> any published work is likely to be taken and repurposed, for no royalties or credit

I would say that now, more than ever, this means you should be collecting and sharing what you create.

Not on large social media platforms either, on websites that you own and (ideally) host yourself.

Start a blog, host your own instance of Gitea, build a platform for your videos. Spread what you create and activity participate in the community but maintain ownership and an audit trail over what you've created.

People ripping off others works has always been a thing, of course it's much easier and pervasive now. It's still (IMO) beneficial to say "Look! I did this thing first!", with the added benefit of accruing the kind of "social capital" Aaron talked about.

How do you contend with the fact that AI summaries are now halving traffic to people's websites and redirecting it to Google properties? Publishing in 2025 feels like merely feeding two or three megacorps.

While not an outright solution to the fact that they _are_ expensive, if you don't care about them being second hand or a little older you can score a pretty good deal on sites like eBay.

For instance, TM-T88V printers can do more but cost around 3x as much as the one I got, a TM-T88IV which is the older version. Not perfect, but beats the like $200 price tag brand new.

That’s the one! Got it from a local B+N.

They’re being stored redundantly on a sqlite db. I’ll think about adding some kind of feed to the page if others are interested.

I don’t know, I kind of like having a place for some people to anonymously vent (as more than a few have).

Consider a checkbox whether to be anonymous, which you can filter the feed with.

I'd love to see others!

Worse: I worked in grocery stores for years as a cashier lol

I did too but the printers were still dot matrix with ink ribbons then.

I rarely see thermal printers at grocery checkouts. Almost all that I see are ink.

What country is this? I haven’t seen a dot matrix printer at a store in a decade.

Fun fact: when Apple first opened retail stores, they printed receipts on big Lexmark laser printers, 8.5x11, on VERY nice paper, like resume paper, it was absurd how nice and thick the paper was. It was preprinted with return policies etc on the back (and maybe a color Apple on the front?) It only lasted a few years like that and they eventually got cheap thermal printers installed.

In the US. Maybe I am wrong but I see what appear to me to be multicolor ink jet POP printers. I see matrix in restaurants and shops and they are distinct as they are slow and noisy.

I'm pretty sure I ate some as a bet in high school.

I did! I also use gloves when handling a large amount of the receipts.

I worked as a cashier for years in my teens and twenties though, so it’s probably already in my blood.

I mean, over time it would exit right?

It lingers in fat tissue and once at a low enough level your liver doesn't really clear it. But that kind of level isn't necessarily linked to increased risks of diabetes or heart disease.

Hey it’s me, the author! That was intentional as I honestly enjoy the trolling.

There’s a basic rate limiter set up to prevent misuse, and a character limit, but beyond that I just kind of wanted to see what people would send.

It’s been surprisingly chill, and I’ve only had to handle a few nonsensical text dumps or garbage messages.

How does the rate limiter work? IP?

Maybe tangential, but I just added a little 3-second delay to my stats counter. I’ll find out if that worked for the specific bots I’m trying to avoid in a couple days.

I might have to do this with my printer the Raspberry Pi 400 in my bedroom.

I have a rotary phone, a voip adapter, and have been writing a local SIP server for another experiment. I am insanely tempted to replicate this.

Why not, as a fun thing?

The problem with a production product is refilling all those little rolls of printer paper. They will always run out when no one is available to answer the phone, of course.

Which rotary? Classic AT&T?

That is absolutely fantastic. I've always wanted to get my hands on one to mimic a ticker-tape with updating stock/crypto prices. One day!

Also, EeePC is something I haven't heard about in so long. That took me back!

Receipt printers are a blast! I had a project from a couple years ago printing out GitHub tickets using a similar setup to what I have for this dot matrix printer.