The Permanent Directive

New printers can now print using water instead of ink. But, the imprint is not permanent.

If you've ever gone down to your local office supply store to buy ink cartridges for your printer, you know that the cost of said ink can feel like the equivalent of the national debt. There's some basis for this feeling, however. Compare the cost of printer ink, say, to the gas you put in a car, for example, and you'll find the relative cost to be staggering.

According to Consumer Reports, printer ink costs between $13 and $75 per ounce or a whopping $9,600 per gallon. Based on 2013 pricing, you could get 2,652 gallons of regular gas for the cost of a single gallon of printer ink. In fact, it might be cheaper for you to buy silver (about $20 per ounce as of this writing) than print out your sermon every week.

To make matters worse, a lot of that precious ink gets wasted and never actually reaches the page. Some of the ink gets used for cleaning the print heads, some is residual and some just evaporates. That explains why you're constantly running to the store and emptying your wallet...