Mike Judge's "Silicon Valley" (HBO Show)

"Technolojesus!"

First episode got off to a slow start but two and three are A+++.

It's less mean than I expected.

kinda feels like mike judge could/should be in the prime of his career right now... but this show is really bad. and the movie 'extract' was easily one of the worst movies i've ever seen.

no way it's hilar

i feel like it's prtty mean!

extract was garbage but this show is kinda gentle and funny and likable but also mean and martin starr owns. i like that they are willing to go for the dumb shit like homeboy eating all the shrooms.

clay tarver from chavez is involved in this somehow too

I've only watched like 1.5 episodes of this and thought it was kinda weak. I really don't like the main character and the incubator guy at all, not funny or compelling. A lot of the material seems obvious to me. Nanjiani and Starr kind of save the show from being a complete waste of time.

I could see it getting better.

homeboy eating all the shrooms

See also: Soshonna eating all the shrooms; Turtle eating all the shrooms. Did Charlotte ever eat all the shrooms?

she fuckin should have

More Nanjiani/Starr, more Christopher Evan Welch (he's so great in this show), less everyone else.

feel like it really hit its stride with the 3rd ep, and a lot of Mike Judge's usual tropes/angles are popping up - the aggressive juxtaposition of race/class, drug-related hijinks, etc.

This sounds like maybe the best thing ever

why is the guy front and center on the poster not Ben Chaplin when he looks exactly like Ben Chaplin (15 years ago)

See also: Soshonna eating all the shrooms; Turtle eating all the shrooms. Did Charlotte ever eat all the shrooms?

yes the dumb shit

more Christopher Evan Welch

that might be challenging

This show is really funny. Everyone OTM about it hitting its stride in episode 3.

Martin Starr as a "La Veyan Satanist with theistic tendencies" A+

i know some guys who've made it pretty well on mobile programming and this show is really resonating. it's not the best thing ever, but it's solid and worth a watch

I've only seen the first ep so far, but it seems like this is the sort of show that is so OTM it might resonate most with those closest to its subject/subjects, which is a pretty small, rarefied group, in the end. Everyone knows what it's like to sit on a couch and watch MTV. Everyone knows what it's like to work in an office. Or at the least, everyone knows someone like the subjects of B&B or "Office Space." This one is a tad tougher, because the attention to detail jokes could be lost on folks (like, I dunno, me) unfamiliar with the world of programmers and VCs. Though I suppose "The Social Network" works as a tacit primer. It played the subject as tragedy; this one plays it as comedy.

i think this is... mostly good... but kind of ruined by the lead/main character, who needs to be at least remotely likeable or root-forable for the show to work.

asian kid getting scolded for leaving fish guts in the sink was....

I feel like the guy who plays Peter Gregory is by far the best thing about the show...and the actor died in the middle of shooting this season, so he's not going to be on it for very long.

haha as Hurting kinda pointed out already

ep 4 was a step back - really think this might have been funnier as Martin Starr + TJ Miller and the guy from Veep failing their way through a series of ridiculous startups?

why is the guy from veep on every show. i think he is on three shows right now?

I feel like the guy who plays Peter Gregory is by far the best thing about the show...and the actor died in the middle of shooting this season, so he's not going to be on it for very long.

― some dude, Monday, April 28, 2014 11:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

whoa, i didn't know that, and i agree that he is, or rather was, great. sad!!

puke shot was funny but yeah this episode wsa a little shapeless

leaned on the Jobs/Wozniak joke a few too many times now

more than any of the specific to Silicon Valley stuff, it feels like the best things about the show are the simple stuff about starting a business.

Ginsberg lawyer guitar solo was pretty funny

there's been a pretty consistent subthread throughout the show of Silicon Valley folks desperately wanting to be seen as/occupying the same social space as rock stars

i love the little touches in this show such as the picture of Lenna on richard's wall

ha yeah ginsberg was good. he's a charismatic actor.

feel like the actresses hired to be interested in party guests could have been a whole episode and not one throwaway joke, but maybe thats just me wishing this was party down

ginsberg dude seemed like a rebooted scott baio

joanie love s1ocki

loves

and tbh as much as i love martin starr i feel like his character is written like a less funny version of roman from party down

otm hey guys just swap sci fi for religion, hilarious

yeah Martin Starr feels very underused in this, i can't think of more than one really good line he's had. even T.J. Miller and Kumail Nanjiani aren't really being used to their full potential really.

they're doing a good job of not letting TJ overwhelm things imo. but yeah, too many characters overall for them to get decent showcasing

Love the Tobacco music

The cigar-playing is exquisite

they picked a hell of a week to reference david choe

http://guardianlv.com/2014/04/facebook-artist-in-trouble-after-recent-podcast/

the silicon valley episode of veep did everything this show is trying to do 1000x better

You are probably right, but it is still good.

racism stuff in this was A+

like really racist?

really clumsy ep

feel like you guys are "judging" this television show.

Starr was really funny this ep

I thank this show for the using the phrase "snack dick"

i'm bailing on this show, it's no good

i don't think it's very good either but gonna stick with it because it has a chance to improve around season 2 or 3.

:|

Silly COn Alley

disagree with s1ocki but am ok with him going his own way

as long as nanjiani is on the show i'll probably keep watching it

It's just okay but there's nothing more worthy right now, really.

Anyone know which service has Party Down streaming?

starz

what do ppl think about this new hbo rapture show? looks maybe fun

is that the lindelof one? If so I will avoid like a plague

Agree with both s1ocki and xelab, Veep did it so much better but this has got enough laughs to watch anyway. Racism stuff in last episode A1 especially when he asked the cop.

i'm bailing on this show, it's no good
― socki (s1ocki), Monday, May 5, 2014 8:46 PM

feel like the valleywag blog skewers this stuff better than any tv show could

I don't love it tbh

Mr Veg bailed on it a couple of eps ago. His complaint was that most of the stuff they're lampooning is done in a silly or obvious way, there's no real meat on the bones to their parody.

I mostly like the stuff in the house anyway, esp Starr/Nanjiani

judge has never really run that deep or mean, so I think what has been successful in the past has been a real specificity and detail in his targets. this feels rather generic so far, as it's satirizing something that's already a caricature in the first pace.

maybe the real SV is really that silly though I have no idea!

you need at least some charisma in the mix or you're watching a show about fumbling assholes doing stupid bullshit nobody cares about. see arrested development for an example of how this can actually work.

I think there's some charisma! it's fleeting though.

maybe the real SV is really that silly

it is really this silly

feel like the valleywag blog skewers this stuff better than any tv show could

― am0n, Tuesday, May 6, 2014 1:58 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

vw could be so much better except the outsiders perspective means that they actually don't know the tech they're describing well, and they end up skewering silly social things more often than actually derranged things, and on top of that stick to gossip about the same top targets instead of casting a broader eye around the landscape.

also occasionally it is not nearly caustic enough, and buys the idea that some stuff is actually sorta neat. (i mean, maybe some is, but it would be a better voice to never acknowledge it!)

i mean that said it still has occasional great coverage, but the bread and butter of vw is pretty tepid.

i would find it easier to step away from this show if it didn't provide at least one belly laugh per episode
this one was dude slapping the kid and telling him he "brought piss to a shit fight"

best episode so far imo.

also occasionally it is not nearly caustic enough, and buys the idea that some stuff is actually sorta neat. (i mean, maybe some is, but it would be a better voice to never acknowledge it!)

wait, you think valleywag is TOO credulous?

i actually thing vw suffers a bit from not having boots on the ground. i read a great piece about the silicon valley premiere and all the dumb shit tech people were saying about it on recode, really sort of hang-them-with-their-own-rope stuff, and i wished vw could do that sort of thing.

this was the dumbest episode so far

it's enjoyable but I could stand about 100% more satire

most exciting file download ever

first legit funny ep i thought

hopeful for next season now that this one is out of the way.

I thought the hand job efficiency calculating was very funny!

yeah that was a really funny ep top to bottom

the calculation stuff was cracking me up

also Jared crowdsourcing his "pivot" ideas was hilarious

yeah that was definitely the best episode yet, though it made the tacked-on romance thing seem even more superfluous than before somehow

I just found out today that Christopher Evan Welch died in the middle of the series.

Woah

yeah he'll be missed

idg what made this episode different from those that preceded it for you guys. seemed like more of the same to me (which is fine). Erlich consistently the funniest imo

I just found out today that Christopher Evan Welch died in the middle of the series.

It is another case of a relatively young 9/11 first responder succumbing to the asbestos exposure of that day, it seems like they are dropping like flies. I have had plenty of that shit myself but nothing compared to that day in one dose.

idk anything else that that eldrich guy is in but I recently saw a pretty great thing on youtube where he does a moth-like standup thing and tells a story about getting part of his brain removed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kduZLSyCU6s

tj miller is a weird funny motherfucker

his podcast is bizarre & funny if you're in the right mood for stonertalk

I enjoyed the Kara Swisher cameo in the finale. Homegirl is pretty short!

Will Sam Biddle be in season tiddle

So good.

hotswap dicks in and out

the absolute commitment to the question on its own terms (populated by dick diagrams) and the lengths to which they took it really made the bit incredibly funny

when they got to "hot swapping dicks" i was in love, i lold so hard

Watched the first half of the season (eps 1-5) last night. So good.

it gets better as it goes along imo

Prob better here than the LOLZ thread: http://uproxx.com/tv/2015/04/silicon-valley-dick-joke-oral-history/

4 more days!

gonna miss my favorite character :(

It's funny that consultant is anonymous despite his name being all over the internet associated with this joke.

https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/kumailsiliconvalleydickjoke22-thumb-550x309-113200.gif?w=650&h=365

lol

https://twitter.com/kumailn/status/586678680576925696

loooool wtf

lol, kumail should be fucking with them hard about this

Patton Oswalt has the biggest grin right about now.

ah well he took the high ground
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/silicon-valley-star-calls-salon-787889

ugh a lot of people I normally like are being stupid on twitter about this

worst part of the original flub was def the use of "in fact." ouuuch

could not stop loling at the name "Stern Taylor"

http://i.imgur.com/FUhsvbS.png
http://i.imgur.com/74b1qQA.png

so this dealt with the peter gregory/christopher evan welch-sized elephant in the room really well - the bizarro monologue explaining his death was utterly hilarious

yeah i loved that

I wonder how much of the season they'd shot and how much of it they had to overhaul and rewrite/reshoot

I think he'd already died while they were shooting the end of last season.

I read somewhere that he'd filmed 5 episodes of the new season though

Pretty sure it was that he'd filmed the 5 episodes of the first season. That's why you never saw him later in S1.

yeah, that's right.

i believe he was dead before they started airing the show.

"I don't want to live in a world where someone else makes the world a better place better than we do" was perfect

this episode was written by clay tarver, the guitarist from Chavez(!) he also co-wrote 'joy ride' with jj abrams, what a world, what a country

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/16/is-slack-really-worth-2-8-billion-a-conversation-with-stewart-butterfield

Erlich Bachman really is one of the best comedy character creations in TV in a long, long time.

I can't get enough depictions of horrificly awkward tech parties. Kid Rock last series and the SF Giants ballpark this time - so cringey

Do any of you guys ~do~ tech? Is it really this embarrassing? Bcz Gawker says yes.

I'm only peripherally aware of it (living where I do) but afaict, yes

I have witnessed some pretty ridiculous parties and listened to some insanely ridiculous rhetoric/speechifying

Having been through a few hardware startups, I think my experience hasn't been as nuts as these pure software companies, but it's still pretty ridiculous.

a+ cliffhanger

Was pretty active in startups and party crashing during the original dot com era but I've steered clear of the current douchebag/brogrammer wave. I hope they all fail miserably.

boo.com parties were the best/most insane

Erlich Bachman really is one of the best comedy character creations in TV in a long, long time.

this.

investor guy who was throwing party for pied piper at the start was james from Spin City, who I haven't seen in anything since Spin City.

Love this show to death. Found it amusing that when I was in SF this weekend for first time in a decade, how many billboards were specifically aimed at software programmers and app producers.

drive down 101 to san jose and thats about all they are

yeah I was gonna say things reach really ludicrous proportion along the 101

this show is so great, last ep was incredible

my uncle is a cfo for a venture capital firm in SF and at 52 is the old man in the building, i've been meaning to ask him if he's seen this

a friend if mine is launching an app, and he is sooooo this show

haha shots fired @ Mark Cuban

ROI

Jesus Christ, this show is so, so funny.
Died at Jared deciding he finds the BRO app "sticky" - the only people ever to use the word bro with him were 'assailants'
Died at "Bros disclose."
Died at the angry VC guys recounting Erlich's previous insults ("You called me a choad-guzzling Fuck Toilet.") then "At least I have the decency to shave my balls. We live in a society."

God, there are like 10 big belly laughs per episode, which is more than any other show for a long time for me

omg @ the billionaires/Jews in Nazi Germany analogy (this was based on a real thing someone said, yeah? I can't recall who)

really killin it this season. Jared is such a classic Mike Judge character, loved the Julia Roberts movie refs bit

venture capital dude tom perkins in the wsj: "Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on the "one percent", namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich"."

ah yes

Jared really is a great character.

is the new rich guy (was it Russ Hanneman?) based one someone? all i could think of was maybe Tom from myspace.

my thought was MacAfee

he's a funny character but boy is he annoying. i hope he's not around too much. it's hard to take. tho i enjoyed his subtle dissing of erlich.

omg i had no idea the nazi thing was based on a real statement jfc

Shit, wait, have there been 3 episodes in the States? We just had Episode 2 on Sky Atlantic in the UK last night

yes ep 3 aired on Sunday

I love how the new rich guy is working so hard to be Tom Ford.

Radio On Internet is partially Mark Cuban, who made his fortune selling broadcast.com to Yahoo and hasn't exactly expanded his fortune by leaps and bounds in the intervening years. Also kind of a douchebag.

lol

In 2005, Cuban invested in Brondell Inc., a San Francisco startup making a high-tech toilet seat called a Swash that works like a bidet but mounts on a standard toilet.[

http://ballislife.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CubanCover.jpg

the d

Can't completely hate him because of the Mavericks, tho

i also get dan bilzeran vibes from dude

and a hint of scorpio from simpsons

if i'm just now introducing you to dan bilzeran...i'm sorry

*bilzerian

ugghh i hate for reminding me about dan bilzerian. garbageperson for REAL

never heard of him before thx deej

oh THAT guy. Yeah, he's just abysmal.

He has calf implants!

I love Jared. "I'm putting on HATS!"

Mariachi band interruption into credits at the end of ep2 was pretty amazing.

omg that was so great, how it just seems like credits music for a few seconds but then it winds up actually being part of the scene

Jared "celebrated"

f'n amazing: https://medium.com/@chrismessina/the-full-stack-employee-ed0db089f0a1

fantastic episode. this season is >>> so far

Cosigned. New season is the best.

BAGHEAD

I had always thought they were calling him bighead. His head does seem a bit large for his body.

they were. that's the joke

Ah, OK. I considered that but it didn't seem that funny.

my friend cunty

2nd season > 1st season

kind of confused over how ilx loves this show more than veep tho

There was a poll?

veep doesn't even have a thread!

A thread for Armando Iannucci's VEEP

couldn't make it through a single episode

veep is DEFINITELY better than silicon valley but SV is pretty damn good.

veep is so great

i watched a couple eps of veep & it didnt catch, i guess ill give it a few more

with silicon valley as a mike judge product ive been preconditioned to give it time while i catch on to its general rhythms

I'm averse to that style of machine-gun dialogue delivery. hated it in Gilmore Girls, West Wing etc., makes me feel like the actors are delivering their lines as fast as possible in the hopes that you won't notice how shitty it is. but maybe I'm missing something.

Yeah, that's exactly what killed Gilmore Girls for me.

Veep takes awhile to hit its stride, but i was predisposed to like it (and its general rhythms) after watching In the Loop many times. Definitely worth sticking with, but I like fast, writerly comedy in general (never watching Gilmore Girls or West Wing though).

i also feel like mike judge's comedy is so very 90s in a way that i like—it hasn't really changed with the times, his sensibility is still very strong in it

yeah the mumbly, unassertive characters, the juxtapositions of race & class, the moronic blowhards - these are all staples of his ouevre

im sure it's been done before and i just can't remember, but building a sitcom around starting a business is a really good idea. there isn't even a romantic subplot! (though it feels as if one is around the corner).

they half-heartedly made some nods to one between Hendriks and Monica (who is such a nothing character blech) but yeah that's been mercifully absent. Was wondering how long it would take for the show to get around to the politics of women in the industry, which seems to be coming into focus this season w Monica's new boss and the new hire (who are both great)

lsjgleijrleisjlrie when Blaine is standing in front of the whiteboard

Read all of the SWOT board cards.

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/05/15/silicon-valley-read-let-blaine-die-swot-board

"I've booby-trapped the house with corporate resources"

The market research guy who kept repeating everyone's names killed me.

that last episode was as good as it's been imo

eh felt more plot-heavy than joke-heavy to me. A lot of the Homicide! stuff was good

Double Asshole punchline was hilarious

and the SWOT death board

The way he delivered "when her arrangements became too baroque" is one of my favourite things in the show.

Three commas was lol

mclaren gift thankyou moment was hilar

& the three commas delete

ugh god i just want him to die at this point i think, he is so fucking horrible

special occasion cigarette punchline was so stupid & great

The character I want to die is Richard. So unfunny and annoying compared to every other character, and more inept to boot. Honestly think the show would be better without him.

Nah Richard is a great character and that guy is a good actor. he's twitchy, well-intentioned but naive but he's breaking out of his shell and making himself more assertive as the show goes on too. Loved the scene where he stood up to Russ.

Russ is a great character.

i'm realizing that i get anxious watching comedies where ppl get great things and constantly fuck them up and every episode is ppl trudging along and then someone's massive so-easily-preventable ineptitude and stupidity just fucks things up massively and then no one faces any consequences, they just kind of keep trudging along gughghghghgh

This season's been great so far, but that last episode...

I know it's television, and not to over-think the technical aspects--but that whole bit with the files getting deleted, ugh
that's not how an FTP works, and why didn't the porn company have any backups. The show as been pretty good up to this point about referencing technology, and that just reeked of some writers trying to force conflict.

Jin Yang is this eps MVP.

haha i was thinking the same thing. when the guy from the p0rn company was says the platter was spinning and he couldn't stop it, as if it is erasing as it's uploading??

i though the conceit of richard meeting the endframe guy at all (both times) was pretty contrived too, as a plot device

but yeah the file deletion was dumb

weakest ep of the season imo, the smoking thing was very hyuk hyuk hyuk and all the richard-tries-to-fix-it bits felt out of character

does anyone else think they are positioning things so that Pied Piper will somehow bail out Belson at Hooli (dunno what Belson would offer them that that he hasn't already - apart from dropping the lawsuit and a shitload of money/responsibility - Bighead will be involved somehow)

didn't Dan Lyons write last night's episode? from what I remember of his tenure at Valleywag I am not surprised it was kind of a flimsy mess

xpost ahem u mean Baghead

Just saw actual pied piper shirt on a techbro fyi

i was literally like yelling while watching this one bc they were forcing conflict so awkwardly for cringelaughs in a way they usually don't & it was just painful, like this show isn't curb and that's a good thing ffs

Jin Yang is this eps MVP.

the overwhelming disgust with which he says "taco bell" in an earlier episode if my favorite thing on tv this year.

hmm now that you mention it the cigarette thing was very Larry David/CYE

i'm all about the Aviato shirt xxxp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AjVY9gkFUc

Just saw actual pied piper shirt on a techbro fyi

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, June 3, 2015 12:10 PM

Snack-dick or current?

full snack-dick

I like your theory, Hooli does seem to be heading towards some sort of crisis.

Show is less great than the end of season 1/start of season 2 but it's still good.

this was definitely a disappointing episode. but otherwise i prefer s 2

I like your theory, Hooli does seem to be heading towards some sort of crisis.

I'm thinking something like Belson offers to drop the lawsuit/let them go free if they five him something that fixes Nucleus

yeah that seems likely

those board meetings are getting suuuuuper awkward

they have discovered industrial speed delete and i am the only stoned person to realize it

p crappy episode, I hate "courtroom dramas" of any variety. Only big laugh from me was at the end when Ehrlich made his desperation play about being the girlfriend

I don't hate "trial" episodes of shows that much but that wasn't a particularly interesting one.
cf. the same week's Veep which was one of the strongest ones yet and it was all the cast "on trial"

Worth it just for "Did you just say work will set us free?" and "He's the most cheerful person I've ever heard quote Adolf Hitler."

yeah the hitler quotes were funny

i hate richard

i loved the schrodinger's cat stuff

I don't hate Richard or Erlich, but Gilfoyle/Dinesh/Jared are far and away the MVPs this season.

Only big laugh from me was at the end when Ehrlich made his desperation play about being the girlfriend

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, June 10, 2015 1:26 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that was pretty solid.

the amyl nitrate line jared had was pretty lol

lol yes

Thought this ep was great as a rebound from the one before it. Not a top 3 episode but strong enough

Hitler stuff with Jaded was highlight of the season. (Unless the final ep delivers anything like Middle Out did last year.)

middle out scene is pinnacle of hbo tv imo

just got caught up. this show is great.

the lawyer was killing me.

Is he a lawyer? No. Did he violate the Mann act? Yes.

who is that actor? i know him

i know why i know him! he was lloyd braun on seinfeld.

he was also in LA confidential iirc, as the lead actor on the cop show kevin spacey consults for

xpost omg thank you i was going crazy

lloyd muthafuckin braun

He has a slightly cleaned-up Harry Stean Stanton quality about him.

He played "Lloyd Braun" in two episodes of Seinfeld. He appeared in three Bigfoot-themed movies: Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter (1994), Little Bigfoot (1997) and Abominable (2006).[5]

serenity now...insanity later

p good finale, although I am starting to feel like their foregrounding plot mechanics over stuff that is actually funny

erlich & the real estate lady was funny

Great last line

this show is so aggravating and stressful for no reason

i loved those forced delays, kicking the keys into the storm drain so corny

http://i.imgur.com/uUWMaYz.png
“I used to take a tampon, soak it in grain alcohol, and insert it into my rectum. That got me high, but not half as high as the drug you just gave me. A second chance.”

"Even when his sobbing starts to shake the camera, theres no blocking at all. I mean the quality is great!"

holt shit he was in little bigfoot? every one should see that.

v loosely related but i enjoyed this a lot

Conan vs Silicon Valley cast playing Halo 5
http://youtu.be/roRGPI1PwNQ

saw a taxi in Austin today with the old "snack dick" logo on top and wondered if it was some wonderful meta-advertisement.

I finally watched this! And by this, I mean I watched every episode. Really miss the Peter Gregory character and he left a void in the show, although it opened the door for Gavin Belson's slow burn self-destruction. Maybe the ending of season two is a hint the same thing will happen to him at hooli?

I hope we see the cyborg again someday

the cruel joke on dinesh where gilfoyle convinced him the satanist girlfriend wanted to have sex with him reminded me of a really awkward prank some people played on me when i was a kid and it made me feel for the dude but also kind of made me feel better about life

oh yeah, and the peter gregory speech at the roman-themed/toga party! explaining the bar at the back with shorter lines and "thank you, florida" to flo rida

if this was a different time and place, that character would have been played by mike judge staple, stephen root, for usre

if this was a different time and place, that character would have been played by mike judge staple, stephen root, for usre

haha i remember having this exact thought while wathcing that season. i gotta watch s1 again though, peter gregory was really one of the best characters on tv in sooooo long :/

the burger king sesame seed speculation was a master stroke of ridiculousness and that kind of financial chess-playing kind of evaporated after he was gone

i hope his island reappears in the plot at some point

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf9N5AWprG8

I feel a lot of kinship with Bighead

My favourite thing about this show is the way Erlich pronounces "Aviato".

baghead

“We are now living in a post-RIGBY world"

Somewhere out there is a gif of Erlich infinitely kicking the BamBot.

A guy who wrote a script for Silicon Valley apparently has aphantasia, the inability to see images in your mind
https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-feels-to-be-blind-in-your-mind/10156834777480504/

for some reason that seems like a disability that would help, not hinder, when writing for Silicon Valley

what was the Run the Jewels track on the end credits? I didn't recognize it

this episode was great, forgot how much I loved this show

it's new DJ shadow w/ RTJ https://soundcloud.com/massappealrecs/dj-shadow-nobody-speak-feat-run-the-jewels

xp

Stephen Tobolowsky saying Aviato with the same ridiculous flair

Love Jared but I'm a little uncomfortable about this whole eviction subplot

I love the line about Jared's skeleton!

This week felt crazy-OTM wrt my current work situation...

I haven't slept in a box in years!

dang the moment where I'm thinking the CEO is on to something about actually selling things

Jian Yang might become my new hero

"just jam it in a box and no one knows it's there"

*sales people consider this idea*

"hmm, like a rack mount server solution?"

I haven't slept in a box in years!

lol yes

I love how Ehrlich loses every conversation he has with Jian Yang, like somehow he always manages to come out of them worse off than before

Jian Yang yelling at him while shoving whatever traditional Japanese thing that Erlich foisted him down the garbage disposal was great

Also him interrupting to say that yes, Japanese people are racist when Erlich was saying he was not racist was a perfect response to something that wasn't actually said

he's still an iffy character in his portrayal but they're getting better at capturing the stilted conversations between someone who speaks English as a second language and the American person they loathe

jesus fucking christ, I knew sales people were the worst and everything but I guess I didn't realize just how thoroughly and universally they were the worst! Watching this show has made me uncomf bcz it just gives me flashbacks to my last job

have you guys seen what some of the "appliance" data center things you can buy look like? in one way they make sense, in that they're supported by the vendor from the hardware/OS upwards to their product

on the other hand, it's a physical thingy that looks justifiable to buy for higher-ups when it's usually just a software thingy

also some of them have some lol branding

http://www.teradata.com/uploadedImages/Company-And-Careers/News-And-Events/News/2013/active_edw.jpg?n=6285

http://www.forumsys.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Forum-Sentry-Appliance.jpg

that first one is like as tall as i am

So no one wants to talk about the fucking horses huh.

pretty standard scene meant to mess with the audience, i chuckled

Real fucking btw

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/silicon-valley-horse-sex-scene-888871

seems like it'd be easier to shoot the real thing

I like the appliance angle cuz that means (hopefully) we'll get to see some hardware development stuff (trips to Chinese factories, etc.).

happy for Big Head getting 20 mil but all he really wants to do is hang with his buddies on the roof

big head is the most sympathetic character, for sure

of course: http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/the-wrap/article/PETA-Blasts-Silicon-Valley-Explicit-Horse-7390317.php

bwahahaha

"arranged rape" just made me wonder about what consent between horses involves

Are you cool with forks making Spotify playlists out of every rolling thread without permission?

Neigh means neigh.

https://d.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1383332389ra/6507939.gif

please please please have an episode mocking this
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/02/further-future-festival-burning-man-tech-elite-eric-schmidt?CMP=share_btn_tw

jesus christ Marie Antoinette would blush

actually it might not be capable of being parodied, they would have to just present it as-is

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/536405c670ae53c4ffa8ddf015576274902c675e/0_0_1440_2160/master/1440.jpg?w=1920&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=43e3bfd0f80ca33cf82f6e2ddecf92e9

this show keeps getting better

agreed! mike judge may secretly be my favorite comedy creator. i am wondering how hands on he is on an episode by episode basis

I do like this show altho idk if I'd say it's getting better. Sometimes the plot contortions get in the way of the jokes (watching it I have a hard time not thinking about Judge's comment about how they have a hard time "constantly coming up with different ways for them to fail")

totally loving this show atm

http://www.piedpiper.com/

The bios are totally hilarious.

oh boy this goes deep.

http://www.coderag.com/

http://www.raviga.com/

i hope they get more mileage out of dang

lol @ Ehrlich's "BA in Ultimate Frisbee"

bahahahaha

At Raviga, we see the big picture. We hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards. We not only think outside of the box, we think outside of the box that box is in — and so on — until innovation is free of all boxes that would contain and constrain it. In this way, we seek to disrupt the very concept of disruption itself.

lol @ the companies the members of the sales team worked for previously

had to read Jared's bio to my Vassar-educated wife.

it's very appropriate! after every time he's on screen, I find myself thinking, "Oh Jared, what has the world done to you?"

"hey Dinesh nice chain do you choke your mother with it when you put your penis in her butthole?"

Worst episode in a while?

the continual failures are getting a bit exasperating, but im excited to see how Big Head is gonna back his way into success again.

when does this season end? I was dropping my HBO streaming subscription for a few months and was going to pick it back up and binge the whole season, but you are tempting me into jumping back in now

especially if there's more Big Head content

prob the most Big Head content since the first season!

This was episode 5 so another 5-7 weeks?

5

Something about this show seems very Entourage to me: the quick reversals of fortune, the comic relief from the programmer equivalents of Turtle and Drama, the 'agent,' the token females. That said I enjoy it very much...

That's been the problem for the last couple of episodes, they need to draw out these situations a little longer. The HD bit this week was a bunch of setup for a five second punchline. I expected more hijinks.

http://www.piedpiper.com/

they updated the website to reflect the new hires!

the synergy of television and the web is so 1998

i feel like they are interested in shortening time between plot developments which leaves a lot of potential comedy feeling like it goes by the wayside but also makes it feel like there's a real purposeful meanderingness to the plot lol

the continual failures are getting a bit exasperating,

otmfm, it wd be nice to see the plot progress just a little w/o the excruciating tension of constant and often improbable fuckups

I was wracked with nervousness this week because I expected everything to turn terrible again before the end and they were running out of time

So now I feel worried about how soon Richard will fuck things up as CEO next week

mike judge may secretly be my favorite comedy creator. i am wondering how hands on he is on an episode by episode basis

iirc from a radio interview, he is in the room for breaking story, then goes back to Austin for the writing & pre-production periods, flying in for the weeks he directs episodes

that sounds about right.
the bones are solid but the post milch hbo method of kick the can forward first, creator's great plan second means that these shows are uneven in terms of character development even tho' they maintain flavor
i dunno if that's a criticism; it's amazing they have such a high batting average

at the moment i mean
remember the halcyon days of mind of the married man and carnivale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_DSOnOQnuk

"homosexuality being defined as insanity in the DSM" lol.

that was funny but i was hoping it was 4 minutes of them pronouncing "Aviato" at each other.

"the second run of Beavis & Butthead"

otmfm, it wd be nice to see the plot progress just a little w/o the excruciating tension of constant and often improbable fuckups

Tbh, this is pretty much the theme of so much good TV these days. "The Excruciating Tension of Constant and Often Improbable Fuckups" is like a subgenre unto itself.

"Hunger is the best sauce." Dying.

Great ep. "I guess Russ was right..."

"Jared. Nice. Using that dick."

a+ delivery on that one

Zach Woods nailed the response, too. Small moment, but maybe the funniest thing the show has done

a lot of this show's best moments are small things w/ delivery and brief asides that you can miss if you blink too quickly. the plot's constant motion is a plus, IMO, for delivering this kind of stuff

My favorite blink-and-you-miss-it joke this ep was Bachmann sneaking the Three Comma alcohol into the restaurant to save money in the intro

Yeah for a show that's so broad and cartoony it really nails the small character stuff

kudos to middleditch for making every 'm'lady' more painful + awkward than the last

Reminded me of a favorite Amy Schumer skit about m'ladies, skewering needy dorky guys who use that term.

Jared's "stuffed animal"

He is right about the tabs vs spaces thing. though.

oh god, the team interacting with women is so bad

https://github.com/Stitchpunk

!!

watching episode and seeing these comments as Richard is having a full on hissy fit is awesome

Jared's "stuffed animal"

― Οὖτις

this was so great, i think jared's my favorite character. loved that russ was right - this guy fucks.

he seems so sad + damaged :(

damaged yes, but sad? no. he is consistently the most optimistic character on the show.

but in a v sad way - or maybe he's not sad but he makes me feel sad

this episode made me think about how sad it must be to a be a single woman in silicon valley

think you can strike "single" from that

lol true

He is right about the tabs vs spaces thing. though.

not really. theoretically i like the idea of using a tab and letting the editor decide, but in practice it doesn't work out so nicely. take the following example where tabs are used to set the indentation level and spaces for alignment; when changing the tabsize from 4 to 2, we get misaligned code:

    1 int f(int x,        1 int f(int x,
    2 --->..int y) {      2 ->..int y) {
    3 --->return g(x,     3 ->return g(x,
    4 --->--->--->.y);    4 ->->->.y);
    5 }                   5 }

also lol at the show for bring this so-called "holy war" to the mainstream, i've already gotten texts from non-programmers asking which i side with

The answer is to not change the tab size (4 spaces forever!). And don't bother with newlines in an argument list when your variables are single-character.

TABS

if you have a whitespace aligned language then spaces are the only choice. this is important.

omggg https://github.com/Stitchpunk?tab=activity

Can't decide if Jared or Bighead is the best character.

Probably Jared.

Definitely Jared.

omggg https://github.com/Stitchpunk?tab=activity

― germane geir hongro (s.clover), Tuesday, May 31, 2016

legit

baghead 4 life

lost it at the PR with a code of conduct

i liked the (accurate) detail of it blowing a gale outside alcatraz for the hawaii party

making alcatraz not look like a jail, combined with going insolvent, a++

All the alcatraz stuff was v accurate

Massive blooper in the episode was that using space characters doesn't mean you keep whacking the space bar over and over. You set up your editor/IDE so that the tab key produces 4 spaces. Total credibility fail.

uh yeah but if you were trying to clown someone who hates spaces you would do exactly that

She wasn't intentionally clowning him at first though? Maybe I missed something.

have we officially hit the point where we've realized he's the younger version of the hooli ceo

this episode was bighead's time to shine

Zach Woods is incredible. "Can't you see... You're each other's best friends."

the conversation between erlich, bighead, and the DA was #death

Jared w the chicken stats

I just watched all of this in about a week. Jared is one of the best sitcom characters of the decade.

I know exactly where it is. It's. In. The. Bay.

some mathcore nerd mc needs to sample that pronto

"It's a war of all against all"

Yes. The egg hatching line. All time.

gosh that was a fairly rushed episode, huh? from "no, we can't test the beta yet!" to "okay here we are, launching"

jian yang crank calling bachmann

this is your mother... you are not my baby

^^^ all-time top 10 moments of SV imo

Middleditch was at the Cinespia showing of Mean Girls (at the Hollywood Forever cemetery in LA).

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13346896_10153476003876216_215355522207741192_n.jpg?oh=26ebdc23947850e45f986df289e1d7d9&oe=57D299AB

There's another pic of him making the same hand sign.

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkSQG-hUoAEsreb.jpg%3Alarge

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkSQG-hUoAEsreb.jpg

amazing

i can't imagine why monica had a problem with the interface

i guess the idea is that they only sent it out to techie nerd friends and she's not that - so it could be that the appeal for the general pop is going to be limited?

well yeah! I mean look at that fuckin' thing!

yeah that is clearly not a non-geek tool

An online compression platform doesn't sound like it would be a consumer-facing product anyway. UI seems fine for what it is...

btw any SV fans who don't regularly listen to CBB - middleditch did an imo v funny ep w/ laura lapkis last year called 'kid detectives' def worth checking out http://www.earwolf.com/episode/kid-detectives/ -- there's a part 2 that isn't as good

Pied Piper sounds like the kind of thing you sell to a Dropbox or YouTube. I guess consumer-facing in that they could combine those services plus Flickr with lower overhead?

if i could mail you a full length film and you were able to receive and open and play it immediately, would you pay $5 a month for that? I would.

but i presume the sales are intended toward small businesses so that you can share multi-gig files instantaneously.

this is supposed to be some thing for zillions of ppl to just share files with friends and not think about it, that is the worst possible interface and only tech nerdos would be "hmm yes good default interface"

this thing is going to bomb hard

like they're not even aiming at small biz now, they're like "it's for EVERYONE" what a clusterfuck in the making

jian yang is the best

^^^

it's gonna turn out they need those marketing guys after all

well, people who are used to developing products for a target market, not necessarily the marketing weirdos they had

I <3 Jared

get in line

Pied Piper UI is straight out of the nerd-supplied non-UIs for things like ffmpeg and Handbrake. User forums filled with "I don't understand any of these settings - I just want to watch this pirated movie on my phone" posts

yeah, that's undoubtedly where we're headed next ep. My guess would be we see the return of Dang in a much larger role.

middleditch did an imo v funny ep w/ laura lapkis

Lauren Lapkus

sry; thk u

this is your mom

you are not my baby

still loling at that tbh

what was the other one?

is your refrigerator still running? this is mike hunt.

something like that. so good

Yeah that was it!

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/how-silicon-valley-nails-silicon-valley

this paragraph

Roger McNamee, who has been a successful tech investor since the late eighties, told me, “When I first met Mike, I asked him, ‘What’s the gestalt you’re going for with this?’ His answer was, ‘I think Silicon Valley is immersed in a titanic battle between the hippie value system of the Steve Jobs generation and the Ayn Randian libertarian values of the Peter Thiel generation.’ I had never articulated it that well myself, and I lived it!” McNamee recently wound down his most recent venture fund, which he co-founded with Bono; he now spends most of his time touring the country with his two jam bands, Moonalice and Doobie Decibel System. He continued, “Some of us actually, as naïve as it sounds, came here to make the world a better place. And we did not succeed. We made some things better, we made some things worse, and in the meantime the libertarians took over, and they do not give a damn about right or wrong. They are here to make money.”

show seems to skewer both the hippie and libertarian values. or it at least skewers how both are realized

(but I guess it's accurate in terms of values. "Steve Jobs" vs. "Ayn Rand" threw me off because it sounds like one asshole versus another, which the show also does a good job of capturing with facets of Gavin and Erlich.)

not sure I'd make this argument but you could perhaps argue that both are utopian ideologies motivated, at bottom, by selfishness. maybe not as far apart as it would seem.

i just started watching this show, it is v. smart and funny, that is all.

Teller ended the meeting by standing up in a huff, but his attempt at a dramatic exit was marred by the fact that he was wearing Rollerblades. He wobbled to the door in silence. “Then there was this awkward moment of him fumbling with his I.D. badge, trying to get the door to open,” Kemper said. “It felt like it lasted an hour. We were all trying not to laugh. Even while it was happening, I knew we were all thinking the same thing: Can we use this?” In the end, the joke was deemed “too hacky to use on the show.”

latimes says tj miller is overrated in silicon valley u_u

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-ca-st-overrated-underrated-20160606-snap-story.html

lol sorry his "bong-fueled wisdom" upsets yr penchant for the subtle comedy that this show is NOT srsly wtf

i first saw Miller in "She's Out of My League" (seriously, not bad!) and he was hilarious in it.

lol this writer likes ANGIE TRIBECA so the "suspect" flag is raised

ding ding ding

he now spends most of his time touring the country with his two jam bands, Moonalice and Doobie Decibel System

kill me now

For a show that devotes a good amount of time to slapstick and gross-out sight gags

huh?

Mr kinder has spent time at certain companies in silicon valley and is frequently amazed at how spot-on the show is, even tiny things you wouldn't nec think about

What stood out?

omg at "doobie decimal system"

Didn't really dig this "let's cultivate some sympathy for Erlich" angle

Until a few days ago I'd only seen the first episode of season 1. My wife did not dig it, and I could totally see why people thought of it as a geek Entourage. I am nearly done season 1 now, and while I think too often at least in season 1 it does rely on broad, low-brow humor for the jokes, there is still a whole lot of really funny stuff scattered throughout. Just saw the episode where Jared's self-driving car ships him off to the middle of the ocean, which was hilarious.

The last episode of season one is where it really goes to another level.

I've seen that bit, though epic or no it's still an elaborate dick joke. Albeit inspired.

iirc the basis of most humor is dick jokes

suffering of others iirc

well, that's what yr dick causes

pesca-pescatarian

while I think too often at least in season 1 it does rely on broad, low-brow humor for the jokes

I've seen that bit, though epic or no it's still an elaborate dick joke. Albeit inspired.

Ffs can you not ruin this thread/show like you did the game of thrones one

erlich on bloomberg with his showoffy pronuciation of "embarcadero" and the lisp on "san francisco" made me lol so hard

unicorn costume omg

xpost The fuck are you talking about?

Like, why be an asshole?

Lol it seems like you don't get this show!

I just finished the first season and loved it.

gilfoyle in the jacket, suicide bomber of humiliation

When Jack Barker and Gavin Belson meet up at the airport, beyond the joke of them taking separate private jets to go to the same places on the same days, do you think the implication is that Hooli has hired Jack Barker to take over as CEO, like he did at Pied Piper, or is that a leap?

That's what I assumed

Also it wasn't until this episode that I realized it was Ned ryerson from Groundhog Day

Bing!

do you think the implication is that Hooli has hired Jack Barker to take over as CEO, like he did at Pied Piper,

this was totally my first thought, but I was a lil uncertain after it wasn't addressed directly

Gavin has a few lines in American Psycho the film. He's one of Bateman's colleagues at work.

I wasn't a huge fan of the show Big Love, but his performance in it was fantastic.

Yeah I was just thinking last night Gavin might be the most underrated character on this show.

I loved "I invited you to my wedding..." "WHY!?" in the last episode

He's one of Bateman's colleagues at work.

oh shit that's right! the closeted gay one!

bloody NowTV had this episode titled 'Benchman's Earning's Over-Ride'

Yeah I was just thinking last night Gavin might be the most underrated character on this show.

― Immediate Follower (NA), Tuesday, June 14, 2016 2:27 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

His bulldog speech from a few eps back is possibly my favorite gag of the season

Russ sighting in the hotel lobby made me smile

"are you fucking?"

does anyone know the name of that skull picture in the incubator? it looks very familiar but i never see a clear shot of it...

it's to the left of Jared in this photo. i think it's blurred out or something in this shot.

http://i.lv3.hbo.com/assets/images/series/silicon-valley/episodes/s2/18/ep18-ss02-1920.jpg

Love this show more and more with every ep

Feel like the look of the founders and the story of this startup must have been a specific inspiration for this show:

https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/team.jpg?w=738

"PeerCDN™ is a next-generation CDN powered by WebRTC for efficient peer-to-peer content delivery, reducing bandwidth costs by up to 90%."

(they were subsequently purchased by Yahoo)

and undoubtedly buried under the parking lot

my one beef with the verisimilitude of Silicon Valley is that there are no overweight coders to be found which seems odd

i'm facebook friends with a childhood friend who worked at facebook for a few years and there were no fat people in any of the outdoor gatherings he took pictures of

they were probably inside

it makes one wonder

if you search for facebook or google employee gathering pictures or meetings it's... not a very body type diverse group

I saw that photo earlier today and thought the same thing

the tall one's bio is just as nerdy as you could hope. fave bit: I frequently win hackathons by crafting code that gives kids with spectacles spectacular fits.
http://feross.org/about/

weird.. i happened upon feross's github yesterday completely unrelated

Hooli CEO is departmental Dan from "last days of disco" lmaooo

Can't believe I just realized that

id say my favourite thing about this show is Erlich pronouncing things like embarcadero

and aviato

YES YES

sounds mighty christian of you, gilfoyle

there's no need for hate speech, richard

even his posture is hilarious to me, like a stoned pigeon

Is this the only show that can get away with a line of dialogue like gilfoil saying "let's go brownie"

the clickfarm footage at the end is soul-crushing brilliance

I am not sure made me laugh more, Gavin motioning to signal the opossum should not be brought in, or the promo booth giving away subway coupons

yeah, the clickfarm was an amazing shot

is the only solution to this current problem that they need to hire bernice?

that was my immediate reaction

really they need to hire an application designer and someone who can spin the technical accomplishments of their platform into products people want to use

pipey explaining "you're only six clicks away!" absolutely killed me

even pakistani denzel was on to something with the video chat idea

godspeed you! black emperor being the music in the 'table' ad was next level.

that ad was brilliant

It's funny how little they changed from this Facebook ad: https://youtu.be/SSzoDPptYNA

Also, this craptastic display of extremely overinflated sense of importance: https://youtu.be/bx1-im6i8uk

I don't get it. Not one person in the show's universe says "change the interface"? Wife and I were frustrated by this.

^ this. I kept waiting for the designer to show back up again. If that's the deus ex machina ending it's gonna suck.

like the "six steps to upload a file" are solely an interface issue; slap a new gui on there for fucks sake
but they really really wanted to do a clippy joke

i thought that dinesh and gilfoyle basically suggested they withdraw the release and re-do the interface? and that richard was much too tied to the interface (which HE thought was amazing) to follow that suggestion?

I thought they couldn't afford it.

a half a million seems like enough for a new gui

the production team did a good job making it seem like the kind of developer tool with lots of controls I have used so many times in my work and most non-technical people would be freaked out by. I wouldn't be surprised if the solution next episode is just to make it as stupid simple as possible (like, one upload button) and the six steps of customization and unnecessary technical info that Richard loves gets thrown out the window

it reminds me a lot of Super C which is also great video compression w a nightmare interface

could have polished up dinesh's video chat as a first release

Re-watched the first three episodes with a friend who hadn't seen it at all yet. I miss non-completely pathetic Dinesh and non-completely oblivious/dumb Bighead. Every comedy show seems to gradually turn characters into cartoon versions of their most defining quirks (Bighead) or narrows in on an emphasized theme of the character (Dinesh, Jared) to some degree. Not as true for some other characters as much and they're not doing it to the same degree as The Office or Parks & Rec (yet) and I love the show but it the change was striking after revisiting those early episodes.

lol @ the season finale being a soft reboot of the whole series

"couldn't you just show them a.... picture of these animals?"

Saved Jian Yang's best prank call for last.

lol yessss

and him injecting that Richard can live there for free following by Erlich's DAMN IT JIAN YANG

Erlich may be my favorite character, or maybe Jared

Richard has too many moments where he's like a baby version of the Belson
Dinesh and Gilfoyle are a great duo, their best moments are up there with some of the better comic on-screen duos

Jian Yang is the ace in the hole of the series obv

erlich's description of his triumph, including jacking off in a restoration hardware, was incredible. this show does monologues incredibly well.

jian yang is amazing and I think about him every time I drive by a Taco Bell.

lol @ the season finale being a soft reboot of the whole series

^^^ this. they're basically back to the beginning of season 1

jin-yiang crank calls biggest laugh-getter of this ep for me

It takes a lot these days for me to be entertained by the sophomoric jerk-off jokes but the Erlich monologues are masterful

"It's like I was Bobby Fisher if he could really fuck"

^that line in particular really got me. superficially amusing, and then i just keep rolling it over in my mind and it becomes really ridiculous and hilarious. i was laughing at it like 15 seconds after he said it.

the extended not-quite-metaphor about jerking off at a urinal was the closest thing to poetry Erlich has spouted so far

If I had seen the scene of Jared staring out the window completely out-of-context, I would have assumed that he was the ghost of someone who had been murdered in that house long ago.

Very haunted/haunting

Jared crying 'for normal reasons'.

No! Just processed that this was the last episode of the season. Back to the beginning it is...

tt has completed her mission to show me seasons 2 and 3 of this, it's great. best moment of the finale was when they finally broke Lori

TJ Miller allegedly slapped a Uber driver.

http://laist.com/2016/12/09/tj_miller_uber_arrest.php

Well, yeah.

My highschool friend is Monica in this show - shame she's so underwritten in the series though.

what do you think the likelihood is that the driver called him a cuck

lol he is actually his character <3

actually his character would have just made a grand show of wanting to slap the driver but not actually doing so. he is beyond his character

His character hit a little kid!

learned from that NYer article that thiel was the inspiration for peter gregory !

and the other guy is Elon Musk

I thought the super douche who put the radio on the internet was supposed to be Cuban

yes

hooli's CEO is elon musk?

They kind of threw some of Musk's tech stuff in there but
- kind of atypical vocal/facial affect w/monotone
- known chiefly as an investor
- libertarian island proponent
all totally Thiel

The super douche guy was like Sean Parker with some Mark Cuban throw in

I guess Gavin Belson is supposed to be like the salesforce guy, Marc Benioff, but I'm not familiar with his style of talking

Sean Parker's real life is definitely one of those things where the show seems ridiculous but it's barely skirting the edge of what these dudes actually do

He had a hobbit themed wedding in a national forest and spent all kinds of money to do it

I work at a law firm and my big case right now involves venture capital.. its the douchiest, lamest shit. all these guys do is email each other and exchange favors introductions. get lucky, get rich. the end.

no I meant Belson = Musk. Gregory is obviously Thiel.

there's some alternate universe where I really enthusiastically talked to the x.com people (the company that had paypal as one of their products) at this career fair thing I was at circa 2001, interned there, and never found ilx

i gave a talk to some vcs earlier this year and they gave me a $400 bottle of bourbon to say thank you. it was an idiotic talk. actual gibberish in parts. they seemed thrilled.

weird talk, overenthusiastic venture capital, bourbon that costs way too much

very good combination

Xpost What bourbon did they give you? It's probably best for another thread, but bourbon prices have been going crazy the last few months.

i gave a talk to some vcs earlier this year and they gave me a $400 bottle of bourbon to say thank you. it was an idiotic talk. actual gibberish in parts. they seemed thrilled.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, December 15, 2016 5:03 PM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark

pappy van winkle?

i enjoyed the pappy van winkle joke when gilfoil quit

would have been great if it were tequila tho
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CJaFyLuUwAAyYHg.jpg

angel's envy cask strength. tragically it is down to $200 since i checked.

i'm taking it to the uk at xmas to send it to https://whisky.auction/. they said i'll get more than that for it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Wait, are you UK? Because Angel's Envy Cask Strength should not run you $400. I would say $200 max, even in today's era of crazy bourbon prices. And given its mysterious providence and lack of an age statement, $200 is pretty sketchy to begin with. No doubt they expensed it at $400 anyway for the tax benefits, the jerks.

it's 2016 with all the paperwork. not interested in drinking it and couldn't figure out how to sell booze in the US so i'll take whatever i get when i'm home in the UK for xmas.

fuck up some commas

"this guy fucks" is a thing I constantly want to exclaim and never, ever do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8sCCf82Nf8

lmao jared

lololl

even though it's a ludicrous show it's one of my favourites ever

Stoked.

I'm afraid to try and start watching this because it seems like it has a 50/50 chance of just completely pissing us off and reminding us that the world is a stupid and horrible place and not being funny at all. Too much of a risk. Better to wait and binge the whole thing later, I think.

not being funny at all

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/lItOTv_3DQVo4xHnKUac9Q--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9NTAwO2g9Mjgx/http://66.media.tumblr.com/57b413c71bc5f0ed75c5c8b4d09d03f8/tumblr_inline_o87manYGPQ1t0ijhl_500.gif

apparently a very unfunny guy i know from college is involved with this show now :(

:/

god, the moment in that gif. it was such a surprise the first time I saw it, I lost my shit.

it's so great

Season premiere was good. Russ listening to "Last Resort" by POD when he drives off was hilarious.

felt like it was kind of ehhh but that was certainly a high point

last resort is by papa roach you monster

:)

haha oh man I didn't notice that, assume that was a Paul Ryan-meme ref?

reminding us that the world is a stupid and horrible place

this is pretty much all that can make me laugh in contemporary comedy

From the opening HBO skit to the first scene, this felt fresh and unpredictable.

Gavin sending his assistant on 20 private plane flights just to justify fucking Jack over lol

it was a promising episode imo

the best part, imo, was never telling Jack about the flights at all

"Last Resort" by POD

I believe that was actually by *looks at list* Hoobastank

v strong deja vu about those last two posts

Ah, I've missed this show
http://www.piedpiper.com/to-every-thing-there-is-a-season/

To Every Thing There Is a Season

— by Jared Dunn

piedpiper_401_blog_02

Well, it has been a season of change here at Pied Piper. As Sylvia would often say when another couple passed over me for adoption, “When God closes a door, he opens a window.” I finally understand that Sylvia meant something more than a tip to escape through the opening in the attic. The door of my service to Pied Piper has ended, but the window of PiperChat has opened! Indeed, many PiperChat windows have opened, because our video chat platform has a remarkable hosting capability for multiple simultaneous users. Check it out!

Yes, readers, our pivot to video chat has become a full-blown sprint: we are gaining users by the day, our technology is superior to any other conference platform on the market, and we’ve named Dinesh Chugtai our new CEO. The next stop on this journey is funding. Our brush with fraud — Oh, Jared, did you not think that sin would stain? — has hindered us, to be sure, but we remain undeterred!

Amid the giddy thrill of this new chapter, we must take a moment to honor Richard Hendricks, who has parted ways with PiperChat. He may no longer be our CEO, but he will always be our Founder and our friend. Few captains are so brave as to shed their crew, guided only by the stars and a whiteboard. But you are on your own journey now, Richard, like Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love. You have left the painful past of the platform behind you and are bravely entering a new chapter of spiritual growth and technological adventure.

As for me, I’m off to make Dinesh a cup of tea and work on our burn-down chart!

Erlich pluralizing hard-on as "hards-on"

its a water animal

:)

Dinesh!!

wow these past few eps have made it really fun to hate Dinesh!

Dinesh really bringing Pakistani Denzel to life

Lotta laffs this ep. Douchebag Dinesh was A+

agh when is ep2 on in the UK?

its a water animal

― 龜, Sunday, April 30, 2017 10:57 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Jimmy O. Yang's timing/reading of this line is incredible

had to pause the stream after his opening "no"

pulling out the eviction notice was a coup de grace

so good

8 recipes for octopus

the guy who surveys users at hooli always cracks me up

Carl says that the new terms of service make him feel "nervous"

one question. since hooli acquired piperchat, do they now essentially own the compression algorithm?

they don't, cf episode 1

jared was amazing this episode

"well first of all, everyone reads the terms of service"

“we can talk about Sports teams and…their scores. Or pussy.”

oh god this was so good

"well first of all, everyone reads the terms of service"

http://www.piedpiper.com/farewell-piperchat/

"On a different note, I sometimes like to use this forum to muse on various topics in technology. Take, apropos of nothing, terms of service. We all love to read them, of course, delighting in the voices of our favorite authors. (Myself, I’m a fan of the quiet wit of the Spotify TOS.) But they’re more than pleasant bedtime reading; they’re essential to the legal protection of any startup. So take note, fellow entrepreneurs, and add those terms of service. Without them, you may be doomed to hear the endless click of the Agree button like a tortuous telltale heart, echoing against the uninsulated walls of a ranch house’s garage."

incredible episode, this season is shaping up so well

Hearing that Dr Octagon cut on the credits was quite emotional for me.

yeah it was quite the ending

There was some good material about message-board ppl meeting irl in this ep as well!

who is the gilfoyle of ilx

cankles (rip)

either that or cankles' sworn foe jhoshea

good bighead ep

I hope to god we get some bighead lecture time

not as funny as last ep but this show tends to have p long stretches between setups and punchlines

in general, I think this season sacrificed some of the big laughs, but it's totally fine because they've done a great job making me care about the characters and what happens to them.

Then again, the Ehrlich/Jian Yang stuff and the Dinesh CEO interviews from last week are as funny as anything they've ever done

Ehrlich's fake-chinese aside being one-upped by Jian Yang's actual chinese aside was great

ruined by the fact that tim chiou and jimmy o. yang's mandarin are both really, really bad lol

like, the departed level bad

how's erlich's

why does it matter if their mandarin is bad? I would assume language proficiency varies p widely in Chinese Americans. I've certainly known some who can't speak at all, others who are barely proficient, and others who are fluent.

uh, joking aside, it really knocks you out of a narrative when someone's language skills or accent is bad

if you can't discern the difference it probably doesn't bother you, though

tbh i prefer to think everyone in boston sounds like they're in the departed

why does it matter if their mandarin is bad? I would assume language proficiency varies p widely in Chinese Americans. I've certainly known some who can't speak at all, others who are barely proficient, and others who are fluent.

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, May 9, 2017 2:16 PM (forty-five minutes ago) Bookmark

why do you care?

how's erlich's

― mh, Tuesday, May 9, 2017 2:01 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark

borderline ching-chong racist, which i forgave because it sets up the joke at dinner

the departed was awful because i think they hired local chinatown guys who spoke cantonese but then made them speak really tortured mandarin

why do you care?

because I don't understand your criticism? Why assume that either character would speak fluent mandarin?

admitting now I'd forgotten anyone spoke chinese or mandarin in that movie because the baahhhstan accents

*cantonese or mandarin, argh

my personal assumption is that the Jian Yang character speaks at least one language fluently and I thought the implication in the scene was supposed to be he's speaking to the VC guy in a shared native tongue?

because I don't understand your criticism? Why assume that either character would speak fluent mandarin?

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, May 9, 2017 3:08 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark

because jian yang is obviously supposed to be a FOB from china, where putonghua has been the lingua francas since 1954?

according to the wiki, the character is supposed to be from HK... where the original Departed was filmed... hm...

it's never been established what the native language of either Jian Yang or the other guy is - obviously at the meeting they switch to a language (in this case mandarin, apparently) that Ehrlich doesn't know but which they both understand, the joke being on Ehrlich for faking the same dynamic earlier in the episode. But Jian Yang and VC dude's presumed proficiency/fluency in that language is not necessary for the joke to work.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ac0oz/i_am_jimmy_o_yang_i_play_jianyang_on_hbos_silicon/csb9nuh/

fwiw there's the actor saying Jian Yang is supposed to be a native mandarin speaker

that shit's not in the show!

and my point is that he doesn't need to be a native in order for the joke to work!

pedants

if they're speaking mandarin with a boston accent, i think that's very necessary deep cut joke craft!

haha

fwiw I am virtually monolingual but it's still kind of jarring to me when a movie character is supposed to be mexican and sounds like they're speaking high school spanish because I can tell the difference?

I'm trying to figure out what you're not getting about the "it breaks the fourth wall" argument here

it's never been established what the native language of either Jian Yang or the other guy is - obviously at the meeting they switch to a language (in this case mandarin, apparently) that Ehrlich doesn't know but which they both understand, the joke being on Ehrlich for faking the same dynamic earlier in the episode. But Jian Yang and VC dude's presumed proficiency/fluency in that language is not necessary for the joke to work.

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, May 9, 2017 3:15 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark

his joke app is literally about chinese recipes for cooking octopus

I give up, enjoy preferencing irrelevant minutiae over joeks guys

this show's whole schtick is about irrelevant minutiae suddenly becoming relevant the next minute though

looking forward to next week's episode where Jian Yang's poor mandarin tanks their new app

it didn't seem off to me, but the point is I'm not vaguely fluent and wouldn't recognize "hey, the actor is playing this guy as a native mandarin speaker but obviously isn't" but to someone who can tell the diff it's a little jarring?

and we all liked the joke? what is your argument here, other than "stop noticing things" xxp

my argument is that it didn't ruin the joke

ie "ruined by the fact that tim chiou and jimmy o. yang's mandarin are both really, really bad lol"

no it was not

did he say it ruined it for you lol

speaking of noticing things: incredibly rapid baby gestation = crossover promo with new alien movie?

my argument is that it didn't ruin the joke

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, May 9, 2017 3:34 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark

this was a great way to give up

so do we think richard is going to pry this patent from gavin's grasp somehow

the whole "a new, better internet" sounds like way too big of a concept for any of these petty motherfuckers to even start to get a handle on

that moment where jared heard the self-driving car start to calculate the route to the island and he looked terrified was good

yeah that was a good callback

xp He's going to work with Gavin because that's how much he cares about the project.

I kept thinking that he could wait for the patent to expire (Peter Gregory seemed pretty young at the time) and try to keep the operations of his software a trade secret, but I'm sure I'm missing something.

I don't speak Mandarin so it doesn't bother me. But I am from Texas and egregiously bad 'Texas' and some southern accents bother the hell out of me.

When a movie or show screws up something you're intimately familiar with, it's going to distract or bother you, seems pretty simple.

not taking any sides in this dumbass argument but i think the limits of the suspension of disbelief are interesting. like a bad accent bothers you but seeing thomas middleditch in american express ads AND silicon valley doesn't bother you. fair enough. sometimes when people do this it comes across as a subtle attempt to brag about stuff they know about. like when people in the stranger things thread were like "the show takes place in 1983 but that song they played came out in 1985!" it's like, does that actually bother you or did you just want everyone to know that you noticed a discrepancy?