iCP2: They're throwing in the towel.


Well... to be fair it isn't making any false or crazy claims, it states exactly what it is. The guy can't help it if people are really willing to pay for him to make potato salad.

If anyone is in Columbus, OH he's going to rent a building and invite the entire internet for a pizza party.
 
Well... to be fair it isn't making any false or crazy claims, it states exactly what it is. The guy can't help it if people are really willing to pay for him to make potato salad.

If anyone is in Columbus, OH he's going to rent a building and invite the entire internet for a pizza party.
Inviting the entire internet for a pizza party isn't a crazy claim?

The guy probably started it thinking he wouldn't really get funded a lot. Like usual, my problems here mainly lie with KS, this project alone highlights issues with how they:

- Don't vet projects at all now, so anything goes with no regard to feasibility, and yes there are serious logistics challenges with some of what is offered here.

- Don't care that stuff like this is generating a bazillion copy cats that want to make a quick buck off their lame joke and are mostly just wasting resources and list space.

- Think all press is good press (yeah I know a lot of people think that, I don't) and don't care that a lot of people are pledging just to advertize their random stuff or beg for charity on the comments, even though it's against their rules.. and they don't care that this makes it harder for people to take KS seriously.

- Let production-related projects (and yes this is that, so is almost anything outside of digital distribution) have unlimited caps so they can explode when they go viral like this does. A $60k production project has totally different responsibilities and requirements than a $100 one.

- Let projects set the pledge goal arbitrary low, completely defeating any notion that they needed KS for the money, undermining the point of the site.

- Let people make pledges of any amount then have no penalty for backing out before the completion date, so for viral stuff you get a bunch of jokers temporarily pledging thousands of dollars so they can get attention.
 
Inviting the entire internet for a pizza party isn't a crazy claim?
Not in the same league as the claims of time travel or free energy or solar roadways. It's crazy, but it's logistics crazy: with $60'000 you can easily rent a building with enough room for several thousand people and hire a professional party planner to take care of the details and pizza ordering and still have enough leftover for potato salad.I figure his biggest problem is going to be figuring out how to ship each "bite" internationally, safely, and economically. That's probably going to cut heavily into his pizza party plans.

Like usual, my problems here mainly lie with KS,
With good reason. Excellent points on why it's so broken, I just wanted to distinguish between blaming Kickstarter for developing a broken system and the guy who's just taking advantage of that broken system for a laugh that went too far.
 
Not in the same league as the claims of time travel or free energy or solar roadways. It's crazy, but it's logistics crazy: with $60'000 you can easily rent a building with enough room for several thousand people and hire a professional party planner to take care of the details and pizza ordering and still have enough leftover for potato salad.

I figure his biggest problem is going to be figuring out how t ship each "bite" internationally, safely, and economically. That's probably going to cut heavily into his pizza party plans.
A lot of people resent this guy for getting so much funding; personally I feel sorry for him because he's got a really hard task ahead of him and there's a good chance he'll blow through the money before being able to fulfill his pledges. The party is probably feasible but not as easy as you make it sound - he's going to need some serious crowd control since potentially a ton of people will be going (way more than the backers), and he's going to have to pay for a serious cleaning crew. Then there are a lot of other weird things he has to deliver on, like inviting hundreds of people to the kitchen where he makes it and reciting thousands of names while he makes it, and the potentially hundreds of requested ingredients to add to it (this thing is going to be disgusting) At least he had the sense to limit the one where he carves names in potatoes to juts 4 backers.

Which leads me to a complaint against KS that I left off my list - they encourage you to add stretch goals. And keep adding new ones the more funding you get. This is the exact opposite of what you should be doing as your project is forced into a massively broader scope than you planned for.

In this case most of the backers won't care if it fails because they were just in on a meme, but the clickbait "news" sites that jumped on his story in the first place will be eager to document exactly what wrong with it. Which will drum up more negativity towards crowd funding in general.

With good reason. Excellent points on why it's so broken, I just wanted to distinguish between blaming Kickstarter for developing a broken system and the guy who's just taking advantage of that broken system for a laugh that went too far.
Right, I'm not blaming this guy. I wouldn't even say he's taking advantage of anything, he just did some goofy idea on a lark and it caught on fire. He seems like a well-intentioned guy too, although getting caught up in the attention is probably making him lose sight of feasibility.

What I find hilarious is how many comments and sites are painting this guy out to be a brilliant entrepreneur ready to start a booming business, or a creative genius tapping into comedic gold. Or even this really nice guy that wants to make everyone a little happier. When it's really just some random guy who never planned or intended for much of anything doing something that he could have thought was funny while out drinking with his buddies. The whole thing is pretty much a random internet meme reaction, not something deep or significant - they happen constantly and are quickly forgotten. I'd go so far as to say that he wouldn't have even gotten much funding if it didn't get that initial push from somewhere (like the cnet article), and that most of the people pledging are only doing so because it was already a thing.
 
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Looks like a lot of people had enough of the joke as over $20'000 in pledges were cancelled yesterday.
 
Looks like a lot of people had enough of the joke as over $20'000 in pledges were cancelled yesterday.
Nah, the price has been fluctuating wildly the whole time, because of a small handful of people making outlandishly high pledges then cancelling. Usually accompanied with some posts in the comments or somewhere else bragging about their bid and promoting something. Look at the last line on my list of complaints against KS ;p

The potato salad guy actually did an AMA.. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/29y3rp/iama_guy_who_just_surpassed_his_kickstarter/?limit=500 He seems totally sincere, naive, and kind of eager for attention.
 
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This goes out to Michael Weston (MWeston) on the boards here.  

The ICP2 was supposed to be a trully open source controller. Has anyone yet posted the plans online so that we can 3d print our own controller cases and pcb's?  It seems that doing that would cost you NOTHING to do, and would go a long way to at least accomplishing SOME Of your goal, despite us getting seriously screwed out of the hardware .
 
This goes out to Michael Weston (MWeston) on the boards here.  

The ICP2 was supposed to be a trully open source controller. Has anyone yet posted the plans online so that we can 3d print our own controller cases and pcb's?  It seems that doing that would cost you NOTHING to do, and would go a long way to at least accomplishing SOME Of your goal, despite us getting seriously screwed out of the hardware .
Is that the case ? I see that the Kickstarter page states "Open source" several times, but does this also include the hardware ? Everything that is mentioned on the page relates to the software of the device.
 
well "Source" doesn't really include hardware, no?
That depends on how you define it. One could argue that the design files/board layouts/etc. you see when you open up your CAD/PCB layout software are just showing graphical representations of points/vectors that are stored in a file, which could be seen as code
 
This goes out to Michael Weston (MWeston) on the boards here.  

The ICP2 was supposed to be a trully open source controller. Has anyone yet posted the plans online so that we can 3d print our own controller cases and pcb's?  It seems that doing that would cost you NOTHING to do, and would go a long way to at least accomplishing SOME Of your goal, despite us getting seriously screwed out of the hardware .
MWeston was never in charge of designing plastics, we don't even know if drawings actually exist. He could release the PCB drawings and the firmware for the microcontroller, but getting the PCB made yourself, along with the parts and assembly, isn't really trivial. Plus you can't get the nubs anyway since they're out of production. Releasing a package still takes at least a little effort, maybe he wants to assess if there's really credible demand first. That, or maybe the design could be sold to someone else to help recoup more costs.
 
This goes out to Michael Weston (MWeston) on the boards here.  


The ICP2 was supposed to be a trully open source controller. Has anyone yet posted the plans online so that we can 3d print our own controller cases and pcb's?  It seems that doing that would cost you NOTHING to do, and would go a long way to at least accomplishing SOME Of your goal, despite us getting seriously screwed out of the hardware .
MWeston was never in charge of designing plastics, we don't even know if drawings actually exist. He could release the PCB drawings and the firmware for the microcontroller, but getting the PCB made yourself, along with the parts and assembly, isn't really trivial. Plus you can't get the nubs anyway since they're out of production. Releasing a package still takes at least a little effort, maybe he wants to assess if there's really credible demand first. That, or maybe the design could be sold to someone else to help recoup more costs.
I hope so because there still aren't any universal clamping bluetooth keyboards for phones... and it's impossible to find a modern phone with a keyboard unless you go for Blackberry...
 
Latest Update

Project Update #43: ICP1 Arrival
backer_white-ede1da09dd1d4f663900a94a84389d1f.png
 For backers only 
Posted by Product 3 LLC  Like


Hey All,

Got some notification from the warehouse on Friday.  After weeks of waiting for the ICP1s to arrive, they've finally made it. 

Over the next few days, we'll start working through the list of those who have requested the ICP1 in substitute for the ICP2 and those who are waiting on the ICP1 & 2 combo pack (we'll be contacting you direct to see what you'd like to do here). 

If you've emailed for the refund, we are going to start on this list as well once we have shipped all the ICP1s.  If you requested an ICP1 or are waiting on one from your pledge, we'll also be checking in to confirm your shipping address.

That's all for now.  Thank you for your patience.
 
Who posted that?
I posted it this morning.  Never even got tracking information from Craig, although he told me on July 16th I'd have tracking the following day. 

This is pretty much par for the course.  I was surprised to have a message from the warehouse.

Maybe we can put this all behind us within the next few weeks. 

Worst decision ever. 
 
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