This is all well and good. I'd love to make a donation to cover the costs. But the trouble is I am paid un a worthless non-US currency (given the current exchange rates). And PayPal is terribly US-centric. So what is a europerlmonk to do? Or a PacRim monk? or an African monk? Whatever.

You can make your sig one font size larger for the blind Americans! :-)

$PM = "Perl Monk's";
$MCF = "Most Clueless Friar Abbot";
$nysus = $PM . $MCF;
Click here if you love Perl Monks

I agree, and to clarify a bit, I tried PayPal and eventually got annoyed. They make non-US residents jump through a lot of hoops, which might have been something I'd perservere with if I needed to use it for more than just one site. Giving up money is painful enough - being asked to go through a series of trials first is just too much. :( So what are the other options? I don't wear nerd clothes (actually I do, just not T-shirts), and buying books through fatbrain isn't a great option either.

There is a large number of active EuroMonks, so it would make sense for PM to look into setting up something a lot less painful in order to get some donations from us. Even a name & address would be better than what's currently in place (in fact, I'd prefer that - no $$ wasted on middlemen).

This article had some interesting points. on micropayments.

Including the following:

... "According to PayPal:

A single variable rate of 2.2% plus a flat fee of 30¢ will apply to all payments, regardless of payment size or funding source. So he'll make -$0.0555 per lollipop he sells. " ...

That's probably a damn sight cheaper than setting up your own secure server, and getting certified, and looking after it and ...

Although paypal is a pain, it's only a one off and then you can give to all those groovy online comix too (my motivation).

"The future will be better tomorrow."

Give what you think is reasonable. It's going to cost you the same money to buy technical books -- think of Perlmonks as another manual.

I find paypal is fine with a credit card, and that includes $NZ which are 0.40USD and slipping.

"The future will be better tomorrow."

you could always go with the older methods of support like clicking all the banner ads.. buying the t-shirts and stuff. and using links to fatbrain for buying books(see here for details. Personally whenever i am going to buy a book I create link like that on my homenode and use it to buy the book and vroom gets a cut that way.