I know a lot of people who use and like brother printers. Years ago the go to was HP, then it was Xerox for a while when they had decent small format printers, but they seem to have gone back to their roots of large multi function printers for the most part and priced themselves out of most markets. They’re still good, but you pay for the name.

Toshiba’s printing division was absorbed by Xerox, no help there. Dell… Has printers? I guess?

Brother is kind of the stand out. Everything else you can buy as a consumer is either HP, which went completely nuts on the whole “genuine” printer ink/toner, which is why a lot of people ran away screaming. The quality of the printers declined as they tried to force people into, what is basically printer ink as a service. Stupid.

But yeah. Bother is a decent mix of functional, affordable, and being low on the bullshit of using a printer. … That is, as long as the article isn’t a sign of things to come…

I’m hoping that by the time I need a replacement for what I have right now, there will be something open source… Cries for an open alternative to the current printer market have been ongoing pretty much anytime printers are mentioned. I expect someone is, or will be developing something to the effect of an open source hardware printer.

To be fair, this is also me when I look at a network setup years later. (I do IT with a specialty in networks)

Quick story, I bought a bubble jet printer for college in the mid 2000s, with all the fixings.

I set it up and got it working and promptly never used it. Almost all of my courses allowed either digital submissions or provided the printouts you actually needed, like course work that you would fill out. So I basically wasted my money, especially considering I could always use the large format printers at the school for like 5 cents per page.

Anyways. I did a few test prints and everything was fine and I got to work in college. Almost every time I needed the printer in order to actually print something, I more or less had to go and buy new ink. At first I was like “I guess I printed more than I thought?” But it kept happening. I would print maybe twice a year. Eventually I stopped using it as a printer (it was a multifunction, so I kept it as a scanner), and just used the printers at school. It was cheaper, considering the fact that printer ink is worth more by volume than basically any other substance; and while I was only buying a small amount, maybe $20 or so (adjusted for inflation, this is probably like $50 today) each time, it was a lot for a broke college student.

After college, I picked up a random laser printer, the printer cost more up front (I got another multifunction, but this time with a network port because I’m a nerd). I basically never bought any toner for it, given how little I had to print year over year, and it always was ready to go. I had it for years until a new windows version (maybe the OG Windows 10? Maybe Windows 8/8.1) made the drivers stop working and the manufacturer wouldn’t make drivers for that model that worked with the new requirements from Windows… I did a little print server for a bit to give it some more longevity, but ultimately it had to go to the IT storage in the sky.

CONSUME

Why thermal? Seems odd, but alright.

I recommend laser for just about everyone.

Don’t print much? Get a laser. Otherwise your ink will dry out and you’ll have to get new ink every time you want to print.

Print a lot? Laser. Super reliable, can do tens of thousands of sheets before there’s a problem, maybe more.

In fact, the only time I’d recommend an ink printer is for color accurate work like photo printing, and if you’re not using photo paper for it, then there’s not really much of a point, is there?

I used to think bubble jet/ink jet was the shit, then I started working in IT professionally and discovered the truth.

Just buy a laser printer folks. Don’t bother with all the rest of this shit. If you want/need inkjet, then you already know you need it and why. If you’re not sure, get a laser. You’ll pay wayyyyyy less on materials to keep it running

1000x this.

We’ve got all this figured out for 3D printers with all kinds of cool tools to make the job easier, and yet, take away a dimension and there’s crickets?

The hell?

Let’s make a 3D printable 2D printer.

Similar to Florida?

Well. I think I’m officially out of touch with the newest generations slang terms. I only understood about half of that.

You see, I don’t think it would invalidate any laws… I suppose it would be subject to whatever judge is making the call, but I would imagine that any judge that’s rational and logical would take into effect the concept behind the law, not just it’s specific wording as it currently applies.

I hope that anyone looking at a law, written when that specific body of water was named “the Gulf of Mexico” and determine that, since it was called that at the time of the law being passed, that the law applies to the body of water that is, or was, known as “the Gulf of Mexico” at the time it was written, and the law continues to apply to that physical place, regardless of any changes in name.

But that might be a bit too logical, and I might be expecting a lot from the US Justice system… Or any Justice system for that matter.

Ah. Thanks. I’m not American so I’m not exposed to that kind of stuff on the regular.

Today I learned. Thank you again.

Oh you got me good eh?

Why would the name have any bearing on the laws that govern what can, and can’t be done there?

This is so freaking dumb I can’t even.

I support this.

But we should probably at least have a conversation with Mexico about it, since something like half of their country borders it. IDK, I failed geography.

You mean West coast?

I mean, if I’m facing south, the left coast is the East coast.

This is super dumb.

How are these morons so offended about the name of a body of water?

Their fragile ego is so completely shattered because Mexico “has a Gulf” and they “don’t”? Little men with too much power.

You only say that because you’re at the bottom.

/s (obviously)

Buy the innovelli switches.

I picked up a bunch of them for my home and it’s been great.

You’ll pay for them up front but at least you won’t be replacing them in 6-12 months like some other vendors.

Edit to add: I’ll note, the ones I have are zwave. If you want, they also have ones with motion sensors built in (they look the same). They’re a bit more costly, but they can be useful for automations as they’re basically motion/presence sensors built into the switch instead of requiring a second device to do it. It would be useful on hallways where the switch is in a good spot to pick up people in the hallway…

IDK. Use your imagination. With innovelli, the blue series is ZigBee, Red series is zwave. There’s also a white series which is kind of neither, and both.

Good luck.

I just upgraded to a Xeon E5 v4 processor.

I think the max RAM on it is about 1.5 TiB per processor or something.

It’s not new, but it’s not that old either. Still cost me a pretty penny.

Lol. AI can’t do “unskilled labor” jobs.

Hyuck. Let’s put it in everything!

There’s more of us than there are of them.

To put it another way:

There’s more Luigi’s than there are healthcare CEOs.