Ruminations on printer ink
I just commissioned a very, very expensive printer. Poring over the instructions, I'm initially confused by, well, many things.
FIrstly, the beast takes HP ink cartridges. Well, I think, that can't keep the running costs down, I mean it's a 400 kg printer.
Secondly, it confusingly has very large ink tanks that are fed from even larger containers.
Thirdly, it wants a black HP ink cartridge in each color printhead slot. I'm not reading the instructions in my native language, so it takes me about 30 minutes to get my head around that bit. Imagine Ozzy Osbourne, Printer Repair Man. Anyway, since there are only black ink cartridges in the box, I finally guess it must be true.
Dubiously pressing the "load" button provokes the machine into an orgy of cartridge vandalization: it sucks all the black ink out of the cartridges, stuffs violently pointy things into them, then flushes them through with colored ink.
I don't know whether to weep at the unceremonious dumping of so much HP gold, or to ululate wildly shouting "take that, you HP ink cartridge you."
Anyway, we all stand looking at the printer thinking you wouldn't want to make it unhappy. I mean, if it will do that to get a print head...