SolTerrasa posted:

Burying the lead is a pattern for these guys. Remember, utterly incapable of admitting failure.

Syncopated posted:

someone buy not-Stymie a new av already

exploding mummy posted:

coming to kickstarter and the catte thread soon

exploding mummy posted:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1194215598/pant-alone-the-worlds-first-individual-pant

Herr Doktor Kreig posted:

I can't exactly pinpoint what it is about it that gives me the heebie jeebies

Trig Discipline posted:

*rereads diary of anne frank twelve times*

Skim Milk posted:

how is this NOT one of those fake comedy central infomercials? its too perfect

Fart.Bleed.Repeat. posted:

I like how the reward for one of the levels is a single pant*alone

prefect posted:

exploding mummy posted:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1194215598/pant-alone-the-worlds-first-individual-pant

exploding mummy posted:

coming to kickstarter and the catte thread soon

Vicas posted:

i'm feeling intensely uncomfortable now

Skim Milk posted:

how is this NOT one of those fake comedy central infomercials? its too perfect

Trig Discipline posted:

*rereads diary of anne frank twelve times*

anthonypants posted:

the barkley 2 kickstarter updated last night, they say it's still coming out https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/talesofgames/barkley-2-an-rpg-sequel-to-barkley-shut-up-and-jam/posts/1349919

anthonypants posted:

the barkley 2 kickstarter updated last night, they say it's still coming out https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/talesofgames/barkley-2-an-rpg-sequel-to-barkley-shut-up-and-jam/posts/1349919

minivanmegafun posted:

I know what I'm playing after I finish Undertale

its Undertale again

Al! posted:

how do you know it was full of homestuck references?

unclean

SolTerrasa posted:

Everykey: Your Only Key.
https://everykey.com/

Everykey is a bluetooth wristband. When you bring it close to your phone or computer, your device unlocks without a password. It's a hardware kickstarter run by a bunch of amateurs, so obviously it's massively in debt, several years late on its goals, and genuinely terrible communication. Here's three randomly selected backers complaining about it:




Maybe skip the rest of this post if you don't want to hear the long story of why these people suck and how they've found themselves here.

I actually know the entire sordid story of this terrible kickstarter. It is not made up by the founder to enrich himself, it's just made by a bunch of incompetents and amateurs. I went to college with the founder, and I've been following the whole thing since the beginning, about 3 years ago. Effortpost incoming.

This is Chris Wentz:


He's exactly like he looks.

Chris is the consummate Ideas Guy. Lots of broad but vague plans which he's sure would come off perfectly, if he could only find someone to do all the work for him. I'm sure you know the type if you've ever worked in or near a startup. The asshat once made our professor sign a fuckin' NDA before he would present his class project. There is only one thing you need to know about Chris: he is constitutionally incapable of owning up to a failure. As far as he's concerned, he shits gold.

So, they launched a Kickstarter in October, 2014. They've been incubating the idea since January, 2012. They've won pitch competitions and raised a few thousand dollars; they press-ganged some kid into building them a prototype for free (Chris is a Business Student; he doesn't write code or make hardware or know anyone who does. This will cause him problems later when people start expecting things other than blog posts and promises).

He posted this timeline:



If you know anything about hardware manufacturing, this is the part where you start laughing. They have planned 1.5 months from finalizing the design to having a working unit in-hand. This is not just hilariously optimistic, it's practically malpractice. If Microsoft or Google wanted to release this product, they'd plan 6 months from design to release, with a team of 20, minimum. These guys have not only never designed hardware or worked with manufacturers before, they have never laid out a PCB before. It's 2 finance majors, a business major, and a press-ganged part-time CS guy who read up on how to use EAGLE.



Here's what they've promised.

It goes "well", at first: they meet their goal, but only barely and only on the very last day of the campaign. In the days of 6000%-funded hardware projects, this doesn't look great, but still, that's $117,000 raised.

Then they go silent. The first milestone, manufacturing designs finalized, passes and they don't say anything.

The second milestone, beta testing, passes without comment. Kickstarter is starting to get angsty at this point, but politely: "Update please" and so on. The third and fourth milestones pass with no comment either.

In February 2015, one month away from the planned ship date, they finally post something. I'm sure you know what it says.


Burying the lead is a pattern for these guys. Remember, utterly incapable of admitting failure.

In June 2015, 3 months after their original ship date, they post that they have some pre-production units ready, but the colors aren't quite right and they'll be sending them back.



At this point they say that they are 5 weeks away from shipping (in the middle of the last paragraph of the update without further comment).

By this time people are really mad:


In August 2015:


Pleased. On schedule. (5 months late.) At this point they are totally out of money. They take out a loan for another $100k.

Kickstarter is getting madder:


September 23, 2015 ("late September"):


Did you read that word salad? It says they're shipping! But, wait, it says they're doing their first pre-production run? Hm. I think they tell you in entrepreneurship class that it's a good idea to pretend that everything is going well regardless of reality.

But oh no! In an outcome that absolutely could never have been predicted, the first attempt of a bunch of amateurs has gone wrong!


I had to read that three times when I first saw the update. "The USB connectors don't work consistently" is the sane, non-business-school way to say that, I think. A month after that, in mid-November, they post again and delay to December 14, but that's not important. What matters is that in December, it gets really weird.


loving John McAfee. John McAfee, who famously fled Belize to avoid questions in a murder case, alleged narcotics trafficker, public liar, creator of an antivirus program.

This John McAfee:


https://www.wired.com/2012/12/ff-john-mcafees-last-stand/ (He doesn't reholster the gun.)

They picked that guy. And you've gotta think "Well, they're just a bunch of idiot kids; maybe they only remembered seeing the name on an antivirus once, hard to blame them."

http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20151228/NEWS/151229905/controversial-security-pioneer-john-mcafee-invests-in-everykey

No, no loving way, no they didn't. There's no way that they "considered the many accusations against McAfee". And this tiny local paper gave you a really good out! "Oh, gosh, sorry, no, we had no idea we went into business with an alleged drug trafficker who's wanted in Belize in connection with a murder investigation". All you had to fuckin' do was say "we hosed up". Just once.

Ugh. The same day, they launch their IndieGoGo campaign. I think it's against some rule someplace to launch a campaign on IndieGoGo if you've already been funded on Kickstarter, but who cares.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/everykey-your-only-key#/story

On IGG, without updating their Kickstarter backers, they promise to have production done by January 22 and to ship by March 14. They raise another $100,000, which brings them to a total income of $200,000, a loan of $100,000, and an "investment" of $500,000 by their old business school professor. $900,000 cash available to them in total.

There's a few more delays / failures that go completely unacknowledged:

December 22, 2015


February 19, 2016


But then! The big news!

March 30, 2016, a full year late, they post excitedly.


So. A year late, they claim success and in the fifth paragraph note that they're dropping support for 3 of their major OSs. I also know that their product requires you to jailbreak your iPhone, but they've never explained that to anyone; I'm looking forward to them explaining that. And you see there where it says "small batches".

We're now 2 months away from that post. Not a single backer has acknowledged receiving an Everykey. There aren't any reviews online. The app isn't in the Play store. Mac / Linux / iOS support hasn't been announced.



But have they come back with a mea culpa? Or acknowledged this at all? Hell no! This is a great success!

http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20160513/NEWS/160519897/everykey-moves-into-university-circle-office-starts-shipping-device

At this point you've got to assume the guy is just lying out his rear end. It's like he's trying to gaslight 2,000 people who tried to buy something from him.

It gets worse. Remember how they were targeting Android 4.4? That was the most recent version back then. In the 2 years since they've been developing this, Android has added Smart Unlock, which is just a better version of their entire product. You can unlock your Android phone with anything now. An NFC ring that costs $5 on Amazon. A fitbit. A wifi network, a geofence, and even more stuff. So Android is out. Windows has dropped the BTLE driver from their desktop image, and Everykey refuses to guarantee compatibility with any BTLE chips except the one that they're selling on their website (not included with purchase, of course).

There's a bunch of other funny stuff with these guys, like they have 12 employees and 6 of them are C-levels, with another 2 Vice Presidents, or that Chris's LinkedIn proudly lists his gray market reselling of iPads on eBay as his only previous employment, or the time they leaked their database credentials in a PHP error message (and the password was "peyush is the best"), but whatever, I feel like I've covered the gist of it and no one has time to read a post even longer than this one.

Improbable Lobster posted:

i read a lot of homestuck in my awful teen years and didn't notice any references

Trig Discipline posted:

i still don't know what homestuck is and i consider that a sign that i have lived well

Trig Discipline posted:

i still don't know what homestuck is and i consider that a sign that i have lived well

Trig Discipline posted:

i still don't know what homestuck is and i consider that a sign that i have lived well

Malloc Voidstar posted:

Computer as, not a box.
First movement must rise.
Thank you.

Trig Discipline posted:

i still don't know what homestuck is and i consider that a sign that i have lived well