LaserMonks Offer Prayer, Printer Cartridges 404
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."
time honored tradition (Score:5, Interesting)
This practice kept a lot of trades and information alive that might have otherwise died out. It would take a reel jerk to sue them for DMCA violations too =:-)
Re:It gets weirder (Score:5, Interesting)
no affiliation (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, so I have an affinity. Check my nick.
great organization (Score:0, Interesting)
1. inferior refilled inkjet cartriges AND
2. supporting a church
I for one do not EVER willingly do business with any organization or entity that has a religious component.
No boy scouts, no Christian Childrens Fund, no Salvation Army, nothing fishy.
getting slow so... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:It gets weirder (Score:5, Interesting)
Only three monks know the identity of the 130 plants, how to blend them and how to distill them into this world famous liqueur. They are also the only ones who know which plants they have to macerate to produce the natural green and yellow colours. And they alone supervise the slow ageing in oak casks.
(text from http://www.chartreuse.fr/pa_green&yellow_uk.htm)
Wonderful liquer. Tastes like drinking a Christmas tree, but one made of 55% alcohol.
Re:New twist on an old idea. (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, copyright did not begin to form as an idea until the 17th - 18th Centuries.
The huge cost of reproducing a book meant that it was not a problem until the movable type printing press became popular at the end of the fifteenth century - which ultimately put the monks out of that kind of business.
Interestingly, the way that reproduction happened in the middle ages (and before) was was very similar the way that people copy music now. Essentially, a monastery would swap works with it's "friends" (other monasteries, generally).
Sources:
Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Citations, please?
I'm pretty sure they did. Because many of the copied manuscripts have little line-counts in the margins, called stichoi, noting how many lines the scribe copied that day, so that the person hiring the monks to do the work knew how much to pay him. Perfectly legitimate job.
Re:time honored tradition (Score:5, Interesting)
And a particularly appropriate task. After all, one of their primary functions was copying books.
And those scribe monks got very pissed when the printing press made their skills obsolete. Maybe this is their revenge: undercut the overpriced inkjet sinners.
Re:It gets weirder (Score:5, Interesting)
1 Timothy 5:23, New King James version.
Only the Mormons are against all drinking, really, though a few other denominations (e.g. Methodists) did participate in Prohibition, ages ago. The Bible only really condemns being drunk (not just drinking) as parent says.