Milliseconds later, the printer came to life, anxious to fulfill its master's wish. Through the midst of gears and rollers, Joe could distinctly make out the old familiar sound of a dot-matrix printer.

But this was an inkjet printer. It created images from a reservoir of ink; it had no ribbon at all. The sound Joe heard was that of his document cutting itself out. The pins of the dot-matrix printing head had been sharpened to a point, allowing them to pierce through the document, creating thousands of tiny holes.

These holes had been carefully scribed around the perimeter of the shapes, causing it to create a perforated outline. The printer finished and happily gave up its document. Joe took it and carefully tore out the shapes, the tear following the precisely machined line of least resistance, freeing the shapes from the rest of the paper.