

Pinboard Co-Prosperity Winners - jjwiseman
http://blog.pinboard.in/2013/01/pinboard_co_prosperity_winners/

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danielweber
That "pre-configured secure image" is awesome. I heard someone suggest it like
10 years ago, and had simply assumed that someone else had already gotten
around to it.

Sad I didn't make it but these ideas were better than mine. You can't win if
you don't enter so I'm still glad I tried.

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tptacek
I agree, this is an extraordinarily good idea.

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pilom
Thanks guys. Glad you like it. Any recommendations to make it an
extraordinarily good product?

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coderdude
An automated made-to-order system would be useful. Allow customers to select
which programs/libs they'd like to include from a list of checkboxes. That way
they can order a secure image with their custom stack pre-installed. I would
pay you for that luxury. It might be too difficult with all the possible ways
things need to be configured by the user (setting up MySQL, for example).

~~~
coderdude
Also, there might be an opportunity to carve a market out of the Bitcoin
community. Many sites have and will continue to spring up that deal with
Bitcoin in non-trivial ways (i.e., where using a payment processor isn't
appropriate). Those people will feel better knowing they can start off on the
right foot. Sell them their pickaxes and shovels.

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cdcarter
Maciej did a great job getting this all set up. Though I wasn't selected, he
responded very nicely and gave me some thoughts about my idea. And, he picked
six great products that I'm okay having been chosen over me. I'm very excited
to see how they progress.

I really like this micro-investment program. I am currently working on my side
project and how I can bring it to realization. I wish there were more programs
out there that are willing to advise and help out single-founder products with
less of a focus on investment. I'd be willing to give 5-10% equity in my
eventual product for $300 if I got some smart minds to giving me real feedback
and spreading the word.

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justincormack
What sort of project is yours?

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cdcarter
My project is called Whiptail (<http://getwhiptail.com>) and it's a service
that sends you text messages when you're at the bar or a house party to
encourage good behavior and discourage doing things you'll regret. We'll be
offering a few different sets of messages to choose. From with generic "Would
your mother approve of the text you want to send?" to something targeted
towards appropriate behavior around an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, and
we're even working on a set built for students with social anxiety to help
keep them calm in party situations.

It was definitely a side-project that I created for my own use, and due to
PIC-PC encouraging me, I am working with a few friends into making to
something that anyone can use. We just put up a pre-launch page yesterday and
a logo is still being designed, but we hope to ramp up our efforts and have a
public MVP in the next week.

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jpatokal
Naming your contest after a failed policy of imperial conquest and subjugation
that saw up to 20 million people die is really unfortunate. Would we accept
"Greater Pinboard Cloud Reich" or a "Reichskommissariat Pinboard"? If not,
what's the difference?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-
Prosperity...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-
Prosperity_Sphere)

~~~
emmett
It's different primarily because "co-prosperity sphere" sounds really funny as
a phrase. He's also using it in a self-deprecating fashion, because he's
inviting you to apply to join something that historically you would never want
to be part of.

So it's funny. As I wrote this I realized once again how hard it is to explain
humor.

But basically, funny makes taboo or bad things ok to talk about.

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justhw
Food By People seems promising and a16z already has lead the series A round by
$1.25 mill. Goodluck Bernard and the team.

Out of topic but just came across Maciej interview with Aaronsw
<http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ceglowski-interview>

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bernardjhuang
Thanks, Maciej. Unfortunately, this information is false (one can wish).

Co-founder of Food by People here -- Let me know what you guys think!

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justhw
I thought the entire (pin board) thing was a joke. IF your product is legit,
good luck to you bro. I really like the idea and your design tells exactly
what the service is without the need of text.

Good luck

~~~
bernardjhuang
Definitely legit :]

We are working on building the alpha right now.

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ruswick
This entire thing seemed absurd. What actual value does Maciej provide beyond
a trivial amount of cash given in a facetious manner?

The Co-Prosperity Cloud may have been a parody of the the current incubator
trend, but the companies joining appear to be real entities with genuine
goals? What do they have to gain by taking part in some tongue-in-cheek
publicity stunt?

There are better ways to pursue both $37 and the small amount of notoriety
that this may bring.

~~~
tptacek
It is all part of a scam whereby these "companies" pick up seed money from
Maciej and then immediately flip to the likes of Groupon and Pinterest, whose
investors promptly kick back funds to Maciej, who makes a point of firing all
his employees exactly 37 minutes before their vesting cliff.

I've talked to him about it. He's a _dick_.

 _late edit: now he's trying to get me hellbanned. I saw him give a talk once
to new startup founders about this. Anything to get an edge early on,
including hellbanning innocent people like me._

~~~
cdcarter
Can I ask why you decided to offer an extra $50 to the winners if this is how
you feel about Maciej?

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tptacek
I figured they'd need at least much after he finished screwing with their
heads.

~~~
cdcarter
Fair! I wish you'd had spoken your mind earlier in the process. But maybe this
will lead to microinvestments without such a ...downside

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pilom
Founder of Simple Cyber Security here. Feel free to email/reply if you have
any questions.

And Maciej, thanks so much for the support!

~~~
orangethirty
Simple Cyber Security is a service that just makes sense. I've been getting
requests for such turn-key solutions for a while and never knew where to send
them to. Could you talk more about the offering? Give us more details
(anything you might want to add).

~~~
pilom
I'm glad you like the concept. The requests you get, what kind of solutions
are they usually looking for? Or more precisely, what are their pain points?

As for more info, I'm starting with CentOS/RHEL 5 and 6 on AWS hardened to
comply as much as possible with the US government accreditation policies (DISA
STIG's for starters). As RHEL is the most common Linux OS for companies that
have explicit security requirements, I figured I'd start there. They also have
good support from projects like OpenSCAP and Aqueduct.

I likely wont start with any stack hardening so no apache/nginx hardening
mostly because its not what I'm best at.

Every image will have complete documentation as to every configuration change
available on the website for free to anyone.

I'm not planning on being in the system maintenance side of things (partially
because I don't want to be liable for someone getting hacked) so I'm currently
tossing around the pricing as a one time cost for initial configuration and
then additional options for support (and consulting with those who want it).

If you have any requests/recommendations/suggestions/feedback, I'd love to
hear them.

~~~
orangethirty
What you need to do is start selling it as soon as possible. That way you can
start testing what the market needs. In my case, most clients mostly need a
solid Rails box (with MySQL) that will allow them to focus on other important
needs. This also applies to Django and Symfony. In terms of OS, the common
bits are safe Ubuntu and CentOS installs. Though they do seek support and some
hand holding.

How do you plan to market?

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orangethirty
I wish more hackers would do these kind of smaller investment funds aimed at
working with other hackers. We all know that a lot of smaller (but still
profitable) ideas can be done with as little as $5k and be set to auto pilot
(more or less). Maybe 5 micro VCs, each one putting in $1K. ROI? Probably
nothing. But sometimes the whole experience is worth the money.

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state
These are great choices. It really is surprising that Simple Cyber Security
hasn't already been done.

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jennyjitters
There are definitely some very deserving winners there. Maciej did a great job
and I was very impressed that he sent me an email even though my project was
not chosen. I love the idea behind the Pinboard Co-Prosperity Cloud and I hope
it catches on.

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afarrell
What was the inspiration for the name? I assume it wasn't The Greater East
Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, better known as The Empire of Japan in World War
II, since you wouldn't want to pick a name associated with massive human
rights abuses.

~~~
jarek
Discussion last time around <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4924537>

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afarrell
oh huh. Well that seems a worse decision than naming a social network
"Diaspora". Or am I the only one for whom that word conjures images of rotting
potatoes, burning Jewish temples, and Africans being crammed into the cargo
holds of ships?

~~~
gojomo
You may be one of only a few. 'Diaspora' more generally refers to 'a body of
those outside their group's ancestral homeland', and such communities aren't
necessarily the product of suffering/persecution.

By the time such a group gets referred to as a 'diaspora' in this sense, it is
often to emphasize the continuity-of-tradition-and-vibrancy in a new place,
and thus mostly positive in its connotations.

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scottmagdalein
+1 for Food By People

