
How Mike Judge and Co. Are Turning "Silicon Valley" Into the Next "Spinal Tap" - morkbot
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/04/silicon-valley-mike-judge-hbo-spinal-tap-tech-satire-politics-interview
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overload119
I was surprised that HBO allows you to watch the episode on YouTube. For those
that haven't seen it, I think it's really good satire.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvkmsI54ss4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvkmsI54ss4)

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nivla
I think its only the first episode to attract viewers. I was surprised when I
noticed they were airing this season's first episode of Game of Thrones on
Xbox for free with no registration/app download requirements. Glad to see
content publishers "getting" the marketing angle.

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spike021
Pretty sure HBO is only airing GoT on Xbox since HBO Go conked out the other
day, so they're trying to make up for it.

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sharkweek
I love the concept and I thought a lot of the jokes were pretty funny but...

I'm not sure how they'll keep it funny over more than a few seasons, seems
kind of like a one trick pony (and maybe that's just fine).

I trust Mike Judge, so I'll likely keep watching, but what made King of the
Hill so magical was how he was able to show our changing world through the
eyes of a simple propane and propane accessories salesman. Plenty of content
there; likely not as much with SV to survive maybe a two season run.

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cjf4
It's all about characters. If they're able to create an audience connection
with characters, the show will be long lasting.

Entourage (this show's closest comparison) had some pretty stupid episodes
(the last season in particular was awful), but I stuck through it all because
I liked Ari and Drama.

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Apocryphon
I think they'll ultimately need to ease up on the wacky humor and make it more
of a drama, similar to Entourage or other HBO rags-to-riches shows like How to
Make It in America. I'd be concerned at such a pivot, but Mike Judge had
episodes of King of the Hill full of real, warm, human drama, so I think he
can pull it off. Office Space had heart at its core, too.

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cjf4
I think SV will go in that direction too, the last scene sure made it seem
like the show cared about its characters.

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pessimizer
So far, not so good. 60% of the funny is coming from the fact that Kumail
Nanjiani is a great standup. It's Mike Judge, so I'm going to watch it all
anyway, but if it were anyone else, it'd have 2 more episodes to get a lot
better.

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toby
I'm glad I'm not the only one. I was really excited about this show (big fan
of Mike Judge in general) but it feels like what someone would think SV was
like if they based their entire impression on Techcrunch articles and 80s nerd
/ guru tropes.

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k-mcgrady
>> "it feels like what someone would think SV was like if they based their
entire impression on Techcrunch articles and 80s nerd / guru tropes."

It's not a documentary. The aim is to make people laugh while not straying too
far from reality that it's completely unbelievable. I think they achieved
that. Personally I didn't think I'd enjoy it at all but I found it kind of
funny and will probably return for ep 2.

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toby
Fair enough, I guess I was hoping for the satire to be a bit more original. It
was just the first episode though so I have some faith that there will be some
more subtle humor as well later on.

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arbutus
I like it so far. A lot of it was pretty funny, and then the hexadecimal joke
killed me.

For anyone else who's enjoying it, you should also check out the TV adaptation
of JPod. So far the humour feels pretty similar.

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nswanberg
There was a tv version of _JPod_? Astonishingly it looks like there was also a
movie version of _Microserfs_ that came out in 2011, but I've never heard of
it. So much of what made those two books funny were the email exchanges
intermixed with the narrative--it'd be a shame to lose that in a movie
adaptation.

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Udo
It's interesting how software startup culture seems to become mainstream,
we've got two new shows centered on that topic now. So far I enjoyed watching
"Betas" a bit more than the "Silicon Valley" pilot, but I'm looking forward to
seeing more of SV.

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1qaz2wsx3edc
I second this, and I'm a huge Mike Judge fan, but "Betas" feels so much more
genuine then "Silicon Valley". Both are good, but I'm completely sold on
"Betas".

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dodders
The idea of lossless compression in a smaller file size than anything else on
the market spoiled the entire show for me.

Call me picky, but...

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michaelochurch
Lossless compression of non-random data is very possible, though. Video and
audio files are far from random, and I don't believe that lossless compression
is "a solved problem" (even by the business standard) for those. (However, it
is a bit far-fetched that someone would invent a groundbreaking new algorithm
in the space for a silly website.) General lossless compression may not exist,
but we're talking about highly patterned (low entropy) subspace of all
possible files/bit-strings.

Lossless compression requires assumptions about the data, of course, because
making some patterns shorter requires making others come out longer. Random
data will, in general, get larger under a lossless compression algorithm.

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foobarian
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity)

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andreasklinger
so far i like the show.

also i have the weird feeling that i know at least 3 of the fictional
characters in person.

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atonse
I was chuckling a lot and telling my wife "I feel like I'm watching parts of
Hacker News and Techcrunch come to life"

It's satire but doesn't seem too exaggerated (unfortunately?).

My favorite was the marketing bicycle meeting. It seems like it would be such
a silicon valley type thing.

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toby
Those bikes do exist, but they're more of a Burning Man thing. I don't think
anyone actually has meetings on them.

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achompas
I wish you were right. :(

[http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,3253,l=238614&a=2386...](http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,3253,l=238614&a=238614&po=1,00.asp)

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atonse
hahahaha I can't believe this thing exists!!

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marcbarbosa
They should add a Signup for Private Beta on the website
[http://www.piedpiper.com/](http://www.piedpiper.com/) :)

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serg_chernata
It's definitely the best attempt yet. Remember that other show called
something like "The Valley"? =/

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nsfyn55
I didn't like it. Like most TV shows about professions it felt like a big
bundle of crude stereotypes. Maybe its because I am an east coaster, but I
couldn't relate to any of the characters or scenarios.

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knodi
I watched the first episode of it and I was not impressed. It wasn't really
funny and it wasn't really exciting to watch.

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romanovcode
Seems like people forgetting that downvote button is not "I DISAGREE" button.

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area51org
_When you have billionaires in Silicon Valley comparing the 1 percent to Jews
during the Holocaust, and all that shit…_

So I haven't seen it yet, and I do plan to watch the first episode. But quotes
like this — from one of the producers — make me not want to bother. Yes, this
quote is justified, because SV is full of billionaires like Tom Perkins, and
not struggling, creative people just trying to get by.

The reason I'm hesitant about this show is that it seems to be mocking
something that isn't worthy of mockery: people genuinely trying to make the
world a better place. You can laugh all you want at the What's App buyout, but
assuming that the ridiculous events that make the news are the reality of life
in the Bay Area tech industry is ignorant, isn't it?

Maybe the show isn't as caustic as I'm assuming it is. Maybe I'll love it. I
really liked the Amazon series Betas. But the premise of this show — which
seems to amount to "SV is full of assholes" — doesn't sound promising.

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isbadawi
It's funny that you use "make the world a better place" \-- that's one of the
specific phrases (and attitudes) the show makes fun of.

"We're making the world a better place. By constructing elegant hierarchies
for maximum code reuse and extensibility."

"Making the world a better place. Through minimal message-oriented transport
layers."

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area51org
Yes, I'm aware of the show's mockery of good intentions. Few (or no) actual
startups actually use language so wildly specific; when they say they want to
make the world a better place, they generally cite the intent of the startup
rather than specifics of the technology — which makes this attempt at satire
fall flat on its face.

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drakaal
Sarah Austin, (from the bravo Silicon Valley reality series) is my CPO. She is
very aware that the way "TV" wants to portray Silicon Valley and the way it
really is are very different. Founders don't typically drive McLaren's and
live in a multi-room suite at the Four Seasons.

It is much more typical to do what she does now, crash at AirBnB as she
bounces between cities for meetings, and working 10 hours at the office and
working another 4 at the house.

[http://plexinlp.com](http://plexinlp.com) is a passion, and we'd be building
it even if we weren't out to get rich. Sure we hope it is the next billion
dollar wolfram/siri/google killer.

We aren't planning to be like the reality series and get canceled in episode
4. We are in it for the long haul. Which is something that is happening less
and less in SV. People routinely tell me they are doing 2, 3, and even 4
startups at the same time.

SV needs to be able to laugh at itself. But it also needs to understand that
it isn't in a bubble entirely right now. The money is bigger, but not by the
orders of magnitude that the pervasiveness of the Internet has increased. The
people getting rich are creating more divide than there ever was, but also the
expectations on those who achieve that level have gone up. SV is in flux as no
other place on the planet has as much potential to make you a millionaire or a
pauper in a 2 year time.

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jff
I haven't watched the show yet but I hope they manage to accurately capture
this sort of continual shameless self-promotion.

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sehr
The clinic scene seemed to do a decent job of it!

