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LaserMonks Offer Prayer, Printer Cartridges

Posted by simoniker on from the unknown-if-monks-are-electric dept.

Minnesotan writes "According to a Twincities.com article: If you need discounted inkjet- or laser-printer cartridges, Wisconsin's LaserMonks say they'll give you a doozy of a deal while you 'support prayer for the world'. The Cistercian priests - yes, they're actual Catholic monks - oversee a novel e-commerce enterprise out of their rural abbey. Proceeds go to maintain the monastery and finance charitable works around the world."

5 of 404 comments (clear)

  1. It gets weirder by Pflipp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I heard some of these monasteries actually make money off brewing beer!

    (Next, they'll be back at handwriting Bibles again for the lack of printing ink...)

    --
    "We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
  2. New twist on an old idea. by mikeophile · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Monks used inks to copy and illuminate manuscripts throughout the middle ages.

    Now they are selling us the ink to copy and illuminate whatever manuscripts we want.

    Since I'm pretty sure those ancient monks never had permission to copy any of the works they did, does that make them the original data pirates?

    1 0WnZ0r y3 0ld 4$5

  3. Re:With These Guys by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Refilling your Lexmark cartridge isn't just a DMCA violation -- it's a sin!

    Joke apart, those monks could do it : can you imagine Lexmark dragging them to court over this? Sure they'd be guilty, but Lexmark's sales would take a big dip, so they'd never do it. How's that for a DMCA circumvention scheme?

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  4. Re:time honored tradition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is an updated verson of a very old (middle ages) tradition of monastaries doing some specialized task (and doing it well) ....

    And a particularly appropriate task. After all, one of their primary functions was copying books.

  5. Re:time honored tradition by Eiki · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is particularly true of the Cistercian order, to which the lasermonks belong. In the middle ages, they were a sort of poor newcomer compared to the Benedictines or Dominicans, and therefore were given only marginal, hilly lands for their monasteries. Thereby short on income, they developed their monasteries into high-tech medieval factories, doing things like textile production or metalwork with waterpowered machines (water power being one asset they did have in the mountains). Cistercian cloth was among the finest in Europe, and overall the order was one of the leading technological or commercial organizations of the time.

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    eikimartinson.com