Comment on Getting my daily news from a dot matrix printer

geekwithsoul@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• Quik@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Yeah, but I don’t know whether you’ve recently taken a look in one of the local newspapers— being able to select topics you want to read about may very well be worth the extra effort (also, fun of course)

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  • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You aren’t actually forced to read every article in a newspaper. Though you will have to scan over the headlines, so you will have a small awareness of things happening in the world. But is that a bad thing?

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• umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Because it is fun to him?

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  • geekwithsoul@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Maybe? But in the article he was talking about his priority being that he wanted to disconnect from his phone but still wanted news. Just seems there’s been a solution for that for a few centuries now. His solution seemed to me at least to be a lemon that wasn’t worth the squeeze as it were.

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    • praise_idleness@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      So there was two solutions for them:

      1. No-code, paid and pre-made
      2. DIY script writing, free(except materials) and custom built to suit personal needs

      I choose 2.

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      • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I’d actually be interested to see a cost breakdown between this and just buying a newspaper subscription; it looks like he spent about $100 on materials, plus then there’s the ongoing costs of electricity (negligible), printer ribbons, and paper. Ribbons appear to be about $1 / ea if you buy in bulk, and I don’t recall how much printing you get out of a single ribbon, but let’s assume a 24 pack is enough to last you a year. Paper seems to be about $30 / 1000 sheets, so assuming he sticks to the single-page-per-day format, that’ll last almost 3 years.

        So up front costs, $100 Ongoing costs, $35 / year, roughly.

        Newspaper subscription is about $150 / year, so this’ll actually be cost effective if he keeps it up. Of course, you’re getting a lot less news than you would from a newspaper subscription, so the relative value is questionable there.

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    • jqubed@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’m assuming they still print newspapers, but I can’t remember when I last saw our local paper for sale at a store. The vending machines are long gone.

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