One of the occupational hazards of gadget blogging is the never-ending flood of PR emails from desperate Kickstarter companies. There is thirst, and then there is the clawing, yearning thirst of a PR person struggling to stand out with a half-baked product.

Tip for PR folks: Sending me an email w/ the subject "Tip for you" and then pitching a new kickstarter project is not a tip — Lauren Goode (@LaurenGoode) August 23, 2016

Then there is Flag, which hired former Gizmodo editor Joel Johnson to write the following email.

There. See? Isn’t that refreshing? It is the essence of Kickstarter reduced to fundamental elements: attention, promise, frustration, apologia.

It’s almost as good as this love letter to a mediocre Sony pico projector Joel wrote for us a few weeks ago.

Anyway, Flag is a photo printing service that sends you 20 free prints a month as long as you accept some advertising mixed in with your memories. People seem to like it, and it has a new Kickstarter going to help fund a larger integrated facility that will bring all of its lasers and robots together under one roof so it can increase its overall print volume. The gimmick seems to be that Flag can print photos in any shape, which, sure. Go crazy. Squares are just circles with something to hide.