Tag: kickstarter

Kickstarter project: handbags made from old 35mm feature films

Portland’s Julie Lewis has a Kickstarter project to raise funds for another run of her handbags made from 35mm feature films; the films have passed through their exhibition window the distributors are obliged to shred them. Lewis employs a women’s co-op to use the material to make cool, translucent purses. Pledge $100 and you get a large tote as well as a bunch of other goodies.

Handbags made from 35mm Pre-run Hollywood Movies

(Thanks, Lunadog, via Submitterator!)

 

Wonderful news from the OpenVizsla project

Last month, I blogged about OpenVizsla, a Kickstarter project aimed at raising funds to create an open, hackable USB protocol sniffer (a great boon to reverse engineers trying to write libraries for proprietary music players, cameras, game peripherals, etc). Now, Pytey, one of the project’s founders, writes:

A quick update on bushing and pytey’s OpenVizsla open-source USB sniffer and all-around hack gadget project. We have raised a whopping 313% of our initial target ($54,813) and we have shown a sneak peek of the board design here. We have 4 days left of the Kickstarter project, so if you want to get in on the action do it SOON! P

Pytey tells me that Boing Boing readers have been especially generous — thank you all!

OpenViszla

(Thanks, pytey!)

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s Kickstarter project to make a Transmetropolitan art book

As the tenth anniversary of Transmetropolitan‘s final issue draws near, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has embarked on a Kickstarter project to create a limited edition hardcover featuring new illustrations from a superstar list of comics artists. The book will be used as a fundraising premium for CBLDF, which defends the free speech rights of comics creators, publishers and retailers. Artists who’ve been tapped for the project include:

Aaron Alexovich, Martin Ansin, Brandon Badeaux, Edmund Bagwell, Joe Benitez, Rick Berry, Nicholas Bradshaw, Dan Brereton, Evan Bryce, Stephanie Buscema, Jim Calafiore, Cliff Chiang, Katie Cook, Molly Crabapple, Camilla d’Errico, Michael Dialynas, Aaron Diaz, Kristian Donaldson, Ryan Dunlavey, Gary Erskine, Simon Fraser, Richard Friend, Dan Goldman, Cully Hamner, Matt Howarth, K Thor Jensen, Lukas Ketner, Sam Kieth, Clint Langley, Jeff Lemire, Corey Lewis, Milo Manara, John McCrea, Kevin Mellon, Moritat, Dean Motter, J O’Barr, Len O’Grady, Alberto Ponticelli, Rodney Ramos, Paul Renaud, Afua Richardson, Darick Robertson, Jimmie Robinson, James Romberger, Nei Ruffino, Tim Seeley, Liam Sharp, Alex Sheikman, Paul Sizer, Fiona Staples, Dave Taylor, Spike Trotman, Pete Venters, Matthew Weldon, Pete Woods, JK Woodward, Annie Wu, …and many others.

Transmet is the comic that got me seriously interested in the form again in my late 20s. It’s truly a seminal work, and the CBLDF is one of my favorite activist groups.

The TRANSMETROPOLITAN art book
(via Super Punch)

 

Raising money for a hackable, open hardware-based USB protocol analyzer

A stellar pair of reverse engineers, bushing and pytey from iPhone DevTeam/Team Twiizers, have launched a Kickstarter fundraiser to back OpenVizsla, a open/hackable hardware-based USB protocol analyzer. They’ve got my support — this work will continue to enable free/open drivers for everything from iPods to 3G modems, and allow indie software developers to continue making tools that interact with our hardware:

USB has a standard, published interface that is properly described (at great length) but the actual protocols for connected devices are not common and are often proprietary to the individual vendors or manufacturers. USB succeeded at eliminating most strange cables, but requires custom drivers for many types of hardware.

Often, these USB protocols are intentionally obfuscated to make them confusing and complex in order to attempt to restrict support to the original manufacturer of the device. In this case the USB packets themselves hold the key to the information that is necessary to write independent third party drivers.

Protocol analysis and reverse engineering is needed to create such drivers and these tasks rely on the real-time capture of USB traffic. Software-based analyzers are available, but only useful in certain limited applications.

Hardware based protocol analyzers are expensive and are usually out of the reach of most independent developers, hobbyists and hackers. The most popular products cost $1400+ and, with few exceptions, use proprietary Windows-only client software, proprietary protocols, and proprietary data formats that are hard to export for use with other software.

OpenVizsla will be a completely open design of a device that can capture USB 1.1/2.0 (high-speed, full-speed and low-speed) traffic passively between a target USB device and the connected host (usually a PC, but potentially anything that has a USB host port — think Xbox 360 and PS3). It will be controlled by any computer using open-source client software or potentially in standalone mode (where captured traffic is stored onto an on-board SD card).

“OpenVizsla” Open Source USB Protocol Analyzer

 

Crap Hound #5 Kickstarter project: “Hands, Hearts & Eyes (3rd ed.)”

Chloe from Portland’s Reading Frenzy sez, “Help us Kickstart Crap Hound #5: Hands, Hearts & Eyes (3rd ed.) into existence! Crap Hound is an astounding compendium of line art collected from various vintage and obscure sources, artfully arranged around a variety of themes. A great resource for artists, crafters, and designers, Hands, Hearts & Eyes is our most coveted issue yet! This time around in addition to the zine, we’re offering the 1st ever Crap Hound t-shirt, three brand new prints, a bonus digital package and more as rewards for your support.”

Crap Hound No. 5: Hands, Hearts & Eyes, 3rd Edition!

(Thanks, Chloe, via Submitterator!)

 

Semi-fictional love stories and music project on Kickstarter

Musician/filmmaker/mischievous imp Olga Nunes (creator of, among other things, the brilliant live action re-creation of XKCD’s ‘I Love the Internet’ strip) has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $3,000 for her first album, which includes an episodic set of videos that tell a love story that is shaped by random occurrences and audience participation.

I see a lot of interesting Kickstarter pitches, but very few of them come from people whom I know to have a track record for successful execution of their projects (and almost none of them ever stress the projects’ principals’ execution track record). Having employed Olga as a freelancer for various things over the year, I’m very confident in her capacity to actually spend the money she raises to successfully make something. And having seen the kinds of media that Olga’s made, I’m equally confident that what she makes will be great.

LAMP is a full-length album by Olga Nunes– and it’s also a story built around the music, told through letters, art installations, and short films. In Chapter One of LAMP, you are introduced to Lamp and Lux, two people who haven’t spoken to each other in a very long time. One day Lux receives a package that she thinks can only have come from him. So, she decides to write him a letter. The only problem is, she doesn’t know how or where to find him– so she puts a message in a bottle, ties it to a balloon, and releases it into the sky.

What happens next? I want you to be part of the story.

Every person who donates to the LAMP Kickstarter (to help turn the album and story into reality!) will be invited to submit their old love letters, and help create the backstory of Lamp and Lux. Additionally, I’m holding a balloon release event in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, where people (and maybe you!) will release one hundred of Lux’s letters into the sky. Not in SF? No problem. I’ll be documenting all the letters in the story and filming the event, so you can follow it through YouTube and through the website.

LAMP

Raising money for a Jeremy Bastian CURSED PIRATE GIRL collection

Zack sez ,”Jeremy Bastian — who did that huge Little Nemo piece I sent you a few weeks ago — is doing a fundraiser through Kickstarter to help put out a collected edition of his comic CURSED PIRATE GIRL using environmentally-conscious materials in the US. Different pledges are good for everything from an exclusive set of CURSED PIRATE GIRL buttons to a full signing event with 100 copies of the book. They have already raised nearly three times the initial amount they were looking for, but still need more to pull this off.”

Cursed Pirate Girl: “Our Generation’s Alice in Wonderland” Jeremy Bastian comic book
(Thanks, Zack!)

Raising money for paralyzed graffiti artist and open eye-tracker pioneer TEMPT1

Here’s a Kickstarter project from the EyeWriter team — EyeWriter being a set of free/open libraries and hardware for doing eye-tracking for input and robotic control. EyeWriter has its inception with TEMPT1, a famous Los Angeles graffiti artist who was paralyzed by ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) but who has been able to go on working thanks to the EyeWriter tools.

Now TEMPT1 and the EyeWriter folks are raising $15,000 to “create a new collection of original TEMPT1 artwork and merchandise using the EyeWriter 2.0 software, robotic technology, traditional print-making techniques, as well as his community of friends, fans and peers. Supporting this campaign will not only allow TEMPT1 to continue to make art and express his ideas, but it will give him a chance to again become a professional artist, independently support himself and his family, pay for his medical bills, and make a contribution to the contemporary art world.”

TEMPT1 & EyeWriter = Art by Eyes

(Thanks, Henrik!)

Pirate Bay documentary raising money on Kickstarter

The Pirate Bay – Away From Keyboard is a documentary on the founding of The Pirate Bay raising money on Kickstarter. I kicked in some money after hearing about it from Peter “brokep” Sunde. The filmmakers have been shooting for two years and are looking for $25,000 to finish the film (they’re over $22K as I type this): “This campaign starts exactly one month before the Court of Appeal hearings start in The Pirate Bay trial in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2009 the founders of The Pirate Bay were convicted to 1 year in jail and to pay damages of around 4 million dollars for having ‘assisted in making copyrighted content available’. The precedent in the Pirate Bay case will have consequences for the future of the internet. We will cover the upcoming trial closely.”

TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay – Away From Keyboard
(Thanks, Cowicide, via Submitterator!)