction, that could take hours to days. Nevermind a beautiful detailed statue that could take weeks. But hey, good art doesn't grow on trees, and this is up to each individual to master.
Yes, 3D printing isn't for everyone, but then again... that also makes it worth something to those who are willing to put the time and effort into the learning process. If it was for everyone, there'd be no business for people like me, but sure - 3D printing will improve tremendously over time, so please keep buying those printers!:)
They're quite useful if you know what you're doing.
For example, you have some kind of toy, gadget, device and whatnot...that's missing the battery cover? Hard to find...even on eBay, so what do you do? Fire up your favourite 3D software and make one. Works like a charm.
If you're working in advertisement/merchandise production... you can make small prototype samples of what you want to have mass produced, this ensures that your oversea production don't get it wrong (and they always do, trust me!) Shipping a sample of what you want mass produced, is a dream come true, and fortunately for (me) most of my competitors have no clue that this can be done, so they still do it the old fashioned way (try to tell the production team with drawings and talk over the phone with a foreign team that hardly understands English).
Pictures say more than a 1000 words they say, well...a prototype object to hold in your hand says more than 1000 pictures.
10,564 cases and 4,716 deaths, not something you sweep under the rug in a few months. Incubation times of the virus is still not confirmed.
As far as I can remember, I heard that a lot of Africans were ashamed to go and check if they had the virus, a lot of them were suspicious of the health care workers and thought they would be injected with the virus from them, this kept a lot of them from going and getting themselves checked out.
Furthermore, an outbreak of this magnitude just doesn't vanish just like that, they've either invented a very effective vaccine or there's something someone isn't telling the rest of the world here.
With so much experience to bring to the table, I have so much to give, but it doesn't mean I stop learning. Every day I learn something new. 40 is nothing. My grandmother where hired when she was 75 as an expert and a professional within her field.
I used to be a part time teacher since I am an animation/computer specialist and the schools hire me for the things they can't teach.
One of those things I've noticed is that the teachers doesn't have any say anymore, it's all about the money and how happy the kids parents are. The happier the parents, the more attendance they get. And if they get a lot of attendance, then the government will increase the schools income and support. This breeds a new kind of school, an unhealthy school system where teachers are constantly burned out, have to suck up to kids and their parents instead of concentrating on the real job at hand, teaching!
Teaching AND learning demands a lot of focus, and focus demands discipline.
Kids are NOT stupid, they will figure out that they can get away with whatever they want and will naturally do so - kids being kids, testing new grounds.
We need to give more power back to the teachers, and educate parents to discipline their kids into wanting real achievements instead of "whatever they can get away with to party every night". Discipline never hurt anyone, it helps you to FOCUS.
I was sifting trough all of your comments in here, and not ONE of them even considers that this could be a plot to completely destroy wikileaks.
Remember when wikileaks where all about exposing corruption within government, military, dangerous religious money cults? This whole thing smells like a setup to me.
Yes they are. I remember having this idea when I worked for a Fashion Designer School back in my youth. I was an avid electronics hobbyist and already thought of sewing electronics into garment back then. You could make scrolling text, spectacular graphical displays, especially easy today with all the Arduino/AVR microcontrollers cheaply available just about anywhere.
Other ideas, the Customs officers could have metal detection technology built right into their garment/gloves etc. Other detectors too, the uses are unlimited.
...Even if he just has to pretend that he/she cares, I'd take that in a heartbeat any day.
For example, I have worked many places, and one of the best places I've ever worked...was at Lego in Denmark (Their graphics department), the boss in there constantly wanted to know how I was, if I needed a break, if he could bring me some coffee or anything, and he didn't give up before I actually gave him a proper answer.
My colleagues where playful and we often fooled around during the day, not wasting work at all...because of this we usually worked 3 times as fast because we felt so free that the work became inspiring to do.
That's how I want my workplace to be. Makes me want to come in to work every morning, can't wait to do my job.
Sadly, not a single workplace I've ever been to after that...has even come close to that work environment.
There's no reason (such as I see it) that animals wouldn't exist in outer space, or near various atmospheres. We just don't know them yet, because they could probably not survive our conditions.
Have any of you guys seen that footage that Nasa officially released of all their satellite cams have picked up over the years? It was some 2 hour footage with lots of interesting stuff, you may want to look at that. PS. go to the source, don't look at the many fakes from unofficial sources found on youtube.
"Trains May Soon Come Equipped With Debris-Zapping Lasers"
The lovely word "may" is such an abused word. There are MANY things that MAY come, on the other hand it MIGHT not as well. My money is on that it won't be here anytime soon. There are so many technical and impractical issues that arise, that this is nothing more than a "wow...lasers, we're so 1337" 21 century etc. Sure, it makes for a good read, and even better...the house-geek will have his say over the dinner table...say...did you know honey, they're putting lasers in front of the trains now to clear the tracks. OOOOh honey, that's just up your Dart Vader alley!
Guess what? I've been working with technology and prototyping for years, and it's a riot every time this actually surfaces as an article once in a blue moon, you can't just put high power lasers in front of trains, you'll have reflection issues, IR-radiation, people claiming blindness, and the kind of power you need to "zap" it clean is extreme, this isn't your average laser pointer that can be used to write your name into a cellphone or pop balloons, heck...even hefty industrial lasers used to cut metal are so focused and concentrated that if you wanted to use it to blast away debris...you'd need a HECK of a lot more space for it to be actually practical, not to mention the need for cooling.
What are we going to censor today? Please make a selection:
1) Video games.
2) Movies.
3) Opinions.
4) Drawings.
5) Retro (back censoring things that aren't politically correct today).
So what will it be tomorrow? It's like we target popular items for "insert won't anyone think of the chil...feminists" reasons here. Any idiot out there with at least half a brain knows that violence in unacceptable whether it's children, females, shemales, hemales, dogs, cats, horses (insert your preference here). If you censor ONE thing in ONE media, you have to go for the other medias as well.
We're SO close to arresting people for thought crimes!
Around here people treat the news about Ebola like it's just another H1N1 outbreak and think nothing further of it. The schools are literally a walk-in petridish and the hygiene at the cafeterias are terrible, kids just dash in for seconds and dab their spoons gleefully into the pots and pans for more, and the next week - half of the kids and teachers are sick with the common flu. Imagine that scenario when we've got Ebola on the move.
We have lots of people who have families in Africa, they come over with their friends ALL the time, and they attend the same schools as the natives do, it's just a matter of time before this becomes a uncontrollable problem.
Proper hygiene needs to be taught, and before we know how to control this, we should limit the traveling from and to infected countries.
Personally I've stacked up like crazy, I've filled my house to the brim with food and stuff needed to cope with that time when the outbreak will be at its worst.
Again - it's not Ebola I fear...I fear the people who will get desperate when they reap the fruit of their own ignorance.
I don't see the purpose of this, they way our eyes are placed - we're supposed to look around ourselves (landscape aspect), this will only put more strain on the eyes as we'll have to look up and down constantly. I suppose it will have its own place in eg. the design industry where I certainly can see it as useful, but I can pretty much promise you that screen will never become adopted by the mainstream public.
In fact, I'm a bit surprised that Philips Ultra Wide monitors didn't catch on as they're even better for our eyes than the 16:9, I'm guessing it's the price tag that scares people away as usual, but for movies...the Ultra Wide is the best option since even today....the movies at the theatre are much wider and when you get it on a DVD or Blu-Ray/streaming etc... it's still 16:9 and thus have been cropped for our viewing pleasures, which is a pity...because you lose some of the original artwork in the movies.
When the big boys don't get to play with the toys of the other big boys, then it's time for the boys to become men and show some muscles. This is all a dance, play with us (aka give us access to that wonderful database that knows everything about every individual out there) and we'll leave you alone.
I often drool over the prices in China, cheap CHEAP and functional solar panels I could have gotten for pittens. But the taxes are so high that it evens out the score. Which is kind of strange since the government is subsidizing solar power anyway, but it's all lost on the import tax alone.
I loved the Elite Frontier game, I spent SO many hours of my youth on chasing pirates, mail service for the military, mining asteroids, smuggling goods, trading and looking for interesting ads at their version of the "internet", that game was SO ahead of its time.
But I refuse to pay 99 pounds for ANY game, even if it's the super-duper-full-updates-for-life-mega-peta-giga-edition of the century. Glad I didn't plunge into the investment. Dodged a bullet there...
Expensive art is an investment, and it has become quite sophisticated over the years. In the 70s and 80s, people were buying art when they believed the value would go up over the next few years. Now, prospective buyers have to think about what people who may buy from them later on will think of their own potential buyers (etc.), because nobody is interested to be at the end of a buying chain and be stuck with an overpriced item. It's like the castle in the air theory on steroids - everybody knows that everybody else is in the business of buying to sell later, and the market goes nuts.
Not arguing against that, if you're referring to Monet masterpieces and its likes, but not the art any monkey could have done.
Slashdot Mirror
..technician back in the 80's to 90's.
:)
I can read from the various posts in this thread that you all think it's a walk in the park to fix these old 80's computers, oh boy...you guys may know a couple of common things such as dry soldering and drying capacitors, but there's a lot more to fixing those things than you might know.
One of the most common faults of the 80's was the ROM/RAM circuits, they where often clusters of 2/4/8 kilobyte ram chips (often 4164 etc.), and finding dead ones requires a couple of "old skool tech skills", one of the simplest one is the "thumb test", is one of the Ram chips very hot (you could of course use a bottle of cold-spray, I don't know what it's called in your country...but to us it was just Cold spray, this is essentially a spray that sprays super cool air because of a chemical process when in comes in contact with air, the surface will be really cold, forming ice crystals) and then you can see clearly which surface is getting hot fast. Another method is to use the oscilloscope to see if anything is out of the ordinary (you need to know how it looks as an image first, the voltage changes because of the logic communication will form an image, and if you know how it looks when normal, this is also a method we used.)
You can also use a logic tester, this is an instrument that can monitor the traffic in those logic circuits, you can set it to the speed of the actual logic (usually 1 to 20 MHz, depending on the computers speed) and see if everything is okay.
Another common flaw back then, was broken prints...over some time, these boards gets really hot, and this stretches the metal on the PCBs, and broken connections is some of the hardest things to find.
Another typical flaw is design flaw, over time...we needed to change I/O chips on certain models simply because it was so badly designed that they would eventually go bust, they where very sensitive too...so many of the DIY'ers out there who made their own Fast-Loaders/Robotics connected to the I/O ports would regularly blow these chips.
Pity I live in Scandinavia, I'd love to retire doing this
And people don't explain what they want something to look like. They send a cad or other type of file that defines what they want, not some inaccurate poorly rendered result of a cad file.
Well, I've been working for YEARS in the merchandise/nick-nack/gift production industry and I know my competitors well, in fact...I got my job because everyone else does it the old fashioned way, and if there's something key accountants know...is the hardship of communicating their ideas to the production teams in e.g. China.
Cad files is what we have after visualizing a product anyway, but good luck sending that to the factory in China. Most often the factories and production facilities in China depend heavily old older software and huge machinery that can't even use our files. It's WAY better to send them a sample for them to copy, these people are EXPERTS at copying stuff.
Even little things like a logo on an USB stick, they will and can get wrong if they don't know exactly how it looks from all angles. You'd be amazed how often this happens.
Valid questions, I'll try to answer a few, and hopefully that answers some of the other peoples concerns as well:
:)
Sure, 3D printing isn't yet for everyone, and yes - it does take both knowledge and experience. One of those things are of course 3D modelling experience, the better 3D modeller you are...the better your results will be, and of course the faster you'll get it done.
Another thing you need to be somewhat experienced at, is how to model things FOR a 3D printer, this is because if you just "print" without any planning, you're most likely to end up with having to experiment so much that you'll make 10s of misprints, costing you a small fortune in ABS plastic.
You also need to know to remove bugs in your model, all STL files must be properly CLEANED before converted to an STL file. This means you need to understand how to make clean models, remove double vertices, double faces, edges etc. You also need to understand where to apply support for the various parts, most printers can't really print into thin air...so you need to model some temporary holders/molds that holds the printed object in place while printing. You also need to consider how to clean up the final model, most cheaper printers will leave some ugly looking stripes (due to the printing process), which you need to sand down later, if you have too many details, it'll make it pretty though to clean up later on.
The design process time depends entirely on the object complexity at hand. For example, a small cover for a battery can take as little as 1 hour to design (I'd probably do it in less than 10 minutes), but the printing process itself takes a lot longer. If you where to make a complex cogwheel construction, that could take hours to days. Nevermind a beautiful detailed statue that could take weeks. But hey, good art doesn't grow on trees, and this is up to each individual to master.
Yes, 3D printing isn't for everyone, but then again... that also makes it worth something to those who are willing to put the time and effort into the learning process. If it was for everyone, there'd be no business for people like me, but sure - 3D printing will improve tremendously over time, so please keep buying those printers!
They're quite useful if you know what you're doing. For example, you have some kind of toy, gadget, device and whatnot...that's missing the battery cover? Hard to find...even on eBay, so what do you do? Fire up your favourite 3D software and make one. Works like a charm.
If you're working in advertisement/merchandise production... you can make small prototype samples of what you want to have mass produced, this ensures that your oversea production don't get it wrong (and they always do, trust me!) Shipping a sample of what you want mass produced, is a dream come true, and fortunately for (me) most of my competitors have no clue that this can be done, so they still do it the old fashioned way (try to tell the production team with drawings and talk over the phone with a foreign team that hardly understands English).
Pictures say more than a 1000 words they say, well...a prototype object to hold in your hand says more than 1000 pictures.
3D printers are a godsend.
...pixel arts revenge! www.manyland.com
...but I'm not entirely convinced.
10,564 cases and 4,716 deaths, not something you sweep under the rug in a few months. Incubation times of the virus is still not confirmed.
As far as I can remember, I heard that a lot of Africans were ashamed to go and check if they had the virus, a lot of them were suspicious of the health care workers and thought they would be injected with the virus from them, this kept a lot of them from going and getting themselves checked out.
Furthermore, an outbreak of this magnitude just doesn't vanish just like that, they've either invented a very effective vaccine or there's something someone isn't telling the rest of the world here.
I'm 47. No secret.
With so much experience to bring to the table, I have so much to give, but it doesn't mean I stop learning. Every day I learn something new. 40 is nothing. My grandmother where hired when she was 75 as an expert and a professional within her field.
I don't hire by age, I hire by experience.
...I'll go get the Vaseline.
I used to be a part time teacher since I am an animation/computer specialist and the schools hire me for the things they can't teach.
One of those things I've noticed is that the teachers doesn't have any say anymore, it's all about the money and how happy the kids parents are. The happier the parents, the more attendance they get. And if they get a lot of attendance, then the government will increase the schools income and support. This breeds a new kind of school, an unhealthy school system where teachers are constantly burned out, have to suck up to kids and their parents instead of concentrating on the real job at hand, teaching!
Teaching AND learning demands a lot of focus, and focus demands discipline.
Kids are NOT stupid, they will figure out that they can get away with whatever they want and will naturally do so - kids being kids, testing new grounds.
We need to give more power back to the teachers, and educate parents to discipline their kids into wanting real achievements instead of "whatever they can get away with to party every night". Discipline never hurt anyone, it helps you to FOCUS.
I was sifting trough all of your comments in here, and not ONE of them even considers that this could be a plot to completely destroy wikileaks.
Remember when wikileaks where all about exposing corruption within government, military, dangerous religious money cults? This whole thing smells like a setup to me.
Yes they are. I remember having this idea when I worked for a Fashion Designer School back in my youth. I was an avid electronics hobbyist and already thought of sewing electronics into garment back then. You could make scrolling text, spectacular graphical displays, especially easy today with all the Arduino/AVR microcontrollers cheaply available just about anywhere.
Other ideas, the Customs officers could have metal detection technology built right into their garment/gloves etc. Other detectors too, the uses are unlimited.
...Even if he just has to pretend that he/she cares, I'd take that in a heartbeat any day. For example, I have worked many places, and one of the best places I've ever worked...was at Lego in Denmark (Their graphics department), the boss in there constantly wanted to know how I was, if I needed a break, if he could bring me some coffee or anything, and he didn't give up before I actually gave him a proper answer. My colleagues where playful and we often fooled around during the day, not wasting work at all...because of this we usually worked 3 times as fast because we felt so free that the work became inspiring to do. That's how I want my workplace to be. Makes me want to come in to work every morning, can't wait to do my job. Sadly, not a single workplace I've ever been to after that...has even come close to that work environment.
...then we have a problem with government.
There's no reason (such as I see it) that animals wouldn't exist in outer space, or near various atmospheres. We just don't know them yet, because they could probably not survive our conditions.
Have any of you guys seen that footage that Nasa officially released of all their satellite cams have picked up over the years? It was some 2 hour footage with lots of interesting stuff, you may want to look at that. PS. go to the source, don't look at the many fakes from unofficial sources found on youtube.
Researchers from Moscow State University plan to build a database that will house the DNA of every creature known to man.
University, yes...right...FROM...and now working for NS...I mean...KGB?
Let me rephrase that:
Researchers from KGB, Moscow plan to build a database that will house the DNA of every man known to all creatures.
they are often gifted with good food, luxuries and even apartments...
...because it's a nice change from the prison camps.
"Trains May Soon Come Equipped With Debris-Zapping Lasers"
The lovely word "may" is such an abused word. There are MANY things that MAY come, on the other hand it MIGHT not as well. My money is on that it won't be here anytime soon. There are so many technical and impractical issues that arise, that this is nothing more than a "wow...lasers, we're so 1337" 21 century etc. Sure, it makes for a good read, and even better...the house-geek will have his say over the dinner table...say...did you know honey, they're putting lasers in front of the trains now to clear the tracks. OOOOh honey, that's just up your Dart Vader alley!
Guess what? I've been working with technology and prototyping for years, and it's a riot every time this actually surfaces as an article once in a blue moon, you can't just put high power lasers in front of trains, you'll have reflection issues, IR-radiation, people claiming blindness, and the kind of power you need to "zap" it clean is extreme, this isn't your average laser pointer that can be used to write your name into a cellphone or pop balloons, heck...even hefty industrial lasers used to cut metal are so focused and concentrated that if you wanted to use it to blast away debris...you'd need a HECK of a lot more space for it to be actually practical, not to mention the need for cooling.
What are we going to censor today? Please make a selection:
1) Video games.
2) Movies.
3) Opinions.
4) Drawings.
5) Retro (back censoring things that aren't politically correct today).
So what will it be tomorrow? It's like we target popular items for "insert won't anyone think of the chil...feminists" reasons here. Any idiot out there with at least half a brain knows that violence in unacceptable whether it's children, females, shemales, hemales, dogs, cats, horses (insert your preference here). If you censor ONE thing in ONE media, you have to go for the other medias as well.
We're SO close to arresting people for thought crimes!
...it's people and their vast ignorance.
Around here people treat the news about Ebola like it's just another H1N1 outbreak and think nothing further of it. The schools are literally a walk-in petridish and the hygiene at the cafeterias are terrible, kids just dash in for seconds and dab their spoons gleefully into the pots and pans for more, and the next week - half of the kids and teachers are sick with the common flu. Imagine that scenario when we've got Ebola on the move.
We have lots of people who have families in Africa, they come over with their friends ALL the time, and they attend the same schools as the natives do, it's just a matter of time before this becomes a uncontrollable problem.
Proper hygiene needs to be taught, and before we know how to control this, we should limit the traveling from and to infected countries.
Personally I've stacked up like crazy, I've filled my house to the brim with food and stuff needed to cope with that time when the outbreak will be at its worst. Again - it's not Ebola I fear...I fear the people who will get desperate when they reap the fruit of their own ignorance.
I don't see the purpose of this, they way our eyes are placed - we're supposed to look around ourselves (landscape aspect), this will only put more strain on the eyes as we'll have to look up and down constantly. I suppose it will have its own place in eg. the design industry where I certainly can see it as useful, but I can pretty much promise you that screen will never become adopted by the mainstream public.
In fact, I'm a bit surprised that Philips Ultra Wide monitors didn't catch on as they're even better for our eyes than the 16:9, I'm guessing it's the price tag that scares people away as usual, but for movies...the Ultra Wide is the best option since even today....the movies at the theatre are much wider and when you get it on a DVD or Blu-Ray/streaming etc... it's still 16:9 and thus have been cropped for our viewing pleasures, which is a pity...because you lose some of the original artwork in the movies.
I'm going to put on my tinfoil hat here.
When the big boys don't get to play with the toys of the other big boys, then it's time for the boys to become men and show some muscles. This is all a dance, play with us (aka give us access to that wonderful database that knows everything about every individual out there) and we'll leave you alone.
...at least in Scandinavia.
I often drool over the prices in China, cheap CHEAP and functional solar panels I could have gotten for pittens. But the taxes are so high that it evens out the score. Which is kind of strange since the government is subsidizing solar power anyway, but it's all lost on the import tax alone.
...pounds for the full game with updates.
I loved the Elite Frontier game, I spent SO many hours of my youth on chasing pirates, mail service for the military, mining asteroids, smuggling goods, trading and looking for interesting ads at their version of the "internet", that game was SO ahead of its time.
But I refuse to pay 99 pounds for ANY game, even if it's the super-duper-full-updates-for-life-mega-peta-giga-edition of the century. Glad I didn't plunge into the investment. Dodged a bullet there...
You're doing it wrong. It's called amnesty now. All you have to do is pledge to vote Democrat, and Obama will send a plane to pick you up.
LOL, I bet. Every time I visit the U.S. though, my friends over there tell me to move to Mexico and come in that way. ;)
Expensive art is an investment, and it has become quite sophisticated over the years. In the 70s and 80s, people were buying art when they believed the value would go up over the next few years. Now, prospective buyers have to think about what people who may buy from them later on will think of their own potential buyers (etc.), because nobody is interested to be at the end of a buying chain and be stuck with an overpriced item. It's like the castle in the air theory on steroids - everybody knows that everybody else is in the business of buying to sell later, and the market goes nuts.
Not arguing against that, if you're referring to Monet masterpieces and its likes, but not the art any monkey could have done.