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Return of Major Tom

Oh, no. This is what I get for slacking off. Major Tom did another project, and I missed it! Looks like he's gone back to his roots : Girls in motorcycle helmets pointing spotlights at things. This time, we get to see what they're pointing spotlights at : Drones! He would have done it, too. The trailer is ... uh ... amazing. That's the only word I can think to use. It's worth a watch.

Classic. Yeah, sure. Who needs to see the girls' faces? Maybe, think up a way to phrase that so that it doesn't sound so ... low-rent? Still I don't want to sound like I'm complaining! I had thought Major Tom had given up on Kickstarter, but I'm glad he hasn't given up yet. I honestly want to see his film someday. COMMENT ON THIS POST

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Spinners!

This school year, the hot new thing, was Spinners. I'm not going to explain what spinners are, because if you're living under that big of a rock, I can't help you. I'm also not going to scoff at them. I've never understood why so many people have such a frothing hatred for the current schoolyard fad. I guess it just makes them feel old. So old! However, now that the fad is fading, they're going to have to fall back on the two sure-fire paths to success on Kickstarter

"Minimalist" Wallet

Bottle Opener

Or Potatoes?

I'll be honest. I dunno what's going on with this one. COMMENT ON THIS POST

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Edible Lollipop Stick

Edible lolipop stick? What a strange idea, what's that all about? But ... I don't want to eat the stick. The whole point of the stick is that the candy doesn't ever touch your hands. If I want to just hold candy in my hands, there's plenty of non-lollipop candies I can eat, so I don't really see the big innovation here. Oh, this isn't a good sign. Any time someone uses the word "Inventor" as though it was a job title it's usually a good sign they don't understand how the process of invention really works. But how can that be? How can he be ignorant of how invention works? This invention is patented. In fact, most of the Kickstarter page is just a copy/paste from that patent. (Which is also worrying. How's he going to run a business if he doesn't understand the difference between a patent and a marketing pitch?) A commenter solves the mystery for us : That's right, this invention's patent, the patent he was actually quoting in his Kickstarter pitch, was invented by an inventor named Pak Nin Chan, and owned by a Hong Kong company called "Candy Novelty Works Ltd.". Mr Chan has invented a number of interesting looking novelty candies, some of them a bit on the dumb side, but a lot of them look fun and are probably money makers. ... But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the doughy white guy we see in the video isn't Mr Chan.

Who is this chancer?

Who is this "Ronnie" idiot who not only thinks it's ok to steal someone else's idea, but thinks it's a good idea to actually quote the actual patent, proving that he didn't steal it by accident? OMG! It's the Living Dinosaurs guy! I covered him back on the first week of this blog! It's like meeting an old friend again. Keep up the good work, Ronnie.

Thanks to reader Dario V. for making sure I didn't miss this one! COMMENT ON THIS POST

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Tail Toppers

These people emailed me and tried to get me to feature their project while it was still running. Presumably they were hoping I'd send them some 'ironic' backers, but that's not how I do things. So here's "Tail Toppers" a year after their project failed. Aww... So sad. Poor kitty. Ok, so ... you invented a thing to pinch the nape of their neck? Oh. Hmm..., that's not... Do you even know where your cat's neck is? Really? Huh. I would have thought that the risks of leaving a piece of plastic clipped over your cat's butt-hole while you spend 12 hours at work would have risks that were more scatological in nature. COMMENT ON THIS POST

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One Click Garbage

This is a small, low power web server to be installed on your home network. In the bad old days of 1995, installing a home server was a common way to have a "personal home page" (Which is what we were forced to have before Facebook existed), but nowadays, it would be pretty unusual. Even for purely internal things, people tend to just use super-cheap cloud hosting.

The Software

As far as I can tell, there's a javascript interface to trigger the installers for web apps like Wordpress. I guess that might be slightly handy if I ever forget how to install Wordpress. Oddly, it's called "WebKit 2.0", which implies that it's his second released version, but I can't find any evidence of a first version. (Never mind that "WebKit" is a name that's already in use by Apple to describe an important piece of their operating system. Good Job on researching!) But what about connectivity? OH NO! BEES!

The Hardware

Looks like he "invented" this brand new piece of hardware by buying a RaspberryPi educational computer and cutting off the HDMI and USB ports. Brilliant. This man is a true genius among engineers. Good job on putting that tape over the logo, though. That shows real effort.

The Customer

As this person pledged €1 to point out, there's absolutely no customers for this. Who would need a personal server, but not have the confidence to just use a regular one? (Like a Raspberry Pi for example!) It's targeted at IT nerds who don't know anything about IT. I know that sounds like the setup to a joke about the IT guys where you work, but actually it's just the description of a stupid product nobody needs.

This project was kindly suggested by Andrea L COMMENT ON THIS POST

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Rocketships for the Imaginationless

Generations of children saved up their allowance and lemonade-stand money to take advantage of this amazing offer. Imagine how disappointed they were when they finally realized it was made of cardboard! Oh, But how times have changed! Nowadays the cardboard is a selling point! That's right, It's another cardboard box specially manufactured for kids to play in. No longer will kids have to take a refrigerator box and design their own spaceship. But, don't put away those crayons just yet! Just like last time, there is a single panel specially designed by adults to be drawn on by children. (Or by an adult moving a child's hand around, as shown in the video.) It also comes with "Imagination Triggers" which are "Short stories" to help you "improvise" when you play. Because apparently some people can't think of a way to make spaceships and astronauts interesting to a four year old! Currently available are Castle, Space Capsule, Teepee, and Windmill. (Volcano coming soon!) But don't worry, they all come with "Imagination Triggers", in case you have so little faith in your child's intelligence that you don't trust him or her to come up with a fun fantasy involving a castle. COMMENT ON THIS POST

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Kickstarter Loves Balls

Haha, it's a pun, right? I said "Balls" to make you think of testicles, but actually I'm going to show you articles about baseballs, or footballs or something, right? No. Wrong. This is about testicles. So let's give those balls a kick! ...start. This project is still underway. It's a pair of balls to hang from the underside of your desk. ... so you can fondle your balls while you work. I bet it'll succeed. Kickstarter loves balls. Just look at this project from 2015! Bike balls! Why should trucks get all the 'fun'? This project was successfull, and they're now selling them as a product. You can order these from their web site. They even made it on the news in Norway. "Confused" isn't the word I would use. I've wondered this. If truck-nuts are supposed to make a truck look like a dog, why don't we see female trucks with truck-vulvas? Or, I don't know, why not just a nice, innocent truck-tail? Why's it always about the balls? COMMENT ON THIS POST

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Slap Sim

Let's talk about game engines. They're a wonderful thing. Back in 1993 when Doom came out the impressive thing was that players could walk around a 3d environment and shoot things. Nowadays that comes free. So does physics simulation, lighting, animations, VR Support, and lots of other things. Yes, with a modern game engine, you can have a simple "game" up and running in under an hour. And with all the ready-made artwork in the "asset store", you can fill your game with half-way decent environments and characters for under a hundred dollars, and maybe another hour of your time to drag-and-drop everything in place. This explains why we see so many amazing "indie" games these days. A small team of two or three people can skip all the hard technical parts, and concentrate their efforts on the creative things that are going to make their game interesting, creative, and unique. ... but it's also the reason we see games like "Monterey Jack : Pimp Simulator". First, they got their engine up and running. Then they drag-and-dropped some characters into it. Then they ticked the boxes to turn on the physics simulation, and the VR support. All that took about an hour, and most people would consider it just a first step. A test to make sure all their tools were working properly. but, imagine you were lazy, and didn't have any good ideas for games anyway. You might start to think "Hey, now I've got a 'game' where I can knock people over by slapping them. All I need to do is think up a story about slapping people and I'm done!". ...And that's exactly what they did. It's blatantly obvious that they took what should have just been an engine test, bought a little city scenery at the asset store to make it "open world" and decided that they'd "created" a gamed about a pimp who walks around slapping people. Easy. COMMENT ON THIS POST

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Scam a Million People

Here's a classic scam!

Step One : Convince people they're writers (or poets)

Tell people how creative they are, and how you're eager to print their work.

Step Two : Print a cheap book

Give each sucker as little page space as possible, to keep printing costs low.

Step Three : Charge a fortune for the book

Everybody who contributed will want a copy! They'll probably be so proud they'll buy extra copies for their parents or grandchildren! COMMENT ON THIS POST

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Gizmo - The Dog Bowl

A pet bowl? Hope this is better than that last one. Well, that's quite a load of designer-speak. I don't really know what any of that means, so let's check out the picture. They're two thin, vacuum-formed plastic bowls with a colored stripe. I guess it's "fun and spontaneous" because the top curves a little? This project is a perfect example of why I hate the word "ideation". It's only ever used by people who think the act of having an idea is magical and special. It's supposed to imply that having an idea is a process that talented people have to work very hard at. That's all complete bullshit. Everybody has a hundred ideas every day. Having an idea is not something to be proud of. It's not something to brag about. It's just a thing that happens to anybody that isn't isn't functionally brain-dead. The thing to be proud of is figuring out which ideas are good, Figuring out which ideas will work, Figuring out which ideas are valuable and desirable, and then (and this is the important bit) doing all the hard work to make the idea a reality. So before you put yourself up on a pedestal for being special and creative enough to "have an idea" and then rush to Kickstarter to unveil your idea to the world, stop and figure out if the idea is honestly better than the sea of ideas we all wade through every single day of our lives. Because this one wasn't. COMMENT ON THIS POST

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Steampunk Jewelry

I'll grudgingly admit that this project, to make jewelry out of 1950s watch movements 'counts' as real steampunk, and not just just glue-some-gears-on-it opportunism. But here's what caught my eye : These are bracelets, with small clocks attached to them. You've probably heard of this invention before, but these are special : The clocks don't work. COMMENT ON THIS POST

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loe, the Shoehorn iPhone Cover

Have you ever wished your phone could help you put on a tight pair of shoes? Of course you have. Well this project tried to make those dreams a reality. This genius apparently believes that shoehorns are some kind of lost technology. He probably found one on an archeological dig and realized that the ancients must have used these mystic devices for putting on tight shoes. In actual real life, shoehorns are available cheaply in a wide variety of styles. If you haven't seen one lately, it's probably because you hang around with people who only wear sneakers and other easy-to-put-on types of shoe. Ah, but those old-fashioned shoehorns don't attach to your phone. ... and somehow that's a problem? Maybe some people change their shoes so often that just leaving a shoehorn wherever they store their shoes isn't sufficient. Maybe some people change their shoes constantly, on the road, at coffee shops, during business meetings, weddings, and other situations where they couldn't carry a shoehorn, but they'd definetely still have their phone! So go ahead. Use your phone as the handle to what is basically a small pry-bar. What could go wrong? COMMENT ON THIS POST

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Lifestyle Design Journal

The "Lifestyle Design Journal" appears to just be a diary with writing prompts. Boring. But I don't want to talk about the product. Also, The project was mysteriously canceled after reaching its funding goal. That's weird, but I don't want to talk about that either.

I want to talk about this video.

This is so generic it feels like it's a perfect parody of all those tech startup promo videos we see on Kickstarter and elsewhere. Like all these videos, it's a festival of stock-footage that serves as a self-congratulatory ode to how awesome upper-middle-class white men are. Let's look at the important elements that are required for any start up company's video : ☑ Creator/Founder sitting in front of wood panels, gesturing with his hands and asking rhetorical questions ☑️ White dude writing inspirational nonsense on a piece of glass. ☑️ A specific example shaming people who don't use the product. ☑️ White dudes being "creative" ☑️ Montage of stock footage illustrating "success" ☑️ Only show non-whites doing weird "cultural" things. ☑️ Look! We designed our product on a computer! ☑️ Tropical Sunset The only thing they forgot to include was a shot of a couple of bearded dudes in a workshop wearing old-fashioned overalls, indicating that their product is made with old-world craftsmanship. COMMENT ON THIS POST

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Absurd Survivalist Fire Starters

Let's be honest. "Survivalist Fire Starters" are just toys. If you really did find yourself out in the woods in danger of freezing to death, you'd probably be a lot happier with a BIC lighter you got at the drug store for two bucks than some crazy gadget you got off Kickstarter for $25 + shipping. This device is powered by 2 AAA batteries and will start a fire if you shove it into a large piece of steel wool. This would be perfect for anyone stranded in a forest where steel wool grows naturally, somehow! ... Actually, even in the forest of steel sheep, it wouldn't really be ideal. A Bic in a plastic bag will easily beat it at both reliability and weight, and if you absolutely have to start a fire with batteries and steel wool, you could achieve the same effect by taking the bulb out of your flashlight and shoving some steel wool into the socket. Fire pistons are fun science demonstrations, but they're probably the most annoying way to start a fire known to man. Any fire piston small enough to carry and operate with your bare hands will only generate a minuscule amount of fire. You need to prep it with a super-flammable material like powered magnesium or "char cloth" to capture a tiny ember barely big enough to see with the naked eye. It'll take you five minutes to carefully nurse that ember to a fire the size of the flame a lighter would just give you automatically! Oh look! He's created a fire! Look at it burn! If I was freezing to death out in the woods, and had just created this pin-prick of fire, I'd sure feel proud of myself for not wimping out and bringing a lighter. Here's another one that belongs in the classroom, not the survival kit. This was actually removed from kickstarter, not because it's an absurd product, but because it's a reselling scam. You can pick these up on eBay for about $7 each. (Cheaper in bulk!) In ideal, sunny conditions, you could light a cigarette with these, but can you imagine using it as a "Great survival tool"? There you are, stranded on a mountaintop. You spent the daylight hours hiking back into civilization or hunting for food, and now the sun is setting so you need a fire to cook your dinner and avoid freezing to death in your sleep. You reach into your survival kit and pull out ... this. Don't you feel clever?

Conclusion

I really can't think of a situation, from a plane-crash in The Alps, to being the last survivor of the Zombocalypse, where I would prefer to have one of these crazy tools instead of an ordinary lighter, but if you absolutely must stock your survival kit with a non-standard fire starter, just get yourself an ordinary ferro rod. They're dirt cheap and work perfectly fine. Just be sure to also pack a lighter or some waterproof matches for when you get tired of playing cave-man. COMMENT ON THIS POST

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ManBox - A Box for Men.

If you're a man, and you need a place to put your things, it might occur to you that a large, nicely made wooden box would be the way to go. But wait! If people see you putting things into a nicely made wooden chest, they might assume that it's a hope chest, and from that, of course, it follows that you are living in hope of soon marrying a man. (hence the name.) Oh what shame and disgrace! All because you needed a convenient storage container for your various manly items. Ah, finally! A box made just for men. At long last, I can put my things into a box without any risk to my masculinity and heterosexuality. ..., uh. Unless "ManBox" turns out to be gay slang for something, which seems plausible but I'm not going to Google it. COMMENT ON THIS POST

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Food bath!

I've already covered a woman who wants to bath in gumballs, but but what about other, messier, forms of food? I don't understand how this is supposed to work. It's like he looked at a charity event, and not understanding why people give to charity, decided that the magic formula was "Do something stupid == free money". Cargo-cult fund-raising. You don't get free money just to be wacky. Maybe if you were a popular performer you could make it work, but then people would be paying you for the performance, not just for the ... mozzerella sticks. Wow, ok. Let's move on to the next one. I can't tell how much of an it is an act (probably all of it), but this guy couldn't be more of an italian-american stereotype. Well, at least this guy's honest about his motives. Though, personally, I would have held out of the double dog dare. Well, you can't argue with math. Wait. What? No! Why would the spaghetti go in the plumbing?!? Put the stopper in! You can't wash it down the drain! COMMENT ON THIS POST

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Dolphins With Hats

I don't know what "Revamping Comedy" is, but I like sketch comedy. So I'm looking forward to this one.

The Video

As most people know, the most important part of a Kickstarter pitch is the video. It's the one thing people look at before they decide if your stupid project is worth their time. I know some creators have complained that making a compelling video is a difficult or expensive hurdle for someone whose talents lay in different areas, but, if you're a sketch comedy troupe then you and Kickstarter should be a match made in heaven! Let's watch the video and see what comedy delights they have in store for us!

Haha, I'm just kidding! The video is worthless trash. It's just stock photos. Why didn't they film a comedy sketch for their sketch comedy Kickstarter? Because they're idiots! These alleged comedians didn't think to put a single joke in their project pitch!

The Troupe

Comedy writing? That sure will come in handy if you ever have to convince strangers to put down up-front money on your comedy show!

The Social Media

This is actually part of a multi-pronged social media effort to get themselves an audition on SNL. So maybe they're proceeding as planned, even without Kickstarter backers? COMMENT ON THIS POST